"The Ballot or the Bullet"
Malcolm X
Delivered 12 April, 1964 in Detroit (USA)
Mr. Moderator, Reverend Cleage, Brother Lomax, brothers and sisters, and friends and I see
some enemies. In fact, I think we’d be fooling ourselves if we had an audience this large and
didn’t realize that there were some enemies present. This afternoon we want to talk about the
ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet explains itself. But before we get into it, since this
is the year of the ballot or the bullet, I would like to clarify some things that refer to me personally - concerning my own personal position.
I'm still a Muslim. That is, my religion is still Islam. My religion is still Islam. I still credit
Mr. Mohammed for what I know and what I am. He’s the one who opened my eyes. At present, I'm the Minister of the newly founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., which has its offices in the
Teresa Hotel, right in the heart of Harlem - that’s the black belt in New York city. And when
we realize that Adam Clayton Powell is a Christian minister, he’s the - he heads Abyssinian
Baptist Church, but at the same time, he’s more famous for his political struggling. And Dr.
King is a Christian Minister, in Atlanta, Georgia, but he’s become more famous for being
involved in the civil rights struggle. There’s another in New York, Reverend Galamison - I
don’t know if you’ve heard of him out here - he’s a Christian Minister from Brooklyn, but
has become famous for his fight against a segregated school system in Brooklyn. Reverend
Clee, right here, is a Christian Minister, here in Detroit. He’s the head of the “Freedom Now
Party”. All of these are Christian Ministers, but they don’t come to us as Christian Ministers.
They come to us as fighters in some other category. I’m a Muslim minister - the same as they
are Christian Ministers - I’m a Muslim minister. And I don’t believe in fighting today in any
one front, but on all fronts. In fact, I’m a black Nationalist Freedom Fighter.
Islam is my religion, but I believe my religion is my personal business. It governs my personal life, my personal morals. And my religious philosophy is personal between me and the
God in whom I believe; just as the religious philosophy of these others is between them and
the God in whom they believe. And this is best this way. Were we to come out here discussing religion, we’d have too many differences from the outstart and we could never get together. So today, though Islam is my religious philosophy, my political, economic, and social
philosophy is Black Nationalism. You and I - as I say, if we bring up religion we’ll have differences; we’ll have arguments; and we’ll never be able to get together. But if we keep our
religion at home, keep our religion in the closet, keep our religion between ourselves and our
God, but when we come out here, we have a fight that’s common to all of us against an enemy who is common to all of us.
The political philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that the black man should control
the politics and the politicians in his own community. The time when white people can come
in our community and get us to vote for them so that they can be our political leaders and tell
us what to do and what not to do is long gone. By the same token, the time when that same
white man, knowing that your eyes are too far open, can send another negro into the community and get you and me to support him so he can use him to lead us astray - those days are
long gone too. The political philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that if you and I
are going to live in a Black community - and that’s where we’re going to live, cause as soon
as you move into one of their - soon as you move out of the Black community into their
community, it’s mixed for a period of time, but they’re gone and you’re right there all by
yourself again. We must understand the politics of our community and we must know what
politics is supposed to produce. We must know what part politics play in our lives. And until
we become politically mature we will always be mislead, lead astray, or deceived or
maneuvered into supporting someone politically who doesn’t have the good of our
community at heart. So the political philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we
will have to carry on a program, a political program, of re-education to open our peoples
eyes, make us become more politically conscious, politically mature, and then whenever we
get ready to cast our ballot that ballot, will be cast for a man of the community who has the
good of the community of heart. The economic philosophy of Black Nationalism only means
that we should own and operate and control the economy of our community. You would never found - you can’t open up a black store in a white community. White men won’t even
patronize you. And he’s not wrong. He’s got sense enough to look out for himself. You the
one who don’t have sense enough to look out for yourself.
The white man is too intelligent to let someone else come and gain control of the economy of
his community. But you will let anyone come in and take control of the economy of your
community, control the housing, control the education, control the jobs, control the businesses, under the pre-text that you want to integrate. No, you outta your mind. The political, the
economic philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we have to become involved in a
program of re-education to educate our people into the importance of knowing that when you
spend your dollar out of the community in which you live, the community in which you
spend your money becomes richer and richer; the community out which you take your money
becomes poorer and poorer. And because these Negroes, who have been mislead, misguided,
are breaking their necks to take their money and spend it with The Man, The Man is
becoming richer and richer, and you’re becoming poorer and poorer. And then what happens? The community in which you live becomes a slum. It becomes a ghetto. The conditions become run down. And then you have the audacity to complain about poor housing in a
run-down community. Why you run it down yourself when you take your dollar out. And
you and I are in the double-track, because not only do we lose by taking our money someplace else and spending it, when we try and spend it in our own community we’re trapped because we haven’t had sense enough to set up stores and control the businesses of our own
community. The man who’s controlling the stores in our community is a man who doesn’t
look like we do. He’s a man who doesn’t even live in the community. So you and I, even
when we try to spend our money in the block where we live or the area where we live, we’re
spending it with a man who, when the sun goes down, takes that basket full of money in another part of the town.
So we’re trapped, trapped, double-trapped, triple-rapped. Anywhere we go we find that we’
re trapped. And every kind of solution that someone comes up with is just another trap. But
the political and economic philosophy of Black Nationalism - the economic philosophy of
Black Nationalism shows our people the importance of setting up these little stores and developing them and expanding them into larger operations. Woolworth didn’t start out big like
they are today. They started out with a dime store and expanded and expanded and then expanded until today, they’re are all over the country and all over the world, and they get to some of everybody’s money. Now this is what you and I - General Motors is same way. They
didn’t start out like they it is. It started out just a little rat race type operation. And it expanded and it expanded until today where it is right now. And you and I have to make a start and
the best place to start is right in the community where we live. So our people not only have to
be re-educated to the importance of supporting black business, but the black man himself has
to be made aware of the importance of going into business. And once you and I go into business, we own and operate at least the businesses in our community. What we will be doing is
developing a situation wherein we will actually be able to create employment for the people
in the community. And once you can create some employment in the community where you
live it will eliminate the necessity of you and me having to act ignorantly and disgracefully,
boycotting and picketing some practice some place else trying to beg him for a job. Anytime
you have to rely upon your enemy for a job - you’re in bad shape. When you have - he is
your enemy. Let me tell you, you wouldn’t be in this country if some enemy hadn’t kidnapped you and brought you here.
On the other hand, some of you think you came here on the Mayflower. So as you can see
brothers and sisters this afternoon, it is not our intention to discuss religion. We’re going to
forget religion. If we bring up religion, we’ll be in an argument, and the best way to keep away from arguments and differences - as I said earlier - put your religion at home - in the closet. Keep it between you and your God. Because if it hasn’t done anything more for you than
it has, you need to forget it anyway. Whether you are a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Nationalist, we all have the same problem. They don’t hang you because you’re a Baptist; they hang
you 'cause you’re black. They don’t attack me because I’m a Muslim; they attack me 'cause
I’m black. They attack all of us for the same reason; all of us catch hell from the same enemy. We’re all in the same bag, in the same boat. We suffer political oppression, economic
exploitation, and social degradation - all of them from the same enemy. The government has
failed us; you can’t deny that. Anytime you live in the twentieth century, 1964, and you walkin' around here singing “We Shall Overcome,” the government has failed us. This is part of
what’s wrong with you do too much singing. Today it’s time to stop singing and start swinging. You can’t sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom. Cassius Clay can
sing, but singing didn’t help him to become the heavy-weight champion of the world – swinging helped him become the heavy-weight champion. This government has failed us; the
government itself has failed us, and the white liberals who have been posing as our friends
have failed us. And once we see that all these other sources to which we’ve turned have failed, we stop turning to them and turn to ourselves. We need a self-help program, a do-it-yourself philosophy, a do-it-right-now philosophy, a it’s-already-too-late philosophy. This is what
you and I need to get with, and the only way we are going to solve our problem is with a selfhelp program. Before we can get a self-help program started we have to have a self-help philosophy.
Black nationalism is a self-help philosophy. What's is so good about it? You can stay right in
the church where you are and still take black nationalism as your philosophy. You can stay in
any kind of civic organization that you belong to and still take black nationalism as your philosophy. You can be an atheist and still take black nationalism as your philosophy. This is a
philosophy that eliminates the necessity for division and argument. 'Cause if you are black
you should be thinking black, and if you are black and you not thinking black at this late
date, well I’m sorry for you. Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought
pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your attitude. Once you change
your attitude, it changes your behaviour pattern and then you go on into some action. As long
as you gotta sit-down philosophy, you’ll have a sit-down thought pattern, and as long as you
think that old sit-down thought you’ll be in some kind of sit-down action. They’ll have you
sitting in everywhere. It’s not so good to refer to what you’re going to do as a sit-in. That
right there castrates you. Right there it brings you down. What goes with it? Think of the Image of someone sitting. An old woman can sit. An old man can sit. A chump can sit. A coward can sit. Anything can sit. Well you and I been sitting long enough, and it’s time today
for us to start doing some standing, and some fighting to back that up.
When we look like - at other parts of this earth upon which we live, we find that black,
brown, red, and yellow people in Africa and Asia are getting their independence. They’re not
getting it by singing “We Shall Overcome.” No, they’re getting it through nationalism. It is
nationalism that brought about the independence of the people in Asia. Every nation in Asia
gained its independence through the philosophy of nationalism. Every nation on the African
continent that has gotten its independence brought it about through the philosophy of nationalism. And it will take black nationalism - that to bring about the freedom of 22 million Afro-Americans here in this country where we have suffered colonialism for the past 400 years.
America is just as much a colonial power as England ever was. America is just as much a colonial power as France ever was. In fact, America is more so a colonial power than they because she’s a hypocritical colonial power behind it. What do you call second-class citizenship? Why, that’s colonization. Second class citizenship is nothing but 20th century slavery.
How you gonna tell me you’re a second class citizen. They don’t have second0class citizenship in any other government on this earth. They just have slaves and people who are free.
Well, this country is a hypocrite. They try and make you think they set you free by calling
you a second-class citizen. No, you’re nothing but a 20th century slave. Just as it took nationalism to remove colonialism from Asia and Africa, it’ll take black nationalism today to remove colonialism from the backs and the minds of 22 million Afro-Americans here in this
country.
And 1964 looks like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet. Why does it look like it
might be the year of the ballot or the bullet? Because Negroes have listened to the trickery,
and the lies, and the false promises of the white man now for too long. And they’re fed up.
They’ve become disenchanted. They’ve become disillusioned. They’ve become dissatisfied,
and all of this has built up frustrations in the black community that makes the black community throughout America today more explosive than all of the atomic bombs the Russians can
ever invent. Whenever you got a racial powder keg sitting in your lap, you’re in more trouble
than if you had an atomic powder keg sitting in your lap. When a racial powder keg goes off,
it doesn’t care who it knocks out the way. Understand this, it’s dangerous. And in 1964 this
seems to be the year, because what can the white man use now to fool us after he put down
that march on Washington? And you see all through that now. He tricked you, had you marching down to Washington. Yes, had you marching back and forth between the feet of a dead
man named Lincoln and another dead man named George Washington singing “We Shall Overcome”. He made a chump out of you. He made a fool out of you. He made you think you
were going somewhere and you end up going nowhere but between Lincoln and Washington.
So today, our people are disillusioned. They’ve become disenchanted. They’ve become dissatisfied, and in their frustrations they want action. And in 1964 you’ll see this young black
man, this new generation asking for the ballot or the bullet. That old Uncle Tom action is
outdated. The young generation don’t want to hear anything about the odds are against us.
What do we care about odds?
When this country here was first being founded there were 13 colonies. The whites were
colonized. They were fed up with this taxation without representation, so some of them stood
up and said “liberty or death.” Though I went to a white school over here in Mason, Michigan, the white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot, and George Washington, wasn’t nothing
non-violent about old Pat or George Washington. Liberty or death was what brought about
the freedom of whites in this country from the English. They didn’t care about the odds. Why
they faced the wrath of the entire British Empire. And in those days they used to say that the
British Empire was so vast and so powerful when the sun - the sun would never set on them.
This is how big it was, yet these 13 little, scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British Empire “liberty or death”. And here you have 22 million Afro-American black people today catching more
hell than Patrick Henry ever saw. And I’m here to tell you in case you don’t know it that you
got a new generation of black people in this country who don’t care anything whatsoever
about odds. They don’t want to hear you old Uncle Tom handkerchief heads talking about the
odds. No. This is a new generation. If they’re gonna draft these young black men and send
them over to Korea or South Vietnam to face 800 million Chinese - if you’re not afraid of
those odds, you shouldn’t be afraid of these odds.
Why is America, why does this loom to be such an explosive political year? Because this is
the year of politics. This is the year when all of the white politicians are going to come into
the Negro community. You never see them until election time. You can’t find them until election time. They’re going to come in with false promises, and as they make these false promises they're gonna feed our frustrations and this will only serve to make matters worse. I’m
no politician. I’m not even a student of politics. I’m not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an
American, and got sense enough to know it. I’m one of the 22 million black victims of the
Democrats, one of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans, and one of the 22 million
black victims of Americanism. And when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat, or a Republican, *nor an American*. I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy. You and I
have never seen democracy; all we’ve seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes today and
look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the
fruits of Americanism, we see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim
of Americanism. We don’t see any American dream; we’ve experienced only the American
nightmare. We haven’t benefited from America’s democracy; we’ve only suffered from America’s hypocrisy. And the generation that’s coming up now can see it and are not afraid to
say it. If you go to jail, so what? If you black, you were born in jail. If you black, you were
born in jail, in the North as well as the South. Stop talking about the South. Long as you
south of the Canadian border, you’re south.
Don’t call Governor Wallace a Dixie governor; Romney is a Dixie governor. 22 million
black victims of Americanism are waking up and they’re gaining a new political consciousness, becoming politically mature. And as they develop this political maturity, they’re able to
see the recent trends in these political elections. They see that the whites are so evenly divided that every time they vote the race is so close they have to go back and count the votes all
over again. And that means that any block, any minority that has a block of votes that stick
together is in a strategic position. Either way you go, that’s who gets it. You’re in a position
to determine who will go to the White House, and who will stay in the doghouse. You’ re the
one who has that power. You can keep Johnson in Washington DC, or you can send him
back to his Texas cotton patch. You’re the one who sent Kennedy to Washington. You’ re the
one who put the present Democratic Administration in Washington DC. The whites were evenly divided. It was the fact that you threw 80% of your votes behind the Democrats that
put the Democrats in the White House. When you see this, you can see that the Negro vote is
the key factor. And despite the fact that you are in a position to be the determining factor,
what do you get out of it? The Democrats have been in Washington DC only because of the
Negro vote. They’ve been down there four years, and there all other legislations they wanted
to bring up they brought it up and gotten it out of the way, and now they bring up you. And
now, they bring up you. You put them first, and they put you last 'cause you’re a chump, a
political chump. In Washington DC, in the House of Representatives there are 257 who are
Democrats; only 177 are Republican. In the Senate there are 67 Democrats; only 33 are Republicans. The Party that you backed controls two-thirds of the House of Representatives and
the Senate, and still they can’t keep their promise to you, 'cause you’re a chump. Anytime
you throw your weight behind the political party that controls two-thirds of the government,
and that Party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you’re
dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that Party, you’re not only
a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race.
And what kind of alibi do they come up with? They try and pass the buck to the Dixiecrats.
Now back during the days when you were blind, deaf, and dumb, ignorant, politically immature, naturally you went along with that. But today as your eyes come open, and you develop
political maturity, you’re able to see and think for yourself, and you can see that a Dixiecrat
is nothing but a Democrat in disguise.
You look at the structure of the government that controls this country; it’s controlled by 16
senatorial committees and 20 congressional committees. Of the 16 senatorial committees that
run the government, 10 of them are in the hands of Southern segregationists. Of the 20 congressional committees that run the government, 12 of them are in the hands of Southern segregationists. And they're going to tell you and me that the South lost the war. You, today, are in
the hands of a government of segregationists, racists, white supremacists who belong to the
Democratic party, but disguise themselves as Dixiecrats. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat. Whoever runs the Democrats is also the father of the Dixiecrats, and the father of all of
them is sitting in the White House. I say and I say it again: You got a President who’s nothing but a Southern segregationist from the state of Texas. They’ll lynch you in Texas as
quickly as they’ll lynch you in Mississippi. Only in Texas they lynch you with a Texas accent; in Mississippi they lynch you with a Mississippi accent. And the first thing the cracker
does when he comes in power, he takes all the Negro leaders and invites them for coffee to
show that he’s alright. And those Uncle Toms can’t pass up the coffee. They come away
from the coffee table telling you and me that this man is alright 'cause he’s from the South,
and since he’s from the South he can deal with the South. Look at the logic that they’ re using. What about Eastland? He’s from the South. Make him the President. He can - if Johnson
is a good man from the 'cause he’s from Texas, and being from Texas will enable him to deal
with the South, Eastland can deal with the South better than Johnson. Oh, I say you’ ve been
misled. You been had. You been took.
I was in Washington a couple weeks ago while the Senators were filibustering, and I noticed
in the back of the Senate a huge map, and on this map it showed the distribution of Negroes
in America, and surprisingly the same Senators that were involved in the filibuster were from
the states where there were the most Negroes. Why were they filibustering the civil rights legislation? Because the civil rights legislation is supposed to guarantee voting rights to Negroes in those states, and those senators from those states know that if the Negroes in those states can vote, those senators are down the drain. The Representatives of those states go down
the drain. And in the Constitution of this country it has a stipulation wherein, whenever the
rights, the voting rights, of people in a certain district are violated, then the Representative
who’s from that particular district, according to the Constitution, is supposed to be expelled
from the Congress. Now, if this particular aspect of the Constitution was enforced, why you
wouldn’t have a cracker in Washington DC. But what would happen when you expel the Dixiecrat, you’re expelling the Democrat. When you destroy the power of the Dixiecrat, you’re
destroying the power of the Democratic Party. So how in the world can the Democratic Party
in the South actually side with you in sincerity, when all of its power is based in the South?
These Northern Democrats are in cahoots with the Southern Democrats. They’re playing a
giant con game, a political con game. You know how it goes. One of them comes to you and
makes believe he's for you, and he’s in cahoots with the other one that’s not for you. Why?
Because neither one of them is for you, but they got to make you go with one of them or the
other. So this is a con game. And this is what they’ve been doing with you and me all these
years. First thing Johnson got off the plane when he become President, he asked “Where’s
Dicky?” You know who “Dicky” is? Dicky is old Southern cracker Richard Russell. Look
here, yes. Lyndon Johnson’s best friend is the one who is the head, who’s heading the forces
that are filibustering civil rights legislation. You tell me how in the hell is he going to be
Johnson’s best friend? How can Johnson be his friend, and your friend too? No, that man is
too tricky. Especially if his friend is still old Dicky. Whenever the Negroes keep the Democrats in power, they’re keeping the Dixiecrats in power. Is this true? A vote for a Democrat is
nothing but a vote for a Dixiecrat. I know you don’t like me saying that, but I, I’m not the
kind of person who come here to say what you like. I’m going to tell you the truth, whether
you like it or not.
Up here, in the North you have the same thing. The Democratic party don’t do it. They don’t
do it that way. They got a think that they call gerrymandering. They maneuver you out of power. Even though you vote, they fix it so you’re voting for nobody; they’ve got you going
and coming. In the South, they’re outright political wolves. In the North, they’re political foxes. A fox and a wolf are both canine, both belong to the dog family. Now you take your
choice. You going to choose a Northern dog or a Southern dog? Because either dog you choose I guarantee you you’ll still be in the dog house. This is why I say it’s the ballot or the
bullet. It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody. America
today finds herself in a unique situation. Historically, revolutions are bloody. Oh, yes, they
are. They haven’t never had a blood-less revolution, or a non-violent revolution. That doesn’t
happen even in Hollywood. You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and
you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate
you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems. A revolution is bloody, but America is in a unique position. She’s the only country in history in a position actually to become involved in a blood-less revolution. The Russian revolution was bloody, Chinese revolution was bloody, French revolution was bloody, Cuban revolution was bloody, and
there was nothing more bloody then the American Revolution. But today this country can become involved in a revolution that won’t take bloodshed. All she’s got to do is give the black
man in this country everything that’s due him, everything.
I hope that the white man can see this, 'cause if he doesn’t see it you’re finished. If you don’t
see it you’re going to become involved in some action in which you don’t have a chance.
And we don’t care anything about your atomic bomb; it's useless because other countries have atomic bombs. When two or three different countries have atomic bombs, nobody can use
them, so it means that the white man today is without a weapon. If you want some action,
you gotta come on down to Earth. And there's more black people on Earth than there are white people on Earth.
I only got a couple more minutes. The white man can never win another war on the ground.
His days of war, victory, his reign, his days of ground victory are over. Can I prove it? Yes.
Take all the action that’s going on this earth right now that he’s involved in - tell me where
he’s winning. Nowhere. Why some rice farmers, some rice eaters ran him out of Korea. Yes,
they ran him out of Korea. Rice eaters with nothing but gym shoes, and a rifle, and a bowl of
rice took him and his tanks and his napalm, and all that other action he’s supposed to have
and ran him across the Yalu. Why? 'Cause the day that he can win on the ground has passed.
Up in French Indo-China those little peasants, rice growers took on the might of the French
army and ran all the Frenchmen - you remember Dien Bien Phu. No.
The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa, they didn’t have anything but a rifle. The
French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerilla
action on, and a white man can’t fight a guerilla warfare. Guerilla action takes heart, takes
nerve, and he doesn’t have that. He’s brave when he’s got tanks. He’s brave when he’s got
planes. He’s brave when he’s got bombs. He’s brave when he’s got a whole lot of company
along with him, but you take that little man from Africa and Asia, turn him loose in the
woods with a blade - that’s all he needs, all he needs is a blade - and when the sun goes down
and it’s dark, it’s even-steven.
So it’s the ballot or the bullet. Today our people can see that we’re faced with a government
conspiracy. This government has failed us. The senators who are filibustering concerning
your and my rights, that's the government. Don’t say it’s Southern senators. This is the government; this is a government filibuster. It’s not a segregationist filibuster. It’s a government filibuster. Any kind of activity that takes place on the floor of the Congress or the Senate, it’s the government. Any kind of dilly-dallying, that’s the government. Any kind of pussyfooting, that’s the government. Any kind of act that’s designed to delay or deprive you and
me right now of getting full rights, that’s the government that's responsible. And any time
you find the government involved in a conspiracy to violate the citizenship or the civil rights
of a people, then you are wasting your time going to that government expecting redress. Instead, you have to take that government to the World Court and accuse it of genocide and all
of the other crimes that it is guilty of today.
So those of us whose political, and economic, and social philosophy is black nationalism have become involved in the civil rights struggle. We have injected ourselves into the civil
rights struggle, and we intend to expand it from the level of civil rights to the level of human
rights. As long as you're fighting on the level of civil rights, you’re under Uncle Sam’s jurisdiction. You’re going to his court expecting him to correct the problem. He created the problem. He’s the criminal. You don’t take your case to the criminal; you take your criminal to
court. When the government of South Africa began to trample upon the human rights of the
people of South Africa, they were taken to the U.N. When the government of Portugal began
to trample upon the rights of our brothers and sisters in Angola, it was taken before the U.N.
Why even the white man took the Hungarian question to the U.N. And just this week Chief
Justice Goldberg was crying over 3 million Jews in Russia about their human rights, charging
Russia with violating the U.N. charter because of its mistreatment of the human rights of
Jews in Russia.
Now you tell me how can the plight of everybody on this earth reach the halls of the United
Nations, and you have 22 million Afro-Americans whose choices are being bound, whose
little girls are being murdered, whose leaders are being shot down in broad daylight. Now
you tell me why the leaders of this struggle have never taken it before the United Nations. So
our next move is to take the entire civil rights struggle problems into the United Nations, and
let the world see that Uncle Sam is guilty of violating the human rights of 22 million AfroAmericans.
Uncle Sam still has the audacity or the nerve to stand up and represent himself as the leader
of the free world. Not only is he a crook, he’s a hypocrite. Here he is standing up in front of
other people, Uncle Sam, with the blood of your and mine mothers and fathers on his hands,
with the blood dripping down his jaws like a bloody-jawed wolf, and still got the nerve to
point his finger at other countries. You can’t even get civil rights legislation. And this man
has got the nerve to stand up and talk about South Africa, or talk about Nazi Germany, or talk
about Deutschland. Why? No more days like those. So, I say in my conclusion the only way
we're going to solve it - we’ve got to unite in unity and harmony, and black nationalism is the
key. How we gonna overcome the tendency to be at each others throats that always exists in
our neighbourhoods? And the reason this tendency exists, the strategy of the white man has
always been divide and conquer. He keeps us divided in order to conquer us. He tells you I’m
for separation and you for integration to keep us fighting with each other. No, I’m not for
separation and you’re not for integration. What you and I is for is freedom. Only you think
that integration would get you freedom, I think separation would get me freedom. We both
got the same objective, we just got different ways of getting at it.
So I studied this man, Billy Graham, who preaches white nationalism, that’s what he preaches. I say that’s what he preaches. The whole church structure in this country is white nationalism. You go inside a white church that’s what they preaching is white nationalism. They
got Jesus white, Mary white, God white, everybody white - that’s white nationalism. So what
he does the way he circumvents the jealousy and envy that he ordinarily would incur among
the heads of the church, wherever he go into an area where the church already is you going
into trouble, 'cause they got that thing what you call it - syndicated, they got a syndicate - just
like the rest of the Racketeers have. I’m going to say what’s on my mind 'cause the churches
are, the preachers already proved to you that they got a syndicate.
And when you're out in the rackets, whenever you're getting in another man’s territory, you
know, they gang up on you. And that’s the same way with you ran into the same thing. So
how Billy Graham gets around that, instead of going into somebody else’s territory, like he
going to start up a new church, he doesn’t try to start a church. He just goes in preaching Christ. And he says everybody who believes in Him, wherever you go wherever you find him.
So this helps all the churches and since it helps all the churches they don’t mind fight him.
Well, we gonna do the same thing, only our gospel s black nationalism; his gospel is white
nationalism; our gospel is black nationalism. And the gospel of black nationalism, as I told
you, means you should control you own, the politics of your community, the economy of
your community, and all of the society in which you live should be under your control. And
once you feel that this philosophy will solve your problem, go join any church where that’s
preached. Don’t join a church where white nationalism is preached. Now you can go to a
Negro church and be exposed to white nationalism 'cause you are when you walk in a Negro
church and a white Mary and some white angels - that Negro church is preaching white nationalism. But when you go to a church and you see the pastor of that church with a philosophy and a program that’s designed to bring black people together and elevate black people join that church. Join that church. If you see where the NAACP is preaching and practicing
that which is designed to make black nationalism materialize, join the NAACP. Join any kind
of organization, civic, religious, fraternal, political, or otherwise that’s based on lifting the
black man up and making him master of his own community.
It’ll be the ballot or it’ll be the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death. And if you’re not ready
to pay that price don’t use the word freedom in your vocabulary.
One more thing: I was on a program in Illinois recently with Senator Paul Douglas, a so-called liberal, so-called Democrat, so-called white man, at which time he told me that our African brothers were not interested in us in Africa. He said the Africans are not interested in the
American Negro. I knew he was lying, but during the next two or three weeks it’s my intention and plan to make a tour of our African homeland. And I hope that when I come back, I’ll
be able to come back and let you know how our African brothers and sisters feel toward us.
And I know before I go there that they love us. We’re one; we’re the same; the same man
who has colonized them all these years, colonized you and me too all these years. And all we
have to do now is wake up and work in unity and harmony and the battle will be over. I want
to thank the Freedom Now Party and the goal. I want to thank Milton and Richard Henley for
inviting me here this afternoon, and also Reverend Cleage. And I want them to know that anything that I can ever do, at any time, to work with anybody in any kind of program that is
sincerely designed to eliminate the political, the economic, and the social evils that confront
all of our people, in Detroit and elsewhere, all they got to do is give me a telephone call and
I’ll be on the next jet right on into the city.
‘‘Black Power—Its Relevance to the West Indies’’
opportunity, a great moment to make a decision. And as
we sing together, we bid you come at this time by
Christian experience, baptism, watch care. But come at
this moment, become a part of this great Christian
fellowship and accept Christ (Yes, sir) as your personal
savior.
‘‘BLACK POWER—ITS
RELEVANCE TO THE
WEST INDIES’’
Rodney, Walter. From The Groundings with My
Brothers. Copyright ª 1969. Reprinted by permission
of Bogle L’Ouverture Publishers Ltd.
SOURCE
Walter Rodney was a Guyanese historian
who had received his Ph.D. from the School of
Oriental and African Studies at the Univeristy of
London in 1966, the time of the rise of the political
movement of Black Power, not only in the United
States but throughout the world. The islands of the
West Indies ended the practice of slavery nearly thirty
years before the start of the U.S. Civil War; but as with
its American counterparts, the legacy of slavery lingered
on long after freedom. One hundred years later, just
before the start of World War II, the black people of the
West Indies revolted. Still under British rule, the living
conditions for the poor black people were horrendous.
Over twenty years after that, with conditions for black
people still suffering, Rodney fueled the flames of unrest
with his speeches against white imperialism. After he
was expelled, rioting ensued in Kingston and the
university closed temporarily. These are some of his
words that helped enflame a movement.
INTRODUCTION
About a fortnight ago I had the opportunity of speaking
on Black Power to an audience on this campus. At that
time, the consciousness among students as far as the
racial question is concerned had been heightened by
several incidents on the world scene—notably, the hangings in Rhodesia and the murder of Dr. Martin Luther
King. Indeed, it has been heightened to such an extent
that some individuals have started to organize a Black
Power movement. My presence here attests to my full
sympathy with their objectives.
The topic on this occasion is no longer just ‘‘Black
Power’’ but ‘‘Black Power and You.’’ Black Power can be
seen as a movement and an ideology springing from the
reality of oppression of black peoples by whites within the
imperialist world as a whole. Now we need to be specific
in defining the West Indian scene and our own particular
roles in the society. You and I have to decide whether we
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RACE AND RACISM
want to think black or to remain as a dirty version of
white. (I shall indicate the full significance of this later.)
Recently there was a public statement in Scope where
Black Power was referred to as ‘‘Black supremacy.’’ This
may have been a genuine error or a deliberate falsification. Black Power is a call to black peoples to throw off
white domination and resume the handling of their own
destinies. It means that blacks would enjoy power commensurate with their numbers in the world and in particular localities. Whenever an oppressed black man
shouts for equality he is called a racist. This was said of
Marcus Garvey in his day. Imagine that! We are so
inferior that if we demand equality of opportunity and
power that is outrageously racist! Black people who speak
up for their rights must beware of this device of false
accusations. Is it intended to place you on the defensive
and if possible embarrass you into silence. How can we
be both oppressed and embarrassed? Is it that our major
concern is not to hurt the feelings of the oppressor? Black
people must now take the offensive—if it is anyone who
should suffer embarrassment it is the whites. Did black
people roast six million Jews? Who exterminated millions
of indigenous inhabitants in the Americas and Australia?
Who enslaved countless millions of Africans? The white
capitalist cannibal has always fed on the world’s black
peoples. White capitalist imperialist society is profoundly
and unmistakably racist.
The West Indies have always been a part of white
capitalist society. We have been the most oppressed
section because we were a slave society and the legacy
of slavery still rests heavily upon the West Indian black
man. I will briefly point to five highlights of our social
development: (1) the development of racialism under
slavery; (2) emancipation; (3) Indian indentured labour;
(4) the year 1865 in Jamaica; (5) the year 1938 in the
West Indies.
SLAVERY
As C.L.R. James, Eric Williams and other W.I. scholars
have pointed out, slavery in the West Indies started as an
economic phenomenon rather than a racial one. But it
rapidly became racist as all white labour was withdrawn
from the fields, leaving black to be identified with slave
labour and white to be linked with property and domination. Out of this situation where blacks had an inferior
status in practice, there grew social and scientific theories
relating to the supposed inherent inferiority of the black
man, who was considered as having been created to bring
water and hew wood for the white man. This theory then
served to rationalise white exploitation of blacks all over
Africa and Asia. The West Indies and the American South
share the dubious distinction of being the breeding ground
for world racialism. Even the blacks became convinced of
319
‘‘Black Power—Its Relevance to the West Indies’’
their own inferiority, though fortunately we are capable of
the most intense expressions when we recognise that we
have been duped by the white men. Black power recognises
both the reality of the black oppression and self-negation as
well as the potential for revolt.
EMANCIPATION
By the end of the 18th century, Britain had got most of
what it wanted from black labour in the West Indies.
Slavery and the slave trade had made Britain strong and
now stood in the way of new developments, so it was
time to abandon those systems. The Slave Trade and
Slavery were thus ended; but Britain had to consider
how to squeeze what little remained in the territories
and how to maintain the local whites in power. They
therefore decided to give the planters £20 million compensation and to guarantee their black labour supplies for
the next six years through a system called apprenticeship.
In that period, white society consolidated its position to
ensure that slave relations should persist in our society.
The Rastafari Brethren have always insisted that the black
people were promised £20 million at emancipation. In
reality, by any normal standards of justice, we black
people should have got the £20 million compensation
money. We were the ones who had been abused and
wronged, hunted in Africa and brutalised on the plantations. In Europe, when serfdom was abolished, the serfs
usually inherited the land as compensation and by right.
In the West Indies, the exploiters were compensated
because they could no longer exploit us in the same
way as before. White property was of greater value than
black humanity. It still is—white property is of greater
value than black humanity in the British West Indies
today, especially here in Jamaica.
INDIAN INDENTURED LABOUR
Britain and the white West Indians had to maintain the
plantation system in order to keep whites supreme. When
Africans started leaving the plantations to set up as independent peasants they threatened the plantation structure
and therefore Indians were imported under the indenture
arrangements. That was possible because white power
controlled most of the world and could move non-white
peoples around as they wished. It was from Britishcontrolled India that the indentured labour was obtained.
It was the impact of British commercial, military and
political policies that was destroying the life and culture
of 19th century India and forcing people to flee to other
parts of the world to earn bread. Look where Indians
fled—to the West Indies! The West Indies is a place black
people want to leave, not to come to. One must therefore
appreciate the pressure of white power on India which
gave rise to migration to the West Indies. Indians were
320
brought here solely in the interest of white society—at the
expense of Africans already in the West Indies and often
against their own best interests, for Indians perceived
indentured labour to be a form of slavery and it was
eventually terminated through the pressure of Indian opinion in the homeland. The West Indies has made a unique
contribution to the history of suffering in the world, and
Indians have provided part of that contribution since
indentures were first introduced. This is another aspect
of the historical situation which is still with us.
1865
In that year Britain found a way of perpetuating White
Power in the West Indies after ruthlessly crushing the revolt
of our black brothers led by Paul Bogle. The British
Government took away the Constitution of Jamaica and
placed the island under the complete control of the Colonial
Office, a manoeuvre that was racially motivated. The
Jamaican legislature was then largely in the hands of the
local whites with a mulatto minority, but if the gradual
changes continued the mulattoes would have taken control—and the blacks were next in line. Consequently, the
British Government put a stop to the process of the gradual
takeover of political power by blacks. When we look at the
British Empire in the 19th century, we see a clear difference
between white colonies and black colonies. In the white
colonies like Canada and Australia the British were giving
white people their freedom and self-rule. In the black colonies of the West Indies, Africa and Asia, the British were
busy taking away the political freedom of the inhabitants.
Actually, on the constitutional level, Britain had already
displayed its racialism in the West Indies in the early 19th
century when it refused to give mulattoes the power of
Government in Trinidad, although they were the majority
of free citizens. In 1865 in Jamaica it was not the first nor the
last time on which Britain made it clear that its white ‘‘kith
and kin’’ would be supported to hold dominion over blacks.
1938
Slavery ended in various islands of the West Indies
between 1834 and 1838. Exactly 100 years later (between
1934–38) the black people in the West Indies revolted
against the hypocritical freedom of the society. The
British were very surprised—they had long forgotten all
about the blacks in the British West Indies and they sent
a Royal Commission to find out what it was all about.
The report of the conditions was so shocking that the
British government did not release it until after the war,
because they wanted black colonials to fight the white
man’s battles. By the time the war ended it was clear in
the West Indies and throughout Asia and Africa that
some concessions would have to be made to black peoples. In general, the problem as seen by white imperialists
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RACE AND RACISM
‘‘Black Power—Its Relevance to the West Indies’’
was to give enough power to certain groups in colonial
society to keep the whole society from exploding and to
maintain the essentials of the imperialist structure. In the
British West Indies, they had to take into account the
question of military strategy because we lie under the
belly of the world’s imperialist giant, the U.S.A.
Besides, there was the new and vital mineral bauxite,
which had to be protected. The British solution was to
pull out wherever possible and leave the imperial government in the hands of the U.S.A., while the local government was given to a white, brown and black pettybourgeoisie who were culturally the creations of white
capitalist society and who therefore support the white
imperialist system because they gain personally and
because they have been brainwashed into aiding the
oppression of black people.
Black Power in the West Indies means three closely
related things: (i) the break with imperialism which is
historically white racist; (ii) the assumption of power by
the black masses in the islands; (iii) the cultural reconstruction of the society in the image of the blacks.
I shall anticipate certain questions on who are the
blacks in the West Indies since they are in fact questions
which have been posed to me elsewhere. I maintain that
it is the white world which has defined who are blacks—
if you are not white then you are black. However, it is
obvious that the West Indian situation is complicated by
factors such as the variety of racial types and racial
mixtures and by the process of class formation. We have,
therefore, to note not simply what the white world says
but also how individuals perceive each other.
Nevertheless, we can talk of the mass of the West
Indian population as being black—either African or
Indian. There seems to have been some doubts on the
last point, and some fear that Black Power is aimed
against the Indian. This would be a flagrant denial of
both the historical experience of the West Indies and the
reality of the contemporary scene.
When the Indian was brought to the West Indies, he
met the same racial contempt which whites applied to
Africans. The Indian, too, was reduced to a single stereotype—the coolie or labourer. He too was a hewer of wood
and a bringer of water. I spoke earlier of the revolt of the
blacks in the West Indies in 1938. That revolt involved
Africans in Jamaica, Africans and Indians in Trinidad and
Guyana. The uprisings in Guyana were actually led by
Indian sugar workers. Today, some Indians (like some
Africans) have joined the white power structure in terms
of economic activity and culture; but the underlying reality
is that poverty resides among Africans and Indians in the
West Indies and that power is denied them. Black Power
in the West Indies, therefore, refers primarily to people
who are recognisably African or Indian.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RACE AND RACISM
The Chinese, on the other hand, are a former labouring group who have now become bastions of white West
Indian social structure. The Chinese of the People’s
Republic of China have long broken with and are fighting
against white imperialism, but our Chinese have nothing
to do with that movement. They are to be identified with
Chiang-Kai-Shek and not Chairman Mao Tse-tung. They
are to be put in the same bracket as the lackeys of capitalism and imperialism who are to be found in Hong Kong
and Taiwan. Whatever the circumstances in which the
Chinese came to the West Indies, they soon became (as
a group) members of the exploiting class. They will have
either to relinquish or be deprived of that function before
they can be re-integrated into a West Indian society where
the black man walks in dignity.
The same applies to the mulattoes, another group
about whom I have been questioned. The West Indian
brown man is characterised by ambiguity and ambivalence. He has in the past identified with the black masses
when it suited his interests, and at the present time some
browns are in the forefront of the movement towards
black consciousness; but the vast majority have fallen to
the bribes of white imperialism, often outdoing the whites
in their hatred and oppression of blacks. Garvey wrote of
the Jamaican mulattoes—‘‘I was openly hated and persecuted by some of these coloured men of the island who
did not want to be classified as Negroes but as white.’’
Naturally, conscious West Indian blacks like Garvey have
in turn expressed their dislike for the browns, but there is
nothing in the West Indian experience which suggests that
browns are unacceptable when they choose to identify
with blacks. The post-1938 developments in fact showed
exactly the opposite. It seems to me, therefore, that it is
not for the Black Power movement to determine the
position of the browns, reds and so-called West Indian
whites—the movement can only keep the door open and
leave it to those groups to make their choice.
Black Power is not racially intolerant. It is the hope
of the black man that he should have power over his own
destinies. This is not incompatible with a multiracial
society where each individual counts equally. Because
the moment that power is equitably distributed among
several ethnic groups then the very relevance of making
the distinction between groups will be lost. What we
must object to is the current image of a multi-racial
society living in harmony—that is a myth designed to
justify the exploitation suffered by the blackest of our
population, at the hands of the lighter-skinned groups.
Let us look at the figures for the racial composition of the
Jamaican population. Of every 100 Jamaicans,
76.8% are visibly African
0.8% European
1.1% Indian
321
‘‘Black Power—Its Relevance to the West Indies’’
0.6% Chinese
91% have African blood
0.1% Syrian
14.6% Afro-European
5.4% other mixtures
This is a black society where Africans preponderate.
Apart from the mulatto mixture all other groups are
numerically insignificant and yet the society seeks to give
them equal weight and indeed more weight than the
Africans. If we went to Britain we could easily find
non-white groups in the above proportions—Africans
and West Indians, Indians and Pakistanis, Turks, Arabs
and other Easterners—but Britain is not called a multiracial society. When we go to Britain we don’t expect to
take over all of the British real estate business, all their
cinemas and most of their commerce as the European,
Chinese and Syrian have done here. All we ask for there is
some work and shelter, and we can’t even get that. Black
Power must proclaim that Jamaica is a black society—we
should fly Garvey’s Black Star banner and we will treat all
other groups in the society on that understanding—they
can have the basic right of all individuals but no privileges
to exploit Africans as has been the pattern during slavery
and ever since.
The present government knows that Jamaica is a
black man’s country. That is why Garvey has been made
a national hero, for they are trying to deceive black
people into thinking that the government is with them.
The government of Jamaica recognises black power—it is
afraid of the potential wrath of Jamaica’s black and
largely African population. It is that same fear which
forced them to declare mourning when black men are
murdered in Rhodesia, and when Martin Luther King
was murdered in the U.S.A. But the black people don’t
need to be told that Garvey is a national hero—they
know that. Nor do they need to be told to mourn when
blacks are murdered by White Power, because they
mourn every day right here in Jamaica where white
power keeps them ignorant, unemployed, ill-clothed
and ill-fed. They will stop mourning when things
change—and that means a revolution, for the first essential is to break the chains which bind us to white imperialists, and that is a very revolutionary step. Cuba is the
only country in the West Indies and in this hemisphere
which has broken with white power. That is why Stokely
Carmichael can visit Cuba but he can’t visit Trinidad or
Jamaica. That is why Stokely can call Fidel ‘‘one of the
blackest men in the Americas’’ and that is why our
leaders in contrast qualify as ‘‘white.’’
Here I’m not just playing with words—I’m extending
the definition of Black Power by indicating the nature of
its opposite, ‘‘White Power,’’ and I’m providing a practical
322
illustration of what Black Power means in one particular
West Indian community where it had already occurred.
White power is the power of whites over blacks without
any participation of the blacks. White power rules the
imperialist world as a whole. In Cuba the blacks and
mulattoes numbered 1,585,073 out of a population of
5,829,029 in 1953—i.e., about one quarter of the population. Like Jamaica’s black people today, they were the
poorest and most depressed people on the island. Lighterskinned Cubans held local power, while real power was in
the hands of the U.S. imperialists. Black Cubans fought
alongside white Cuban workers and peasants because they
were all oppressed. Major Juan Almeida, one of the outstanding leaders of Cuba today, was one of the original
guerillas in the Sierra Maestra, and he is black. Black
Cubans today enjoy political, economic and social rights
and opportunities of exactly the same kind as white
Cubans. They too bear arms in the Cuban Militia as an
expression of their basic rights. In other words, White
Power in Cuba is ended. The majority of the white
population naturally predominates numerically in most
spheres of activity but they do not hold dominion over
blacks without regard to the latter’s interests. The blacks
have achieved power commensurate with their own numbers by their heroic self-efforts during the days of slavery,
in fighting against the Spanish and in fighting against
imperialism. Having achieved their rights they can in fact
afford to forget the category ‘‘black’’ and think simply as
Cuban citizens, as Socialist equals and as men. In Jamaica,
where blacks are far greater in numbers and have no whites
alongside them as oppressed workers and peasants, it will
be the black people who alone can bear the brunt of
revolutionary fighting.
Trotsky once wrote that Revolution is the carnival of
the masses. When we have that carnival in the West
Indies, are people like us here at the university going to
join the bacchanal?
Let us have a look at our present position. Most of us
who have studied at the U.W.I. are discernibly black, and
yet we are undeniably part of the white imperialist system. A few are actively pro-imperialist. They have no
confidence in anything that is not white—they talk nonsense about black people being lazy—the same nonsense
which was said about the Jamaican black man after
emancipation, although he went to Panama and performed the giant task of building the Panama Canal—
the same nonsense which is said about W.I. unemployed
today, and yet they proceed to England to run the whole
transport system. Most of us do not go to quite the same
extremes in denigrating ourselves and our black brothers,
but we say nothing against the system, and that means
that we are acquiescing in the exploitation of our brethren. One of the ways that the situation has persisted
especially in recent times is that it has given a few
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RACE AND RACISM
Lusaka Manifesto, 1969
individuals like you and . . . [me] . . . a vision of personal
progress measured in terms of front lawn and the latest
model of a huge American car. This has recruited us into
their ranks and deprived the black masses of articulate
leadership. That is why at the outset I stressed that our
choice was to remain as part of the white system or to
break with it. There is no other alternative.
Black Power in the W.I. must aim at transforming the
Black intelligensia into the servants of the black masses.
Black Power, within the university and without must aim at
overcoming white cultural imperialism. Whites have dominated us both physically and mentally. This fact is brought
out in virtually any serious sociological study of the
region—the brainwashing process has been so stupendous
that it has convinced so many black men of their inferiority.
I will simply draw a few illustrations to remind you of this
fact which blacks like us at Mona prefer to forget.
The adult black in our West Indian society is fully
conditioned to thinking white, because that is the training
we are given from childhood. The little black girl plays with
a white doll, identifying with it as she combs its flaxen hair.
Asked to sketch the figure of a man or woman, the black
schoolboy instinctively produces a white man or a white
woman. This is not surprising, since until recently the
illustrations in our textbooks were all figures of
Europeans. The few changes which have taken place have
barely scratched the surface of the problem. West Indians of
every colour still aspire to European standards of dress and
beauty. The language which is used by black people in
describing ourselves shows how we despise our African
appearance. ‘‘Good hair’’ means European hair, ‘‘good
nose’’ means a straight nose, ‘‘good complexion’’ means a
light complexion. Everybody recognises how incongruous
and ridiculous such terms are, but we continue to use them
and to express our support of the assumption that white
Europeans have the monopoly of beauty, and that black is
the incarnation of ugliness. That is why Black Power advocates find it necessary to assert that BLACK IS
BEAUTIFUL.
The most profound revelation of the sickness of our
society on the question of race is our respect for all the
white symbols of the Christian religion. God the Father
is white, God the Son is white, and presumably God the
Holy Ghost is white also. The disciples and saints are
white, all the Cherubim, Seraphim and angels are
white—except Lucifer, of course, who was black, being
the embodiment of evil. When one calls upon black
people to reject these things, this is not an attack on the
teachings of Christ or the ideals of Christianity. What we
have to ask is ‘‘Why should Christianity come to us all
wrapped up in white?’’ The white race constitute about
20 per cent of the world’s population, and yet non-white
peoples are supposed to accept that all who inhabit the
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RACE AND RACISM
heavens are white. There are 650 million Chinese, so why
shouldn’t God and most of the angels be Chinese? The
truth is that there is absolutely no reason why different
racial groups should not provide themselves with their
own religious symbols. A picture of Christ could be red,
white or black, depending upon the people who are
involved. When Africans adopt the European concept
that purity and goodness must be painted white and all
that is evil and damned is to be painted black then we are
flagrantly self-insulting.
Through the manipulation of this media of education and communication, white people have produced
black people who administer the system and perpetuate
the white values—‘‘white-hearted black men,’’ as they are
called by conscious elements. This is as true of the
Indians as it is true of the Africans in our West Indian
society. Indeed, the basic explanation of the tragedy of
African/Indian confrontation in Guyana and Trinidad is
the fact that both groups are held captive by the
European way of seeing things. When an African abuses
an Indian he repeats all that the white men said about
Indian indentured ‘‘coolies’’; and in turn the Indian has
borrowed from the whites the stereotype of the ‘‘lazy
nigger’’ to apply to the African beside him. It is as though
no black man can see another black man except by
looking through a white person. It is time we started
seeing through our own eyes. The road to Black Power
here in the West Indies and everywhere else must begin
with a revaluation of ourselves as blacks and with a
redefinition of the world from our own standpoint.
LUSAKA MANIFESTO,
1969
SOURCE
Public Domain.
The struggle went on for years. On
March 21, 1960, in Sharpeville, in the Union of
South Africa, police shot into a peaceful demonstration
that was held against pass laws for Africans as a part of
apartheid regulations. Sixty-nine men, women, and
children were killed and about 200 were wounded.
Four days later, 29 African and Asian representatives
at the United Nations called for an urgent meeting of
the Security Council to consider this situation. By the
summer, boycotts of South African goods were
implemented in countries all over the world, and labor
groups refused to service South African cargo ships.
Nine years later, in April of 1969, the Fifth Summit
Conference of East and Central African States in
Lusaka adopted a Manifesto on Southern Africa, and
INTRODUCTION
323
“I’m Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired,”
Speech Delivered with Malcolm X at the Williams Institutional CME Church, Harlem, New
York, December 20, 1964
In the fall of 1964, when famed performer and avid civil rights supporter Harry Belafonte
sponsored a trip to West Africa for a group of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) members, he hoped the journey would internationalize their perspectives as well as
provide some much needed respite for the weary activists. The delegation’s time in Africa
not only accomplished this, but also helped strengthen ties between SNCC and the wellknown African American activist Malcolm X. Two of the SNCC travelers, John Lewis and
Donald Harris, decided to extend their stay and travel through other parts of Africa. Their
decision proved serendipitous when they unexpectedly encountered Malcolm X at an airport
in Nairobi, Kenya.
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.
Concomitant ideological transformations—SNCC’s movement from an explicitly
nonviolent collective to an organization whose leaders began to champion self-defense
combined with Malcolm’s break from the Nation of Islam and his creation of the
Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU)—laid the foundation for an alliance between
the activists. This convergence of interests was accompanied by mutual support for SNCC
programs and OAAU causes. In December 1964, for instance, Hamer and Malcolm shared
the platform at Williams Institutional CME (Christian Methodist Episcopal) Church in
Harlem, which housed a political rally in support of the MFDP’s upcoming congressional
challenge. Malcolm returned the favor, visiting Greenwood, Mississippi, in late 1964, and
speaking in Selma, Alabama, on February 7, 1965. During the Harlem rally, the SNCC
Freedom Singers performed and Fannie Lou Hamer spoke before Malcolm X delivered his
oration, in which he worked extemporaneously to interpret and combine several core
aspects of Hamer’s address into his own.
Their speeches were addressed to a small, predominantly African American audience—
less than a third of the attendees were white—and the content of Hamer’s speech, in
particular, was far more secular than previous addresses she had delivered in church
settings. Notably, Hamer’s Harlem rally speech proceeded in what was becoming an
effective pattern of address, adapting her personal narrative to the particular exigencies of
the moment. Recounting her own experiences with oppression served Hamer’s larger
political objectives of garnering support for the MFDP’s impending congressional
challenge and of directing national attention to the endemic racism in American society.
Thus, she moved beyond racism in Mississippi, challenging her black Harlem audience to
recognize their own oppression. In a deft rhetorical move, she simultaneously drew
attention to the limits of their power and empowered them to help with both her struggle in
Mississippi and her congressional challenge. The larger problem, according to Hamer, is
not just that constitutional rights are withheld from some American people; it is also that
African Americans with relatively more rights and with more influence are not using their
power to help African Americans with less.
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In many ways, this appeal to blacks in New York, and to their white supporters, is similar
to the appeals Hamer issued to African American sharecroppers in Mississippi. In both
rhetorical situations, Hamer used speech to move her audience beyond acknowledging that
a problem is occurring and toward the discovery that they could be part of the solution. In
both the North and the South, Hamer was at once critical and congratulatory in her attempt
to shame and empower her respective audiences.
My name is Fannie Lou Hamer and I exist at 626 East Lafayette Street in Ruleville,
Mississippi. The reason I say “exist” [is] because we’re excluded from everything in
Mississippi but the tombs and the graves. That’s why it is called that instead of the “land of the
free and the home of the brave,” it’s called in Mississippi “the land of the tree and the home of
the grave.”
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.
It was the thirty-first of August of 1962, that eighteen of us traveled twenty-six miles to the
county courthouse in Indianola, Mississippi, to try to register to become first-class citizens. It
was the thiry-first of August in 1962, that I was fired for trying to become a first-class citizen.
When we got to Indianola on the thirty-first of August in 1962, we was met there by the state
highway patrolmen, the city policemen and anybody—as some of you know that have worked
in Mississippi, any white man that is able to wear a khaki pair of pants without them falling off
him and holding two guns can make a good law officer—so we was met by them there. After
taking this literacy test, some of you have seen it, we have twenty-one questions and some is
not questions. It began with: “Write the date of this application. What is your full name? By
whom are you employed?”—so we can be fired by the time we get back home—“Are you a
citizen of the United States and an inhabitant of Mississippi? Have you ever been convicted of
any of the following crimes?”—when, if the people would be convicted of the following
crimes, the registrar wouldn’t be there. But after we go through this process of filling out this
literacy form, we are asked to copy a section of the constitution of Mississippi and after we’ve
copied this section of the constitution of Mississippi we are asked to give a reasonable
interpretation to tell what it meant, what we just copied that we just seen for the first time.
After finishing this form, we started on this trip back to Ruleville, Mississippi, and we was
stopped by the same city policeman that I had seen in Indianola and a state highway patrolman.
We was ordered to get off the bus. After we got off the bus, we was ordered to get back on the
bus and told to go back to Indianola. When we got back to Indianola the bus driver was
charged with driving a bus the wrong color. That’s very true. This same bus had been used year
after year to haul people to the cotton fields to pick cotton and to chop cotton. But, this day, for
the first time that this bus had been used for voter registration it had the wrong color. They first
charged this man one hundred dollars. And from a hundred dollars they cut down to fifty. And
from fifty to thirty, and after they got down to thirty dollars the eighteen of us had enough among
ourselves to pay his fine.
Then we continued this journey back to Ruleville. When we got to Ruleville, Reverend Jeff
Sunny drove me out to this rural area where I had been existing for the past eighteen years as a
timekeeper and a sharecropper. I was met there by my daughter and my husband’s cousin that
told me this man was raising a lot of Cain because I had went to Indianola. My oldest girl said
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that she believed I would have to leave there. Then my husband came and during the time he
was talking this white man walked up and asked him had I made it back. And he told him I had.
And he said, “Well, did you tell her what I said?” My husband told him he did and I walked
out. He said, “Fannie Lou,” say, “did Pap tell you what I said?” And I told him he did. He said,
“I mean that. You will have to go down and withdraw or you will have to leave.”
I said, “Mr. Marlow,” I said, “I wasn’t trying to register for you today. I was trying to
register for myself.” And this was it. I had to leave that same night.
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.
On the tenth of September in 1962, sixteen bullets were fired into the home of Mr. and Mrs.
Robert Tucker, where I’d been living after I was fired from this plantation. That same night,
two girls was shot in Ruleville. They also shot in Mr. Joe McDonald’s home that same night.
And until this day the place was swamped with FBI, until this day—it’s a very small town
where everybody knows everybody—it hadn’t been one arrest made. That’s why about four
months ago when the FBI came to talk to me about my life being threatened—they wanted to
know what could I tell them about it—I told them until they straightened out some of the things
that we had done happened, don’t come asking about the things that just happened. Do
something about the problems that we’d already had. And I made it plain. I said, “If there is a
God and a heaven,” I said, “if I was going to see you two up there, I would tell them to send
me back to Mississippi because I know He wouldn’t be just to let you up there.” This probably
don’t sound too good to everybody, but if I can’t tell the truth—just tell me to sit down—
because I have to tell it like it is.
The third day of June, we went to a voter educational workshop and was returning back to
Mississippi. We arrived in Winona, Mississippi, between ten-thirty and eleven o’clock on the
ninth of June. Some of the people got off the bus to go in the restaurant and two of the people
got off the bus to use the washroom. I was still on the Continental Trailways bus and looking
through the window, I saw the people rush out of the restaurant and then the two people rush
out had got off to use the washroom. One of the people that had got off to use the washroom got
on the bus and I got off the bus. I went straight to Miss Ponder, it was five of them had got off
the bus, six in all but one had got back on the bus, so that was five. I went to talk to Miss
Ponder to ask of her what had happened. And she said that it was state highway patrolmen and
a city chief of police had tapped them all on the shoulder with billy clubs and ordered them
out. And I said, “Well, this is Mississippi.”
I went back and got on the bus. When I looked back through the window they was putting
those people in the patrolmen’s car. I got off of the bus, holding the eyes of Miss Ponder and
she screamed to tell me to get back on the bus when somebody screamed from her car and said,
“Get that one, too.” And a man jumped out of his car and said, “You are under arrest.” As he
went to open the door, he opened the door and told me to get in. And as I started to get in, he
kicked me and I was carried to the county jailhouse by this county deputy and a
plainclothesman. They would call me all kinds of names. They would ask me questions and
when I would attempt to answer the questions, they would curse and tell me to hush.
I was carried to the county jail and when I got inside of the jail, they had the other five
already in the booking room. When I walked in the booking room, one of the city policemen
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just walked over, a very tall man, walked over and jumped on one of the young men’s feet,
James West from Itta Bena, Mississippi. Then they began to place us in cells. They left some of
the people out of the cell and I was placed in a cell with Miss Euvester Simpson from Itta
Bena.
After they left the people in the booking room I began to hear the sounds of licks and I began
to hear screams. I couldn’t see the people, but I could hear them. And I would hear somebody
when they would say, “Can’t you say ‘yes, sir,’ nigger? Can’t you say ‘yes, sir’?” And they
would call Annell Ponder awful names.
And she would say, “Yes, I can say ‘yes, sir.’”
And they would tell her, “Well, say it.”
She said, “I don’t know you well enough.”
And I would hear when she would hit the floor again. I don’t know how long this happened
until after awhile I saw Miss Ponder pass my cell. And her clothes had been ripped off from
the shoulder down to the waist. Her hair was standing up on her head. Her mouth was swollen
and bleeding. And one of her eyes looked like blood. And they put her in a cell where I
couldn’t see her.
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.
And then three men came to my cell. The state highway patrolman asked me where I was
from. And I told him I was from Ruleville. He said, “We’re going to check that.” And they left
the cell and after awhile they came back. And he told me, said, “You were right,” said, “You’s
from Ruleville all right and we going to make you wish you was dead.” I was led out of that
cell and into another cell where they had two Negro prisoners. The state highway patrolman
gave the first Negro prisoner the blackjack. It was a long heavy leather something made with
something you could hold it, and it was loaded with either rocks or something metal. And they
ordered me to lie down on the bed on my face. And I was beat by that first Negro until he was
exhausted. I was beat until he was ordered by the state highway patrolman to stop.
After he told the first Negro to stop, he gave the blackjack to the second Negro. When the
second Negro began to beat, it seemed like it was more than I could bear. I began to work my
feet, and the state highway patrolman ordered the first Negro that had beat me to set on my feet
where I was kicking them. My dress worked up real high and I smoothed my clothes down.
And one of the city policemens walked over and pulled my dress as high as he could. I was
trying to shield as many licks from my left side as I could because I had polio when I was six
or eight years old. But when they had finished beating me, they were, while they was beating, I
was screaming. One of the white men got up and began to beat me in my head.
A couple of Saturdays ago, I went to a doctor in Washington, D.C., a specialist, and he said
one of the arteries behind this left eye had a blood clot. After this happened in jail, we was in
jail from Monday until Wednesday without seeing a doctor. They had our trial on Tuesday and
we was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. I was in jail when Medgar Evers
was killed.
What I’m trying to point out now is when you take a very close look at this American
society, it’s time to question these things. We have made an appeal for the president of the
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United States and the attorney general to please protect us in Mississippi. And I can’t
understand how it’s out of their power to protect people in Mississippi. They can’t do that, but
when a white man is killed in the Congo, they send people there.
And you can always hear this long sob story: “You know it takes time.” For three hundred
years, we’ve given them time. And I’ve been tired so long, now I am sick and tired of being
sick and tired, and we want a change. We want a change in this society in America because,
you see, we can no longer ignore the facts and getting our children to sing, “Oh say can you
see, by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed.” What do we have to hail here? The
truth is the only thing going to free us. And you know this whole society is sick. And to prove
just how sick it was when we was in Atlantic City challenging the National Convention, when I
was testifying before the Credentials Committee, I was cut off because they hate to see what
they been knowing all the time and that’s the truth.
Yes, a lot of people will roll their eyes at me today but I’m going to tell you just like it is,
you see, it’s time—you see, this is what got all this like this—there’s so much hypocrisy in this
society and if we want America to be a free society we have to stop telling lies, that’s all.
Because we’re not free and you know we’re not free. You’re not free here in Harlem.
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.
I’ve gone to a lot of big cities and I’ve got my first city to go to where this man wasn’t
standing with his feet on this black man’s neck. And it’s time for you to wake up because, you
see, a lot of people say, “Oh, they is afraid of integration.” But the white man is not afraid of
integration, not with his kids. He’s afraid of his wife’s kids because he’s got them all over the
place. Because some of his kids just might be my second cousin.
And the reason we’re here today, we’re asking for support if this Constitution is really
going to be of any help in this American society, the fourth day of January is when we’ll find it
out. This challenge that we’re challenging the five representatives from Mississippi; now how
can a man be in Washington, elected by the people, when 95 percent of the people cannot vote
in Mississippi? Just taking a chance on trying to register to vote, you can be fired. Not only
fired, you can be killed. You know it’s true because you know what happened to Schwerner,
Goodman, and Chaney. And any person that’s working down there to change the system can be
counted just as another nigger.
But some of the things I’ve got to say today may be a little sickening. People have said year
after year, “Those people in Mississippi can’t think.” But after we would work ten and eleven
hours a day for three lousy dollars and couldn’t sleep we couldn’t do anything else but think.
And we have been thinking a long time. And we are tired of what’s going on. And we want to
see now, what this here will turn out for the fourth of January. We want to see is democracy
real? We want to see this because the challenge is based upon the violation of the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which hadn’t done
anything for us yet. And the U.S. courts tied it to Section 201 and 226. Those people were
illegally elected and they have been there—the man that I challenged, Jamie L. Whitten, has
been in Washington thirteen years and he is not representing the people of Mississippi because
not only do they discriminate against the poor Negroes, they discriminated up until the third of
November against the poor whites, but they let them vote because they wanted their votes. But
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it will run until the first of July and we need your support—morally, politically, and
financially, too. We need your help.
And, people, you don’t know in Harlem the power that you got. But you just don’t try to use
it. People never would have thought—the folks they said was just ignorant, common people out
of Mississippi that would have tried to challenge the representatives from Mississippi. But you
see the point is: we have been dying in Mississippi year after year for nothing. And I don’t
know, I may be bumped off as soon as I go back to Mississippi but what we should realize,
people have been bumped off for nothing. It is my goal for the cause of giving those Negro
children a decent education in the state of Mississippi and giving them something that they have
never had. Then I know my life won’t be in vain. Because, not only do we need a change in the
state of Mississippi, but we need a change here in Harlem. And it’s time for every American
citizen to wake up because now the whole world is looking at this American society.
I remember, during the time I was in West Africa—some of you may be here today because I
don’t know what it’s all about, but I know I can tell you the truth, too—it was a lot of people
there that was called the PIAA. “What are you doing over here? Who are you trying to
please?”
I said, “All you criticize us when you at home and you’re worried to death when we try to
find out about our own people,” I said, “If we had been treated as human beings in America,
you wouldn’t be trailing us now to find out what we is trying to do over here.”
Copyright © 2010. University Press of Mississippi. All rights reserved.
But this is something we going to have to learn to do and quit saying that we are free in
America when I know we are not free. You are not free in Harlem. The people are not free in
Chicago, because I’ve been there, too. They are not free in Philadelphia, because I’ve been
there, too. And when you get it over with all the way around, some of the places is a
Mississippi in disguise. And we want a change. And we hope you support us in this challenge
that we’ll begin on the fourth of January. And give us what support that you can. Thank you.
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GUIDELINES FOR READING RESPONSES
Assignment:
Each student will submit two 1-page (single-spaced) written responses to weekly assigned readings.
These responses should be in a book review format that evaluates the major argument, evidence,
theories, and methodology of the works in discussion. The response should also express reactions,
questions, and general comments about the text and its contribution to larger discussion themes in
the seminar or in the field. Students should post their responses to the Canvas course website
"Discussions" section by Monday/Wednesday at 9 am.
Book Review Format Guidelines:
1) What are the key terms/concepts in the book/text? What is the author's argument and/or
main point(s)?
2)
What kind of evidence does the author use to prove her/his/their point? What mediums/
media does the author use?
3)
How successful was the author in carrying out the overall purpose of the text? If successful,
what was most compelling about the text? If there were shortcomings, how might the
author(s) update/revise the text?
4) How does this book/article/film/document relate to other works on the same topic?
Specifically, how does the text relate to other texts assigned during the week or in previous
weeks?
5) What does this work contribute to the field of Africana Studies? How might other scholars,
laypersons, and/or students use the text?
Note: Students should submit at least one of the two responses by Monday, February 28.Civil Rights (April 11)
Martin Luther King, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (1963)
Fannie Lou Hammer "I'm Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired" (1964)
Malcolm X, "Ballot or the Bullet" (1964)
Walter Rodney, "Black Power - It's Relevance to the West Indies"
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