|
subject |
Leadership |
|
topic |
Malcolm X |
|
grade |
Seven |
|
time |
30 minutes |
|
objective |
To enable students to understand who Malcolm X is, and his role as a leader in Islam. |
|
instructional material |
Info Sheet 7H – Malcolm X Worksheet 7H – Malcolm X |
INTRODUCTION
Malcolm X Timeline
1940 - Drops out of school at age 15
1946 - Convicted of burglary and sent to prison
1949 - 1951 - Studies the Nation of Islam
1952 - Leaves prison, dedicates himself to Nation of Islam, changes name to Malcolm X
March 1964 - Leaves Nation of Islam, starts the Muslim Mosque, Inc.
DEVELOPMENT
Read the info sheet with the students.
INFO SHEET 7H – Malcolm X
Malcolm X Timeline
1940 - Drops out of school at age 15
1946 - Convicted of burglary and sent to prison
1949 - 1951 - Studies the Nation of Islam
1952 - Leaves prison, dedicates himself to Nation of Islam, changes name to Malcolm X
March 1964 - Leaves Nation of Islam, starts the Muslim Mosque, Inc.
Early Life
On
The history of Malcolm's dedication to black people, like that of his father, may have been motivated by a long history of oppression of his family. As a young child, Malcolm, his parents, brothers, and sisters were shot at, burned out of their home, harassed, and threatened. This culminated in the murder of his father by white racists when Malcolm was six.
Malcolm became a drop-out from school at the age of fifteen. Learning the ways of the streets, Malcolm became acquainted with hoodlums, thieves, dope peddlers, and pimps. Convicted of burglary at twenty, he remained in prison until the age of twenty-seven. During his prison stay he attempted to educate himself. In addition, during his period in prison he learned about and joined the Nation of Islam, studying the teachings of Elijah Muhammed fully. He was released, a changed man, in 1952.
The Nation of Islam
Upon his release,
Malcolm went to
When I "slipped," the program host
would leap on the bait: "Ahhh! Indeed, Mr. Malcolm X -- you can't deny
that's an advance for your race!"
I'd jerk the pole then. "I can't turn
around without hearing about some 'civil rights advance'! White people seem to
think the black man ought to be shouting 'hallelujah'! Four hundred years the
white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man's back -- and now the
whit man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man's
supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it's still
going to leave a scar!
Although Malcolm
words often stung with the injustices against blacks in
The Change to True Islam
On
I feel like a man who has been asleep
somewhat and under someone else's control. I feel what I'm thinking and saying
now is for myself. Before, it was for and by guidance of another, now I think
with my own mind.
Malcolm was thirty-eight years old when he left Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam. Reflecting on reflects that occurred prior to leaving, he said:
At one or another college or university,
usually in the informal gatherings after I had spoken, perhaps a dozen
generally white-complexioned people would come up to me, identifying themselves
as Arabian, Middle Eastern or North African Muslims who happened to be
visiting, studying, or living in the United States. They had said to me that,
my white-indicting statements notwithstanding, they felt I was sincere in
considering myself a Muslim -- and they felt if I was exposed to what they
always called "true Islam," I would "understand it, and embrace
it." Automatically, as a follower of Elijah, I had bridled whenever this
was said. But in the privacy of my own thoughts after several of these
experiences, I did question myself: if one was sincere in professing a
religion, why should he balk at broadening his knowledge of that religion?
Those orthodox Muslims whom I had met, one
after another, had urged me to meet and talk with a Dr. Mahmoud Youssef
Shawarbi. . . . Then one day Dr. Shawarbi and I were introduced by a
newspaperman. He was cordial. He said he had followed me in the press; I said I
had been told of him, and we talked for fifteen or twenty minutes. We both had
to leave to make appointments we had, when he dropped on me something whose
logic never would get out of my head. He said, "No man has believed
perfectly until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself."
The Effect of the
Pilgrimage
Malcolm further continues about the Hajj:
The pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the Hajj,
is a religious obligation that every orthodox Muslim fulfills, if able, at
least once in his or her lifetime.
The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to
the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those
who are able, make the journey." (3:97)
Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage
among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will
come from every deep ravine" (22:27).
Every one of the thousands at the airport,
about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a
peasant and no on e would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly
pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all
had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma)
Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black,
brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair
-- all together, brothers! All honoring thee same God, all in turn giving equal
honor to each other. . . .
That is when I first began to reappraise the
"white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white
man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it
described attitudes and actions. In America,"white man" meant
specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other
non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white
complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That
morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about
"white" men.
There were tens of thousands of pilgrims,
from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to
black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual
displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had
led me to believe never could exist between the white an d the
non-white...America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion
that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the
Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America
would have been considered white -- but the "white" attitude was removed
from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and
true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespecitve of their color.
Malcolm's New
Vision of America
Malcolm continues:
Each hour here in the Holy Land enables me to
have greater spiritual insights into what is happening in America between black
and white. The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities --
he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the
American whites. But as racism leads America up the suicide path I do believe,
from the experiences that I have had with them, that the whites of the younger
generation, in the colleges and universities, will see the handwriting on the
wall and many of them will turn to the spiritual path of truth -- the only way left to America to ward off
the disaster that racism inevitably must lead to. . . .
I believe that God now is giving the world's
so-called 'Christian' white society its last opportunity to repent and atone
for the crimes of exploiting and enslaving the world's non-white peoples. It is
exactly as when God gave Pharaoh a chance to repent. But Pharaoh persisted in
his refusal to give justice to those who he oppressed. And, we know, God
finally destroyed Pharaoh.
I will never forget the dinner at the Azzam
home with Dr. Azzam. The more we talked, the more his vast reservoir of
knowledge and its variety seemed unlimited. He spoke of the racial lineage of
the descendants of Muhammad (PBUH) the Prophet, and he showed how they were both
black and white. He also pointed out how color, and the problems of color which
exist in the Muslim world, exist only where, and to the extent that, that area
of the Muslim world has been influenced by the West. He said that if on
encountered any differences based on attitude toward color, this directly
reflected the degree of Western influence.
The Oneness of Man
Under One God
It was during his
pilgrimage that he began to write some letters to his loyal assistants at the
newly formed Muslim Mosque in
Never have I witnessed such sincere
hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by
people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the House of
Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the
past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I
see displayed all around me by people of all colors. . . .
You may be shocked by these words coming from
me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to
rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held,
and to toss aside some
of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm
convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept
the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have
always kept an open mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand
in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.
During the past eleven days here in the
Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and
slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying to the same God --
with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the
blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words
and in the actions and in the deeds of the "white" Muslims, I felt
the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of
We were truly all the same (brothers) --
because their belief in one God had removed the "white" from their minds,
the 'white' from their behavior,
and the 'white' from their attitude.
I could see from this, that perhaps if white
Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept
in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to measure,
and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.
With racism plaguing
They asked me what about the Hajj had
impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming
to gether as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate
as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented
the Oneness of Man under One God.
Malcolm returned from the pilgrimage as El-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz. He was afire with new spiritual insight. For him, the struggle had evolved from the civil rights struggle of a nationalist to the human rights struggle of an internationalist and humanitarian.
After the
Pilgrimage
White reporters and others were eager to learn about El-Hajj Malik's newly-formed opinions concerning themselves. They hardly believed that the man who had preached against them for so many years could suddenly turn around and call them brothers. To these people El-Hajj Malik had this to say:
You're asking me "Didn't you say that
now you accept white men as brothers?" Well, my answer is that in the
Muslim world, I saw, I felt, and I wrote home how my thinking was broadened!
Just as I wrote, I shared true, brotherly love with many white-complexioned
Muslims who never gave a single thought to the race, or to the complexion, of
another Muslim.
My pilgrimage broadened my scope. It blessed
me with a new insight. In two weeks in the
In the past, yes, I have made sweeping
indictments of all white people. I will never be guilty of that again -- as I
know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable
of being brotherly toward a black man. The true Islam has shown me that a
blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket
indictments against blacks.
To the blacks who increasingly looked to him as a leader, El-Hajj Malik preached a new message, quite the opposite of what he had been preaching as a minister in the Nation of Islam:
True Islam taught me that it takes all of the
religious, political, economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or
characteristics, to make the Human Family and the Human Society complete.
Since I learned the truth in
I said to my
Too Dangerous to
Last
El-Hajj Malik's new
universalistic message was the
The goal has always been the same, with the
approaches to it as different as mine and Dr. Martin Luther King's non-violent
marching, that dramatizes the brutality and the evil of the white man against
defenseless blacks. And in the racial climate of this country today, it is
anybody's guess which of the "extremes" in approach to the black man's
problems might personally meet a fatal catastrophe first --
"non-violent" Dr. King, or so-called "violent" me."
El-Hajj Malik knew full well that he was a target of many groups. In spite of this, he was never afraid to say what he had to say when he had to say it. As a sort of epitaph at the end of his autobiography, he says:
I know that societies often have killed the
people who have helped to change those societies. And if I can die having
brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to
destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of
The Legacy of
Malcolm X
Although El-Hajj
Malik kenw that he was a target for assassination, he accepted this fact
without requesting police protection. On
Malcolm X's life has affected Americans in many important ways. His conversion must have had an influence on Elijah Muhammad's son, Wallace Muhammad, who, after his father's death, led the Nation of Islam's followers into orthodox Islam. African-Americans' interest in their Islamic roots has flourished since El-Hajj Malik's death. Alex Haley, who wrote Malcolm's autobiography, later wrote the epic Roots about an African Muslim family's experience with slavery. More and more African-Americans are becoming Muslim, adopting Muslim names, or explor- ing African culture. Interest in Malcolm X has seen a surge recently due to Spike Lee's movie, X. El-Hajj Malik is a source of pride for African-Americans, Muslims, and Americans in general. His message is simple and clear:
I am not a racist in any form whatever. I don't believe in any form of racism. I don't believe in any form of discrimination or segregation. I believe in Islam