SPIKE LEE's movie about Malcolm X has created a post-war leader. Malcolm's assassination on 21 February 1965 was no surprise; in his last few months he lived in constant fear of assassination.
After a first murder attempt, which obviously relied on meticulous surveillance and planning, Malcolm suspected that state agencies were involved.
Despite the hostility of the Black Muslims to Malcolm after he left them, most likely the US state apparatus killed him. Because they were scared; scared of a charismatic leader evolving in an increasingly revolutionry, anti-capitalist direction 'hestorv of Malcolm's politi cal evolution in his last fateful year is recounted by George Breitman in 'The Last Year of Malcolm X'. Breitman was a leader of the US Socialist Workers Party, then linked with the trotskyist Fourth International, at whose meetings Malcolm spoke several times. This account is based on Brietman's excellent book*.
By 1963 Malcolm X had been a member of the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) for 11 years. The Muslims, starting out as a small sect, grew rapidly as the civil rights struggle pushed forward the issue of racism.
The Muslims were black separatists, advocating breaking off contact with society, and organising the black community on the basis of their own puritanical morality.
Because of his remarkable oratorical skills Malcolm became Muslim leader Elijah Mohammed's most famous lieutenant. Malcolm also pushed the hardest radical message of black defiance and resistance, which created tensions with the Muslim hierarchy.
The split With Elijah Mohammed was provoked by the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. Muslim leaders were instructed to keep silent on the issue, an injunction Malcolm broke in a famous statement about 'chickens coming home to roost.
The implications of his statement were clear; the assassination of the leader of the white power structure was an issue which shouldn't concern black Americans.
Elijah Mohammed was outraged and ordered Malcolm not to speak for 90 days. Ninety days silence to atone for his bucking of Muslim discipline.
It was during this period that Malcolm decided that the message of the Muslims, that of black separatism, in reality meant passivity towards the struggle against racism and black oppression. Malcolm split from the Muslims and founded his own 'Muslim Mosque Inc.' After the split and a visit to Mecca, where Malcolm became a follower of orthodox Islam, he said:
'No religion will ever make me forget the conditions of our people in this country. No religion will ever make me forget the continued fighting with dogs against our people in this country. No religion will ever make me forget the police clubs that come up 'side on our heads...
Any time I have a religion that won't let me fight for my people, I say to hell with that religion. That's why I'm a Muslim.' In fact Malcolm X did not come out of the Black Muslims with a worked out alternative; he was rethinking his positions on the run. What he did know was that the Muslims were utterly passive in face of the antiracist struggle. They faced a challenge to their popularity in the ghettoes from the growing civil rights movement, and organisations like the Freedom Now Party During the first few months of Malcolm's 'independent' period, the 50 weeks between his split with the Muslims and his assassination, he moved gradually the separatism of the Muslims to black nationalism.
At first his nationalism was stated in continued religious terms, signified by the name of his new organisation, the Muslim Mosque Inc.
The black separatism of the Nation of Islam meant advocating a complete break with white society; black nationalism meant building unity among black people for a struggle with the white power structure. This in fact was the underlying difference which Malcolm wrestled with during the 90 days of silence imposed by Elijah Mohammed.
But there was a contradiction between the objective of black unity in the struggle for nationhood, and the expression of that struggle in a religious organisation - the Muslim Mosque. The recognition of that contradiction led to Malcolm's formation of the Organisation of Afro-American Unity in December 1964.
Throughout the last 50 weeks of his life Malcolm's thought was evolving. For example, in April 1964 his comments on a white pacifist minister killed by a bulidozer during an antiracist demonstration were entirely negative. The white man's sacrifice, he said, was 'too late', given the centuries of white oppression.
Butby December of that year, he had no hesitation praising
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