Today is the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. This is a piece by Ajamu Baraka, re-posted from Black Agenda Report.

Every year, people around the world honor Malcolm X. Though he was taken from us prematurely, his memory and impact remain. With that memory, there is a mandate that we accept and carry on the legacy of his politics and the others who are the heart of the Black Radical Tradition. 

“The price to make others respect your human rights is death. You have to be ready to die… it’s time for you and me now to let the world know how peaceful we are, how well-meaning we are, how law-abiding we wish to be. But at the same time, we have to let the same world know we’ll blow their world sky-high if we’re not respected and recognized and treated the same as other human beings are treated.”  (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, Malcolm X) 

“…to be committed to justice we must believe that ethics matter, that it is vital to have a system of shared morality.” (Bell Hooks)  

On a cold New York afternoon in Harlem February 21, 1965, “Don’t Do it,” were the last words that the world heard from the voice of El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X, before the assassins opened fire with a barrage of bullets that would take Malcolm away from us physically.  

So we come every year to commemorate February 21, the day Malcolm was added to the long list of the great African anti-colonial fighters our struggle produced in the ongoing battle against the slavers and colonizers that spilled out of Europe in 1492 to stain human history with their unprecedented savagery. 

Continue reading “The Spiritual Property of the People” →