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Black America Web
20-05-2025
- General
- Black America Web
Malcolm X At 100 Offers Lessons In Resilience And Resistance
Source: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Celebrating Malcolm X's life and legacy offers an opportunity to reflect on his many lessons in resilience and resistance. He spent his entire life resisting intersecting systems of oppression, but he never wavered in his commitment to uplifting Black people at home and abroad. Malcolm was firm in his demand for justice and equality. His experience as a Black Muslim living in America informed every move he made. Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcolm's third oldest daughter, spoke with Omaha's KMTV 3 News Now about the long overdue recognition of her father's life and legacy. Shabazz expressed joy at people finally recognizing her father's compassion and commitment to human rights. She also briefly highlighted the new exhibit on Malcolm X at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., in an Instagram Reel. Erika D. Gault, Ph.D., the Director of the Center for the Study of African American Religious Life and the Lilly Endowment Curator of African American Religious History at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, spoke to Shabazz about the importance of the exhibit. 'This is sacred ground,' Gault said. 'This is preserving a story of the people who sometimes their humanity was called into question. And this becomes a visible proof both of their humanity and their unique contribution to history.' As I reflected on Malcolm X's 100th birthday, I listened to several old speeches and thought about what my parents taught me about him. While there are new contours and complications, many of the same issues he spoke about and their impact on Black people are still present. Here are five lessons in resistance and resilience from Malcolm X's teachings to consider as we celebrate his 100th birthday: Growing up, many of us have heard the phrase knowledge is power. We grow our power by leaning into the importance of knowing. Malcolm's evolution demonstrated the power and necessity of political education and being able to evolve when we receive new information and perspectives. It's also important to understand the people we are lifting up and emulating. Speaking with NewsOne , Jihad Abdulmumit, chairman of the Jericho Movement, encouraged those commemorating Malcolm to remember the strength and grounding he received from his faith, even as he sought to work across religious communities. 'It gives you direction and grounding,' Abdulmumit said. 'I'm a Muslim, and I'm also a member of the Black Liberation Army. So many brothers and sisters in the Black liberation movement accepted Islam, following the example of Malcolm, that became our motivating force.' Understanding Malcolm X and how he became the man we admire is important as we seek answers and strategies to move our people forward. Self-determination and building Black political power While many are familiar with Malcolm's commitment to self-determination, his call for strategic political engagement and governance is often overlooked. During his speech at the first rally for the Organization for Afro-American Unity, Malcolm outlined a strategy for building independent Black political power, which included voter registration and voter education drives. He also called for running independent candidates who represented and reflected the values and interests of the Black community. His strategy echoes a similar sentiment as one outlined by Ida B. Wells-Barnett in her 1910 pamphlet 'How Enfranchisement Stops Lynching.' Like Wells, Malcolm X understood the importance of securing ballot line access and supporting elected officials committed to uplifting Black people. Black-led power-building organizations like Action St. Louis, Detroit Action, Advance Carolina, and Milwaukee's Black Leaders Organizing Communities embrace a similar approach. Malcolm spent his life defying the odds and often encouraged his supporters to do the same. He set big and bold goals that others may have said were impossible. When he formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity, he set out to unite over 20 million Black Americans. His demand that the U.S. be charged with human rights violations for the deplorable treatment of Black people in America was a shocking statement for the times. And yet, the odds didn't stop him. Today, several groups have engaged the United Nations, similar to the strategy outlined by Malcolm before he was stolen from us. Documenting the mistreatment and injustices is important to eventual redress and restoration for Black people and others impacted by systemic oppression and white supremacy. Freedom and liberation require collective organizing Through his short-lived work with the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Malcolm set forth a foundational principle for the need to organize as a collective and in collaboration with various groups. Further, he inspired a generation of young leaders who took his legacy and commitment to resilience and resistance into new organizations and movements. Malcolm X inspired generations of organizers who leaned into his calls for self-determination and human rights as a grounding framework. And people like Imam Jamil Al-Amin (formerly known as H. Rap Brown), and Organization of Afro-American Unity members Herman Ferguson and Sekou Odinga are among the many inspired by Malcolm who would go on to dedicate their lives to fighting for Black liberation, freedom, and justice. Ferguson, along with Jalil Muntaqim and Safiyah Bukhari, would later form the Jericho Movement among other notable contributions to the struggle. Grounding our work in a human rights framework Malcolm recognized the collective struggle of oppressed people across the board. He often spoke about human rights as a framework for his organizing. He demanded respect for our humanity and independence, and encouraged Black people to seek out human rights, not just civil rights. 'The best thing that we can do, in my humble opinion, in commemorating El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, is to try to pick up the mantle of fighting for human rights,' Abudlmumit said. Much of the work of the Jericho Movement and its partner organizations is grounded in a human rights framework. Abdulmumit said we are dealing with the same power dynamics that Malcolm X fought against. 'It's the old saying, the more things change, the more they remain the same,' Abdulmumit said. 'So honoring [him] has become just a motivator and a reminder for everybody, and I hope that we can be encouraged to study his life and see if we can be just as courageous and bold and studious and active as he was in trying to bring about change.' SEE ALSO: Malcolm X's Childhood Trauma And The Case For Abolishing Family Policing 5 Facts You Should Know About Malcolm X SEE ALSO Malcolm X At 100 Offers Lessons In Resilience And Resistance was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
Time of India
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
How Malcolm X fought against the 'American nightmare'
Black Muslim leader Malcolm X holds up a paper for the crowd to see during a Black Muslim rally in New York City on Aug. 6, 1963. (Photo: AP) "What do you think you would do after 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow and lynching? Do you think you would respond nonviolently?" Those were some of the key questions Malcolm X posed to American society. Although slavery had been abolished in the US in 1865, the so-called Jim Crow laws continued to cement everyday discrimination against Black people until 1964. There were artificial barriers to their right to vote in some states, and in many they weren't allowed to sit next to white people on buses or in restaurants. " Malcolm X addressed precisely the issues that were burning on the minds of oppressed African Americans," Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson, author of the biography "Malcolm X: The Black Revolutionary," told DW. His message to African Americans was clear: Be self-confident! Fight for your rights "by any means necessary" — even with violence. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Les Payne (1941-2018) recalled in his Malcolm X biography how a 1963 speech by the activist freed him, as if by a "flashing sword blow," from the "conditioned feeling of inferiority as a Black man" deeply rooted in his psyche. That was precisely Malcom X's goal. A childhood marred by racism: Born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, Malcolm Little's childhood near Detroit was marked by poverty and violence. He was six years old when his father was found dead; according to various accounts, he had been murdered by white supremacists. With seven children and little money, Malcom's mother was completely overwhelmed and became mentally ill. Malcolm was placed in various foster families and institutions; he later spoke in his autobiography of the "terror of the very white social workers. " Despite his difficult beginnings, he was a good student, the only Black person in his class. A key experience had a profound impact on him: His favourite teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Malcolm replied that he would like to study law. But the teacher, using an offensive racist slur to describe him, told him that wasn't a realistic goal for a boy like him. The young Malcolm was completely disillusioned. His grades dropped dramatically, and at 15, he moved to Boston to live with his half-sister Ella Collins , and later to New York. He supported himself by doing odd jobs before becoming a petty criminal. In his early 20s, he was imprisoned for various burglaries. "Here is a Black man caged behind bars, probably for years, put there by the white man," he later wrote in his autobiography. "You let this caged-up Black man start realizing, as I did, how from the first landing of this first slave ship, the millions of Black men in America have been like sheep in a den of wolves. That's why Black prisoners become Muslims so fast when Elijah Muhammad 's teachings filter into their cages by the way of other Muslim convicts." The mentor Malcolm X refers to, Elijah Muhammad , was a Black separatist and the leader of the Nation of Islam, a religious-political organization of African Americans outside of Islamic orthodoxy. Fight against the 'white devils' Nation of Islam (NOI) "claims that all Black people are inherently children of God and good, and all white people are inherently evil and children of the devil," explains Waldschmidt-Nelson. "What made this very attractive to Malcolm and many other prison inmates, of course, is that someone would come along and say, 'You are not to blame for your misery; it is the blue-eyed devils who made you go astray.'" After joining NOI, he started calling himself Malcolm X, because African Americans' surnames had historically been assigned by their slave owners. Therefore, NOI members rejected their slave names and called themselves simply "X." He spent his seven years in prison educating himself and remained a member of NOI for 14 years. Leader Elijah Muhammed appreciated the young man's intellectual acumen and oratory skills and made him the organization's spokesperson. In his speeches, Malcolm X repeatedly denounced the "white devils." Although he lived in the northern states of the US — the "Promised Land" for Black people from the even more restrictive southern states — he no longer placed any hope in white "liberals" there either. After all, he had personally experienced how Black people were treated as second-class citizens throughout the US. Malcolm X was long scornful of Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights movement. He criticized King's famous speech at the 1963 March on Washington about a free and united America, united across all racial barriers, as unrealistic: "No, I'm not an American. I'm one of 22 million Black people who are the victims of Americanism. [...] And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream; I see an American nightmare. " Pilgrimage to Mecca — and a change of heart After becoming disillusioned with the organisation's leader, Malcolm X broke ranks with the Nation of Islam in March 1964. That same year, he made a pilgrimage to Mecca — and his image of the "white devils" began to waver. "He was deeply impressed by the hospitality and warmth with which he was greeted, even by white Muslims in Saudi Arabia," writes Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson in her biography. "And then, in the last year of his life, he turned away from this racist doctrine," she told DW. He set himself a new task: "Malcolm X wanted to create an alliance of all oppressed people of color against white colonial oppression," says the biographer. On a trip to Africa, governments praised his intention, but he couldn't count on their support: "Of course, they were all dependent on US development aid, and most African governments wouldn't have operated openly against the US at the time." Instead, Malcolm X became the focus of the CIA. The Nation of Islam was also on his heels. "He knew he was going to be assassinated, and it was also a conscious decision on his part to face it," says Waldschmidt-Nelson. "He probably said to himself: I can't give up now. After his experience in Mecca, Malcolm had embarked on a completely new path, open to collaborating with King's civil rights movement and, if necessary, with white people as well. " But that never happened. On February 21, 1965, he was shot dead during a lecture by members of the Nation of Islam. He was only 39 years old. A renewed legacy: In the 1980s, hip-hop artists celebrated Malcolm X's legacy by sampling his speeches in their music: "All that became very resonant," says Michael E Sawyer , professor of African American literature and culture at the University of Pittsburgh. "It was a way to create this kind of resurgence of Black identity as also a political identity." The songs served as political declarations of war on white racism, police brutality and the impoverishment of the Black underclass. In 1992, Spike Lee adapted Malcolm X's autobiography into a film starring Denzel Washington, which also contributed to turning the revolutionary figure into an icon forging many Black people's cultural identity. Today, as the current US administration is whitewashing history to understate the role racism played in shaping the country, and with the MAGA movement opposed to any criticism of America's alleged past glory, Malcolm X's words remain more relevant than ever: "You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it."
Axios
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Axios
George Hornedo says a win over André Carson is "inevitable"
Inevitable. That's how George Hornedo describes winning a seat in Indiana's 7th Congressional District. Why it matters: Democrats nationwide are preparing themselves for what they expect to be a wave of insurgents who'll try to harness grassroots fury to unseat some of House Democrats' longest-serving members, including nine-term incumbent André Carson, whom 34-year-old Hornedo is challenging in next year's primary. State of play: Hornedo is riding that wave, but the circumstances of the 7th District race are a little different. Hornedo doesn't label himself a progressive, like some upstart candidates do, and Carson isn't a septuagenarian, like some incumbents facing primary challenges. He's a progressive 50-year-old Black Muslim who sits on the House Intelligence committee. Still, Hornedo lumps Carson in with the "do-nothing Democrats" that voters are frustrated with, pointing to a report from the Center for Effective Lawmaking that ranks Carson as one of the least effective Democrats in the House. What he's saying: "The win is inevitable because the community is clearly yearning for change," Hornedo told Axios. "It's not about me, it's not about Carson. It's about the change." Hornedo says the response his campaign has already received, the number of volunteers he's signed up and individual donors contributing to him are signs of that. Reality check: Carson has a strong base of support that goes back decades to his grandmother, Julia Carson, whose seat he took over in 2008 after her death the previous year. He hasn't faced serious primary threats and has handily won every reelection campaign. "The Center for Effective Lawmaking is just one institution, and it doesn't take into account Congressman Carson's classified work with the House Intel committee, grant funding secured for the district, and community project funding — which is funding that goes directly to Indianapolis projects," said Caroline Ellert, spokesperson for the campaign. "The congressman listens to his constituents on the job he's doing, not a website." Between the lines: The primary is about a year out, but the race is already getting contentious. Hornedo says that he's received pushback from some local Democrats, including being turned away from a local organizing meeting recently. Hornedo, a Park Tudor graduate, spent much of the last decade in Washington interning in the Obama White House after doing his undergraduate work at Cornell and grad school at Harvard. He went to law school at George Washington and worked for Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign. He moved back to Indianapolis full-time last year. "Indy was always home," he said. What we're watching: Enthusiasm is great, but it still takes money to win a congressional race in America.
Middle East Eye
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
For Muslims in France, there is no safe place
Late last month, the news broke: Aboubakar Cisse, a young Black Muslim man of Malian descent, had been killed inside a mosque in southern France. Initially described in the media as a personal dispute, that narrative quickly fell apart as a local prosecutor announced the case was being investigated as 'an act with Islamophobic connotations'. Cisse wasn't just killed; he was targeted in a sacred space. After cleaning the mosque for Friday prayers, surveillance footage showed him teaching another man how to pray. As Cisse prostrated himself in prayer, the other man pretended to follow along before pulling out a knife, stabbing him 57 times and shouting vile Islamophobic slurs. The emotional wreckage this has caused is immense. Since the footage surfaced, each detail has deepened the Muslim community's collective grief, and ignited a seething anger. Like many others, I've found myself asking the same question over and over: could we have prevented this? I wish I could say I was shocked. But as a visibly Muslim French woman who leads a pan-European network of Muslim youth and student groups, I know we've seen the warning signs for years. These signs have been deliberately ignored. Cisse was young, Black and Muslim. He quietly served his community, like so many people who sustain the spaces where others find peace. And yet, he also embodies everything that political hate merchants have spent years dehumanising. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Decades of bigotry Even with stark video evidence, many are still refusing to label this incident as a hate crime at the convergence of Islamophobia and anti-Black racism. It was not a personal quarrel, but the inevitable outcome of decades of normalised bigotry. A Bosnian French man has been arrested in the case. His lawyer denies that Cisse was targeted because of his religion, but to Abdallah Zekri, vice president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, the evidence is clear: 'This is an Islamophobic crime, the worst of all those committed in France against our community.' This isn't about one deranged individual. It's about an entire ecosystem of hate, one that is propped up by state policies cloaked in neutrality, media narratives that cast Muslims as threats, and daily indignities faced by Muslim students, workers and families. A Europe where Cisse could be murdered in his own mosque cannot call itself a union of equality, freedom and human rights Cisse's brutal killing is not an anomaly, but rather the logical endpoint of a political project that turns fears into votes and citizens into targets. When a veiled Muslim woman in France has an 80 percent lower chance of landing a job interview; when Muslim schools face disproportionate scrutiny; and when a man can be murdered in his own mosque, nowhere is truly safe for Muslims in France. We have raised the alarm for years. We've asked for dialogue, protection and dignity. But our calls have been been met with locked doors and institutional exclusion. This is no longer political inaction. It is complicity. I no longer blame only hate-spewing politicians who scapegoat Muslims for electoral gain - those who just weeks ago screamed 'down with the veil', and who glorify colonial nostalgia, systematically refusing to see Muslim citizens as part of the European 'we'. I also blame those who acknowledge our pain in public, while ignoring our warnings behind closed doors. From local councillors to European institutions, their silence is not neutral; it is deadly. How many more? Across France, people have gathered in spontaneous vigils to mourn Cisse. And this was not the first time. After Marwa el-Sherbini's murder in 2009, we asked: how many more? After the murder of Makram Ali in 2017, again we asked: how many more? But now, after the brutal killing of Cisse, we are done asking. We are shouting: enough. How many more lives must Islamophobia claim before it is treated as the structural threat it is? How many more mosques must become crime scenes before the safety of European Muslims becomes a non-negotiable political priority? French Muslims find 'Islamophobic' violence is overlooked after mosque murder Read More » We don't need more token consultations and empty statements. We need urgent and systemic transformation. Fighting Islamophobia means treating Muslims as partners in shaping Europe, not as threats to be managed. It means recognising Islamophobia as a form of racism rooted in colonial legacies, not simply as religious intolerance. The EU anti-racism strategy must be co-created with Muslim communities. It must acknowledge the intersectional nature of discrimination, and avoid fragmenting the struggle by isolating Islamophobia from broader anti-racism efforts. If we fail to connect the dots, ignoring how Islamophobia intersects with anti-Blackness and structural exclusion, then the most marginalised people will continue to pay the price for Europe's indifference. Despite the grief, fear and anger, mosques will remain spaces of welcome and dignity - just as Cisse embodied. We owe this to our youth, to our future, and to the very idea of Europe. Because a Europe where Cisse could be murdered in his own mosque cannot call itself a union of equality, freedom and human rights. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Yahoo
Muslim civil rights group files complaint against SPD for alleged excessive force
The Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has filed a complaint with the Seattle Office of Police Accountability regarding an incident in February in which the Seattle Police Department (SPD) allegedly responded with excessive force to a false report against two Black Muslim women. CAIR is a chapter of the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. On Feb. 4, a 28-year-old woman and her 20-year-old sister were parking in a downtown Seattle garage when another car followed closely and honked aggressively, CAIR said. After they parked, the driver of the other car reportedly verbally accosted them at their car and again at the garage elevator. Both women are Black and Muslim, and one wears a head covering. 'When the sisters returned to their car after eating lunch, they were confronted by several SPD officers pointing flashlights and guns at them. They were handcuffed, and the officers tackled one of the women, causing injuries that led her to seek emergency medical attention,' CAIR said in a press release. The women learned that the driver of the other car had reported to police that one of woman had called him a derogatory slur and threatened him with a gun. CAIR said security footage showed that the women did not have a gun. 'In addition to neglecting to use de-escalation tactics and using excessive force, SPD did not appropriately identify and document the potential bias against the two women. Had the officers identified the swatting incident, which was intended to draw police interaction and intimidate innocent individuals, they could have also identified the element of bias in the caller's targeting of Black and Muslim women,' the suit said. KIRO 7 has reached out to OPA for comment and is waiting to hear back.
