“You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear You’ve got to be taught from year to year You’ve got to be carefully taught.” –Rodgers and Hammerstein, \“South Pacific”
The real reason Malcolm X was assassinated
F
ifty-eight years ago, on Feb. 21, 1965, one Black man shot and killed another Black man and changed the course of history. The killer could have been from the FBI, he could have been from the Nation of Islam, he could have been a finger on the hand of both. Who the guy was, we do not know — all we know is that he was Black, he was effective, and that he was taught to think differently from Malcolm X even though they were the same color. Malcolm X’s death changed the world.
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By Abigail McGrath
Because of that assassin, a way of thinking was effectively diluted. It still is to this day. Malcolm was the bad boy of that era; Martin Luther King Jr. was the saintly one. Martin was nonviolent and turned the other cheek. Malcolm was for plucking out your eyeballs and teeth. It is true that they both had the same goals, they just went about it differently. It was the Beatles versus the Rolling Stones.
They both made beautiful music. Bad boys, however, don’t get a national holiday named after them. They may get a boulevard in Harlem, but not a paid vacation day. Saintly ones become martyrs. Malcolm X voiced the thoughts that many people, mostly Black, were thinking but were afraid to say out loud. “I’ll have them n______ voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” –Lyndon B. Johnson [said to two governors regarding the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to then–Air Force One steward Robert MacMillan]
