This article was originally published by The Emancipator.
The legacy of Malcolm X matters today.
Donald Trump’s second term has created a state of fear.
Many Americans fear this administration’s vengeance and retribution, its threatening, arresting, kidnapping, defunding, firing, criminalizing, bombing, and the possibility of World War III.
Americans fear losing federal funding for critical services. They fear speaking out, incarceration, death, losing jobs, protesting, deportation to Salvadoran mega-prisons, and their citizenship not mattering when ICE comes knocking. Americans fear truth-telling about history, racism, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and genocide.
That’s why the legacy of Malcolm X matters today.
As threats escalated over the last year of his life, Malcolm expressed he had no fear in press conferences, speeches, and writings in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Assassins silenced Malcolm’s revolutionary voice in 1965. But no one could silence the messages of fearlessness he recorded and left to the world — messages that can be played right now in the year Malcolm would have turned 100 years old.
Fear is a weapon of control. Rulers can leverage fear to thwart resistance. The power of fear can cause people to fear their power.
Once bound by fear, people are unlikely to resist the onslaughts on human rights, on the rule of law, on democracy, on equity.
Once bound by fear, people are likely to accommodate onslaughts against their own lives and livelihoods, believing they are protecting themselves and their loved ones.
But history tells us that rulers, whether kings, dictators, or authoritarian presidents, have been powerless to control entire populations absolutely. Rulers have tried but failed to block activists, journalists, scholars, writers, artists, and ministers from revealing injustice and challenging power. Rulers have tried but failed to slow the unrelenting stream of demonstrations, protests, rebellions, and revolutions. Even within states of fear, there remained pockets of fearlessness.
Malcolm came of age politically in a state of fear. He began his binge reading in prison at the onset of the McCarthy era, which left some of his favorite authors targeted and smeared, and effectively banned. Malcolm departed prison in 1952 when Ku Klux Klansmen and sheriffs were terrorizing Americans who dared to join the budding Civil Rights Movement. He fearlessly advocated for self-defense against the Klan and police violence. But he witnessed White Americans’ fear that he was calling for anti-White violence — and, in turn, he witnessed Black Americans fear that scared White Americans would respond with more anti-Black violence.
Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam enabled Malcolm’s meteoric rise from an incarcerated school dropout into the Muslim revolutionary and pulsating orator well known today. Yet, Malcolm started feeling constrained politically by the Nation’s theology, and his devotion hollowed after confirming Muhammad’s illicit affairs with secretaries in 1963. Meanwhile, FBI informants and agents worked overtime to drive a wedge between Muhammad and Malcolm. When Malcolm left the Nation in 1964, retribution followed.
Fear of Muhammad’s Nation of Islam could have, but ultimately did not, bound Malcolm. Consider when Malcolm walked out of the Queens County Civil Court building in New York City on June 15, 1964. In response to Malcolm’s departure, the Nation sought the eviction of Malcolm’s family from a house the Nation owned near LaGuardia Airport. Malcolm fought the eviction in court.
Malcolm emerged from the courthouse into a crowd of reporters gathering outside for an impromptu press conference. Flanked by bodyguards, Malcolm stepped to the microphones and cameras.
A reporter asked if he was worried. “No, I don’t worry,” Malcolm answered. “I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.”
Another reporter asked, “Anyone call you directly, Malcolm?”
“Oh, I’ve been receiving calls ever since I left the Black Muslim movement,” Malcolm replied. The calls he referenced: death threats.
“Why are they threatening your life?” someone asked.
“Primarily because they are afraid that I will tell the real reason why I’m out of the Black Muslim movement,” Malcolm responded, referring to Muhammad’s illicit affairs.
It seemed as if the more death threats Malcolm received from the Nation, the more he called forth his fearlessness. He looked past the fear encircling him. He encouraged people to do the same.
Malcolm spoke to the fearlessness of “the generation that’s coming up now,” including those young Black civil rights activists undeterred by threats of jail time. “If you go to jail, so what? If you’re Black, you were born in jail,” Malcolm orated in Detroit on April 12, 1964.
A person who recognizes that racism has jailed them won’t fear the jail time that may come from the fight against racism. Likewise, a person who recognizes that they are already dead if they are not fighting for their liberation won’t fear the death that may come from the fight for liberation.
Malcolm told the reporters outside the courthouse he didn’t fear death. “I am a man who believes that I died twenty years ago,” he said. Twenty years prior, racism had pushed Malcolm’s family into poverty. Racism and poverty have a way of killing livelihoods.
Months after the courthouse press conference, Malcolm was still fighting the eviction in court. His family had still not left their home. So, the Nation of Islam firebombed his home on Feb. 14, 1965, to get them out. In the wee hours of the morning, with his bombed-out home behind him, Malcolm spoke to another impromptu gathering of reporters.
“It doesn’t frighten me,” he said. “It doesn’t quiet me down in any way or shut me up.”
Ironically, he learned to defeat fear from Elijah Muhammad. In a speech Malcolm never forgot, Muhammad preached to his Nation: “Over you is the greatest enemy a man can have — and that is fear.”
Malcolm’s fearlessness did not even ebb when he started to believe that he had an even more powerful adversary than the Nation of Islam. After France barred his entry on Feb. 9, 1965, Malcolm came to believe that the U.S. government was after him. After all, Malcolm had spent the last decade prosecuting the racism and hypocrisy of the American project with clinical precision. Malcolm had spent the last year trying to convince an African nation to go before the United Nations to charge the United States with violating the human rights of Black Americans. And through it all, he carried on with no fear.
Numerous people are carrying on Malcolm’s fearlessness. Malcolm would have noticed this bravery in the State of the People POWER Tour that activated, rallied, and organized Black people in cities across the country in May and June.
Malcolm would notice this valor in the immigration activists, lawyers, and judges defending due process.
He would notice this fearlessness in the philanthropists increasing their giving to social justice organizations, and the institutions doubling down on public commitments to equity and justice.
He would recognize this heroism in the public servants focused on protecting more than their jobs but the American people. Malcolm would witness this boldness in the students protesting against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza; in the activists protesting against mounting violence against Jewish and Muslim Americans.
He would recognize this courage in the doctors defiantly providing banned reproductive health care, and all the educators, librarians, and caregivers providing banned books.
Malcolm would notice this valor in the Americans mobilizing almost every weekend in pro-democracy demonstrations.
Malcolm would recognize his fearlessness in all those antiracist Americans organizing against the dangers of racism as the Trump administration strives each day to make it ever more dangerous to organize against racism.
Malcolm died. His fearlessness lives.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Learn more about third-party content on AntifaHQ.com.
