“Don’t be shocked when I say that I was in prison.” Malcolm X told an audience of activists in 1963, “You’re still in prison. That’s what America means: prison.” 

Though he was not a Marxist, Malcolm was a born leader and revolutionary who sacrificed his life in the struggle to liberate that prison. While the ruling class treated him with derision and hostility, his bold example continues to inspire revolutionary fighters around the world.

On February 21, 1965, his evolution as a political thinker was cut short in a hail of bullets at New York City’s Audubon Ballroom. Whether or not the authorities were involved in his assassination, they were likely aware it was in the works and did nothing to stop it. 

We live in times of great instability and strife. The oppression, exploitation, and degradation millions feel continues to build. People are searching for leaders who can understand their frustration and show them how to channel this anger toward real change.

A revolutionary is someone who works towards or engages in political revolution. This includes those who want to fight against the governmental power structure without clearly understanding the property relations on which that political apparatus is based. All genuine communists are revolutionaries, but not all revolutionaries are communists. One of our main tasks is to win revolutionary workers and youth to the ideas of scientific socialism.

Although we may have plenty of differences with non-communist revolutionaries, we also have important points of agreement. It is in this spirit that we can learn many lessons and take much inspiration from the life of Malcolm X.

Raised in a cauldron of violence

Born Malcolm Little, in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19, 1925, the future mass leader drew revolutionary conclusions from his life experience. Raised in a country with racism built into its foundations, Malcolm’s family suffered from acts of racist terror. One night, the KKK showed up at the family’s house brandishing shotguns and rifles. The Klan’s threats forced the family to move to Michigan.

In Michigan, Malcolm’s father, Earl Little, was killed in the most brutal fashion, cut up by a streetcar. Though ruled “an accident,” it was more than likely a racist murder.

Up to the 1940s, Marcus Garvey’s Back to Africa Movement was the largest Black nationalist effort in the US. Malcolm X’s father was a follower of Garvey, and racists targeted him because of his work in the movement. Malcolm was inspired by his father’s activism, and his ideas left an impression.

Malcolm admired Garvey for his uncompromising attitude and because Garvey sought to organize the Black masses, not Black elites:

Garvey had the hopes and aspirations of the Black man at heart, and the Black masses … felt this, so they gave Garvey their support … The Negro intellectual was against Garvey. The Negro professional was against Garvey.

Malcolm X cultivated a similar stubborn determination. When he was young, he told his English teacher that he wanted to go to law school. The teacher responded, “A lawyer—that’s no realistic goal,” suggesting instead that Malcolm should learn a trade.

“It was then that I began to change—inside,” Malcolm later wrote, “whatever I have done since then, I have driven myself to become a success at it.” He maintained this steadfast temperament for the rest of his life. Once, when his house was firebombed, Malcolm said, “I wouldn’t get excited over a few bombs.”

Racism in postwar America

Racism is deeply rooted in American capitalism. Chattel slavery needed to be justified and was the material basis for white supremacist ideas. After the Civil War and Reconstruction, capitalism used racism to keep workers divided and distracted from the real source of our misery: the profit system.

Malcolm was 20 when World War II ended. There were more jobs in industrialized areas, resulting in a wave of mass migration by Black people to the Northeast, Midwest, and California. By the 1960s, a majority of the Black population lived in cities.

The movement of Black workers against lynchings and discrimination in the 1930s and 1940s, including the campaign to free the Scotsboro Boys, impacted mass consciousness. As hundreds of thousands of Black veterans returned from a war ostensibly fought for “freedom and democracy,” the mood for racial equality intensified.

Most Black Americans didn’t benefit from the period of postwar prosperity. As Manning Marable wrote, “Malcolm … was a product of the modern ghetto. The emotional rage he expressed was a reaction to racism in its urban context: segregated urban schools, substandard housing, high infant mortality rates, drugs, and crime.”

Many companies would not hire Blacks at all, and if they did, they were “last hired, first fired.” Poverty and unemployment rates were far higher among Black people, especially the youth. Disparities in rates of unemployment and poverty continue to this day.

With few pathways to a decent quality of life, Malcolm got caught up in the criminal world. In 1948, he landed in a Massachusetts prison—a big turning point in his life.

Behind bars, Malcolm X met an older prisoner named John Elton Bembry, who convinced him of the importance of reading, education, and discipline. His formal education ended after eighth grade, but in prison, he became a voracious reader:

Every night … I would be outraged with the ‘lights out.’ It always seemed to catch me right in the middle of something engrossing. Fortunately, right outside my door was a corridor light that cast a glow into my room … So when ‘lights out’ came, I would sit on the floor where I could continue reading.

Some of his family members had gotten involved with the Nation of Islam (NOI), and when they reached out to him, he joined—dedicating the rest of his life to fighting the racist system.

Malcolm’s attraction to the NOI is linked to the vacuum that existed in American politics. The AFL and CIO leaders accepted the limits of capitalism and worked with the class enemy to control the workers at home and to get them to support US imperialism’s crimes abroad. This led to a policy of accepting segregation and racism.

The major force on the left was the Communist Party, a Stalinist organization already in decline. Though it had done some positive work in the struggle against racism, its zigzagging on racial issues and its opportunist policies, coupled with the Red Scare, were not attractive either. Given the state of the left and the labor movement, it’s no surprise that most young Blacks didn’t see these organizations as viable avenues for liberation.

 

Black nationalism in the US

In the course of the struggle against American racism, there have been two main trends. One has fought against segregation and for equality and racial integration, while the other adopted separatism and Black nationalism. Ever since the mass struggles of the 1930s and 1940s, the general trajectory in the fight against racism has been the former.

With American workers on the offensive and rising numbers of Black workers joining unions, the influence of Black nationalism among the masses waned. However, the pace of change was slow, and the conditions faced by millions of Black people remained intolerable. There was plenty of room for Black nationalist ideas to get an echo, especially among some layers of youth, the lumpen-proletariat, and the middle class.

Wallace Fard Muhammad founded the NOI in Detroit around 1930. When he left the country in 1934, Elijah Muhammad took over what was an organization of just a few hundred people.

Although the NOI did not adhere to the orthodox Islamic faith, it posed as an alternative to Christianity, which it correctly linked with the ruling class. It forbade alcohol and drugs, which capitalist society uses as a tool to keep the oppressed numbed and in chains. It prohibited gambling, which is just another tax on the working class. It made people feel proud to be Black.

Four-hundred-plus years of slavery and racist terror took a tremendous toll on the Black population. Capitalist cultural and educational institutions explained history with themselves at the center and emphasized “Manifest Destiny.” Black people were made to internalize a sense of inferiority. Giving people an identity and sense of history, as well as raising up their self confidence appealed to a layer of the urban Black population, forced to live in substandard segregated housing.

Lacking a class analysis, the NOI fell into a form of identity politics. They lumped the Black population together into a single mass pitted against the “white devils,” who were also alleged to be an undifferentiated mass. While combining fictitious mythology with some real history, they argued that Black people needed their own nation. Like most religions, the NOI taught that a supreme being would eventually save people, and that Black people would eventually be given land of their own. In the meantime, many of their members started small businesses.

In the conditions of the postwar US, a group like this could get an echo. But it remained extremely small—until Malcolm X was released from prison.

Building the organization

Malcolm X was released in 1952 and, by the autumn of 1953, was working fulltime as a NOI minister. He maintained a busy schedule and lived a disciplined life. Every aspect of his existence was devoted to the cause. He did not own anything and depended on the NOI for a place to live and money for expenses. It was easy for Malcolm to make demands on people, as he led by example and was even harder on himself. This was an extraordinary personal transformation considering his earlier years.

Malcolm was a revolutionary in the making. Revolutionaries need the courage to speak truth to power and stick to their principles when attacked. They must be filled with conviction and convincing in transmitting their message. Malcolm embodied all of these qualities.

Malcolm X concentrated on actively recruiting people, focusing on the youth. He went to places where people were hanging out and initiated conversations. He would ask strangers about racism and what good the “white man” had done for them. In this way, he would get people thinking about racism and how to fight it.

As a speaker, he had the ability to make the listener question long-held beliefs, to challenge the ideological framework implanted by the dominant system. Malcolm never stopped studying, and his command of US and world history helped him expose the racist system. In public meetings, he would not simply lecture the crowd, but would encourage participants to ask questions and debate ideas.

Malcolm would give his recruits a sense that life could be different. Some who had problems with alcohol, drugs, or were connected with criminal activity turned their lives around. They saw their old habits as chains to misery and the new life in the NOI as a way to change things.

Malcolm built the NOI in a way that Elijah Muhammad had been unable to. Whereas Muhammad had a passive approach and was building an insular organization, Malcolm’s methods took the NOI from about 1,200 in 1953 to 6,000 in 1955. It is estimated that by 1961, they had between 50,000 and 75,000 members, and more than 100 mosques around the country.

Danton, a leader during the French Revolution, famously said that revolutionaries need “audacity, audacity, and more audacity!” Malcolm X had plenty. As he built the organization, he was not afraid to take on any opponent. Malcolm also was the key to the NOI receiving press coverage, which informed a lot more people of its existence.

Malcolm X was given a regular column in the Amsterdam News, an important weekly paper in Harlem. He was also featured in an episode about the NOI on Mike Wallace’s TV show. Interviewers attacked Malcolm and the NOI during the program, titled “The Hate That Hate Produced,” but Malcolm stood his ground, patiently explaining his ideas.

He also started a monthly newspaper, Muhammad Speaks. Soon, it had tens of thousands of readers, many of whom were not members. It became another tool to build. He understood the attractive power of a revolutionary press which tells people the truth and provides a unified vision for the way forward:

You need a newspaper. We believe in the power of the press … The Muhammad Speaks newspaper, I—and another person—started it myself in my basement. And I’ve never gone past the eighth grade … We can turn out a newspaper that will feed our people with so much information that we can bring about a real live revolution right here before you know it.

Fighting police brutality

Attacks by the state also helped build the organization, in particular, two cases of egregious police violence against NOI members. Malcolm’s masterful response to these incidents clearly revealed his vision for boldly fighting against oppression, as opposed to taking a passive stance.

In 1957, a couple of Harlem NOI members saw NYPD officers beating a man. When they objected, cops attacked one of them, Johnson Hinton, with nightsticks: “His scalp was split open, and a police car came and he was taken to a nearby precinct … He was only semi-conscious. Blood had bathed his head and face and shoulders.”

Malcolm mobilized hundreds of members and non-members and marched to the police precinct to make sure Hinton was taken to the hospital. “Harlem’s Black people were long since sick and tired of police brutality,” Malcolm wrote, “and they never had seen any organization of Black men take a firm stand.” This electrifying action raised Malcolm’s profile as a leader who would fight against violence and oppression.

The other incident occurred on April 27, 1962, when LA cops raided and killed seven NOI members, and crippled another for life. Malcolm flew in from New York and used the incident to expose the systemic racism and brutality of the LAPD.

Malcolm X’s organizing against police brutality helped put him on the national radar and set him on a more overtly political path.

Break with the NOI

In order to build a large organization, a leader must inspire the membership with ideas. Some of the NOI’s ideas received an echo in the struggle of the Black population against racism, but they were mixed in with many confused and reactionary pro-capitalist ideas, religion, and other forms of philosophical idealism.

The 1950s and 1960s saw a mass struggle against racial segregation. The Civil Rights movement linked the fight against Jim Crow to social demands of the Black working class. The Montgomery bus boycott, sit-ins, and mass demonstrations took place without the active participation of the NOI, which abstained from these movements. Malcolm X was in Washington, DC in August 1963 for the historic March on Washington, but the NOI played no role as an organization.

Malcolm was moving inexorably in the direction of political activism. Elijah Muhammad wanted to run the NOI as a sect, isolated from these great events. He and the top leadership began to see Malcolm as a threat to the control of the NOI. This ultimately led to a clash.

Several issues eventually led to the split, including rumors that NOI leaders were meeting with racist right-wing groups in the hopes of acquiring land where Blacks could self-segregate and live separately in the deep South. In contrast, Malcolm was evolving away from Black nationalism toward socialist ideas.

What originally drew Malcolm to the NOI was the degrading life under American capitalism, which was completely intertwined with racism. He was in organic solidarity with the struggles of people in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia against colonialism and imperialism. Malcolm looked to Muslims around the world and to governments in formerly colonial countries for answers on how to fight racism in the US.

While evolving away from the NOI’s nationalism, he relentlessly criticized reformists in the Civil Rights movement. He had no illusions in the Democrats or Republicans, and argued for electoral abstention until a viable political force was built, “Don’t be throwing out any ballots. A ballot is like a bullet. You don’t throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.”

His uncompromising attitude towards the ruling class parties was rooted in his understanding that only genuine revolutionary struggle could end racism:

Revolution is never based on begging somebody for an integrated cup of coffee. Revolutions are never fought by turning the other cheek. Revolutions are never based upon love-your-enemy and pray-for-those-who-despitefully-use-you. And revolutions are never waged singing “We Shall Overcome.” Revolutions are based on bloodshed. Revolutions are never compromising. Revolutions are never based upon negotiations. Revolutions are never based upon any kind of tokenism whatsoever. Revolutions are never even based upon that which is begging a corrupt society or a corrupt system to accept us into it. Revolutions overturn systems. And there is no system on this earth which has proven itself more corrupt, more criminal, than this system.

This perspective led him towards the Socialist Workers Party. He praised the SWP’s newspaper and spoke at events organized by the party. Unfortunately, by then, the SWP had degenerated politically. Instead of trying to convince him of Marxism, they tailed Black nationalism—the very ideas Malcolm was moving away from—squandering the opportunity to win a talented mass leader to the revolutionary communist banner.

The last period

When Malcolm split with the NOI, he created two groups, one religious and one political: Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).

When a journalist asked Malcolm about the OAAU’s ideology, he said that the organization “is considered Black nationalist.” It’s an interesting phrase, indicating that Malcolm had developed doubts about the term, but didn’t yet have an alternative.

In at least one important way, the OAAU remained true to Malcolm’s Black nationalist roots: it sought to organize Black Americans across class lines instead of along class lines. It did not take the position that only a workers’ revolution can put an end to capitalism and lay the basis for ending racism—and that the struggle for this revolution is inseparable from the fight to unite the working class in common action across racial lines.

We will never know what could have been had Malcolm X not been murdered at the age of 39, or whether an organization like the RCA could have won him over, had we existed with sufficient size at the time. Nonetheless, the direction Malcolm was headed is clear. On May 29, 1964, he was asked which political and economic system he supported:

I don’t know. But I’m flexible … As was stated earlier, all of the countries that are emerging today from under the shackles of colonialism are turning toward socialism. I don’t think it’s an accident. Most of the countries that were colonial powers were capitalist countries, and the last bulwark of capitalism today is America. It’s impossible for a white person to believe in capitalism and not believe in racism. You can’t have capitalism without racism. And if you find one and you happen to get that person into a conversation and they have a philosophy that makes you sure they don’t have this racism in their outlook, usually they’re socialists or their political philosophy is socialism.

The conditions that forged Malcolm X are still with us and there are many lessons to be learned from his heroic life. Two stand out. First, it is vital that we build a large, experienced, and educated communist party in preparation for the titanic class struggles ahead. Second, whenever movements against capitalist injustice develop, Marxists must participate actively and raise our ideas, above all, the need for class independence. We cannot simply tail such movements. We must support those aspects that raise class unity and confidence, while arguing against those aspects that work against this.

If we do this in a clear and respectful way, we can win over the best individuals from these movements and strengthen the forces of revolutionary communism. If we succeed in building a large and vibrant communist organization in the US, we will guarantee the victory of the working class, bring an end to racist capitalism, and begin building a new world based on international solidarity and cooperation.