America is just as much a colonial power as England ever was.
America is just as much a colonial power as France ever was.
In fact, America is more so a colonial power than they because she’s a hypocritical colonial power behind it.
What is 20 what? What do you call secondass citizenship? Why? That’s colonization.
Secondass citizenship is nothing but 20th century slavery.
How you going to tell me you’re a secondass citizen? They don’t have secondass citizenship in any other government on this earth.
They just have slaves and people who are free.
Well, this country is a hypocrite.
They try and make you think they set you free by calling you a secondass citizen.
No, you’re nothing but a 20th century slave.
Whether you are whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or a nationalist, we all have the same problem.
They don’t hang you because you’re a Baptist.
They h hang you because you’re black.
They don’t attack me because I’m a Muslim.
They attack me because I’m black.
They attack all of us for the same reason.
All of us catch hell from the same enemy.
We’re all in the same bag, in the same boat.
We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation.
All of them from the same enemy.
The government has failed us.
You can’t deny that.
Anytime you live in the 20th century, 1964, and you walking around here singing, “We shall overcome.
” The government has failed.
The political the economic philosophy of black nationalism only means that we have to become involved in a program of re-education to educate our people into the importance of knowing that when you spend your dollar out of the community in which you live, the community uh in which you spend your money becomes richer and richer.
The community out of which you take your money becomes poorer and poorer.
And because these negroes who have been misled, misguided, are breaking their necks to take their money and spend it with the man, the man is becoming richer and richer, and you’re becoming poorer and poor.
And then what happens? The community in which you live becomes a slum.
It becomes a ghetto.
The conditions become run down.
And then you have the audacity to to complain about poor housing in a rundown community.
Why you run it down yourself and you take it down? They told us freedom was coming.
They lied.
They told us to wait, to sing, to vote, and to be patient.
But in 1964, Malcolm X stood before black America and said something that shook the entire system.
This is the year of the ballot or the bullet.
This wasn’t just another speech.
It was a warning, a wakeup call, and a mirror held up to a nation built on broken promises and black suffering.
Malcolm exposed how religion was used to divide us, how politics was used to deceive us, and how integration became a trap instead of liberation.
He spoke directly to black people, not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as victims of a system that never intended to free us.
This message wasn’t polite.
It wasn’t comfortable.
And it wasn’t meant to be because Malcolm wasn’t asking for acceptance.
He was demanding power, political power, economic power, and mental freedom.
While you watch, understand this.
What Malcolm warned us about in 1964 is still happening today.
Mr.
Moderator, Reverend Cle, brothers and sisters and friends, and I see some enemies.
In fact, I think we’d be fooling ourselves if we had an audience this large.
and didn’t realize that there were some enemies present.
This afternoon, we want to talk about the ballot or the bullet.
The ballot or the bullet explains itself.
But before we get into it, since this is the year of the ballot or the bullet, I would like to clarify some things that refer to me personally concerning my own personal position.
I’m still a Muslim.
That is my religion is still Islam.
My religion is still Islam.
I still credit Mr.
Muhammad for what I know and what I am.
He’s the one who opened my eyes.
At present, I’m the minister of the newly founded uh Muslim Mosque Incorporated, which has its offices in the Teresa Hotel right in the heart of Harlem.
That’s the black belt in New York City.
And when we realize that Adam Clayton Powell is a Christian minister, he’s the he has Abiscinia Baptist Church, but at the same time, he’s more famous for his political struggling.
And Dr.
King is a Christian minister.
in at from Atlanta, Georgia or in Atlanta, Georgia, but he’s become more famous for being involved in the civil rights struggle.
There’s another in New York, Reverend Gamson.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of him out here.
He’s a Christian minister from Brooklyn, but has become famous for his fight against the segregated school system in Brooklyn.
Reverend Cle right here is a Christian minister here in Detroit.
He’s the head of the Freedom Now Party.
All of these are Christian ministers.
[laughter] All of these are Christian ministers, but they don’t come to us as Christian ministers.
They come to us as fighters in some other category.
I’m a Muslim minister the same as they are Christian ministers.
I’m a Muslim minister.
And I don’t believe in fighting today in any one front, but on all fronts.
In fact, I’m a black nationalist freedom fighter.
Islam is my religion.
But I believe my religion is my personal business governs my personal life, my personal morals.
And my religious philosophy is personal between me and the God in whom I believe.
Just as the religious philosophy of these others is between them and the God in whom they believe and this is best this way.
Were we to come out here discussing religion we’d have too many differences from the outstar and we could never get together.
So today though Islam is my religious philosophy my political, economic and social philosophy is black nationalism.
You and I As I say, if we bring up religion, we’ll have differences.
We’ll have arguments.
We’ll never be able to get together.
But if we keep our religion at home, keep our religion in the closet, keep our religion between ourselves and our God.
But when we come out here, we have a fight that’s common to all of us against an enemy who is common to all of us.
The political philosophy of black nationalism only means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community.
the the time the time when white people can come in our community and get us to vote for them so that they can be our political leaders and tell us what to do and what not to do is long gone.
By the same token, the time when that same white man, knowing that your eyes are too far open, can send another negro into the community, get you and me to support him so he can use him to lead us astray.
Those days are long gone.
The political philosophy of black nationalism only means that if you and I are going to live in a black community and that’s where we’re going to live because as soon as you move into one of their soon as you move out of the black community into their community it’s myth for a period of time but they are gone and you’re right there all by yourself.
We must we must understand the politics of our community and we must know what politics is supposed to produce.
We must know what politics play in our lives.
And until we become politically mature, we will always be misled, led astray or deceived or maneuvered into uh supporting someone politically who doesn’t have the good of our community at heart.
So the political philosophy of black nationalism only means that we will have to carry on a program, a political program of re-education to open our people’s eyes, make us become more politically conscious, politically mature.
And then we will whenever we get ready to cast our ballot, that ballot will be classed for will be cast for a man of the community who has the good of the community at heart.
The economic philosophy of black nationalism only means that we should own and operate and control the economy of our community.
You would never find you can’t open up a black store in a white community.
White man won’t even patronize you.
And he’s not [clears throat] wrong.
He said he got sense enough to look out for himself and you don’t have sense enough to look out for yourself.
The white man the white man is too intelligent to let someone else come and gain control of the economy of his community.
But you will let anybody come in and control the economy of your community, control the housing, control the education, control the jobs, control the businesses uh under the pretext that you want to integrate.
No, you’re out of your mind.
The political the economic philosophy of black nationalism only means that we have to become involved in a program of re-education to educate our people into the importance of knowing that when you spend your dollar out of the community in which you live, the community uh in which you spend your money becomes richer and richer.
The community out of which you take your money becomes poorer and poorer.
And because these negroes who have been misled, misguided, are breaking their necks to take their money and spend it with the man.
The man is becoming richer and richer and you’re becoming poorer and poorer.
And then what happens? The community in which you live becomes a slum.
It becomes a ghetto.
The conditions become rundown.
And then you have the audacity to com to complain about poor housing in a rundown community.
Why you run it down yourself when you take it out? And you and I are in a double trap because not only do we lose by taking our money someplace else and spending it when we try and spend it in our own community, we’re trapped because we haven’t had sense enough to set up stores and control the businesses of our community.
The man who’s controlling the stores in our community is a man who doesn’t look like we do.
He’s a man who doesn’t even live in the community.
So you and I, even when we try and spend our money in the block where we live or the area where we live, we’re spending it with a man who when the sun goes down takes that basket full of money in another part of the town.
So we’re trapped.
Trapped.
Double trapped.
Triple trapped.
Anywhere we go, we find that we’re trapped.
And every kind of solution that someone comes up with is just another trap.
But the political and economic philosophy of black nationalism, the economic philosophy of black nationalism shows our people the importance of setting up these little stores and developing them and expanding them into larger operations.
Woolworth didn’t start out big like they are today.
They started out with a gym store and expanded and expanded and expanded until today.
They’re all over the country and all over the world and they getting some of everybody’s money.
Now, this is what you and I in General Motors the same way.
Didn’t start out like it is.
It started out just a little rant race type operation.
And it expanded and expanded until today is where it is right now.
And you and I have to make a start.
And the best place to start is right in the community where we live.
Malcolm X makes something very clear from the beginning.
This struggle was never about religion.
And that distinction matters because for too long, black people were divided by labels.
Christian, Muslim, Baptist, nationalist, or even activist.
Malcolm cuts through all of that and brings the focus back to one undeniable truth.
We are all black and we all face the same enemy.
He explains that his religion is personal just like the religion of Dr.
King, Adam Clayton Powell, and other leaders of the time, but when they step into uh the public arena, they don’t come as churchmen.
They come as fighters for black liberation.
And that’s the point Malcolm is driving home.
Religion stays at home while the fight comes with us.
Because the enemy doesn’t ask what church you attend before he oppresses you.
He doesn’t ask whether you’re Muslim or Christian before denying you jobs, housing, safety, or dignity.
You are targeted for one reason, because you are black.
This is where Malcolm introduces black nationalism, not as hate, but as self-respect.
He defines it simply.
Black people controlling the politics, the economy, and the direction of their own communities.
No more outsiders coming in asking for our votes, then disappearing once they get power.
No more being led by people who don’t live where we live, don’t suffer what we suffer, and don’t care about our future.
Malcolm warns that as long as we remain politically immature, we will always be manipulated, voting against our own interests, supporting leaders who exploit us, and celebrating symbolic victories while our communities decay.
Political awareness, he says, is not optional.
It is crucial for our survival.
And this is what makes his message dangerous to the system.
Because once black people understand politics, once they understand power, they can no longer be controlled by empty promises.
The ballot stops being a ritual and becomes a weapon.
Malcolm wasn’t calling for chaos here, but for clarity, for unity beyond religion, consciousness beyond emotion, and for a black community that finally understands its own strength.
So, our people not only have to be uh re-educated to the importance of supporting black business, but the black man himself has to be uh made aware of the importance of going into business.
And once you and I go into business, we own and operate at least the businesses in our community.
What we will be doing is developing a situation wherein we will actually be able to create employment for the people in the community.
And once you can create some employ some employment in the community where you live, it will eliminate the necessity of you and me having to act ignorantly and disgracefully boycotting and picketing some cracker someplace else trying to dig him for a job.
Anytime you have to rely upon your enemy for a job, you’re in bad shape when you he is your enemy.
Anytime you wouldn’t be in this country if some enemy hadn’t kidnapped you and brought you here.
On the other hand, some of you think you came here on the main floor.
So as you can see uh uh brothers and sisters today this afternoon it’s not our intention to discuss religion.
We we’re going to forget religion.
If we bring up religion we’ll be in an argument.
And the best way to uh keep away from arguments and differences as I said earlier put your religion at home in the closet.
Keep it between you and your God because if it hasn’t done anything more for you than it has you need to forget it anyway.
Whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or a nationalist, we all have the same problem.
They don’t hang you because you’re a Baptist.
They hang hang you because you’re black.
They don’t attack me because I’m a Muslim.
They attack me cuz I’m black.
They attack all of us for the same reason.
All of us catch hell from the same enemy.
We’re all in the same bag, in the same boat.
We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation.
All of them from the same enemy.
The government has failed us.
You can’t deny that.
Anytime you live in the 20th century, 1964, and you walking around here singing, “We shall overcome.
” The government has failed.
This is part of what’s wrong with you.
You do too much singing.
Today, it’s time to stop singing and start swinging.
You can’t sing up on freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom.
Cashious Clay can sing, but singing didn’t help him to become the heavyweight champion of the world.
Swinging help him.
This government has failed us.
Government itself has failed us.
And the white liberals who have been posing as our friends have failed us.
And once we see that all these other sources to which we’ve turned have failed, we stop turning to them and turn to ourselves.
We need a self-help program.
A do it a do it yourself philosophy.
Do it right now philosophy.
It’s already too late philosophy.
This is what you and I need to get with.
And the only time the only way we’re going to uh solve our problem is with a self-help program.
Before we can get a self-help program started, we have to have a self-help philosophy.
Black nationalism is a self-help philosophy.
What’s so good about it? You can stay right in the church where you are and still take black nationalism as your philosophy.
You can stay in any kind of civic organization that you belong to and still take black nationalism as your philosophy.
You can be an atheist and still take black nationalism as your philosophy.
Is a philosophy that eliminates the necessity for division and argument.
So if you’re black, you should be thinking black.
And if you’re black and you’re not thinking black at this late date, well, I’m sorry for you.
Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern.
Once you change your thought pattern, you change your your attitude.
Once you change your attitude, it changes your behavior pattern.
And then you go on into some action.
As long as you got a sit down philosophy, you’ll have a sit down thought pattern.
And as long as you think that old sit down thought, you’ll be uh in some kind of sit down action that’ll have you sitting in everywhere.
It’s not so good to refer to what you’re going to do as a sit in.
That right there castrates right there.
It brings you down.
What What goes with it? What? Think of the image of a someone sitting.
An old woman can sit.
An old man can sit.
A chump can sit.
A coward can sit.
Anything can sit.
Well, you and I have been sitting long enough and it’s time today for us to start doing some standing and some fighting back there.
When we look at other parts of this earth upon which we live, we find that black, brown, red, and yellow people in Africa and Asia are getting their independence.
They’re not getting it by singing we shall overcome.
No, they’re getting it through nationalism.
It is nationalism that brought about the independence of the people in Asia.
Every nation in Asia gained its independence through the philosophy of nationalism.
Every nation on the African continent that has gotten its independence brought it about through the philosophy of nationalism.
And it will take black nationalism that to bring about the freedom of 22 million afroamericans here in this country where we have suffered colonialism for the past 400 years.
America is just as much a colonial power as England ever was.
America is just as much a colonial power as France ever was.
In fact, America is more so a colonial power than they because she’s a hypocritical colonial power behind it.
What is 20th what what do you call secondass citizenship? Why? That’s colonization.
Secondass citizenship is nothing but 20th century slavery.
How you going to tell me you’re a secondass citizen? They don’t have secondass citizenship in any other government on this earth.
They just have slaves and people who are free.
Well, this country is a hypocrite.
They try and make you think they set you free by calling you a secondass citizen.
No, you’re nothing but a 20th century slave.
Just as it took nationalism to move to remove colonialism from Asia and Africa.
It’ll take black nationalism today to remove colonialism from the banks and the minds of 22 million afroamericans here in this country.
and 1964 looks like it might be the year of the ballot or the book.
At this point, Malcolm shifts the focus from awareness to pressure.
He explains why 1964 felt explosive, not because black people suddenly became angry, but because they had been lied to for too long.
Promises were made, marches were organized, songs were sung, and after all of it, nothing fundamentally changed.
Instead, disillusionment set in.
Malcolm describes a black community that is no longer asleep, no longer patient, and no longer impressed by symbolism.
The famous March on Washington didn’t bring freedom.
Rather, it brought frustration.
Black people were mobilized, marched between monuments built by dead white men, and then sent home with nothing but hope and empty words.
and hope, Malcolm reminds us, does not feed families or stop police batons.
This is where a new generation enters the story.
Malcolm points out that young black people were no longer interested in odds or excuses.
They had watched white Americans fight your most powerful empire on earth over taxation and representation and win.
So the question becomes unavoidable.
If white Americans could demand liberty or death, why should black Americans accept permanent oppression in silence? He calls out the fear narrative used to control us.
The idea that resistance is too dangerous, too radical, and too unrealistic.
Yet those same young black men were being drafted and sent overseas to fight wars against impossible odds.
If they weren’t afraid to die for a country that mistreated them, why should they be afraid to fight for themselves at home? Malcolm then exposes the political game being played.
Election season arrives and suddenly politicians flood black neighborhoods with smiles, handshakes, and promises.
But these promises only deepen frustration because they were never meant to be kept.
He states it clearly.
This isn’t a failure of one party.
It’s a failure of the entire system.
Black people, he says, are not citizens enjoying democracy.
They are victims surviving hypocrisy.
What America calls the American dream.
Black people have only experienced as an American nightmare.
And once people see the truth, once they recognize the lie, there is no going back to sleep.
Why does it look like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet? Because negroes have listened to the trickery and the lies and the false promises of the white man now for too long and they’re fed up.
They’ve become disenchanted.
They’ve become disillusioned.
They’ve become dissatisfied.
And all of this has built up frustrations in the black community that’s makes the black community throughout America today more explosive than all of the atomic bombs the Russians can ever invent.
Whenever you got a racial powder keg sitting in your lap, you’re in more trouble than if you had an atomic powder keg sitting in your lap.
When a racial powder keg goes off, it doesn’t care who it knocks out the way.
Understand this.
It’s dangerous.
And in 1964, this seems to be the year because what can the white man use now to fool us? after he put down that march on Washington.
And you see all through that now he tricked you.
Had you marching down to Washington? Yes.
Had you marching back and forth between the feet of a dead man named Lincoln and another another dead man named George Washington singing we shall overcome.
He made a chump out of.
He made a fool out of.
He made you think you were going somewhere and you end up going nowhere but between Lincoln and Washington.
So today our people are disillusioned.
They’ve become disenchanted.
They become dissatisfied.
And in their frustrations they want action.
You’ll see this young black man, this new generation asking for the ballot or the book.
That old Uncle Tom action is outdated.
The young generation don’t want to hear anything about the odds are against us.
What do we care about? When this country here was first being founded, there were 13 colonies.
The the whites were colonized.
They were fed up with this taxation without representation.
So some of them stood up and said liberty or death.
Though I went to a white school over here in Ma Mason, Michigan.
The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books.
He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington wasn’t nothing nonviolent about old pants or George Washington.
Liberty or death was what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English.
They didn’t care about the arts, right? They faced the wrath of the entire British Empire.
And in those days, they used to say this, the British Empire was so vast and so powerful and the sun the sun would never set on it.
This is how big it was.
Yet these 13 little scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British empire liberty or death.
And here you have 22 million afroamericans, black people today, catching more hell than Patrick Henry ever saw.
And I’m I’m here to tell you, in case you don’t know it, that you got a new you got a new generation of black people in this country who don’t care anything whatsoever about us.
They don’t want to hear you old, Uncle Tom handkerchief heads talking about the This is a new generation.
If they’re going to draft these young black men and send them over to Korea or South Vietnam to face 800 million Chinese, you’re not afraid of those odds.
You shouldn’t be afraid of these eyes.
Why is America Why does this loom to be such an explosive political year? Because this is the year of politics.
This is the year when all of the white politicians are going to come into the Negro community.
You never see them until election time.
You can’t blame them until election time.
They’re going to come in with false promises.
And as they make these false promises, they’re going to feed our frustrations, and this will only serve to make matters worse.
I’m no politician.
I’m not even a student of politics.
I’m not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American, and got sense enough to know it.
I’m one of the 22 million black victims of the Democrats.
one of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism.
And when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat or a Republican.
I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy.
You and I have never seen democracy.
All we’ve seen is hypocrisy.
When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism.
We see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism.
We don’t see any American dream.
We’ve experienced only the American nightmare.
We haven’t benefited from America’s democracy.
We’ve only suffered from America’s hypocrisy.
And the generation that’s coming up now can see it and are not afraid to say it.
If you go to jail for what? If you black, you were born in jail.
If you black, you were born in jail.
In the north as well as the south.
Stop talking about the south.
you south of the as long as you south of the Canadian border, you’re don’t call Governor Wallace a Dixie governor.
Romney is a Dixie governor.
22 million black victims of Americanism are waking up and they’re gaining a new political consciousness, becoming politically mature.
And as they become uh develop this political maturity, they’re able to see the recent trends in these uh political elections.
They see that the whites are so evenly divided that every time they vote uh the race is so close they have to go back and count the votes all over again and which means that any block any minority that has a block of votes that stick together is in a strategic position.
Either way you go that’s who gets it.
You’re in a position to determine who go to the White House and who stay in the doghouse.
You’re the one who has that power.
You can keep Johnson in Washington DC or you can send him back to his Texas cotton pack.
You’re the one who sent Kennedy to Washington.
You’re the one who put the present Democratic administration in Washington DC.
The whites were evenly divided.
It was the fact that you threw 80% of your votes behind the Democrats that put the Democrats in the White House.
When you see this, you can see that the negro vote is the key factor.
And despite the fact that you are in a position to to be the determining factor, what do you get out of it? The Democrats have been in Washington DC only because of the Negro vote, they’ve been down there 4 years and all other legislation they wanted to bring up.
They brought it up and gotten it out of the way.
And now they bring up you.
And now they bring up you.
You put them first and they put you last cuz you’re a chump.
A political chunk.
In Washington DC, in the House of Representatives, there are 257 who are Democrats.
Only 177 are Republicans.
In the Senate, there are 67 uh Democrats.
Only 33 are Republicans.
The party that you fast controls 2/3 of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and still they can’t keep their promise to you cuz you’re a chunk.
Anytime you throw your weight behind a political party that controls twothirds of the government and that party can’t keep the promise that it made to you during election time and you’re dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party, you’re not only a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race.
And what kind of alibi do they come up with? They try and pass the buck to the dexier.
Now, back during the days when you were blind, deaf, and dumb, ignorant, politically im immature, naturally you went along with that.
But today, as your eyes come open and you develop political maturity, you’re able to see and think for yourself and you can see that a dixocrat is nothing but a democrat.
And this guy, now Malcolm X pulls the curtain all the way back on American politics.
He exposes the structure of power, not as democracy, but as organized deception.
committees, Congress, and so-called leadership are dominated by segregationists who pretend the South lost the war while still controlling the government from behind closed doors.
Malcolm dismantles the myth of political choice.
Democrat or Republican, North or South, he explains that it’s all the same system, wearing different masks.
In the south, oppression is blunt and violent.
In the north, it’s hidden behind policies, gerrymandering, and fake representation.
But the result is identical.
Black people remain powerless.
This is where Malcolm’s analogy hits hardest.
He says, “Choosing between these parties is like choosing between dogs.
A northern dog or a southern dog.
Either way, you’re still in the doghouse.
That’s not democracy.
That’s containment.
He explains why civil rights legislation keeps getting delayed, Philly bustered, and weakened.
The politicians blocking black voting rights know the truth.
If black people vote freely and collectively, their careers are finished.
That’s why the Constitution is ignored.
That’s why justice is stalled because power is at stake.
Malcolm also exposes political loyalty as a trap.
Black people delivered elections yet were placed last when it came time to deliver justice.
Promises were made then abandoned.
And Malcolm doesn’t soften his language.
He says continuing to support a party that betrays you isn’t just foolish.
It’s a betrayal of your people.
This is the core of Malcolm’s message here.
political maturity, understanding power, understanding leverage, and understanding that numbers mean nothing without unity and strategy.
Once black people recognize their collective power, the system panics because a politically conscious black community cannot be ignored, managed, or deceived.
And that realization is exactly what the system fears most.
You look at the structure of the uh government that controls this country.
It’s controlled by 16 senatorial committees and 20 congressional committees.
Of the 16 senatorial committees that run the government, 10 of them are in the hands of southern segregationist.
Of the 20 congressional committees that run the government, 12 of them in are in the hands of southern segregation.
And they’re going to tell you and me that the south lost the war.
You today have are in the hands of a government of segregationists, racists, white supremacists, who belong to the Democratic party but disguise themselves as dict.
Dixocrat is nothing but a democrat.
Whoever runs the Democrats is also the father of the dictrats and the father of all of them is sitting in the White House.
I say and I say it again.
You got a president who’s nothing but a southern segregationist from the state of Texas.
They’ll link you in Texas as quick as they’ll link you in Mississippi.
only in in Texas they lynch you with a Texas accent.
In Mississippi they lynch you with a Mississippi accent.
And the first thing the cracker does when he comes in power, he takes all the negro leaders and invites them for a coffee to show that he’s all right.
And those Uncle Toms can’t pass up the coffee.
to come away from the coffee table telling you and me that this man is all right cuz he’s from the south and since he’s from the south he can deal with the south.
Look at the logic that they’re using.
What about Eastland? He’s from the south.
make him the president.
If if Johnson is a good man because he’s from Texas and and being from Texas will if Johnson is a good man cuz he’s from Texas and and being from Texas will enable him to deal with the South.
Eastman can deal with the South better than Johnson.
You’ve been misled.
You’ve been had.
You’ve been to in Washington a couple weeks ago while the senators were filibustering, I noticed in the back of the Senate a huge map.
And on this map, it showed the distribution of Negroes in America.
And surprisingly, the same senators that were involved in the filibuster were from the states where there were the most negroes.
Why were they filibustering the civil rights legislation? Because the civil rights legislation is supposed to guarantee voting rights, the Negroes in those states.
And those senators from those states know that if the Negroes in those states can vote, those senators are down the drain.
The representatives of those states go down the drain and in the constitution of this country it has a stipulation wherein whenever the rights the voting rights of people in a certain district are violated then the representative who who’s from the particular district according to the constitution is supposed to be expelled from the congress.
Now, if this particular aspect of the constitution was enforced, why you wouldn’t have a cracker in Washington DC? But what happens when you expel the diplomat? You’re expelling the Democrat.
When [clears throat] you destroy the power of the diplomat, you’re destroying the power power of the Democratic Party.
So, how in the world can the Democratic Party in the South actually side with you in sincerity when all of its power is based in the in the South? These northern Democrats are in cahoots with the Southern Democrats.
They’re playing a giant con game, a political con game.
You know how it goes.
One of one of them comes to you and make believe for you and he’s in cahoots with the other one that’s not for you.
Why? Because neither one of them is for you.
But they got to make you a go with one of them or the other.
So this is a con game.
This is what they’ve been doing with you and me all these years.
First thing Johnson got off the plane when he become president.
He asked where’s Dicki? You know who Dicki is? Dicki is old southern cracker Richard Russell.
Yes.
Lynon D.
Johnson’s best friend is the one who is the head who’s heading the forces that are filibustering civil rights legislation.
You tell me how in the hell is he going to be Johnson’s best friend? Johnson being his friend and your friend too.
No, that man is too tricky.
to leave me cringe and still all dick.
Whenever the Negroes keep the Democrats in power, they’re keeping the dictrats in power.
Is this true? Vote for a Democrat is nothing but a vote for a dict.
I know you don’t like me saying that.
I’m not the kind of president who come here to say what you like.
I’m going to tell you the truth whether you like it or not.
Here in the north, you have the same thing.
The Democratic Party don’t don’t do it.
Doesn’t they don’t do it that way.
They got a thing that they call gerrymandering.
They maneuver you out of power.
Even though you can vote, they fix it so you voting for nobody.
They got you going and coming.
In the South, they’re outright political wolves.
In the North, they’re political foxes.
Fox and a wolf are both canine.
Both belong to the dog family.
You take your choice.
You’re going to choose a northern dog or a southern dog.
Because either dog you choose, I guarantee you, you’ll still be in the doghouse.
This is why I say it’s the ballot or the bullet.
It’s liberty or death.
It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody.
America today finds herself in a unique situation.
Historically, revolutions are bloody.
Oh yes, they are.
They have never had a bloodless revolution or a nonviolent revolution.
That don’t happen even in Hollywood.
You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy.
And you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it.
Revolutions overturn systems.
Revolutions destroy system.
A revolution is bloody.
But America is in a unique position.
She’s the only country in history in a position to become involved in a bloodless revolution.
The Russian Revolution was bloody.
Chinese revolution was bloody.
French revolution was bloody.
Cuban revolution was bloody.
And there was nothing more bloody than the American Revolution.
But today, this country can become involved in a revolution that won’t take bloodshed.
All she’s got to do is give the black man in this country everything is doing.
Everything.
I hope that the white man can see this.
Cuz if you don’t see it, you’re finished.
If you don’t see it, you’re going to be coming you’re going to become involved in some action in which you don’t have a chance.
We don’t care anything about your atomic bomb.
It’s it’s useless because other countries have atomic bomb.
When two or three different countries have atomic bombs, nobody can use it.
So it means that the white man today is without a weapon.
If you going to if you want some action, you got to come on down to earth.
And there’s more black people on earth.
By this point in Malcolm’s speech, he strips away every illusion black America has been taught to believe about power, war, and fear.
He exposes a hard truth the world already understands.
The age of Western dominance through brute force is fading.
Malcolm points our attention beyond America to Africa and Asia where so-called poor and underdeveloped people defeated the most powerful empires on earth not with nuclear weapons or advanced technology but with belief unity and resistance.
He makes it clear.
The white power structure only looks strong from a distance.
On the ground, face to face, it has been beaten over and over again.
And this is where Malcolm flips the psychological script.
He reminds us that fear has always been the system’s greatest weapon.
Fear of jail, fear of violence, and fear of standing up.
But what is there to fear? He asks.
When you were born into oppression, when your life has already been restricted, controlled and undervalued from the moment you entered this country.
From there, Malcolm exposes the government itself, not just individual racists, but the entire system as being complicit in denying black people their rights.
Filibusters, delays, legal tricks, and political games weren’t a coincidence.
There were strategies.
And once a government actively conspires to deny a people their humanity, Malcolm argues it loses all moral authority.
This is why he makes one of his most radical moves, shifting the struggle from civil rights to human rights.
Civil rights keep the fight inside America’s courts.
Courts controlled by the same system causing the harm.
Human rights take the issue to the world stage exposing America’s hypocrisy before the entire globe.
Malcolm’s message here can’t be mistaken.
You don’t beg your oppressor for justice.
You expose them and you unite and you reclaim your power mentally, politically, and globally.
This wasn’t reckless talk.
It was a strategic truth.
And that’s why it still provokes the system today.
I only got a couple more minutes.
Man can never win another war on the ground.
His days of war victory.
His great his days of ground victory are over.
Can I prove it? Yes.
Take all the action that’s going on on this earth right now.
But that he’s involved in.
Tell me where he’s winning.
Nowhere.
Why? Some rice farmers.
Some rice farmers.
Some rice eaters ran him out of Cory.
Yes, they ran him out of Cory.
Rice eaters with nothing but gym shoes and a rifle and a ball of rice.
Took him and his tanks and his napon and all that other action he’s supposed to have and ran him across the Yaloo.
Why? Cuz the day that he can win on the ground is passed up in French Indochina.
Those little peasants rice roars the might of the French army and ran all the Frenchmen.
You remember Dan Ben Peru.
The same thing happened in Algeria in Africa.
They didn’t have anything but a rank.
The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare.
But they put some guerilla action on.
And a white man can’t fight a guerilla warfare.
Guerilla action takes heart.
Takes nerves.
And he doesn’t have that.
He’s brave when he’s got tanks.
He’s brave [clears throat] when he’s got planes.
He’s brave when he’s got bombs.
He’s brave when he got a whole lot of company along with him.
But you take that little man from Africa and Asia, turn him loose in the woods with a blade.
Got a blade.
That’s all he needs.
All he needs is a blade.
And when the sun comes down, goes down and it stops.
It’s even ste.
It’s the ballot or the bullet.
Today, our people can see that we’re faced with a government conspiracy.
This government has failed us.
The senators who are filibustering concerning your and my rights, that’s the government.
Don’t say it’s southern and senators.
This is the government.
This is a government filibuster.
It’s not a segregationist filibuster.
It’s a government filibuster.
Any kind of activity takes place on the floor of the Congress or the Senate, that’s the government.
Any kind of dillydalling, that’s the government.
Any kind of pussyooting, that’s the government.
any kind of act that’s designed to delay or deprive you and me right now of getting full rights, that’s the government that’s responsible.
And anytime you find the government involved in a conspiracy to violate the citizenship or the civil rights of a people, then you are wasting your time going to that government expecting redress.
Instead, you have to take that government to the world courts and accuse it of genocide and all of the other crimes that it is guilty of today.
For those of us whose political and economic and social philosophy is black nationalism have become involved in the civil rights struggle.
We have injected ourselves into the civil rights struggle and we intend to expand it from the level of civil rights to the level of human rights.
As long as you’re as long as you fight it on the level of civil rights, you’re under Uncle Sam’s jurisdiction.
You’re going to his court expecting him to correct the problem.
He created the problem.
He’s the criminal.
You don’t take your case to the criminal.
You take your criminal to court.
When the government of South Africa begin to trample upon the human rights of the people of South Africa, they were taken to the UN.
When the government of Portugal began to trample upon the the rights of our brothers and sisters in Angola, it was taken before the UN.
While even the white men took the Hungarian question to the UN.
And just this week, Chief Justice Goldberg was crying over uh 3 million Jews in Russia about their human rights, charging Russia with violating the UN charter because of its uh mistreatment of the human rights of Jews in Russia.
Now you tell me, how can the plight of everybody on this earth reach the halls of the United Nations? And you have 22 million Afroameans whose churches are being bombed, little girls are being murdered, who whose leaders are being shut down in broad daylight.
Now you tell me why the leaders of this struggle have never taken it before the United Nations.
So our next move is to take the entire civil rights struggle into the United Nations.
Let the world see that Uncle Sam is guilty of violating the human rights of 22 million Afro and still has the audacity or the nerve to stand up and represent himself as the leader of the free world.
Not only is he a crook, he’s a hypocrite.
Here he is standing up in front of other people.
Uncle Sam with the blood of young mind mothers and fathers on his hands with the blood zipping down his jaws like a bloody jawed wolf and still got the nerve to point his finger at other countries.
You can’t even get civil rights legislation.
And this man has got the nerve to stand up and talk about South Africa or talk about Nazi Germany or talk about Portugal.
No, it no more days like those.
So I I say in my conclusion, the only way we’re going to solve it, we got to unite in unity and harmony.
And black nationalism is the key.
How we going to uh overcome the tendency to be at each other’s throat that always exists in our neighborhood? And the reason this tendency exists, the uh strategy of the white man has always been divide and conquer.
He keeps us divided in order to conquer us.
He tells you, I’m for separation and you for integration and keep us fighting with each other.
No, I’m not for separation and you’re not for integration.
But you and I are for his freedom.
Only you think that integration will get you freedom.
I think separation will get me freedom.
We both got the same objective.
We just got different ways of getting at it.
I studied this man, Billy Graham, who preaches white nationalism.
That’s what he preaches.
I say that’s what he preaches.
The whole church structure in this country is white nationalism.
You go inside a white church, that’s what they preaching.
White nationalism.
They got Jesus white, Mary white, God white, everybody white.
is white nationalism.
So what he does, the way he the way he the way he circumvents the the uh jealousy and envy that he ordinarily would incur among the heads of the church.
Whenever you go into an area where the church already is, you’re going to run into trouble cuz they got that thing what you call it uh syndicated.
They got a syndicate just like the racketeers have.
I’m going to say what’s on my mind cuz the church has already the preachers already proved to you that they got a syndicate.
And when you’re out in the rackets, whenever you get in another man’s territory, you know, they gang up on you.
And that’s the same way with you.
You run into the same thing.
So how Billy Graham gets around that, instead of going into somebody else’s territory, like he going to start a new new church, he don’t he doesn’t try and start a church.
He just goes in preaching Christ.
And he says everybody who believe in him, you go wherever you go wherever you find him.
So this helps all the churches.
And so it says it helps all the churches, they don’t find.
We’re going to do the same thing.
Only our gospel is black nationalism.
Gospel is white nationalism.
Our gospel is black nationalism and the gospel of black nationalism as I told you means you should control your own the politics of your community, the economy of your community and all of the society in which you live should be under your control.
And when and and once you uh the uh feel that this philosophy will solve your problem, go join any church that’s preached.
Don’t join a church where white nationalism is preached.
Now you can go to a negro church and be exposed to white nationalism.
But when you are when you walk in a negro churches and a white Mary and some white angels, that negro church is preaching white nationalism.
But when you go to a church and you see the pastor of that church with a philosophy and a program that’s designed to bring black people together and elevate black people, join that church.
Join that church.
If you see where the NAACP is preaching and practicing that which is designed to uh make black nationalism materialize, join NAACP.
join any kind of organization, civic, religious, fraternal, political, or otherwise, that’s based on lifting a black man up and making him master of his own community.
It’ll be it’ll be the the ballot or it’ll be the book.
It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death.
And if you’re not ready to pay that price, don’t use the word freedom in your vocabulary.
One more thing.
I was on a program in uh Illinois recently with Senator Paul Douglas, a so-called liberal, so-called Democrat, so-called white man.
At which time he told me that our African brothers were not interested in us in Africa.
He says the Africans aren’t interested in the American legal.
I knew he would lying.
During the next uh two or three weeks, it’s my intention and plan to make a tour of our African homeland.
And I hope that when I come back, I’ll be able to come back and let you know how our African brothers and sisters feel toward us.
And I know before I go there that they love us.
We’re one.
We’re the same.
The same man who has colonized them all these years.
Colonize you and me too all these years.
And all we have to do now is wake up and work in unity and harmony and the battle will be over.
I want to thank the Freedom Now Party and the Gold.
I want to thank Milton and Richard Henry for inviting me here this afternoon and also Reverend Cle.
And I want them to know that anything that I can ever do at any time to work with anybody uh in any kind of program that is sincerely designed to eliminate the political, the the economic and the social evils that confront all of our people in Detroit and elsewhere.
All they got to do is give me a telephone call and I’ll be on the next jet right on into the city.
As Malcolm concludes his speech, his message becomes sharper, global, and unavoidable.
He connects the black struggle in America to the liberation movements across Africa, Asia, and the colonized world.
What’s happening to black people in the United States, he explains, is not a civil rights issue.
It is colonialism.
and colonialism anywhere on earth has only ever ended one way, through unity and resistance.
Malcolm exposes how America presents itself as the leader of the free world while denying freedom to 22 million black people at home.
Churches are bombed, children are murdered, and leaders are assassinated.
Yet this same government lectures other nations about human rights.
Malcolm calls this hypocrisy what it truly is, a criminal behavior.
That is why he argues the fight must be elevated from civil rights to human rights.
Civil rights keep the struggle trapped inside America’s legal system.
The very system responsible for the oppression.
Human rights take the case to the world stage where America can no longer hide behind patriotic slogans and fake democracy.
Malcolm makes it clear no government that conspires against its own people will ever willingly free them.
Waiting is not a strategy.
Begging is not a solution.
And trusting your oppressor to correct himself is a dangerous illusion.
His final appeal is not about revenge.
It’s about unity.
Black nationalism, as Malcolm defines it, is not about separation for the sake of hatred.
It is about black people controlling their own communities, their own resources, and their own destiny.
Different paths, but same goal, freedom.
And if freedom is not the objective, then the word itself means nothing.
Malcolm X’s speech on the ballot or the bullet is not just one frozen in history.
It is a diagnosis of a system that still functions today.
Every warning he gave, every deception he exposed, and every strategy he outlined still echoes in the black experience across the world.
He challenged us to think beyond party loyalty, beyond religious divisions and symbolic victories.
Malcolm demanded that black people recognize their collective power, political power, economic power, and mental power, and use it strategically.
Because without unity, there is no leverage.
And without leverage, there is no justice.
And without justice, there can be no peace.
This message wasn’t meant to be comfortable.
It was meant to be transformational.
And the most dangerous thing about Malcolm X wasn’t his anger, it was his clarity.
If this message resonated with you, it’s because the truth still hits hard.
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Because the question Malcolm asked in 1964 still stands today.
Will we choose the ballot or will the system force something far more dangerous? Stay conscious.
Stay powerful.
