MALCOLM X
Farewell
The question remains: who killed Malcolm X? In his autobiography, co-authored by Alex Haley, Malcolm made this remark about the attempts upon his life, “…the more I keep thinking about this thing, the things that have been happening lately, I’m not all that sure it’s the Muslims, I know what they can do, and what they can’t, and they can’t do some of the stuff recently going on. Now, I’m going to tell you, the more I keep thinking about what happened to me in France, I think I’m going to quit saying it’s the Muslims.”
Upon learning of the assassination of Malcolm X, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. remarked that “One has to conquer the fear of death if he is going to do anything constructive in life and take a stand against evil.”
We may never know all of the facts about who was behind the assassination of Malcolm X and who ordered his death. But we do know that these assassins denied him the chance to act upon his newly formed convictions. Today, the man and the name, Malcolm X, are known in
The eulogy that African-American actor, Ossie Davis, delivered at Malcolm X’s funeral profoundly impresses upon us that, “…However we may have differed with him, or with each other about him and his value as a man, let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now. Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man but a seed which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is… a Prince… our own black shining Prince! …who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so.”
Malcolm X was a complex visionary who realized the course he set would be fraught with persecution, transitions and sacrifices. Malcolm X was a man who fulfilled his place in history and stayed true to his words: “It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood.”
