The Metamorphoses of Malcolm X

THE METAMORPHOSES OF MALCOLM X
Nikhil Parmar

Introduction Malcolm X is one of the most controversial figures in US history. His dominant image is that of a ‘black supremacist’; an image embedded into the mass mind to such an extent it has become an ‘historical fact’. The picture painted has associated Malcolm with violence, racism and hate, so future generations will dismiss him as just a racist demagogue – a one-dimensional, fanatical enemy of America. This raises the issue of ‘facts in history’, and how such accusations became ‘facts’. However, in this essay, I will show that such images belie Malcolm X’s extraordinary dynamism and non-fixedness, and his immense metamorphoses as a man, leader, and thinker. Having divided his life into three stages – since he did live his life in three distinct stages, with three different personalities and goals – I conclude that while the dominant image is superficially plausible, it is in fact an image severely distorted due to the threat that Malcolm posed to racial domination and inequality, and by extension his threat to both US domestic security and US foreign policy, even after his death. Malcolm X himself predicted exactly this in his autobiography – that after he dies “the white man, in his press, is going to identify [him] with ‘hate’. He will make use of [him] dead, as he has made use of [him] alive, as a convenient symbol of ‘hatred’” (MALCOLM X, 1964, 381).

Beginnings Malcolm Little was born to a mixed race mother, Louise Little, and a black father, Earl Little, a Baptist minister. An outspoken supporter of Pan-African activist Marcus Garvey, this was believed to have caused Earl’s murder by white supremacists in 1931. The significance of Earl’s murder is often totally and inexplicably overlooked: it should never be forgotten that the causes for which Malcolm would later fight were those exact causes for which his father had died. It was during this stage of his life that Malcolm X admitted he was proud to be a light-skinned “Negro”, revealing an inferiority complex that was a reality for the vast majority of African-Americans, another aspect of his youth vital in Malcolm’s eventual conversion to the Nation of Islam (NOI), where he, conversely, strongly advocated and encouraged black pride – pride lost when the “white man went into Africa … and kidnapped … millions of black men … tortured as slaves” (MALCOLM X, 1964, 162); an inferiority complex brought about when “the slavemaster injected his Christian religion into this "Negro" … taught to worship an alien God having the same blond hair, pale skin, and blue eyes as the slavemaster” (MALCOM X, 1964, 163). Such personal experiences are often completely disregarded when Malcolm’s eventual descent into racism is considered. Hence, this first stage demonstrates how the NOI were able to mould him into that racist we have heard so much about, but also into that figure for black unity and pride about which less is heard. Malcolm X himself remarked that “to understand … any person, his whole life, from birth, must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient” (MALCOLM X, 1964, p150). And this was certainly true of him.
First Metamorphosis The second stage of his life began in prison (1946), where he became literate and began first to appreciate religion, which rehabilitated and totally transformed him. He gained nationwide recognition as ‘Malcolm X’, through his involvement with the NOI, a religious, US-based organisation for black people, which taught that the ‘white man’ was the devil who had brainwashed the black man. Crucially, the Nation believed that for black Americans to be truly ‘free’ from whites, they needed to be fully separated and economically self-sufficient. Malcolm, convinced that the Nation was his calling, unequivocally accepted the racist views central to the religion. Some argue that Malcolm accepted the Nation so quickly because he was a racist all along – that joining forces with the black supremacist NOI was the next logical step. However, there are two simple reasons for his embracing the teachings of Elijah Muhammad (NOI leader). The first can be inferred from something he later noted – that “the very enormity of [his] previous life’s guilt prepared [him] to accept the truth … the truth can be quickly received … only by the sinner who knows and admits that he is guilty of having sinned much” (MALCOLM X, 1964, 163). This shows the sheer vulnerability of a guilty criminal – it was during this time that he was swept away by the Nation. The second reason why he so quickly took to the idea that the white man was ‘the devil’ was due directly to many personal ‘incidents’ with white people. Indeed, he recalled that on being told that the white man was the devil, “[his] mind involuntarily [flashed] across the entire spectrum of white people [he] had ever known … the whites [he] didn’t know had killed [his] father…the whites who kept calling [his] mother ‘crazy’ … until she … was taken off … to the … asylum” (MALCOLM X, 1964, 159). The list goes on. So, while it is accepted that Malcolm X was racist towards white people for this portion of his life, it is important to recognise that these two examples – both of which took place when he was very young and impressionable, together resulting in his family splitting – show us how he was moulded into the racist he became infamous for being: because the view that the white man was the devil was so perfectly aligned with a wealth of personal experiences. This stage in Malcolm’s life is the one which is unjustly often used to sum him up. While it is conceded that he did harbour racist views at this stage, the accuracy of that portrayal as a promoter of unprovoked black-on-white violence is disputed heavily. Indeed it is clear that the only violence ever advocated by Malcolm X was black self-defence against white violence. In reality, at the height of his fame with the NOI, he was frequently criticised for the Nation’s inaction and lack of militancy, in contrast to the life-risking tactics of civil rights activists. However, as the influence of the Nation grew in America and Africa, the US mainstream media launched a smear campaign against them, obscuring the good they stood for. A notable example was the 1959 television documentary, The Hate That Hate Produced, which catapulted the Nation and Malcolm to nationwide infamy. Despite its huge popularity at the time, it has since been thoroughly criticised for its sheer one-sidedness and shameless attempts to shock white viewers by misrepresenting the Nation, deliberately confusing “the Nation's rhetoric that condemned white people, with a specific plan for violence against white people” (SHAPIRO, 1988, 469). The misrepresentation was mirrored over several national newspapers simply because the Nation marked the first radical alternative to the peaceful Civil Rights’ Movement. Malcolm X highlighted the terrible socioeconomic hardships of black Americans in the North, drawing attention to the utter uselessness of the famous Supreme Court rulings of the late 1950s in stemming ‘de facto’ racism up North. Therefore, the media impugned the credibility of the Nation, dismissing it as a violent group preaching a gospel of hate. Hence, although the accusations against Malcolm of racism are undeniable, allegations of promoting unprovoked violence against whites were totally unfounded and fictitious, created due to white American fear that this approach could yield more significant gains than the preferred Civil Rights’ Movement.
Final Metamorphosis The final stage of Malcolm’s life started in March 1964 with his official split with the NOI, ending with his assassination by some of their members in February 1965. His split with the Nation, conversion to mainstream Islam and consequent pilgrimage to Mecca showed him that racism against white people was not the solution, as he witnessed people from every sort of background co-existing harmoniously. He concluded that working alongside anti-racist white people was not only possible but also objectively necessary in achieving a racially just society. This life-stage is by far and away the most important because Malcolm revolutionised the Civil Rights’ Movement, by elevating the struggle to the Human Rights of black Americans, involving the United Nations and several African, Muslim countries. The new organisation he founded, the Muslim Mosque, Inc, called for black Americans to reconstruct their African identity and control the economics and politics of the black community. As a consequence of both his desire to reignite African-American identity and to find African support for his UN petition, in 1965 Malcolm X made two trips to Africa, the second of which lasted four months, where he met with every prominent African leader. With them, due to their immense respect for him as the most influential American Black Nationalist since Garvey, he established powerful links that would help him convince them to petition the UN to intervene in US domestic affairs. His formal establishment of these links marked the first time African states had formally acknowledged their connection with the descendents of enslaved Africans in America. Unsurprisingly, the totally unorthodox methods of a civil rights leader going abroad and criticising America’s domestic policy drew internal anger towards Malcolm from the FBI, CIA and the State Department. The nations which Malcolm visited were both of economic importance to the Western world because of their mineral resources and were furthermore pivotal to Cold War competition. Hence, it is clear that silencing Malcolm X was in the State Department’s interests, given that, as historian George Breitman argues, “the State Department blamed him, for a good part of the strong stand against United States imperialism taken by African nations in the United Nations”(LEDWIDGE, 2012, 150). Moreover, the improving relationship between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm was another reason for the continuing deterioration of relations between Malcolm and the federal government. Once Malcolm had split with the Nation and began cooperating with African leaders, King became keen to join forces, particularly because King, a paragon of non-violent resistance, had begun to question the wisdom of not being more radical, following the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama church bombing where four black girls were killed. An alliance between King and Malcolm greatly frightened the US authorities. Indeed, historian Karl Evanzz noted that after “the FBI encountered information indicating that Malcolm X and Dr. King might actually become partners in the civil rights struggle…Hoover, in conjunction with the CIA, initiated a new phase…against Malcolm X and Dr. King” (LEDWIDGE, 2012, 151). Hence, due to the threats Malcolm X posed to US Cold War and economic interests in Africa, and domestically by a potential alliance with King, it follows that silencing Malcolm and thus ending his direct foreign and domestic influence was something the US authorities would want. However, it isn’t argued that the FBI killed Malcolm X, as it is known that he died at the hands of five NOI members. What is argued, however, is that Hoover’s FBI and the CIA knew, as did Malcolm, that the Nation were plotting his death and had issued an order for his death over a year earlier. But the FBI, CIA and New York Police Department did absolutely nothing to prevent his assassination. As historian C. A. Clegg wrote, “without question, the FBI and the NYPD share partial culpability for the murder” (LEDWIDGE, 2012, p151).
Conclusion
I conclude that the FBI, CIA and NYPD neglected their duties in defending an American citizen they knew to be in grave danger; and that following his death the US media and government succeeded in undermining the credibility of the ‘violent racist’, Malcolm X. Totally ignored is the last stage of Malcolm’s life, where he took a bold stance against Western hegemony, stood for black pride, unity and nationalism, and revolutionised the Civil Rights’ Movement. Played up is an ultimately false or exaggerated sense that he was a race fanatic on a par with Klansmen, rather than the historically more accurate picture of a courageous fighter for human rights.