May 19 was Malcolm X’s birthday, 77 years ago. May 23, the Black Student Union aired audio information in the amphitheater about a man who should be honored. As I expected, not everyone shared this thought with me. One man spoke at me about his views.
“We’ve been hearing this rhetoric all day. … Turn that shit off!”
I did not even see his face. While the owner disappeared, his angry words lingered in the air. Though directed at Malcolm X, they insult every person whom Malcolm X fought for by disregarding his efforts as mere garbage. They remain with me as a bitter reminder that the American public has an incredibly distorted view of one of the most influential leaders of the civil rights movement.
Unfortunately, many people who do not understand my history — no, our history — are in charge of telling it. Ignoring the full picture, history becomes sprinkled with half-truths, until distortion becomes prevailing thought. To quote Jude 1:10, “… These men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand.” Malcolm X is one of the most misunderstood black men in the United States.
Make no mistake, among other things, Malcolm, a black supremacist of sorts, called white people “blue-eyed devils” and hated their race. Ironically, many of our revered white leaders held similar beliefs about black people. The difference is that Malcolm X never advocated lynching or brutality, nor the withholding of the humanity of an entire race. And let us not forget that, unlike the leaders who decided that I was three-fifths of a person, Malcolm X holds virtually no place in our history books.
But that doesn’t justify his racism in my mind. So why do I revere Brother Malcolm as a man and a leader?
He transformed his life, honoring and loving God the best way he knew. When he realized he was following the wrong path, he was man enough to change his actions. Discovering true Islam altered Malcolm’s outlook. On being a racist, he said, “Once I was, yes. But now I have turned my direction away from anything that’s racist.”
While I am a Christian, I believe that through his faith and love in God — Allah — Malcolm X honestly sought the truth and found his grand purpose in life. Most of all, Malcolm X recognized that he had to be willing to die for the freedom he so loved. In the end, he paid that ultimate price.
Still, Malcolm X is considered an extremist for believing it “criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.” Malcolm is “un-American” for denouncing the draft of black men to wars to protect world democracy, when our nation would not protect the democracy of our black men within our own borders.
No, Malcolm X was not a radical; he was responding to the atrocities that were once, and in some cases still are, a part of America.
I am not asking you to like Malcolm X. However, I challenge you to learn the history of this country in its entirety. I’m not a revisionist; I am only doing my duty to set the record straight — in memory of Malcolm X and all those, of all races, who fought for my God-given right to be here today.