Malcolm X to Address Leverett House Seminar

Malcolm X, the former Black Muslim official who has just announced plans to start his own black nationalist political party, will visit Harvard Wednesday to set forth his views on Negro politics.

The controversial Negro leader will speak under the auspices of the Leverett House Seminar on the Negro Revolution.

On March 3, Malcolm X severed his ties with Elijah Muhammad's Black Muslim movement to form his own political organization. He said that he would work to encourage Negroes to abandon non-violent tactics for active measures of self-defense against whites throughout the country. In one instance, he called upon Negroes to carry fire-arms for use in emergency situations.

Because 1964 is a Presidential election year, the Muslim leader believes that his call for direct Negro action in politics is particularly timely. He claimed that "the Negro could decide in '64 whether Johnson will remain the White House or return to his Texas cotton patch."

Epps Comments

Malcom X's influence has provoked major shifts in many Negroes' ideological positions, according to Archie C. Epps, teaching fellow in Middle Eastern Studies and director of the Leverett House seminar.

Epps said that Malcolm X's new movement, with its emphasis on direct political action and violent resistance, may well meet with success in the political arena, because it is free of the sectarianism which discouraged many Negroes from the Muslim movement.

The new party will be based in New York, the base of many Negro movements. "What Malcom X does in New York and what happens there may have broad consequences," Epps said.

Stems From Earlier Group

The new party, according to Epps and other observers of Negro history, descends directly from Marcus Harvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, which was active during the 1920's. As a strongly nationalistic group, it had an estimated membership of from one to six million members and assets of $2 million. The depression and Garvey's deportment by the federal government weakened the organization, but did not completely kill it, Epps explained. He noted that many chapters are still active in New York and other urban centers.

James Q. Wilson, associate professor of Government, and Martin L. Kilson, lecturer on Government and adviser to the Association of African and Afro-American Students, will join Malcolm in a forum discussion at Leverett House at 8 p.m. Wednesday evening.