The Future Belongs to Those Who Prepare

"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

~ Malcolm X"

Malcolm was in awe of how Black people in Harlem, New York, lived in their world--apart from the white world that he had been consumed by when he lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and Lansing, Michigan. Harlem, New York, allowed Malcolm to no longer feel like a "mascot" that he felt he was while growing up and attending school in Lansing and Mason, Michigan. Malcolm's consumption of Black culture in Harlem, particularly his fascination with and immersion in Black music, dress, and language, enabled him to develop a great appreciation of and admiration for Black culture. Unlike many Black intellectuals of his time who often shunned Black popular culture, Malcolm never relinquished this appreciation of the Black cultural aesthetic. This would become evident in his lectures, which often highlighted the value of Black history and culture in the educational process. However, Harlem is also where Malcolm began to "hustle" and burglarize for a livelihood. He eventually fell into a life of crime, which was short-lived when he was eventually caught and sentenced in February 1946 to ten years to the Charleston State Prison.

Malcolm served a total of seven years in prison; part of his term was served in the Charleston State Prison in Massachusetts, and the other in the Norfolk Prison Colony. Three major events, which profoundly shaped his desire to become literate, occurred while incarcerated. The first event involved his move from Charleston State Prison to Norfolk Prison Colony, which had an extensive collection of library books that were willed by a millionaire named Parkhurst. The second event was his encounter with "Bimbi," an "old-time" burglar with extensive prison experience, and whom Malcolm greatly admired because of his verbal skills and understanding of philosophy.

While a minister in the Nation of Islam Malcolm preached a message that encouraged Black people in the United States to take pride in themselves and their history, to believe in their abilities, and to become self-sufficient. In tune with the Nations spiritual adviser Elijah Muhammad he once said of the white man:

"Anybody who rapes, and plunders, and enslaves, and steals, and drops hell bombs on people... anybody who does these things is nothing but a devil." 

Through becoming literate and educated Malcolm became politicised to the plight of segregated black people in the United States of America.  He left the Nation of Islam in 1964 as he grew to realise that in America, the `white man' he had hitherto seen as the enemy, was actually specific attitudes and actions held by some not only toward the Black man, but toward all other coloured peoples. His travels in the Muslim world, had not only made him more wordly, but he had met men with white complexions abroad who were genuinely brotherly.

Despite the fact that Elijah Muhammad's formal education went no further than the fourth grade, Malcolm was moved by Muhammad's wisdom, knowledge, and intellectual analysis of the experiences of people of African descent in the United States. But he realised that wisdom comes not from a greater amount of understanding or from following a dogma which did not stand up to his scrutiny through personal experience, but from deeper understanding of all humans rights.

Speaking to Gordon Parks in 1965 just two days before his assassination he said:

[L]istening to leaders like Nasser, Ben Bella, and Nkrumah awakened me to the dangers of racism. I realized racism isn't just a black and white problem. It's brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another.

Brother, remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant—the one who wanted to help the [Black] Muslims and the whites get together—and I told her there wasn't a ghost of a chance and she went away crying? Well, I've lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then—like all [Black] Muslims—I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man's entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay the cost. 

It cost me 12 years.That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of those days—I'm glad to be free of them.

Before his assassination Malcolm joined with the American civil rights movement. He urged for it to be renamed a human rights movement in common with all oppressed people he had come to realise existed around the world. On this he wrote letters to the President of the United States regarding the plight of Black people in America. 

Dr Martin Luther King said of him "While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race."

On 21st February 1965 Malcolm was gunned down at a Speech by former colleagues from the Nation of Islam.