“We declare our right on this earth…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.” – El Hajj Malik El Shabazz
Is Malcolm X looking for you? Is El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz scoping for his enemies, or is he waiting patiently for his friends? Or was this a prophetic pose meant to imply that the Civil and Human Rights struggle would never be fully won?
The beauty of this black-and-white photograph is that it is vapid and inconclusive. There are several theories and conjectures about where the picture came from, but no one knows. A 2014 article on “The Grio” website implied as much.
“But what of the iconic photo itself? When did it creep into our consciousness? Where did it come from? Most point to articles in Life and Ebony magazines. Life’s March 20, 1964, article “The Ominous Malcolm X Exits from the Muslims” does not include that particular image. In the September 1964 issue of Ebony, a similar photo accompanies Hans J. Massaquoi’s “Mystery of Malcolm X: Fired Black Muslim Denounces cult, vows to take part in rights revolution” story, but it is not the photo in the article.
“It was the hardest photo to track down in any official capacity,” says Professor Zaheer Ali, who served as project manager of The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University. More than likely, Ali concludes, the photo comes from the Ebony shoot.”
Who knows what Malcolm was looking for or at? But the beauty of having a creative and critical mind is that you always have options and explanations – Especially if you are Black and American and the subject is as diverse and complex as Malcolm X.
Unlike any other of our other martyrs, Malcolm X was the only Black leader killed by his own people. Despite the eventual and fatal infighting among the Black Brotherhood, Malcolm X’s life was replete with reasons and rationale to be leery and weary of overt racism and its White operatives. But if he were peering beyond that window today, whom would he be looking for or at?
Malcolm X was a self-made intellectual. Maybe he is perusing the landscape, afraid that he might be captured by America’s Black Intelligentsia, who sit on their “Blessed Ass-urance” and do little to help the “less-thans” who are sinking for lack of education. We don’t need them just to be smart; we need a brain dump. With the impending Trump administration, we must teach our own or at least supplement public education.
You could argue that Malcolm X was readying his defense for another era of racial turmoil. Full-fledged MAGA males are so obsessed with the idea of losing or sharing power that they are promoting a race war! They are ready to up their game on attacking minorities, women, LGBT, Hispanics, and anyone else that does not have their “thoroughbred bloodline and gender.”
Malcolm could be looking at the 1% of the wealthiest of Americans who are comfortable saying that their poor and middle-class subjects should quit whining about income inequality. The 1%ers agreed with the late billionaire Tom Perkins, who once defended his idea that every dollar you have should equate to one vote. By the end of that same year, the Supreme Court Jesters upheld the Citizens United decision. Now we know the decision made the rich richer, just like the one in 1619. A wealthy White man takes a gullible Negro (Clearance Thom-ass) on a free boat ride, and the rest is Negro history. That could be what had Malcolm peering beyond the veil of his safe haven.
Remember that Malcolm never took an offensive posture with any of his enemies, Black, White, religious, or governmental. But Malcolm was wise enough to know to prepare himself and his family to defend the worst.
My daddy always said, “If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready!”
Over the next four years, we need to model Malcolm. Find our safe spaces, quiet the rhetoric, watch the enemy, stay ready for a fight, and win by any means necessary.
A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award-winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.
