Malcolm X on the Power of Black Collectivism

A man speaking into a microphone while holding cash in his hand

Malcolm X on the Power of Black Collectivism

The following is an excerpt from El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)’s speech “The Ballot or The Bullet” delivered on April 12, 1964 at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan.

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Image: Malcolm X holds a fist full of U.S. currency collected at a “Freedom Rally” sponsored by the Nation of Islam at Uline Arena

Date: June 25, 1961

Photographer: Richard Saunders

Location: Washington, D.C.

(Source: Getty Images)

In this speech, the minister and human rights activist submits a charge to the ‘Black’ people of the United States of America with his blueprint on their future political and economic survival.

While his lecture on Black Nationalism is most relevant to the time he spoke these words, much of his theory on how to achieve and maintain a successful community remains applicable in a 21st century world that is still not conducive to ‘Black’ collective progress.

April 1, 2022April 1, 2022

Fact Check: Are Those Photos of “Amazon Warrior Women From Dahomey” Real or Fake?

Fact vs. Fiction : The So-Called Amazon Women Warriors of Dahomey

[Warning: Readers may find this content to be disturbing.

This article includes vivid descriptions of human suffering.]

You may have seen images of African women in memes claiming “these are the Amazons of Dahomey…”

You may have seen them and thought…”Wow! What a powerful representation of the strength of Black women everywhere. What a resilient people we are.”

But what if I told you that the photos you are looking at are fakes? And that each one is a distortion of the truth?

The truth is: those are not the great women warriors of the Kingdom of Dahomey pictured there – the women who fought two wars against the army of France (in 1890 and again from 1892 to 1894). The men and the children we see in these pictures are not the pride of Dahomey either.

Some of those people were originally from outside the region now referred to as the nation of Benin, where historical Dahomey stood for generations. Some of them had never even seen the African continent.

Yet they styled themselves, willingly or unwillingly, as “Dahomean” entertainers.

March 28, 2022April 9, 2022

The Women Who Said “No.”

The Women Who Said No.

While we commemorate the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the legacy of Rosa Parks, we cannot forget the sacrifices of the many thousands of Black Americans who walked the extra mile to secure the freedoms that we enjoy today.

Among them were names as much deserving of recognition as Rosa Parks, but names we may never find in a textbook on American history.

Meet the Black women who said “No.”

March 22, 2022April 9, 2022

15 Black Nationalist Women Who You Should Know

What is Black nationalism?

Keisha N. Blain, who has studied Black intellectual traditions for the past decade, describes this phenomenon in her book Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (2018):

...What has distinguished Black nationalist thought in the United States from other political ideologies is a militant response to White supremacy, a recognition of the distinctiveness of Black culture and history, and an emphasis on how people who represent a "nation within a nation" ought to create for themselves autonomous spaces in which to advance their own social, political, and economic goals.

At the heart of Black nationalism is a recognition that integration, were it ever to be realized, cannot fully address the persistent challenges of people of African descent in the United States and other parts of the [African] diaspora.

Malcolm X, one of the most influential pioneers of the idea, defined Black nationalism as follows:

The political philosophy of Black nationalism means that the Black man should be in control of the politics in his own community - that the politicians in the community should be Black men answerable only to the people of that Black community...

The economic philosophy of Black nationalism means that the Black man in the Black community should be permitted to be re-educated to the point where he can see how to establish his own businesses and factories and control the economy of his own community whereby he can employ himself, clothe himself, and house himself instead of having to be a welfare recipient or constantly begging the White man downtown.

And the social philosophy of Black nationalism is that the Black man should be proud of his own society, he should be ready and willing at all times to eliminate the ills and evils of his own society, and thereby not having to force himself into White society where he is not wanted.

(emphasis added)

Malcolm X speaks at a news conference in New York on his concept of Black nationalism, March 12, 1964

Black nationalism is circumscribed by four key tenets: pride in Black racial identity or in Black people (and often in what they have accomplished in history), the redemption of Africa for African people (from exploitation by foreign powers), Black economic self-sufficiency, and Black political self-determination. For the last two to work most efficiently, many people who identify with Black nationalism have also advocated for racial separatism.

But it is important that we understand Black nationalism through a broad historical lens. ‘Similar to other ideologies,’ says Blain, ‘Black nationalism is neither static nor monolithic.’ There are still certain boundaries to consider. For example, there have been Black radicals who identify themselves with communism, but in her research, Blain found that Black women who embraced Black nationalism usually subscribed to a community-oriented brand of capitalism and adopted this as a framework for Black liberation.

On the basis of these two perspectives – Malcolm’s and Blain’s – Black women have contributed much to the development of Black nationalist theory all over the world.

Malcolm, from the view of a man, emphasizes the role of the Black man in the process of nation-building. But what did Black women have to say about the role of the Black woman in that process and what Black people on a whole should be doing to make Black collective progress a reality?

Let’s take a look.

January 22, 2022March 23, 2022

Essay: Did Africans Sell Other Africans Into Slavery?

Did Africans Sell Other Africans Into Slavery?

An estimated 12 million people were transported in chains from Africa to the Americas over a period of about 340 years. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was an industry that tore mothers and fathers from their children. It was an industry that gave evil men and women full license to abuse the innocent as they pleased. Even after the final conclusion of the trade, the mass enslavement of human beings continued well into the next century (the last century from our perspective).

Within the narratives that survive today are stories of cold-hearted torture and bloody murder.

Slavery was a painful experience. Slavery is still one of the most difficult topics to discuss.

As a result, there is a lot of confusion about the extent of the slave trade in Africa and the role that Africans played in the process.

July 2, 2021July 3, 2021

The Top 10 Most Successful Black Rebellions Against The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

The Top 10 Most Successful Black Rebellions Against the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Staff
July 2, 2021
10:10 am

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was a system that targeted Black people from different regions of the African continent and forcibly removed them to other lands.

It drew deeper wedges between long-established communities.

It also had another effect.

The resulting turmoil of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade provided the impetus for the unification of African people as they were dispersed across the world. The Middle Passage was a funnel that consolidated thousands of tribes.

What was the result?

Over time, Africans in small pockets of the diaspora came to recognize a common language, culture, and psychology.

A fusion of these elements under a tremendous amount of pressure brought forth new alliances, new movements, and new leaders for a new African society. The new African was an African body possessed by a Black conscience.

From their first encounter with the environment of a slave ship, Africans were learning how to navigate a society that stigmatized them. With each law and enforcement of oppression, the new society threatened to outline the limits of their expression, and by extension, their identity.

Against these restrictions from the dominant society, Africans began to develop connections with each other based on similar struggles and shared interests. These scattered connections developed into distinct networks of individuals with their own ideas and aspirations. The Black communities of the Americas were born through these very processes of collective resolve in favor of the status quo or against it.

African rebellions became Black rebellions. In the defense of their freedom, by choosing to act within the framework of the group, they were also defending their right to their newfound identity. They were defending their Blackness.

In this article, we will examine 10 such moments in history when Black people were united against their oppression.

These are just some of the cases in which Black rebels worked together and succeeded in freeing themselves.

June 18, 2021July 2, 2021

The Top Five Reasons Why Black People Were Not United Against Their Enslavement

a sketch showing an African slave trader in Africa whipping captives as they are taken away by their new masters

The Top Five Reasons Why Black People Were Not United Against Their Enslavement

“Shipping Slaves Through The Surf, West African Coast. A Cruiser Signaled in Sight“
(From a Sketch by a Merchant on the Coast)
1856
(Source: The Church Missionary Intelligencer: A Monthly Journal of Missionary Information, Volume 7, via Slavery Images)

Black people have been through it all.

We have been through the thick and the thin; the pain and the gain; the highs and lows; the sunshine and the rain.

But even while we endured these trials together, we were never a fully unified people.

Here are some of the primary reasons why we were not united in the time of our greatest adversity: universal enslavement.

November 26, 2020May 29, 2021

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