“Our living Black manhood…Our own Black shining prince…” eulogized Ossie Davis in his moving remarks at the February 1965 memorial service for Malcolm X. On Tuesday, May 19 the iconic African American leader would have been 84 years old, if he had not been slain by assassins in a Harlem ballroom. Anniversaries have become the customary occasion to reflect, reminisce, to speculate and so it seems appropriate to take this time to contemplate: As a community elder, what would Malcolm be doing now? What would he say and think about Barack Obama, the first Black president? How would he assess President Obama’s first 100 days?

It is tempting to try to step into the mind of Malcolm and offer some thoughts. But of course, no one really knows, and anyone who thinks that they could project answers would be foolish to try. However, based upon what is known about Malcolm, particularly the last years of his life there are many of his values, perspectives, and teachings that remain highly relevant today. They also provide important guidelines as Black communities work through this time of unprecedented political opportunity in the midst of severe economic hardship and challenge.

First and perhaps most important, Malcolm X spoke truth to power, never afraid to say what he believed to be true. His remarks were never moderated by any form of political correctness, he said what most of us are unable to say. Not only because most lack his wit, expansive knowledge, and oratorical skill, but because most of us remain bound by the restraints of pragmatism and fear. Whether organizing for the Nation of Islam, or for the Organization of African American Unity, following his break with The Nation, Malcolm was unwavering. Following the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm made his famous ‘chickens coming home to roost’ comment. Widely criticized for the remarks made during a period of national mourning, the essence – that the violence spawned by the United States would haunt the society – was a truth that resonated with many throughout the country.

As one listens to his recorded speeches today, Malcolm’s sharp wit, fearlessness, and the basic wisdom embedded in his words continues to command respect and admiration. Malcolm focused on root causes, he talked of systems and structures, colonialism, imperialism, racism, and the need for alternatives.

“…the interests in this country are in cahoots with the interests in France and the interests in Britain. It’s one huge complex or combine, and it creates what’s known as not the American power structure or the French power structure, but it’s an international power structure. And this international power structure is used to suppress the masses of dark-skinned people all over the world and exploit them of their natural resources.” (Detroit, February 1965)

Today, internationalists continue to analyze the intersection between racism and the global economy. The need for unity between Africans and the African Diaspora, for shared analysis, and complementary struggles for racial and economic justice is as important in 2009 as it was in 1965.

Malcolm was not afraid to change, to acknowledge the theoretical and political shifts in his thinking. Few would have had the courage to make a public and dramatic break with the leadership of the Nation of Islam in which Elijah Muhammad taught that the devil was the white man, unequal to Blacks. Yet, Malcolm returned from Mecca with a 180 degree shift in his views.

The yardstick that is used by the Muslim to measure another man is not the man’s color but the man’s deeds, the man’s conscious behavior, the man’s intentions. And when you use that as a standard of measurement or judgment, you never go wrong. (Detroit, February 1965)

And, he was clear about the need for a strong relationship with Africa. Not just Africa as the land from which one could draw cultural inspiration but a place from which African Americans take their identity.

You can’t have a positive attitude toward yourself and a negative attitude toward Africa at the same time. To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude toward Africa becomes positive, you’ll find that your understanding of and your attitude toward yourself will also become positive. (Detroit, February 1965)

While it has been 44 years, we still have much to learn from Malcolm: A Black man who embraced opportunities for growth and change, who always spoke truth to power, who understood why it was vitally important for African Americans to reach across oceans and cultures in order to bridge the historical differences between ourselves and brothers and sisters in Africa and the Diaspora, a Black man who simply was not afraid to Be.

Happy Birthday, Malcolm.

Some say that America is experiencing the worst economic crisis since the great depression. Folks in Black (URBAN) communities are being hit the hardest as unemployment numbers for Blacks approaches 11 percent. But while stocks on Wall Street continue to lose vale–and personal savings are decreasing, the election of our first Black President has created a growth industry in urban communities across America. The business of leadership is going strong with no signs of being adversely affected by the economy.

Employing the most sophisticated marketing strategies and the most savvy public relations teams, Black political leaders are popping up all over the tube lately. Contrary to our Presidents insistence that change will come from the “Bottom Up,” Our new crop of exalted, enlightened and forward thinking leaders often appear on television by themselves; disconnected from those they represent, and providing viewers with their plans for transforming our communities. One is left to believe that there are scant few in the Black community who have any sense of the challenges facing our communities, and even fewer working on them.

But while the light that’s being cast on high profile Blacks has intensified, it’s also become very narrow. The spotlight has made these “superstars” unwitting (or not) accomplices to marginalizing the work normal folk who, may be less sophisticated in their approach but are no less committed to the cause.

There are people like Dilettante Bass and Shareef Nash (featured in the latest segment of “From The Bottom Up”) in cities all across this country. Every day they get up and do the unglamorous but necessary work of human and cultural revitalization. These are the future leaders who’ve put skin in the game with no expectation of a reward other than the advancement of the communities in which they live.

These young leaders must be mentored and nurtured. The stage is large to be shared with these ground troops. Our leaders can surely turn their spotlights into floodlights and take the efforts of these future leaders out of the shadows and make the job of creating change from the bottom up a whole lot easier.

Twin crises of the economy and Iraq figured to take center stage Wednesday, Day One for the new administration.

“Tonight, we celebrate. Tomorrow, the work begins,” Obama declared Tuesday night at the Commander in Chief Ball, one of 10 official black-tie celebrations that kept him up late into the night.

The first full day of the Obama presidency promised to be packed, at the White House and on Capitol Hill. It also promised to reveal much about how Obama intends to govern for the next four years, in style and substance.

Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue now are controlled by Democrats, providing a chance for the Obama administration to succeed if he and fellow lawmakers of the same party can work in concert effectively and if divergent Democratic interest groups don’t pull the new president in too many directions.

The capstone to four days of inaugural festivities takes place at the Washington National Cathedral on Wednesday morning, with a national prayer service that is a tradition dating to George Washington’s time. Obama and his wife, Michelle, were to welcome hundreds of members of the public to a White House open house, part of his pledge to make government and those who govern more accessible.

A meeting with his economic team was planned to assess his approach and plot the way forward. Taking over the White House with 11 million Americans out of work and trillions of dollars in stock market savings lost, Obama said turning around the limping economy is his first and greatest priority.

Congress already has given him a second installment of financial-industry bailout money, worth $350 billion, and is fast-tracking a massive economic stimulus bill of $825 billion or more. Even those bold measures, on top of hundreds of billions in other federal spending over recent months, may not be enough to prevent the recession from growing deeper.

“Fortunately, we’ve seen Congress immediately start working on the economic recovery package, getting that passed and putting people back to work,” Obama said in an ABC News interview. “That’s going to be the thing we’ll be most focused on.”

The war in Iraq that he has promised to end was featuring prominently in Obama’s first day as well.

He was convening senior commanders and top national security aides — including holdover Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen — to begin to make good on his pledge to, as he put it in his inaugural address, “responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan.”

The two unfinished wars are twinned for Obama. He has promised to bring U.S. combat troops home from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, as long as doing so wouldn’t endanger either the Americans left behind for training and terrorism-fighting nor the security gains in Iraq. And he has said he would use that drawdown to bolster the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, where U.S.-backed fighters are losing ground against a resurgent Taliban.

While Obama gets to work in earnest at the White House, Congress planned to do its part.

A Senate committee was going over a huge portion of Obama’s economic revival package. On the other side of the Capitol, the House planned a vote on legislation setting conditions on Obama’s use of the new infusion of financial bailout money.

Work on getting the Obama administration fully staffed was also proceeding.

Within hours of Obama assuming the presidency, the Senate approved six members of his Cabinet. His choice of Hillary Rodham Clinton to be secretary of state awaited Senate action Wednesday, her confirmation held up for a day by Republican concern over the foundation fundraising of her husband, the former president.

Also left unconfirmed was Timothy Geithner, the nominee to head the Treasury Department. He faces the Senate Finance Committee, also Wednesday, where he will have to explain his initial failure to pay payroll taxes he owed while working for the International Monetary Fund.

The Senate Judiciary Committee could take up the question of Eric Holder for Obama’s attorney general.

The new president signaled that a flurry of executive actions, studied and prepared during his two-month-plus transition, will come quickly too.

Among the possibilities for the first day was the naming of a Middle East envoy, critical at a time of renewed hostilities between Israelis and the Palestinians; an order closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a move that will take considerable time to execute and comes on the heels of a suspension of war crimes trials there pending a review; prohibiting — in most cases — the harsh interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists that have damaged the U.S. image around the globe; overturning the so-called Mexico City policy that forbids U.S. funding for family planning programs that offer abortion; and lifting President George W. Bush’s limit on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Preventative action was taken Tuesday already. New White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel ordered all federal agencies to put the brakes on any pending regulations that the Bush administration tried to push through in its waning days.

On the slightly more distant horizon, but part of the immediate workload, were the early February due date for sending the outlines of Obama’s first budget request to Capitol Hill and plans for a State of the Union-like speech within weeks to a joint session of Congress.

From Bill Kristol at The New York Times:

Barack Obama made news Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”: The White House dog will likely be a Labradoodle or a Portuguese water dog.

I’ve got to say I’m a little disappointed. These are nice, friendly, generally obedient breeds (or in the case of the Labradoodle, a crossbreed). But what a missed opportunity! Obama could have made a bolder, edgier choice, like a mini-Australian shepherd. I happen to know one well. He’s very smart, a bit neurotic, devoted to his master (if sometimes confused about whether he or the master is the master), and always looking for people to herd. A mini-Aussie would have fit right into a White House populated by Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, Joe Biden et al. Instead, Obama’s going with a no-drama canine alternative.

And he seems to be going for the no-dramatic-change-in-policy-in-the-White-House alternative as well. Consider Obama’s reaction when George Stephanopoulos played a clip of Dick Cheney counseling Obama not to implement his campaign rhetoric until he’s fully briefed on the details of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policy.

“I think that was pretty good advice, which is I should know what’s going on before we make judgments and that we shouldn’t be making judgments on the basis of incomplete information or campaign rhetoric. So I’ve got no quibble with that particular quote,” said Obama. Usually, presidents pretend their campaign positions are more than “campaign rhetoric.” Not Obama.

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In that effort, he’ll almost surely be working with a stronger Democratic majority in Congress, as well as among governors and state legislatures nationwide. GOP incumbents at every level are endangered just eight years after President Bush’s election ignited talk of lasting Republican Party dominance.

It’s been an extraordinary campaign of shattered records, ceilings and assumptions. Indeed, a race for the ages.

Democrat Obama has exuded confidence in the campaign’s final days, reaching for a triumph of landslide proportions.

“The die is being cast as we speak,” says campaign manager David Plouffe.

Undeterred, Republican McCain vows to fight on, bidding for an upset reminiscent of Democrat Harry S. Truman’s stunning defeat of Thomas E. Dewey in 1948.

Looking back only to early this year, campaign manager Rick Davis says, “We are witnessing perhaps, I believe, one of the greatest comebacks since John McCain won the primary.”

The odds for Republicans in 2008 have been long from the start: Voters often thwart the party that’s been in power for two terms. And this year, larger factors are working against the GOP: the war in Iraq, now in its sixth year, and the crisis on Wall Street and in the larger economy. Voters deeply distrust government and crave a new direction.

Republicans are girding for widespread losses.

“It’s a fairly toxic atmosphere out there,” said Nevada Sen. John Ensign, chairman of the Senate GOP’s campaign effort. Added his House counterpart, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole: “We haven’t caught very many breaks.”

Democrats are looking ahead to expanded power.

“Things are looking very good,” said Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the head of the House Democrats’ campaign committee. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Senate Democrats’ effort, predicted: “We’re going to pick up a large number of seats and that’s going to make Democrats very happy.”

The Democrats are reaching for a 60-vote Senate majority that would allow the party to overcome Republican filibusters, and could pick up two dozen or more House seats. Democrats also hope to pad their slim majority of governorships and increase their ranks in what already is their strongest majority in state legislatures in more than a decade.

The implications are far-reaching: Governors and state legislators elected Tuesday to four-year terms will help preside over the redrawing of legislative and congressional districts following the 2010 Census. The party in charge can redraw districts in its favor.

Atop the ticket, Obama leads in national and key battleground state polling, though the race appears to be tightening as it plays out primarily in states that Bush won twice. Among the unknowns: the choices of one in seven likely voters who are undecided or could still change their minds; the impact of Obama’s efforts to register and woo new voters, particularly blacks and young people; the effect of Obama’s race on voters just four decades after the tumult of the Civil Rights movement.

“Right now, it’s very clearly Obama’s to lose, and I think his chances of doing so are pretty minimal,” said Republican Dick Armey, the former House majority leader from Texas. He said the possibility of a McCain comeback is “getting down to slim-to-none.”

An Obama victory would amount to a wholesale rejection of the status quo: voters taking a chance on a relative newcomer to the national stage, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Chicago, rather than stick with a seasoned veteran of the party in power. With strengthened Democratic majorities in Congress, he’d have to deal with the party’s left flank while governing a country that’s more conservative than liberal.

The Republican Party essentially would be in tatters, searching for both a leader and an identity.

An Obama loss – or McCain comeback – would be a crushing disappointment for Democrats in a year tailor-made for the party. It would suggest McCain’s experience trumped Obama’s clarion call for change, and raise troubling questions about white Americans’ willingness to vote for a black man.

Blacks, in particular, might be furious and deeply suspicious of an almost sure thing that slipped away.

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THE PRESIDENCY:

Tuesday’s election caps a nearly two-year campaign unprecedented in many ways, merely unusual in others.

“The candidates are more interesting. The media is bigger. The technology is better. Participation has increased dramatically,” said Bob Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska who once aspired to the presidency himself. “This is the first global campaign that the United States has had. People will always remember this as an extremely important election.”

From the start, the race was different: It was the first since 1952 in which neither a president nor a vice president competed.

The Democratic primary was excruciatingly long, with historic and improbable characters: Obama, a black upstart Illinois senator, against a former first lady turned New York senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

McCain, at 72 once the GOP’s most vocal scold, early on was the favorite for the Republican nomination. His campaign all but imploded, then he came back to overcome multiple opponents and win the party’s nomination. He chose the first woman for the national GOP ticket, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Racism, sexism and ageism all colored the campaign, to varying degrees.

Interest appeared exceptionally high across the globe, particularly in Obama. More than 200,000 people turned out to attend an Obama speech in Berlin when he made a trip abroad to bolster his foreign policy credentials. His U.S. crowds also were gargantuan; 75,000 in Portland, Ore., before he was the nominee, more than 100,000 in Denver just a week before the general election.

An estimated 42.4 million people tuned in to watch Obama and McCain accept their parties’ nominations.

More voters were projected to cast ballots before Election Day than ever before; Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the early voting in key states.

Fundraising and spending were off the charts, too.

McCain and Obama amassed $1 billion combined over the course of their candidacies.

Obama reversed a previous pledge to stay in the public financing system for the general election if his opponent did. Thus, he became the first to reject taxpayer money, raising $641 million from a breathtaking 3.2 million donors. That dealt what’s almost certain to be a fatal blow to the post-Watergate-era system for presidential campaigns. McCain, for his part, collected more than $250 million in contributions, and accepted $84 million in public funds.

Obama took the next step after Howard Dean’s embrace of the Internet in 2004, creating a remarkable cyber-networking tool that brought in legions of new voters.

He expanded the Electoral College playing field by pouring advertising and manpower into Republican bastions like Indiana and North Carolina.

Beyond any previous year, the Internet amplified the feeding frenzy nature of the media and gave campaigns new tools, including YouTube videos, partisan and nonpartisan blogs, and social networking sites like Facebook.

Both campaigns also got burned and, as a result, curtailed the candidates’ non-scripted interactions with reporters. Authenticity and spontaneity were sacrificed.

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THE SENATE:

No matter how the presidential race plays out, Democrats are poised for gains in the 100-seat Senate. They currently have the barest of majorities – 51 seats under their control, including two occupied by independents. Several pickups are likely, even if Democrats fall short of getting the magic 60 needed to stop filibusters.

Democrats are overwhelmingly favored to pick up GOP-held seats in Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado, where Republicans are retiring. And many Republican incumbents running for re-election are in difficult races, including Ted Stevens of Alaska, convicted this past week on seven corruption counts.

No Democratic seats appear in jeopardy.

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THE HOUSE:

Democrats, with a 235-199 majority and one vacancy, are expected to add at least 20 seats. They hope Obama’s coattails give them a 35-seat gain or more. It would be the first time in more than 50 years that a party saw large waves of victories that boosted their congressional margins in back-to-back elections. All 435 seats are up for election.

Many Republican incumbents are endangered, and open GOP seats are at risk in Arizona, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and two each in New Mexico and New York.

Democratic Rep. Tim Mahoney of Florida, under investigation after admitting to adulterous affairs, is in trouble, and Democratic Rep. John P. Murtha is in a fight after calling voters in his Pennsylvania district “racist.”

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GOVERNORS:

Chief executives in 11 states are on the ballot. Democrats hope to boost their 28-22 majority.

The GOP’s best chances for gains are in Washington and North Carolina.

Washington’s Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire and GOP challenger Dino Rossi are in a repeat battle of 2004, when Gregoire won by 133 votes after two recounts and a lawsuit. In North Carolina, Republican Pat McCrory, the Charlotte mayor, is in a dead heat with Democratic Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Mike Easley.

Democrats expect to gain a seat in Missouri, where Attorney General Jay Nixon leads GOP Rep. Kenny Hulshof. Republican Gov. Matt Blunt is leaving office.

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STATE LEGISLATURES:

Voters also will choose 5,824 lawmakers across 44 states.

With their strongest majority in more than a decade, Democrats hold nearly 55 percent of all legislative seats and control the legislatures in 23 states; Republicans dominate in 14 states. Twelve states are split, and Nebraska is nonpartisan.

The election could determine the control of legislatures in several states. The biggest prize may be New York, where Democrats are two seats from taking the Senate majority. They already control the House and the governorship.

Pennsylvania Republicans need a one-seat gain to take back the House, while Indiana Republicans need two. In Nevada, Democrats are one seat away from a Senate majority.

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BALLOT MEASURES:

Some 153 initiatives are on the ballots in 36 states.

Voters will weigh constitutional amendments that would ban same-sex marriage in California, Florida and Arizona.

An amendment in South Dakota would ban abortion except in cases of rape, incest and a serious health threat to the mother; another in Colorado would define human life as beginning at fertilization.

Initiatives in Colorado and Nebraska would ban race- and gender-based affirmative action. Washington voters will decide whether to offer terminally ill people the option of physician-assisted suicide.

A North Dakota initiative would cut the state income tax rate by 50 percent for individuals and 15 percent for corporations. A measure in Massachusetts would repeal the income tax altogether.

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Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn, Tom Raum and Julie Hirschfeld Davis in Washington, David Crary and Robert Tanner in New York, and Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.