St. Claire Bourne.
I think Dr. Martin king was the spiritual leader of the Black movement; of the Civil Rights Movement and probably one of the finest theologians that we’ve produced in recent years.
He
was a dreamer and yet he was a committed man to struggle and he made
great sacrifice within that struggle. I had some strong disagreements
with him. I never thought that we should be locked into the concept of
non violence as a way of life.
I was perfectly willing to use it as a strategy.
I
think we should be slow in criticizing Martin Luther King. He was brave
enough to put his life on the line for what he believed in. We are
still here talking. That’s proof enough of his bravery over ours.
I
think the march on Washington was just that. It wasn’t a march on
Washington. It was a march in Washington. I don’t know of any sweeping
achievements that came out of it. It was a great ceremony. I would be
hard-pressed to identify the substance.
I happen to think
we’ve gotten enough mileage out of marching. It was a great ceremony.
It was a great rehearsal for a show we did not put on the road. For a
time we had the attention of the world.
Between the Civil
Rights Movement, the Caribbean federation movement, the African
Independence movement, we had the attention of the world and there were
people, though they hated our guts, they were willing to make concessions to us, based on the fact that we were ready to handle power.
We made too many speeches and didn’t do the necessary work. The unglamorous off-camera work that would have made it possible.
That
was our great mistake. Ceremony that lacked substance. And there was a
voice, loud and clear; analytical — we were fighting to keep from
hearing that voice.
It was the voice of big bad Malcolm X who had both the national and the international message.
I
met him first in 1958. I knew him from that period until his death and
sometimes saw him on a daily basis. I would furnish information on
history and background information.
I never told Malcolm X what to do and I don’t remember anybody else who told him what to do either.
I
first met Malcolm at the World’s Trade show building. He looked me up
and down and said ‘I bet you you are a swine eater.’ I admit that I had
paid some joyful visits to pork chops and other parts of the pig. And
I said that ‘Malcolm you know if it wasn’t for the pig you and I
wouldn’t be here arguing about the pig cause some of us would be gone.
We would have starved to death.’
Many times when Malcolm X
prefaced his speeches with the words ‘the honorable Elijah Muhammad
teaches us.’ Malcolm X was teaching Malcolm X lessons over and beyond
anything the Honorable Elijah Muhammad ever thought about.
The
Arabs and certain powerful groups within Islam really wanted Malcolm on
their side. There was a serious attempts to persuade Malcolm to turn on
Elijah Muhammad and establish a second Islamic group based on what
they considered Orthodox Islam.
They offered him $3.5 million.
He turned it down. And we were walking down the street towards his car.
This man had turned down 3.5 million dollars whacked me on the shoulder
and said ‘Swine eater, let me buy you a cup of coffee.’
He was
more loyal to Elijah Muhammad eventually was to him. Elijah Muhammad was
getting old and feeble and there was suspicion that Malcolm X would be
the logical successor. There was those within the nation who didn’t
want Malcolm X as the logical successor because Malcolm X would have
done some serious house cleaning. He was an honest man. There were some
thieves in the house.
I think his development in
Pan-Africanism came a little later in his life. In the final analysis he
was as good a Pan-Africanist as any of the rest. Malcolm x had laid
down a threat to the colonial powers of the world.
I do not think that Malcolm X’s murder was a local American thing. I think it was a larger thing than that.
And
I do not think that Farrakhan had anything directly to do with the
murder. But I do think that Farrakhan was guilty of creating the
attitude and the atmosphere that led to the murder.
Without Farrakhan I think Malcolm X still would have been assassinated. We
were friends from the day we met until his death. And when I got the
word of his death I was in Connecticut. I had gone up to make a speech
in Connecticut.
And I was at a Jewish home. And someone
announced that he had died and then someone added, dismissing the whole
thing that, ‘After all, he was anti-Semitic.’
I know the man well enough to know that he really didn’t hate anybody. He hated certain things people did.
He
wasn’t a hater at all. They spoke as if they had the right to tell us
who should and should not be our hero. I went into that bathroom and it
was after dinner and just cried like a child for 15 minutes.
I
came out partly composed and made the speech that night I was asked to
make and came on home and again tried to deal with the reality of the
situation because to me Malcolm X was not gone and he’s still not gone
in my imagination.
The whole year after his death I always got
the feeling that we were having out usual conversation and I would
always end it ‘What can I do?’
And finally I got the feeling that he had said ‘Do your best work.’ I was a good teacher before that. I was a better teacher and better human being after that.
Because I knew that being a good classroom teacher was my best work.
“Speaking Truth To Empower.”
