20-05-2025
Malcolm X's politics are still driving us apart
In the summer of 1963 hundreds of people began to gather in the streets on the approach to Harlem's Salem Church, and many more hung out of windows, keen to catch a glimpse of that Sunday's preacher. Dr Martin Luther King Jr was on his way.
King had already become a symbol of the civil rights movement and within a few weeks would deliver one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century. And he had just a few days earlier been rehearsing some of its themes and rhetoric, telling audiences of his 'dream', one in which his children would be judged 'on the content of their character, not on the colour of their skin'.
On this day in Harlem there were the usual cheers
