Below is a slightly modified talk that I gave at the 2016 Left Forum, Saturday May 21st, 2016 at John Jay College in Manhattan, NY. The Left Forum is a yearly assembly of progressive forces from social democrats to revolutionary Pan-Africanists. Organizers requested insight on current developments of the Black Freedom Struggle. This is my response.
Thursday, May 19th was the 91st revolutionary birthday of Brother Minister, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Brother Malcolm X). He was born May 19th 1925, brutally assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom on February 21st, 1965. And it would be just like Malcolm to request upon us that we not only lift his name in love and respect, but to also lift Yuri Kochiyama, Lorraine Hansberry and Brother Ho Chi Minh’s name in love and respect.
I think the way that Malcolm was evolving that he would want us to recognize all of their contributions to the struggle of poor and oppressed people. This was the same Malcolm X who said “I, for one, will join in with anyone, I don’t care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition.”
Unfortunately, comrades, we’re still living many of those same miserable conditions. The same conditions that Malcolm was preaching about in 1964/65 are the same conditions we’re living today: racism and Jim Crow legal practices, police murders of Black men, Black women and Black babies, church burnings and mass incarceration, poor housing and third class living…