“Message to the Grassroots” is one of the best speeches made by Malcolm X. He gave it in Detroit on November 10th 1963. It was his answer to Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech given just a few months before. Malcolm X says that you cannot have a revolution without violence, that what blacks in America need to fight for is not the right to sit next to a white man at a lunch counter but the right to a country of their own. It is a call for black nationalism, for black revolution.
It is also the speech where he laid out the difference between house Negroes and field Negroes, calling Martin Luther King a house Negro – one who sells out to whites.
King was leading a Negro revolution, a revolution of turn the other cheek and singing “We Shall Overcome” – which is no revolution at all. If you look at the successful revolutions in history – the French, American, Russian and Chinese revolutions – what do you see? You see violence, you see men fighting for land.
Why is violence wrong in Mississippi and Alabama, when your churches are being bombed and your little girls are being murdered? If it is right for America to teach us how to be violent in defence of her against Hitler, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
We are all black people, second-class citizens, ex-slaves. You are nothing but an ex-slave. You did not come here on the Mayflower. You came here on a slave ship – in chains. As a black person you are not wanted in America.
We have a common enemy. Once we all see that we can come together as one. And what we have foremost in common is that enemy, the white man.
He is the enemy of anyone anywhere in the world who is not white. In Kenya, Algeria and China. At the Bandung conference they found that by not inviting the white man they could get along.
The march on Washington came from the grassroots. It scared the white man to death. President Kennedy called in the Negro leaders:
“Call it off.” Kennedy said, “Look, you all letting this thing go too far.”
And Old Tom said, “Boss, I can’t stop it, because I didn’t start it. I’m not even in it, much less at the head of it.”
And that old shrewd fox, he said, “Well If you all aren’t in it, I’ll put you in it. I’ll put you at the head of it. I’ll endorse it. I’ll welcome it. I’ll help it. I’ll join it.”
It was a sell-out. It was a takeover. When James Baldwin came in from Paris, they would not let him talk, because they could not make him go by the script. They controlled it so tight. It was a circus, a performance that beat anything Hollywood could ever do.
See also:
- Malcolm X: Message to the Grassroots – read the speech itself. You might be able to find parts of it on YouTube.
- Malcolm X
- house Negro – a post that is lifted straight from that part of the speech (but edited for length).
- Negro – the word is now a put-down and you can see the beginnings of that in this speech.
- Martin Luther King, Jr
- white people
- The oneness of mankind – he gave the “Grassroots” speech before he went to Mecca. Read what he said after he came back from Mecca.
- Frantz Fanon – who wrote about why violence against whites is necessary
Abagond 