Some Myths About Malcolm X

  

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Published by Askia Muhammad   The Race.

  

  Brother Malcolm X looms—on May 19, 2011, the 86th anniversary of his birth—as an icon, almost larger than life itself.

I admit, I never met Brother Malcolm. I never heard him speak in person. I do know however several people who knew him very well. I also know at least two highly respected writers, intellectuals, who told me that they had “intended” to go to the Audobon Ballroom in Harlem on Feb. 21, 1965 to hear Brother Malcolm reveal the platform of his new movement—the Organization of African American Unity (OAAU)—but they failed to attend. Brother Malcolm was assassinated that day with about 450 people in attendance.

Today, there are legions of admirers of this incredible leader, but there were only 450 with him at the Audobon Ballroom that tragic day.

Myth No. 1: “The Black Muslims Murdered Malcolm X.”

In their haste to defame the Nation of Islam and to justify the feud they fomented and fanned between Brother Malcolm and his teacher—the Honorable Elijah Muhammad—the New York Police Department (NYPD), the FBI, the NY District Attorney’s office and other secret government enemies of both Mr. Muhammad and Brother Malcolm, hastily arrested and convicted two innocent men of the murder.

Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, who were members of NOI Mosque No. 25 in Newark, NJ, served more than 30 years in prison for a crime they did not commit. Practically all the scholarship on the assassination confirms their innocence.

Talmadge Hayer—also known by the name Thomas Hagan—is one of the convicted assassins. He was shot at the scene by Reuben X Francis, one of the chiefs of Brother Malcolm’s security, after Hayer shot the victim. Hayer eventually admitted his guilt and testified repeatedly that neither Butler nor Johnson were involved in the plot.

Francis on the other hand was indicted for shooting Hayer, jumped bail, was then re-arrested Feb. 15, 1966 almost a year later. On that same date “a spokesman for the FBI denied any knowledge of Francis,” according to The Militant, a weekly Socialist newspaper. Reuben never testified in the murder trial and his whereabouts are now unknown. No death certificate. No tax returns. He disappeared. Can you say “government witness protection program?”

On the day of the assassination, Francis reportedly re-assigned the guards who would have been in the front of the auditorium near the speaker—the victim—to the rear of the room.

Meanwhile: “Gene Roberts, (another) one of Malcolm’s chiefs of security, was an NYPD undercover cop. He later went on to bigger things by being a disruptive force inside of the Black Panther Party,” Dr. Manning Marable, author of a definitive, recently published new biography of Brother Malcolm told Amy Goodman, host of “Democracy Now!” in an interview Feb. 21, 2005.

So, we have two of the chiefs of Brother Malcolm’s security whose behavior should be suspect, receiving very little public scrutiny, while the bogus myth persists that The Black Muslims Murdered Malcolm X.

Myth No. 2: “By Any Means Necessary.”

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again and again: Niccolo Machiavelli was morally wrong when he wrote in feudal Italy in his famous 16th Century text The Prince: “The security of the state is more important than the morality of the means. In the actions of men…when there is no court of appeal, one judges by the result.”

French intellectual Jean Paul Sartre said it this way in his 1963 play Dirty Hands: “I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary.” Sartre was wrong in my opinion. The ends do not justify the means.

And so it follows, Brother Malcolm was in error when he promised in 1965: “We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.” The ends do not justify the means.

Myth No. 3: The Plight of Blacks in America Could Be Improved by Going Before the United Nations.

The United Nations is a toothless tiger, a rubber stamp, which crumbles to do the will of the world’s foremost colonial powers—the United States, the United Kingdom (England) and France. Those imperialists constitute three of the UN’s five Security Council members.

In the Court of Fowls, the Cockroach never wins his case.