Malcolm X: 50 years after Martyrdom

Rehmat

Posted on February 23, 2015 

Over the weekend (Feb. 21, 22) meetings were held in several cities and Campuses in the US and Canada to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X. 50 years ago on February 21, 1965 Malcolm X was shot dead as he spoke at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. He had just taken the stage when shots rang out riddling his body with bullets. Malcolm X was 39 years old.

The official story of his assassination, like JFK, has been challenged by many scholars and investigative journalists. The most popular theory is that Malcolm X was assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam with the help of FBI and CIA. However, professor Manning Marable (died 2011), Malcolm X’s biographer doesn’t agree with the official story of Nation of Islam being the villain. He believes the New York Police, the FBI and possibly the CIA were involved in Malcolm X’s assassination to remove the ‘Black Power threat to the US ‘Inner State’ as result of possible Malcolm X-Martin Luther-Pink Panther anti-Establishment movement.

A new political reality is opening up in the United States today. A new generation of youth, of all nationalities, is radicalizing and mobilizing from Ferguson, Missouri to Staten Island, New York and across the US. This has been sparked by a wave of police killings of unarmed, mostly Black and Latino, civilians and subsequent Grand Jury exonerations in clearly manipulated settings. This reality now confronts the US ruling Establishment. The framework for this new consciousness and struggle is the grotesque obscenities that now mark the so-called criminal justice system in the US with its mass incarceration of youth, especially Black and Latino youth, the virtual impossibility of seeing any kind of justice in case after case of police killings and brutality, and more broadly the mounting impact of the permanent capitalist economic crisis, growing impoverishment, and increased working-class struggles for decent jobs and wages, against obscene inequality in education, health care, and so on. Those coming into the fight will find no greater champion and inspiration in the fight for their better future than Malcolm X. For those who take the time to search, discover, and study this towering human being, beautiful vistas will open up before you, says Ike Nahem, an American Jewish writer and member of the National Network on Cuba. You may like to read his blog here.

Malcolm X, in an Opinion Post at The Egyptian Gazette (September 17, 1974) said: “The number one weapon of 20th century imperialism is zionist dollarism, and one of the main bases for this weapon is Zionist Israel. The ever-scheming European imperialists wisely placed Israel where she could geographically divide the Arab world, infiltrate and sow the seed of dissension among African leaders and also divide the Africans against the Asians.”

The Organized Jewry never liked Malcolm X for his support for the oppressed Palestinians. The Jewish-controlled media portrayed Malcolm X as “Jew hater”, “anti-American” and Black racist”. Perhaps the most notorious example of Malcolm character assassination was a scurrilous editorial in the Jew York Times published on February 22, 1965. To the Times editorial board Malcolm X was “an extraordinary and twisted man, turning many true gifts to evil purpose.” With a stunning and brazen disregard for the slightest accuracy and truth, the editorial asserted that Malcolm X held a “ruthless and fanatical belief in violence that also marked him for notoriety and for a violent end.”

In 1989, Columbia University under pressure from the Jewish groups decided to demolish Audubon Ballroom where Malcolm X was martyred. Black community activists, Columbia students and landmark preservationists protested vigorously and forced the university management to retreat. Today the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial stands in the lobby of the Ballroom. A great majority of staff at Columbia University are Jewish including its President Lee Bollinger.

Six years ago, Jewish groups almost got Karen Salazar, a teacher at Jordan High School got fired for having student read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, a LAUSD approved text.

A few months after the death of professor Manning Marable (Columbia University) in March 2011, Israel-First David Horowitz’s magazine FrontPagepublished a hateful critique of his book, The Real Malcolm X?.

Former Congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney claims that Malcolm X, like Rev. Martin Luther was assassinated by the US government. she said: “In fact, it was reported that Malcolm X got a phone call from FBI agents on the morning of his murder who told him, ‘today is the day’. He didn’t have to go to the Audubon Ballroom; he could have left the country; he had friends all over the world; he could have gone back to Georgia, where he was from; but he showed up at the Audubon Ballroom and told his wife to get the children ready because ‘I want them there’. He went to the ballroom and he was killed. So my heroes did not cower out of fear just because they were going to die. Actually I guess it added depth to their lives.“

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

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