News

HMS Is Facing a Deficit. Under Trump, Some Fear It May Get Worse.

News

Cambridge Police Respond to Three Armed Robberies Over Holiday Weekend

News

What’s Next for Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery Initiative?

News

MassDOT Adds Unpopular Train Layover to Allston I-90 Project in Sudden Reversal

News

Denied Winter Campus Housing, International Students Scramble to Find Alternative Options

Malcolm X Demands States for Negroes, Calls Token Integration 'Mere Pacifier'

Muslim Leader Says Whites Must Learn 'What Time It Is'

By Paul S. Cowan

Malcolm X (who has given his "slave name," Little, back to the whites) takes his case to college audiences "so that they can know what time it is." Any intelligent white man should be able to read the clock, he maintained, after the debate last night; "two years ago the Portuguese said they had no white problem, and now look what's happened in Angola. The same thing will happen here, if the black man doesn't get his freedom."

At least a busload of Muslims attend most of Malcolm X's college speaking engagements. For the most part, they seem unwilling to answer an outsider's questions ("you will have to ask our leader"), hesitant to discuss their own relationship to the movement, and anxious to complain of their treatment in the White press ("our arguments are too new for them," said one man; "when we are maligned so often, it has to be deliberate," said another).

Last night, Malcolm X's first speech was long and repetitive; his followers remained silent. After his opponent. Walter Carrington, stated the NAACP's case, the Muslim leader became more passionate ("you people wouldn't be here at Harvard if your forefathers hadn't said Liberty or Death'--we say the same thing"). Several Muslims, in sharp, clipped bursts, responded "that's right."

The rest of the audience--both Negro and white--were also quiet during Malcolm X's speech. They applauded with increasing enthusiasm as his opponent, Walter Carrington, defended the NAACP position with statements like "Negro racist groups first predicted that Armageddon would come in 1941. Then they gave the world 70 years of grace, which brought the date to 1984 (applause). I don't know whether they influenced George Orwell or George Orwell influenced them." (more applanse) The Muslims in the audience remained completely silent.

During the question period, the audience grew still more responsive. "There is no more apartheld in South Africa than in the United States," said Malcolm X.

"That's right," said several followers. The rest of the audience hissed. "That," the Muslim leader told them, "is what the serpent did to Eve in the garden."

His moods varied from minute to minute. Every few minutes he would chat with Carrington or smile at the moderator, or the audience. But when he was asked, as a last question, what the eventual outcome of the racial conflict would be, he replied:

"It depends on you. In the Bible God offered the Pharaoh freedom if he would just let the oppressed people free to go to the land of milk and honey. But the Pharaoh disobeyed, and he was destroyed.

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags