US marks 58th anniversary of assassination of civil rights icon Malcolm X

US civil rights leader Malcolm X was assassinated 58 years ago, but his legacy lives on, especially in the Black community.

"Malcolm X is equally important to the civil rights movement as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.," said Derek Handley, an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an affiliated faculty with the Departments of African and African Diaspora Studies and Urban Studies Program.

"Malcolm X was the primary figure that the Black power movement held in high regard."

Malik el-Shabazz, who adopted the name Malcolm X to symbolize his unknown African ancestral surname, preached Black empowerment at a time in American history when society was dominated by whites.

Handley told Anadolu during a phone interview that many of Malcolm X's followers viewed his teachings like their bible, embracing his philosophies, which had not been seen before in America.

"A lot of Black people didn't hear anyone talk about Black and white people like Malcolm did. He was viewed as being fearless," said Handley. "The way that Malcolm talked, he appealed to young Black men. He was the symbol of Black manhood in that 'I'm not afraid of anybody, I'm not afraid of any white person. Not only am I not your equal, but I might be more superior than you.' That was a whole new way of thinking."

Malcom X professed that type of rhetoric in many of his speeches during the 1960s civil rights movement, which made him a lightning rod for criticism.

"We're all in the same boat, and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man," he said in a speech on April 3, 1964. "All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man."

While Handley said Malcolm X spoke candidly about the differentiation between Blacks and whites when it came to discrimination and social injustices, he explained that Malcolm X's rhetoric was often misinterpreted as being violent, which he said is a misnomer.

"The history and the media painted this narrative of Malcolm X promoting violence, when it wasn't violence he was promoting. It was self-defense," said Handley. "He wasn't calling for violent protests. Malcolm X was saying that if someone hits you on the head with a stick, you have the right to defend yourself."

Handley pointed out that both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King are civil rights figures whose philosophies usually get painted with one stroke of a brush.

"Folks want to freeze MLK in time, always pointing to his 'I Have a Dream' speech,'" said Handley. "In the same way, they freeze Malcolm X in time when he was with the Nation of Islam and promoted self-defense while pointing out the injustices being faced by Blacks at the hands of whites. They get frozen in time: Martin was nonviolent, Malcolm was violent."

Malcolm X rose to fame in the 1950s with his meteoric ascent to power as a member of the Nation of Islam. He increasingly took centerstage over the group's leader, Elijah Muhammad, and professed a flexed-muscle approach to the civil rights movement which significantly contrasted with the peaceful philosophy of MLK, leading the public to portray Malcolm X as a militant leader.

"When you compare the two, MLK was more acceptable to the moderate white population than Malcolm X," said Handley. "They looked at Malcolm's followers and painted them as the Black Muslims with a narrative of being violent and calling his followers the real racists because they were the people who really hated others. And for many white people, seeing that was scary."

On Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated as he began a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.

Three Black men were arrested for Malcolm X's assassination. Two of them were not even at the shooting scene that day.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office in New York reopened the case and both wrongly convicted men were exonerated and had their sentences vacated in November 2021.

Over the nearly six decades since his assassination, Handley said that the narrative of Malcolm X's civil rights philosophies has changed in regard to how the public views him, in part because society eventually saw the ways in which both MLK and Malcolm X influenced each other.

"Malcolm embraced some of Martin's philosophies when it came to Blacks and whites getting along. He wasn't talking about holding hands, but if you're a sincere white person, we can work together," said Handley. "In the same way, MLK embraced some of Malcolm X's views, with MLK saying in his later years before his assassination (April 4, 1968) that he was proud to be Black and that he embraced Black power and Black empowerment."

As with MLK, Handley said Malcolm X's motive was clear in that he tried to bring about equality and justice to the Black community.

"The legacy of Malcolm X today is that you're somebody, you have pride, you have this notion of Black economic power," said Handley. "He influenced the Black power movement, the Black arts movement, the Black student movement."

"The Black studies programs and departments being created across the nation's colleges, that's Malcolm X's legacy," continued Handley. "That Black history is actually being taught in schools is because of Malcolm X."

In today's society, where civil rights injustices still take place against Black people, such as the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, Handley said the influence of both MLK and Malcolm X remains in plain sight.

"I see the legacy of Malcolm and Martin in the Black Lives Matter movement," said Handley. "And what I mean by that, with Malcolm, you had this Black pride, this self-determination that you were somebody important. And Martin picked up that philosophy toward the end of his life."

"Every life is important. It doesn't matter if you're an ex-con or selling cigarettes illegally." Handley continued. "Every life matters, and when that life is being taken away unjustly, then something has to be done to stop that, to protest it, to make demands to make sure that doesn't happen again."