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The audiotape of Malcolm X’s 1961 address in Providence might never have surfaced at all if 22-year-old Brown University student Malcolm Burnley hadn’t stumbled across a reference to it in an old student newspaper. He found the recording of the little-remembered visit gathering dust in the university archives.

“No one had listened to this in 50 years,” Burnley told The Associated Press. “There aren’t many recordings of him before 1962. And this is a unique speech – it’s not like others he had given before.”

In the May 11, 1961 speech delivered to a mostly white audience of students and some residents, Malcolm X combines blistering humor and reason to argue that blacks should not look to integrate into white society but instead must forge their own identities and culture.

At the time, Malcolm X, 35, was a loyal supporter of the black separatist movement Nation of Islam, now based in Chicago. He would be assassinated four years later after leaving the group and crafting his own more global, spiritual ideology.

The legacy of slavery and racism, he told the crowd of 800, “has made the 20 million black people in this country a dead people. Dead economically, dead mentally, dead spiritually. Dead morally and otherwise. Integration will not bring a man back from the grave.”

The rediscovery of the speech could be the whole story. But Burnley found the young students in the crowd that night proved to be just as fascinating.

Malcolm X was prompted to come to Brown by an article about the growing Black Muslim movement published in the Brown Daily Herald. The article by Katharine Pierce, a young student at Pembroke College, then the women’s college at Brown, was first written for a religious studies class. It caught the eye of the student paper’s editor, Richard Holbrooke.

Holbrooke would become a leading American diplomat, serving as U.S. Ambassador to Germany soon after that nation’s reunification, ambassador to the United Nations and President Obama’s special adviser on Pakistan and Afghanistan before his death in 2010 at age 69.

But in 1961 Holbrooke was 20, and eager to use the student newspaper to examine race relations – an unusual interest on an Ivy League campus with only a handful of black students.

Pierce’s article ran in the newspaper’s magazine and made her the first woman whose name was featured on the newspaper’s masthead.

Somehow, the article made its way to Malcolm X. His staff and Holbrooke worked out details of the visit weeks in advance. Campus officials were wary: Malcolm X had been banned from the University of California-Berkeley and Queens College in New York.

Tickets – 50 cents – for the Brown speech sold quickly. About 800 people filled the venue, the 19th-century, Romanesque Sayles Hall, meant to hold about 500.

Pierce introduced Malcolm X and recalls him vividly.

“He came surrounded by a security detail,” she recalls. “You got the sense – this is an important person. He was handsome, absolutely charismatic. I was just bewildered that my class paper could have led to something like this.”

In his speech, Malcolm X outlined Black Muslims’ beliefs and argued that black Americans cannot wait for white Americans to offer them equality.

“No, we are not anti-white,” he said. “But we don’t have time for the white man. The white man is on top already, the white man is the boss already… He has first-class citizenship already. So you are wasting your time talking to the white man. We are working on our own people.”

Richard Nurse, one of three black students in his Brown University class in 1961, came to the speech with his mind made up against Malcolm X.

“I very strongly believed in integration,” Nurse said in a telephone interview from his New Jersey home. “These were ideas I had accepted, adopted. Here I was at this Ivy League university. But he confounded me a little bit. I had never heard a black man in public speak as forcefully as Malcolm X did that night. It was cataclysmic.”

Nurse, now 72 and retired from teaching at Rutgers University, said the speech didn’t cause him to change his views. But he said he understood Malcolm X’s message better years later when, in the U.S. Army, he was barred from all-white USO clubs and movie theaters in the South.

“Now things have changed to the point where that kind of notion (separatism) is no longer even considered,” he said.

Pierce said the speech exposed her and other students in the audience to a different side of America. She gives Holbrooke credit for bringing Malcolm X to campus.

Holbrooke joined the foreign service after graduation and was posted to Vietnam in 1962. He visited Pierce in Hong Kong, where she worked as a teacher. She went on to work on international refugee projects and at Yale University and now creates computer training programs.

She said she wasn’t surprised when Holbrooke became the diplomat presidents dispatched to hotspots like Bosnia and Afghanistan.

“He was a very good friend,” she said of Holbrooke. “I was saddened to hear of his death, sad for myself and sad for the world.”

The recording of the address is in pristine condition. Pierce obtained the tape after the event – she isn’t sure who made the recording – and it sat in a box of mementos for years before she mailed it to the university archives.

Burnley has had the tape digitized and plans to air excerpts next week at an event hosted by the Rhode Island Black Heritage Association.

Lehigh University professor Saladin Ambar, who is working on a book about Malcolm X’s 1964 visit to Oxford University, said any new recording of him is reason to celebrate.

“Malcolm’s best speeches, they’re just gone,” he said. “He’s not nearly as well-documented as he should be, when you consider his power as an orator.”

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What would we celebrate on “Malcolm X Day?” Toure give us some of the principles we’d celebrate:

Malcolm’s not a static intellectual figure — his mind journeyed throughout his life, he held firm to his principles but was also strong enough to re-evaluate his beliefs and change when he deemed change is right. He was far from a flip-flopper who moved because it was politically expedient — and thankfully not an intellectual mule who refused to change when he uncovered new information and perspectives. Malcolm was intelligent and bold enough to be open-minded. His courage to be a truth seeker is part of what we’d celebrate — his willingness to reconsider his principles, to be protean, to challenge himself and be willing to grow and thus embody the transformative potential of American life. We would celebrate not just his willingness to journey but also his journey itself, which concludes with militancy being defeated by humanism and with racial hatred being defeated by globalism and multiracial acceptance.

Of course, when you think of Malcolm, you’ll be reminded of the “blue-eyed devil” quotes. But look at it this way:

This misunderstands several things. King was, at a time, considered dangerous and was hated too and, more importantly, Malcolm merely proposed that oppressed people had a right to armed self-defense — an inherently American principle. King, who preached steadfast non-violence, represents America as it wishes it were, while Malcolm symbolizes America as it is. Malcolm never equated self-defense with violence for its own sake and he never fomented violence. He was wiretapped and followed inside and outside the United States by the FBI, the CIA and the NYPD for years and years — if he had incited violence, even in a private conversation at home, he would surely have landed in legal trouble.

Do you agree with Toure? Go to Time Magazine to read his full article and give us your thoughts below. The article is also on our NewsOne Facebook page where we will also engage your thoughts.

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5. Afrika Bambaataa

Afrika Bambaataa was a gang leader in the South Bronx for the biggest gang in the area, The Black Spades. After he won a trip to Africa due to an essay he wrote, he came back with a new philosophy of peace and community. Bambaataaa would form the Zulu Nation and become one of the founding fathers of Hip-Hop.

4. Judge Mathis

Judge Greg Mathis was a member of the notorious Detroit street gang, the Errol Flynns. At age 17, he was incarcerated after being arrested several times. After his release, Mathis went to college where he became a campus activist; and he was later elected a superior court judge for Michigan’s 36th District.

Today, Mathis hosts his own television show.

3. Jay-Z

Shawn Carter, also known as Jay-Z, was a drug dealer in Brooklyn’s Marcy projects, according to his own admission in interviews and recordings. Jay-Z would put his tales of hustling into music, becoming a rapper and businessman.

Today, Jay-Z is a respected businessman, part owner of the soon to be Brooklyn Nets, record label executive and club owner.

2. Kweisi Mfume

Kweisi Mfume was a high school drop out and teen parent of five children. Mfume would work four jobs and spend his time on the street corners of Baltimore hanging out drinking.

“Not only did I run with all the worst people, I became the leader,” he recalled in U.S. News and World Report.”I was locked up a couple of times on suspicion of theft because I happened to be black and happened to be young.”

Mfume would get his high school diploma and enroll in college, later getting his Master’s from John Hopkins University. He would go on to be elected to the Baltimore City Council, congress, and later become president of the NAACP.

1. Malcolm X

Malcom X was born Malcom Little in Nebraska. He would spend his teenage years and twenties hustling in Boston and Harlem, eventually being sentenced to eight years in prison for burglary. While in prison, Malcolm discovered the Nation Of Islam and converted, becoming one of its biggest leaders after release becoming one the most significant Black leaders of the 20th century.

The movie starred Denzel Washington, who gave the performance of a lifetime capturing the passion and essence of Malcolm X. The three hour epic captured Malcolm’s transformation from street hustler to Muslim leader, and Angela Basset and Delroy Lindo contributed to an excellent supporting cast.

The legacy of the movie is strong today as the epic historical tale of one of America’s most significant leaders is still relevant.

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Shabazz, 46, pleaded guilty for racking up a bill of $55,884.28 with various credit companies under the name of Khaula Bakr.

The NY Post Reports:

Shabazz, who had been held in custody since March on $100,000 bail, admitted during the case that she had used the money to pay bills and for other expenses.

Arrest warrants were issued in June 2010, and she was extradited from North Carolina, where she had been living in a desolate community near Asheville with her 13-year-old daughter.

Read More At NYPost.com

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10. W.E.B. Du Bois

Du Bois contributed greatly to the struggle of African-Americans through his writings and activism. Du Bois helped form the NAACP and was perhaps the most prominent African-American intellectual of the 20th century. Du Bois became a communist during the height of the Cold War. He was investigated by the FBI for his so-called socialist views. Du Bois died a Ghanaian citizen, after the U.S. refused his passport.

9. Jeremiah Wright

While Fox News may have painted Wright as an America-hating madman, Wright was just judging the U.S. with the same Christian principles that he lived by. Wright was a Marine who served in Vietnam, risking his life for the country he would be condemned for criticizing. A close view of Wright’s controversial sermon shows that did not hate America, but expected America to live up to its Christian values and leave unjust wars.

8. Boots Riley (The Coup)

Riley is an anti-imperialist and a Marxist, which puts him in direct opposition to American policies. In 2001 his group, The Coup, had an album cover with the World Trade Center blowing up and Boots pushing a button on a guitar, a few months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

7. Assata Shakur

Assata Shakur, is a Black Panther who was charged with convicted for killing a police officer, though many have cast doubt on her conviction. Asata with the help of rapper Tupac’s stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, escaped from prison and found political asylum in Cuba, a country hated by the United States.

6. Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson was an actor, singer, football player, lawyer and scholar. He was also a civil rights activist and labeled a communist. Robeson, like Du Bois had his passport taken away in 1950, for fear he would tell the world about how Black people were oppressed in America. In 1951 he charged the U.S.A. with genocide for turning a blind eye at African-Americans being lynched. Though Robeson traveled to Russia, won the Stalin Prize For Freedom, and even wrote a song for Stalin, he remained an American citizen his whole life.

5. Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Ture

Stokely Carmichael was a major figure in both the civil rights and Black Power movements, as the head of SNCC and the Honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panther Party, helping coin the phrase “Black Power.” He eventually split with the Black Panther party and moved to Guinea in Africa where he married South African activist and singer, Miriam Makeba, changing his name to Kwame Ture.

4. Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker moved to France after being a dancer in Harlem to escape racism in the USA after a successful tour of Europe. Baker helped the French rebel against the Nazis. While in France, Baker supported the Civil Rights Movement, and was the only woman to speak at the historic March on Washington with Martin Luther King Jr. at her side.

3. Martin Luther King Jr.

Though Martin Luther King Jr. said his dream was deeply rooted in the American dream, and would frequently site the Constitution and the Declaration Of Independence to further civil rights, he condemned America over the war in Vietnam.

God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, ‘You’re too arrogant! And if you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I’ll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I’m God.’”

2. Marcus Garvey

Although Marcus Garvey was born in Jamaica, he came into prominence after moving to America in 1916, where he would start the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the Back To Africa movement. Garvey raised money to repopulate Liberia but was charged by J. Edgar Hoover, with mail fraud and later deported.

1. Malcolm X

Malcolm X, like Marcus Garvey advocated for the complete separation of African-Americans from America, establishing their own country. Malcolm famously criticized U.S. foreign and domestic policy after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, saying it was a case of “the chickens coming home to roost.” Malcolm made plans to charge the USA with violating the rights of African-Americans before he died.

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Malikah Shabazz, 46, walked free after entering the plea at a courthouse in Queens. She had been in custody since her arrest in North Carolina on Feb. 18. Her deal with prosecutors calls for her to pay back the money and be on probation for five years.

“She’s excited to be reunited with her daughter,” said her lawyer, Russell Rothberg. He said his client had no other comment.

The youngest of Malcolm X’s children, Shabazz could have gotten years in prison if convicted. A judge set the formal sentencing date for July 28, and said he intended to accept a punishment of probation and restitution.

Queens prosecutors said Shabazz used the personal financial information of longtime family friend Khaula Bakr to open credit card accounts in Bakr’s name. The 70-year-old New York City woman’s late husband was one of Malcolm X’s bodyguards on the night he was assassinated in 1965.

Bakr discovered the scam when she got a letter from Wells Fargo Bank demanding payment of $28,789 on an overdue account.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Shabazz “preyed upon the trusting nature of a once close family friend.”

A court in New York first issued a warrant for Shabazz’s arrest in 2009, but she wasn’t taken into custody until this spring, after social service workers visited her home in North Carolina to investigate an anonymous complaint that her daughter wasn’t attending school. Her family said the 13-year-old is home-schooled.

The case is the second legal entanglement for Shabazz over a financial difficulty. Several years ago, a valuable trove of her father’s writings was auctioned off after she failed to pay rent on a storage locker in Florida. The collection was later returned to the family and is now on long-term loan to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

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5. Speech at Oxford University

To commemorate Malcolm X’s birthday, an icon who many consider to be the greatest Black leader who has ever lived, NewsOne presents this exclusive investigative story, photo gallery and video that, for the first time, speaks to Malcolm X’s grandson, MALCOLM SHABAZZ.

TO WATCH THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO OF THE MALCOLM SHABAZZ PHOTO SHOOT CLICK HERE

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INTRODUCTION

His grandmother, Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, was killed in a fire he started 11 years ago. He was 12 years old. He had been shuttled in and out of correctional institutions until his release from Attica Prison in February 2007. Now MALCOLM SHABAZZ, 24, is on a mission: to clear his name, stay out of jail and rise from the ashes of his past.

During the course of a long-standing exclusive correspondence with Aliya S. King for NewsOne and GIANT magazine, Malcolm spoke candidly and introspectively about a checkered childhood, an unstable family life, and the burden of being the sole male heir to an icon whose life and legacy have transformed millions of lives.

The following are woven excerpts from hours of conversation with Shabazz:

People often describe me as troubled. I’m not going to say that I’m not. But I’m not crazy. I have troubles. A lot of us do. But you need to understand where I’m coming from and why I am the way I am. Considering what I’ve been through, it’s a miracle that I’ve been able to hold it together. I’m just trying to find my way. [I’ve read newspaper stories about me that] say, “Experts testify [that boy] is psychotic.” The way they describe me is wrong — bi-polar, depression, pyro, whatever. I know I’m not at all. Some of the things I’ve been through, the average person would have cracked.

All my life, I’ve had [moments where] I’ve lived in the lap of luxury in the Trump Towers and not wanted for a single thing. And the very next day I’m [living in] a slum in a gang-infested Philly neighborhood, eating fried dough three times a day. One minute, I’m in a situation with structure and discipline. The next minute I’m running the streets with no supervision at all. One of my aunts has a friend who is very devoted to his children. I was hanging out with them one day and all he talked about was [their] schedule and sports and taking his kids here and there. I wish I had that. I wish I had someone whose purpose in life was to take care of me. That’s how white people do it. They plan for [their] kids. We don’t. That’s cause we don’t plan our kids. I wasn’t planned.

Malcolm Lateef Shabazz was born in Paris, France in 1984. His mother is Qubilah Shabazz, the second of Malcolm X’s six daughters. She was only four years old when her father was killed right in front of her at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. According to her son, Qubilah grew up loving nature and being by herself. When she was still a young girl, she chose to become a Quaker. She later attended Princeton University, but left before graduating. As she told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in a 1995 interview: “I was under a lot of social pressure, largely due to who I was. I did not fit the view of who I was supposed to be. I didn’t arrive on campus with combat boots and a beret, and I didn’t speak Swahili.” After leaving Princeton, Qubilah traveled to Paris, where she began studying at the Sorbonne. It was here that she met Malcolm’s father, an Algerian. To this day, her son says he has never met his biological father.

I am [my grandfather’s] first male heir, his first grandson. [I’ve read and been told that] he always wanted a son. No boys in the Shabazz family until me. I used to think [Malcolm X] was my father. My mother told me that. I would ask and she would show me pictures of her father and tell me it was my father. I can’t talk to her about him. Nothing in-depth. She acts like she doesn’t know about him. She was there. She was four years old and sitting right there [when he was killed]. I don’t think she’s ever recovered from that.

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CHILDHOOD

Qubilah left Paris when Malcolm was still very young and moved back to the U.S. He remembers them moving around a lot, living in such places as Los Angeles and Brooklyn. His mother reportedly took odd jobs at places like Denny’s to earn enough to get by.

How do you [fill out an application at] Denny’s and put down Princeton and the Sorbonne as your education? I felt like she was better than that. And I didn’t like seeing [her work those kinds of jobs.] When I was 3 or 4, we lived in California. I used to run away from home. My mother drank and she would be asleep and I would be unsupervised. [According to various news reports, Qubilah Shabazz has had issues with alcohol and mental illness in the past.] I was very adventurous [so] I would walk up [and down] the street. It would end with the police bringing me home. One day I walked to my day care center [which was] miles away. One day I got on the bus and just hung out away from home and no one said a word. Whole day goes by before anyone stopped me. [My mom] loves me. I’m sure of that. Everyone is not meant to be a parent. She didn’t hug me. She’s just not that kind of person. It used to make me upset and angry [when I was younger].

After California, Malcolm moved to Philadelphia where he lived with his great-grandmother, Madeline Sandlin, the stepmother of his grandmother Betty Shabazz.

She’s a very strong woman. Native American—very strong and stern and strict. She [lived] in North Philly. [Her neighborhood] was so rough. It was so bad, I couldn’t go outside [and] play. It was like being behind bars. I started school at [a private school outside of Philadelphia]. I went to kindergarten and first grade. These kids were rich. [The bus] wouldn’t go to my house. [It] would go to the corner. [The kids] would say, “You live here?” This [white] girl called me a nigger [one time on the school bus]. I didn’t even know what it meant. I [just] knew it was something bad. I wanted to be white. They seemed happy, like they had everything they needed. White was equal to happy and rich. And black [was] just the opposite.

My aunt Attallah was visiting [in Philly] one day. I was looking at a magazine and [there was a picture] of a white boy in a suit. [I took the magazine to my aunt] and I said “I wish I was white like this white boy right here.” She said, “Why would you say that?”

My great-grandmother couldn’t take care of me forever. I ended up in [upstate] New York living with my teacher for second grade [at the school I was enrolled in]. I liked her–I was calling her “Mom.” She had a 16-year-old daughter. I had a pet hamster [and] a bike. I [was] on the Little League team, I [went to] church every Sunday. I had a crush on a white girl named Heidi. I had stability, something I never had before and I liked it a lot. I was the only black kid in the entire school but [I had] a lot of kids to play with. [My aunt] came to pick me up for the summer and I think she didn’t like [the situation]. I was happy and taken care of, but I don’t think she liked it. She [took me] for the summer [and] as it got closer to September I [kept] asking [if I was going back to Kingston]. She kept saying yeah, but I never went back.

ADOLESCENCE

As Malcolm tells it, he led a nomadic childhood, living at different times with his mother, his grandmother and his aunts.

I was always happiest around my aunt Ilyasah. She always smelled good. I loved staying at her house because she’d always have a tidy home. I loved being with her. She was always funny. One day we were on [an] elevator and I was about to throw up. She cupped her hands up to my mouth like she was going to catch it. When we got off the elevator, I threw up everywhere, all over the floor, all over her hands, but she kept her hands there. That gesture showed how much she felt about me. [It] made an impression on me. I said back then [that] if I ever had a daughter, I would name her after Ilyasah.

[As for] my grandmother, I never saw her relax. She was speaking at colleges [and] going overseas. On vacation, she would take me to a hotel to swim and she would sit there with books and paper. I never saw anyone work that hard. That’s why I couldn’t live there full time. All [of] my aunts [also] worked a lot [so] I had to shuttle around. That was taught with school. My grades ended up being really poor even though the work was not hard. I wasn’t challenged and the teachers couldn’t make the connection because I was all over the place.

I started driving when I was 9. I would watch my aunt [Check with writer to determine which aunt] and memorize [each step]. One day, early in the morning I took [her] keys. I had difficulty starting [the car] at first, [but] I drove to school [and] parked [and] went to school like it was nothing. My aunt found out and came to school. They didn’t even believe her, but it was true. My mother put me in a mental institution after that. She was really angry. I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t crazy. I had done something wrong and needed discipline. But not [being sent] to a hospital.

[At the hospital] they start asking me all these questions. [Stuff like] Do you hear voices? I was into Marvel comic books at the time. There were two characters I liked, Mister Sinister [from the X-Men] and the Human Torch. [So] I was like, “Yeah, here’s my friend that told me to do it.” I just picked them out randomly and drew pictures of them. But I had no idea it would follow me that way it did. I was just making it all up. One time, my aunt came to visit me. She said “You know you don’t hear voices. You need to stop.” And I did. In my experiences, [the doctors] want to find something wrong with you. That’s how they get paid. When I [was in] jail, they said I was depressed and anti-social. I was in jail. I’m in solitary confinement. They gotta say something [is wrong with you].

TO WATCH THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO OF THE MALCOLM SHABAZZ PHOTO SHOOT CLICK HERE

As Malcolm remembers it, after he was discharged from the hospital, he and his mother moved to Minneapolis, where Qubilah had reconnected with an old schoolmate named Michael Fitzpatrick.

She said she was going for a fresh start and I was excited too. First we [stayed] in a hotel. They would meet there and talk. I heard them talking about Farrakhan. It stayed in my mind, but I didn’t really know what they were talking about. I found out later that there were cameras everywhere because there were federal agents watching my mom.

According to published news reports, Fitzpatrick was an FBI informant who helped the agency gather information about an assassination plot against Louis Farrakhan. Qubilah was arrested and charged with plotting to hire a hit man to kill the Nation of Islam leader, who she reportedly believed to have played a part in her father’s death. After his mother was arrested, Malcolm was sent to live in a group home and remembers being transferred to foster parents who he claims wanted to adopt him until they learned who his mother was. Qubilah was later cleared of the charges against her, but Malcolm says he didn’t see her again for almost two years, at which point she had resettled in San Antonio, Texas.

I went to a boarding school in Connecticut for a while. I lasted there about a month. They went in my property and found a laptop computer that belonged to one of the students on another campus. And they had this kid with a slash in his coat and he said I stabbed him. None of that happened, but my grandmother came and got me out of there. I know she was upset, but we never talked about it. That’s how I ended up back in Philadelphia. [When] I was 11, [I] had a fight with a 16-year-old kid. I’m going in so hard, my body goes numb and I couldn’t even pick up my arms anymore. I won that fight and [afterwards] I would come out [of my house] and people were different. [They said] “Don’t mess with him, he’s crazy.” [But] I wasn’t crazy. I was just scared. I had to adapt to survive.

[My grandmother] didn’t know the extent of what I was going through. I told her, but I don’t think she believed it. Malcolm was eventually reunited with his mother in San Antonio, where she reportedly worked for a radio station owned by Percy Sutton, who was Malcolm X’s attorney before he was killed. She also had a new boyfriend, who Malcolm liked right away.

He would give me hundred dollar bills [for no reason]. And he let me drive his car. We lived in a [nice apartment] with a balcony and a Jacuzzi. My mom was working at the radio station [and I was going to a] private school. We lived in a Mexican neighborhood and everyone made a big deal that I was from New York. [When you're from New York] all the girls like you [and] all the dudes hate on you. I got kicked out because my mom started drinking again. [And] her boyfriend ended up going to jail for an attempted murder [charge]. [Suddenly,] there was no food in the house. She’s not taking me to school [so] I’m falling behind. She wouldn’t get up to take me to school and I started falling behind. [One morning,] I woke her up to tell her to take me to school. She got belligerent. She tried to bite me. And I pushed her. She said I hit her, but I didn’t. She put me in a mental hospital for two weeks.

After that incident, Malcolm says he was sent back to New York, even though he wanted to stay with his mother.

All my life, I had been shuttled back and forth, living with this [person] or that [person], never knowing where I was going to lay my head or wake up. I was so sick of it. I wanted to be back with my mom. [The day I came back to New York] it was cold and rainy. My grandmother came to pick me up [at the airport]. I had the big skater pants [on] and the earring. My grandmother said, “Can we please get you to stop wearing those pants?” [After that] I started acting out. I was doing a lot of things–I was stealing money from my aunts to save up to buy a ticket [back to Texas].

THE DEATH OF BETTY SHABAZZ

In the middle of the night on July 1, 1997, authorities responded to a fire at Betty Shabazz’s residence in Yonkers, New York. According to reports, Malcolm X’s widow sustained burns over 80% of her body. Her grandson was held under suspicion of starting the blaze. On June 23, after several operations in the hospital, Betty Shabazz died. She was 63 years old. On July 10, Malcolm, then 12, pleaded guilty to the juvenile equivalent of manslaughter and arson. He was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile facility for troubled adolescents. He remained in state custody for almost four years. In April 2001, he was sent home with an electronic monitoring device, but soon ended up back in detention due to curfew violations. In January 2002, he was arrested in Middletown, New York on robbery and burglary charges. That September, he was sentenced to 3½ years in prison. He received parole in May 2006.

I didn’t mean for my grandmother to get hurt. I wasn’t thinking anything like that would happen. [I thought] she would go to the fire escape [but] she walked through the fire to get to me. I didn’t think she would walk through a fire for me. People say [to me] “Oh you are the one who burned down your grandmother’s house?” [But]…it didn’t really happen like that. I’ve always told the same story. [I was] coerced to say something else, because [I was told] it would be better for me. [I was told] I would go to jail forever…

TO WATCH THE EXCLUSIVE BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO OF THE MALCOLM SHABAZZ PHOTO SHOOT CLICK HERE

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Malcolm X to Barack Obama: 44 Year Of Change

Top 5 Malcolm X Speeches

In the history of African-Americans who fought for the rights of our people, a conversation cannot go by without mentioning the great Malcolm X.

Today, May 19th, would have been the 86th birthday of the great civil rights leader who was killed by an assassin’s bullet.

It would have been interesting to see what he’d have to say about Dr. Manning Marable’s book on him where he claims that X was gay.

TheGrio.Com wrote an article today with the Top 10 Malcolm X quotes.

1. If you’re not ready to die for it, take the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.

– Chicago Defender (November 28, 1962)

2. We declare our right on this earth…to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.

– Founding Rally Speech, OAAU (June 28, 1964)

Read more here

NPR reports:

Ms. SHABAZZ: Right. I think the things that I take issue with are the fact that he said my father engaged in a bisexual relationship, a homo – you know, he had a gay lover who was an elder white businessman, I think, in his late 50s when my father was in his teens. And, you know, my father was an open book. And we actually have four of the missing chapters from the autobiography. And, you know, he is very clear in his activities, which nothing included being gay.

And certainly he didn’t have anything against gay – he was for human rights, human justice, you know. So if he had a gay encounter, he likely would’ve talked about it. And what he did talk about was someone else’s encounter.

Ms. SHABAZZ: I cannot tell you, Michel, OK? Because right now I’m a little annoyed by this discussion because this is not what I agreed to. I can tell you that if they did not find out who killed my father, then most certainly this person in New Jersey, I can’t even think of his name right now, Mustafa Shabazz, if he’s one of the persons that pulled the trigger, then absolutely. I think he should be, you know, brought to justice.

MARTIN: We actually had planned to continue our conversation and to discuss other issues of interest with Ms. Shabazz about her life and current work, but she decided to end the interview. We confess that we are puzzled by that. We think we were clear that we wanted to speak about the book as well as about her life and current work. We would still like to have that conversation and we have extended another invitation by email.

Read The Whole Story

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Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz spoke to The Associated Press about “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.” Author Manning Marable, a highly respected scholar who worked for more than 20 years on the book, died last week of complications of pneumonia just before publication. Malcolm X’s daughters did not speak to Marable for the book, which draws upon thousands of interviews, government documents and private papers.

The book has been in the top 10 on Amazon.com’s best-seller list, and the print run has been increased from 46,000 to 70,000, according to Viking, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA).

Viking spokeswoman Carolyn Coleburn said the publisher had no comment about the daughters’ criticisms.

While both sisters acknowledged they have yet to read the book, they questioned reports about the contents. Marable had intended “Malcolm X” as a tribute to the slain activist’s life and influence, but he also wanted to avoid portraying him as “a saint, without the normal contradictions and blemishes that all human beings have,” as the historian wrote in the introduction.

Article continues after gallery:

Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. His wife, Betty Shabazz, died in 1997 after one of her grandchildren set fire to her apartment.

The book alleges that parts of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” a classic released after Malcolm X’s death that sold more than 1 million copies, were inaccurate. For instance, Marable questions details of Malcolm X’s early life as a criminal, writing that Malcolm likely exaggerated his wrongdoings. Questions about the autobiography’s accuracy have been raised for decades, and Marable addresses questions about the book’s co-writer, Alex Haley, who many believe left out or softened Malcolm’s more radical political views in the last couple of years of his life.

He also looks into Malcolm X’s more controversial words and actions, including a meeting with members of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1960s. At the time, he was a high-ranking member of the Nation of Islam and had discussed with the Klan the possibility of the nation purchasing land for blacks to live on. Malcolm X would later express regret, although Marable still called the meeting “despicable.”

Marable subtitled the book “A Life of Reinvention” in part because Malcolm X acknowledged mistakes and transformed and transcended himself, from street hustler and convict to black separatist of fierce anti-white opinions to political and social activist seeking to work with all races, worldwide. His marriage, however, was widely seen as steady, close and supportive, especially as dramatized by Denzel Washington and Angela Bassett in Spike Lee’s movie “Malcolm X.” Shabazz herself would remember her years with Malcolm as “hectic, beautiful and unforgettable – the greatest thing in my life.”

Malcolm X married Betty Sanders, a nurse and fellow member of the Nation of Islam, in 1958. They had six children. According to the book, the marriage was often tense, in part because of Malcolm’s wish to have a traditional, subservient Muslim wife and because he was away so often and his life was often threatened. There were problems of emotional and physical intimacy. Marable includes a letter from Malcolm to Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad that offers a blunt account of their home life, with Malcolm reporting that his wife believed they were “incompatible sexually.” Malcolm also tells Muhammad that Betty had threatened to “seek satisfaction elsewhere.”

Marable writes that Betty became involved in 1964 with Charles Kenyatta, a close associate of Malcolm’s. Malcolm, too, may have had affairs, although the evidence is uncertain. He knew of the relationship between his wife and Kenyatta, according to the book, and “the news of infidelity seems to have loosened Malcolm’s own marital bonds.”

Malaak Shabazz said there “may have been a little bit of stress, like any marriage,” but that “there was really no times for shenanigans. She raised the children at home; he worked on a global level.”

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The man accused of being behind the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X by the late author Manning Marable in his new biography “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention denies any involvement.

In his major new biography “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” author Manning Marable, claims William Bradley, who many people over the years have placed at the shooting of Malcolm X, is married to Carolyn Kelley, now Carolyn Kelley Shabazz, a prominent civic leader in Newark. Marable died unexpectedly Friday from a long illness.

Three men were eventually convicted of the murder of Malcolm X, who had publicly split with the Nation of Islam, but Marable and others claim there were other assailants, including the 72-year-old Bradley who has legally taken the name Al-Mustafa Shabazz.

READ MORE AT NJ.COM

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A lifelong Marxist, Manning was a member of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and the Working Families Party. His latest book was a labor of love born from an enduring fascination with Malcolm X. In 2005, he told Democracy Now host Amy Goldman, “Malcolm X was the most remarkable historical figure produced by Black America in the 20th century. That’s a heavy statement, but I think that in his 39 short years of life, Malcolm came to symbolize Black urban America, its culture, its politics, its militancy, its outrage against structural racism and at the end of his life, a broad internationalist vision of emancipatory power…”

Read The Whole Story

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Malikah (mah-LEE’-kah) Shabazz was held on $100,000 bail after a court appearance Wednesday night in Queens.

Shabazz waived extradition from North Carolina, where she was arrested last week on a warrant issued more than a year ago.

She is accused of defrauding the widow of one of her father’s former bodyguards out of more than $55,000 in credit card bills.

The 45-year-old Shabazz was arrested Feb. 18 after investigators went to her home in western North Carolina on an unrelated matter. That’s when authorities found out about the warrant.

Her lawyer says his client denies the charges. Her case has been adjourned to March 15.

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The New York Times reports:

The warrant included charges of grand larceny and identity theft. A law enforcement official said Ms. Shabazz was accused of stealing the identity of a family friend, the widow of one of Malcolm X’s bodyguards, and taking about $30,000 to pay bills and other personal expenses.

Read The Whole Story

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Malcolm X’s Daughters Feud Over Betty Shabazz’s Estate

Malcolm X’s Autobiography Will Have New Chapters With Daughter’s Help

New York– Three of Malcolm X’s six daughters are feuding over Betty Shabazz’s estate. There have been charges of irresponsibility, mental incapacity and fiscal mismanagement of an estate estimated at about $1.4 million, according to the New York Times.

As the dispute drags on in Westchester County Surrogate’s Court, efforts to publish the works have been thwarted by the daughters’ bickering; all must sign off on any plan to sell and release the material, which includes four journals that Malcolm X kept during trips to Africa and the Middle East in 1964, a year before his assassination.

The battle represents the latest turn in the complex journey of a family that has come to define the struggle and pride of blacks in America. The clash also underscores the difficulty of preserving the legacy of a prominent figure, especially when it requires uniting competing personalities and visions.

Read more at NYTimes.com

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The people at Studio360.org have an excellent podcast on where the Autobiography Of Malcolm X stands today and its historical relevance. Obama reflects on the book 45 minutes into the clip. Its a long listen but very worth it.

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At the risk of offending my buddy Dubs—who understandably doesn’t like seeing his government name in print—I’ve gotta reproduce this stellar piece of insight he hit a bunch of us with in an e-mail earlier today.

The topic was T.I. and the fact that the rapper was arrested on charges of possession of marijuana and two possibles (codeine and ecstasy; pardon the Spades slang).

Here’s what Dubs wrote:

T.I. and the rest of his ilk still don’t believe in the hip-hop police.  It is amazing [that they find the fact that] there is a dossier on every well-known rapper and their movements are tracked by most major police departments hard to believe.  How the hell do you think Lil’ Wayne got popped in three different states on the same charges, weapons and drugs, and none of the stops have been deemed “stop for cause”?

Now, most of us have heard of the Hip Hop police. I doubt however that many people have considered why there would be a need for such an entity.

Article continues after T.I. and Tiny Arrested Gallery:

If you were thinking that the Hip Hop police exists to protect rappers who, for some reason, tend to face violent death with more frequency than do other musicians, then you’d be wrong.

The Hip Hop police exists for the same reason that the FBI’s old COINTELPRO existed: to discredit anyone in the Black community with the intelligence, charisma and natural leadership ability necessary to inspire a movement.

‘Discrediting’ being only the first goal, of course. If you lived like a monk (see: Malcolm X, the later Dr. King, Fred Hampton), you had to be killed.

Murder could be tied in with the Hip Hop police as well because after seeing that a rape accusation, multiple shooting and subsequent conviction didn’t diminish Tupac’s standing in the Black community—in fact, it did just the opposite—was anybody surprised that Pac died violently?

Were or are we surprised that of the only men ever accused—and even this is done clandestinely—of killing the Notorious B.I.G., David Mack and Amir Muhammad, one of them, Mack, is a former cop?

Or should the murders of Biggie and Tupac even be considered “crimes” since a crime is a transgression against the State and, all things considered, those two deaths seem so obviously State approved?

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Glenn Beck’s weekend speech was reminiscent of the radical 1960s black separatist leader: Both terrify mainstream liberals and shed politics for a message of spiritual uplift.

As hundreds of thousands gathered in Washington, D.C. for Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, one couldn’t help but notice a powerful nostalgia for an America that is slipping away. In her remarks to the crowd, Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and conservative folk hero, said, “we must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want,” a not-so-veiled reference to President Obama and his allies. Instead, “we must restore America and restore her honor,” a message that resonated with a crowd that by all accounts was overwhelmingly white and Christian, with large numbers hailing from rural areas and small towns. Palin, like Beck, was talking about a spiritual restoration, a return to time-tested virtues that had been celebrated by the more homogeneous America of the past, in which non-traditional families were stigmatized and relatively rare, church attendance was far more common, and the dominance of Anglo-Protestant culture was unquestioned.

But as most of those who attended Beck’s rally understand in their bones, that world is gone. And President Obama, for all his efforts to expand the reach of the federal government, has had very little to do with this deep transformation. Rather, the country has long since been transformed by powerful demographic and economic forces that very much threaten what we might call Glenn Beck’s America.

Instead of accepting or embracing this transformation, a large and growing number of white Americans are, knowingly or otherwise, taking a page from minority protest movements of the past by asserting themselves and demanding recognition from political and cultural elites. Many on the left find this sense of anger and alienation risible, seeing in this movement of “are-nots,” as opposed to “have-nots,” a class of ignoramuses duped by Fox News into acting against their supposed economic interests.

Yet it seems more plausible that Fox News is following its audience rather than leading it — that this anger and alienation has existed for years, and has only now found a decidedly unconventional tribune in the form of Glenn Beck. Though this is a class with economic grievances, it seems more concerned with psychic injuries — with a profound sense of disempowerment in the face of centralized political power.

Read more at TheDailyBeast

Click here to view photos:

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From Black America Web:

In February 1965, there was no Black History Month – only Negro History Week, the second week of the second month, thereby predating what would later become the bitter irony of Malcolm X’s assassination in February, of all months.

I was not quite 12 years old when three men stepped out of the crowd at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem on February 21 and shot the man at center stage 16 times, beginning with a sawed-off shotgun blast to the chest. Even in the risky, unraveling 1960s – even after the innocence-shattering horror of JFK’s assassination – the murder of Malcolm X was an unspeakable act of terror.

MUST READ:  Malcolm X’s Grandson Breaks Silence!

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The black community was stunned and hurt. Malcolm had not been everyone’s cup of tea, not by a long shot. At a time when many black folks found the peace-loving Martin Luther King, Jr. too radical for their taste, Malcolm was a hell-raising, troublemaker who only inspired white folks to a greater meanness and, therefore, someone they wished would go away. But not like this. Even the cowed were infuriated by the atrocity in Harlem that late winter day.

The day after Malcolm was slain, the New York Times – then, like now, considered not only the newspaper of record but an enlightened one – published a troublesome editorial.

“Malcolm X had the ingredients for leadership,” they opined, “but his ruthless and fanatical belief in violence not only set him apart from the responsible leaders of the civil rights movement and the overwhelming majority of Negroes. It also marked him for notoriety, and for a violent end.”

In short, he asked for it.

Click here to read more.

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Top 5 Malcolm X Speeches

In celebration of his birthday, here’s a photo gallery chronicling the life of Malcolm X from his childhood until the end:

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OPINION: Every American Should Read The Autobiography Of Malcolm X

From GiantMag.com: EXCLUSIVE: Malcolm X Grandson Breaks Silence!

From GiantMag.com: VIDEO: On the Set with Malcolm Shabazz

Today would have been Malcolm X’s 85th birthday. As we take time to reflect on his life and the pivotal role he played in the struggle for Black equality, what better way could there be than to read his story in his own words?

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, his life story as told to Roots author Alex Haley, is more than 45 years old now. Many of the major world events that have occurred since Malcolm’s death, in particular the election of a Black president, would undoubtedly have seemed inconceivable to him. Even so, the story of his life—at its core a story of redemption, transformation, and self-discovery—is as resonant today as ever.

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For the Black reader, no other literary work does so much to affirm the essential dignity and humanity of our race. While one would hope that such basic qualities would be a given in the modern era, this remains a nation in which societal forces ranging from the legal system to the entertainment world are constantly chipping away at them. Indeed, despite much of the so-called “progress” that has come about since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, many of our people are still living in the very same ghettos and slums whose existence Malcolm lamented during his own lifetime. His autobiography, in detailing his remarkable metamorphosis from the shameless, drug-addled and immoral Detroit Red into the dignified, upstanding and god-fearing leader El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, reveals the possibilities that open up when Black people recognize our own worth and demand better from ourselves and others.

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For the non-Black reader, I doubt you’ll find a better primer on the history of people of color not just in America but around the world, and why that history continues to have such an indelible effect on us today. For white readers in particular, a more honest account of your people’s place in that history and its consequences would be difficult to come by.

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Time magazine named The Autobiography of Malcolm X one of the 10 most important nonfiction books of the century, but even this honor doesn’t capture its significance. Quite simply, Malcolm X’s story is one that must be read by all Americans if we are ever to understand ourselves and each other.

From Gawker:

Violent black radical Barack Hussein Obama X is learning about wind energy in Iowa, The Washington Post reports in a most unfortunate photo caption error.

Text continues after gallery …

It appears Obama and Malcolm X were actually slated for separate stories. The error has since been repaired.

Click here to read more.

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Thomas Hagan, who turned 69 this month, walked out of the Lincoln Correctional Facility around 11 a.m., said state corrections spokeswoman Linda Foglia.

Click here to view photos.

Hagan was spending two nights a week in the W. 110th St. facility as part of a work release program that he started in 1988 – 23 years after the assassination of Malcolm X inside the Audubon Ballroom.

His bids for parole and full release were rejected 16 times before Hagan was cleared for freedom on March 3. He is now under supervision of the state Division of Parole.

Foglia said Hagan was turned loose one day prior to his tentative release date because all the inmate’s paperwork was completed early.

ALSO see:  Malcolm X Grandson Breaks Silence!

Click here to read more.

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Malcolm X’s book, “The Autobiography Of Malcolm X” will feature chapters that were previously omitted from Malcolm X’s biography with forewards by Malcolm’s daughter, Ilyasah Shabaz. Shabazz said the chapters were omitted because they “showed too much of my father’s humanity.” She will also write the forward to the three omitted chapters.

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The only man to ever admit involvement in the murder of Malcolm X, Thomas Hagan, will be getting out of jail on April 28th. He was granted release at his parole hearing on March 3rd. Hagan was shot in the leg by one of Malcom X’s bodyguards after Malcolm’s assassination and almost beaten to death by the crowd at the Audobon but was saved by uniformed police officers who arrested him.

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NEW YORK – Thousands of mourners filled Riverside Church on Wednesday for the funeral of Percy Sutton, a former Tuskegee Airman, a media mogul, power broker and pioneering civil rights attorney who represented Malcolm X.

Among the dignitaries gathered at the church were Attorney General Eric Holder, Gov. David Paterson, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sen. Charles Schumer. Two of Malcolm X’s daughters also attended.

Speaking to the people gathered in the church’s pews, Holder called Sutton “one of the nation’s true heroes.”

“I admired, respected and worked for him,” he continued. “The opportunities given to my generation were paid for by his.”

The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were among a group that escorted Sutton’s relatives into the church. In a chapel near the main sanctuary, Sutton lay in a coffin, dressed in a Navy blue suit, white shirt and a tie.

“The tallest tree in our forest has fallen,” Jackson said of Sutton, who died on Dec. 26. He was 89. “You’ve paved the way, Mr. Chairman. Be at rest,” Jackson concluded.

Bloomberg said that city buildings lowered flags in honor of Sutton, and that a building that houses three Manhattan public schools would be renamed the Percy Ellis Sutton Educational Complex.

Attalah Shabazz, one of Malcolm X’s daughters, said Sutton was not merely her father’s attorney. She said the two were “brethren.”
“Even when things weren’t on his side, he was always on yours. Am I right?” she said to applause from the sanctuary, which was filled to capacity.

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel and former New York Mayor David Dinkins also attended. And Stevie Wonder sang his hit, “I’ll Be Loving You Always.”
Sutton, who was born in Texas, served with the famed Tuskegee Airmen, an all-black unit, in World War II before coming to Harlem, where he launched a trailblazing career in civil rights, politics and broadcasting. He served in the New York State Assembly and was Manhattan borough president.

Through his Harlem law firm, which he founded in 1953, he represented civil rights activists including Malcolm X and the slain activist’s relatives — even in their darkest times.

Sutton, along with Dinkins, served as attorneys for Malcolm Shabazz, the grandchild of the activist who was 12 when he set the 1997 fire that killed his grandmother, Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X’s widow, in her Yonkers apartment.

Sutton turned his attention to broadcasting by 1971, becoming, along with his brother, Oliver, pioneer black owners of a radio station in New York City.

His Inner City Broadcasting Corp. eventually picked up WBLS-FM, which reigned for years as New York’s top-rated radio station, before buying stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and San Antonio.

Through the company, Sutton bought the Apollo Theater in 1981, rescuing the Harlem landmark from impending demise.

Jackie Robinson’s widow, Rachel, arrived early at the packed church and appeared shaken. She said her family loved and admired Sutton, who was her son’s godfather.

Marc Morial, the president of the National Urban League, called Sutton a “great man.”

“He was part of a generation that transformed the nation. He was a renaissance man.” Morial said, referring to Sutton’s involvement in law, politics, business and civil rights.

Referring to the throngs of people who lined up outside the church before services waiting to get inside, Morial said, “It is a testament to his incredible contribution, not only to Harlem and New York, but to the nation.”

Morial said young people would do well to study Sutton’s life, particularly his “stick-to-it-ness” and the barriers he overcame.

Dinkins said history would speak of Sutton as one of the most “dynamic, determined and dedicated men who ever walked these streets.”

“Percy Ellis Sutton departed us paid in full,” Dinkins said. “Let him not look down and find any of us in arrears.”

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NEW YORK — Percy Sutton, the pioneering civil rights attorney who represented Malcolm X before launching successful careers as a political power broker and media mogul, has died. He was 89.

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Marissa Shorenstein, a spokeswoman for Gov. David Paterson, confirmed that Sutton died Saturday. She did not know the cause. His daughter, Cheryl Sutton, declined to comment Saturday when reached by phone at her New York City home.

The son of a slave, Percy Sutton became a fixture on 125th Street in Harlem after moving to New York City following his service with the famed Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. His Harlem law office, founded in 1953, represented Malcolm X and the slain activist’s family for decades.

The consummate politician, Sutton served in the New York State Assembly before taking over as Manhattan borough president in 1966, becoming the highest-ranking black elected official in the state.

Sutton also mounted unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate and mayor of New York, and served as political mentor for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s two presidential races.

RELATED: Top 5 Malcolm X Speeches

Jackson recalled Sutton talking about electing a black president as early as 1972. Sutton was influential in getting his 1984 campaign going, he said.

“He never stopped building bridges and laying the groundwork,” Jackson said Sunday. “We are very glad to be the beneficiaries of his work.”

In a statement released Saturday night, Gov. David Paterson called Sutton a mentor and “one of New York’s and this nation’s most influential African-American leaders.”

“Percy was fiercely loyal, compassionate and a truly kind soul,” Paterson continued. “He will be missed but his legacy lives on through the next generations of African-Americans he inspired to pursue and fulfill their own dreams and ambitions.”

In 1971, with his brother Oliver, Sutton purchased WLIB-AM, making it the first black-owned radio station in New York City. His Inner City Broadcasting Corp. eventually picked up WBLS-FM, which reigned for years as New York’s top-rated radio station, before buying stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and San Antonio between 1978-85.

The Texas purchase marked a homecoming for the suave and sophisticated Sutton, born in San Antonio on Nov. 24, 1920, the youngest of 15 children.

Among Sutton’s other endeavors was his purchase and renovation of the famed Apollo Theater when the Harlem landmark’s demise appeared imminent.

Sutton’s father, Samuel, was born into slavery just before the Civil War. The elder Sutton became principal at a segregated San Antonio high school, and he made education a family priority: All 12 of his surviving children attended college.

When he was 13, Percy Sutton endured a traumatic experience that drove him inexorably into the fight for racial equality. A police officer approached Sutton as the teen handed out NAACP pamphlets. “N—–, what are you doing out of your neighborhood?” he asked before beating the youth.

When World War II arrived, Sutton’s enlistment attempts were rebuffed by Southern white recruiters. The young man went to New York, where he was accepted and joined the Tuskegee Airmen.

After the war, Sutton earned a law degree in New York while working as a post office clerk and a subway conductor. He served again as an Air Force intelligence officer during the Korean War before returning to Harlem in 1953 and establishing his law office with brother Oliver and a third partner, George Covington.

In addition to representing Malcolm X for a decade until his 1965 assassination, the Sutton firm handled the cases of more than 200 defendants arrested in the South during the 1963-64 civil rights marches. Sutton was also elected to two terms as president of the New York office of the NAACP.

After Malcolm’s assassination, Sutton worked as lawyer for Malcolm’s widow, Betty Shabazz. He represented her grandson, 12-year-old Malcolm Shabazz, when the youth was accused of setting a 1997 fire that caused her death.

Sutton was elected to the state Legislature in 1965, and quickly emerged as spokesman for its 13 black members. His charisma and eloquence led to his selection as Manhattan borough president in 1966, completing the term of Constance Baker Motley, who was appointed federal judge.

Two years later, Sutton announced a run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Jacob Javits, although he pulled out of the Democratic primary to back Paul O’Dwyer.

Sutton remained in his Manhattan job through 1977, the same year he launched a doomed campaign for mayor that ended with Edward I. Koch defeating six competitors for the Democratic nomination.

Sutton was among the first voices raised against the Vietnam War, surrendering his delegate’s seat at the 1968 Democratic convention in protest and supporting anti-war candidate George McGovern four years later against incumbent President Richard Nixon.

In addition to his radio holdings, Sutton also headed a group that owned The Amsterdam News, the second largest black weekly newspaper in the country. The paper was later sold.

Sutton’s devotion to Harlem and its people was rarely more evident than when he spent $250,000 to purchase the shuttered Apollo Theater in 1981. The Apollo turned 70 in 2004, a milestone that was unthinkable until Sutton stepped in to save the landmark.

Sutton “retired” in 1991, but his work as an adviser, mentor and confidante to politicians and businessmen never abated. He was among a group of American businessmen selected during the Clinton administration to attend meetings with the Group of Seven (G-7) Nations in 1995-96.

“He was a great man,” said Charles Warfield Jr., the president and chief operating officer of ICBC Broadcast Holdings Inc., when reached early Sunday. He declined to comment further out of respect for the wishes of Sutton’s family. The Rev. Al Sharpton planned a news conference Sunday to talk about Sutton’s life and legacy.

It’s been a wild ride this year in news, full of amazing ups (like President Obama’s inauguration) and tragic downs (like Michael Jackson’s death). Through it all, NewsOne has been here keeping you up to date on what’s going on.

So what was the news that caught your attention this year? Check out our list below of the Top 10 Most Clicked Stories of 2009 to find out!

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Peter Tatchell wrote a piece in the UK Guardian, called “Malcolm X Was Bisexual, Get Over It.” Tatchell writes that he is disappointed in the lack of recognition for gay and lesbian African Americans for Black History Month (Black History Month is in October in the UK). He writes:

Perhaps it is unintentional but Black History Month sometimes feels like Straight Black History Month. Famous Black LGBT people are not acknowledged and celebrated. Either their contribution to Black history and culture is ignored or their sexuality is airbrushed out of their biographies.

He goes on to write that one famous Black LGBT person is none other than Malcolm X:

A good example of this neglect is the denialism surrounding the bisexuality of one of the greatest modern Black liberation heroes: Malcolm X. The lack of recognition is perhaps not surprising, given that some of his family and many black activists have made strenuous efforts to deny his same-sex relationships and suppress recognition of the full spectrum of his sexuality.

As evidence to his claim, Tatchell points to a biography of Malcolm’s by Bruce Perry, “Malcolm – The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America”:

Based on interviews with Malcolm’s closest boyhood and adult friends, Perry suggests the US Black liberation leader was not as solidly heterosexual as his Nation of Islam colleagues and Black nationalist acolytes have always claimed.

He documents Malcolm’s many same-sex relations and his activities as a male sex worker, which spanned at least a 10-year period, from his mid-teens to his 20s, as I described in some detail in a previous article for the Guardian.

These allegations refer to Malcolm X’s life as Malcolm Little before he converted to Islam. Many people have criticized Perry’s book and his family has denied the reports.

Here is a criticism of Perry’s book from the Washington Post by Robert O’Meally

Several very large problems plague this “first complete biography of Malcolm X.” First is its fake scientific method, which at its worst becomes a verbal mishmash of Freudianisms, Ericksonisms, and other -isms from popular psychology: what psychologists themselves call psycho-babble. …. To buttress his thesis and his claims of various sorts, Perry presents incontrovertible evidence along withspeculative fluff and mere hearsay and gossip.

Here is another criticism of the book from the St. Petersburg Times by Sheryl James

At one point, Perry says Malcolm “had been seen wearing a dress.  Though the garment may have been a Halloween costume . . ” There is no source for this strange incident, no elaboration. The incident hangs in the air with little or no relevance.

The inclusion of a couple of Malcolm’s adolescent sexual experiences seems equally pointless. Almost all youngsters have these kinds of scenes that are embarrassing in retrospect and meaningless in the larger scope of their personalities.

Maybe I’m just naïve, but any time a Black person does anything truly irrational, I start to wonder who’s behind it.  I mean, it’s not that we’re perfect. We like 26″ rims on cars with strawberry colored exterior paint with interiors the color of vanilla pudding. But while I see this as more eccentric or idiosyncratic, bringing a gun to a Barack Obama rally and wishing our president dead – like Chris Broughton did – is definitely certifiable.

And maybe this is where my old age kicks in. Maybe it’s because I’m old enough to know, if not remember, that Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad were actually trying to reconcile their differences but because the FBI had kicked into high gear a program of misinformation, forged letters were sent back and forth between the two men, further estranging them.

Maybe it’s also cause I know that when the Chicago authorities (police included) tried to ramp up a war between the Black Panthers and another local area Black group, the Blackstone Rangers, local Panther leader Fred Hampton was shrewd and fearless enough to squash that beef on his own; putting him in the position where the Chicago Police Department ultimately had to kill him themselves, while he slept in his bed.

Huey Newton’s death was always fishy to me. But maybe that’s just me being paranoid.

And I guess it’s because Black people really don’t have a history of sweeping pathologically psychotic behavior. I mean, sure, we’ve had a John Muhammad or two, and even a Colin Ferguson (who some Blacks, mind-numbingly enough, are actually proud of!), but no Mansons, Dylan Klebolds, Eric Harris’ or John Wayne Gacys, Lee Harvey Oswalds, Ted Bundys… the list of white loonies goes impressively on and on.

So when I see a nut like Chris Broughton and he’s arguing his so-called minister Steve Anderson’s stance that Barack Obama should be “aborted” or die of brain cancer like Ted Kennedy; saying anything just short of committing the felony of threatening the life of our president, am I wrong in wondering who made some Black people so crazy?

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Obama and Malcolm X: Far From Opposites

According to the dictionary complimentary is defined as “flattering, kind, praising, or gracious.” Yet, Casey Gane-McCalla concluded in his May 19, 2009 opinion editorial “Obama and Malcolm X: Far from Opposites” that Malcolm X and Barack Obama are complimentary figures; nothing could be further from the truth. Certainly Obama’s success is part of the historical legacy of the broad civil rights movement, of which Malcolm X was a part, but complimentary? No, neither complimentary nor opposite.

It has taken me a full three weeks to respond to Mr. Gane-McCalla’s essay. Being new to the blog world I questioned, “Is it polite to disagree with another featured blogger?” I thought, “I don’t know this brother and I don’t want to take away from the provocative and educational special focus on Malcolm X provided by NewsOne.” But in the end, I thought, in the spirit of Malcolm, better to share my observations and a few facts.

First, Malcolm X emerged from an historical strain of radical, revolutionary, Black Nationalist politics, and President Barack Obama does not. While Obama frequently demonstrates strong liberal and sometimes progressive bordering on Social Democratic views, his political trajectory is dramatically different from that of Malcolm X.

Obama and Malcolm X: Far From Opposites

Additionally, throughout his political life Malcolm maintained a commitment to a number of core values, some faith-based, others political. Among his core political values were:

Political INTEGRITY, Malcolm spoke truth to power, never afraid to say what he believed to be true and his remarks were never moderated by any form of political correctness.

As a theorist Malcolm explored the STRUCTURAL ROOTS of the challenges facing the African world; he spoke of systems and structures, colonialism, imperialism, racism, and the need for alternatives.

And, critically important, as a PAN-AFRICANIST Malcolm 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.

While Obama has only been in office for less than six months and, to be fair, is facing enormous challenges – including the collapse of the global economy – let’s take a look at a few of the issues where we can look at his performance versus Malcolm’s core values.

• Temporary Protective Status for Haitians – To the horror of the immigrant rights community the Obama Administration continues to carryout the discriminatory Bush policy of deportation of Haitian immigrants. Some 30,000 Haitians are being returned, despite the fact that they are eligible for Temporary Protective Status because their country remains in crisis as a result of a series of devastating hurricanes that hit the island last year. This status has been granted to Central Americans and others, yet Haitians face a different standard.

• Durban Review Conference – In April the nation’s of the world gathered in Geneva to plan the next steps in the global fight against racism. Yet, in the political calculus of the Obama Administration, the importance of maintaining a strategic relationship with Israel took priority over showing global leadership on this issue.

• IMF funding – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a global financial institution whose policies have devastated Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. After making a 100 billion dollar commitment to the Fund, the Obama Administration has fought attempts to reform the way this organization works. Basically, they are providing a blank check to a group whose policies have de-industrialized the African continent.

Is this the change we voted for?

Obama and Malcolm X: Far From Opposites

Mature politics requires clear analysis. The bottom line: Obama is the President of the United States, responsible for overseeing the world’s single super power. The challenges facing him are enormous and overwhelming. No one can or should take away from the historic significance of his presidency, his individual talents and integrity, or the enormity of his tasks. His successful candidacy is the result of the foundation created by hundreds of years of struggle, struggle by those whose names we know, like Malcolm X, and by many, many more whose names we will never know. Barack is brilliant, but he is not Malcolm, not his compliment, his complement, or his opposite.

From the New York Times:

A group of Harlem protesters is calling for a boycott of the American Apparel outlet on West 125th Street in Harlem, asserting that the store failed to abide by a request made of Harlem merchants to close for three hours last Tuesday, in observance of Malcolm X’s May 19 birthday.

Malcolm X, the civil rights activist who was assassinated in Harlem in 1965, at age 39, would have turned 84 this month. In his memory, a group called the Malcolm X New Millennium Committee held a march and requested that businesses along 125th Street, Central Harlem’s main thoroughfare, close from 1 to 4 p.m.

“It’s really like a moment of silence,” said Omowale Clay, a member of the committee. The group makes a point of alerts businesses ahead of time, he said. “We hand-delivered the letter.”

The American Apparel store opened within the last year, and a spokeswoman for the clothing chain, Emily Nerad, said that the management of the store was not aware of the request. “We want to apologize for any offense taken by marchers who thought American Apparel was not in support of their rally for Malcolm X,” she wrote in an e-mail message. “Unfortunately, we did not receive advance notice about closing. Once the marchers reached our store in Harlem, the manager immediately closed the store.”

Click here to read more.

October, 2007. Offices of GIANT magazine. I’m sitting across from editor-in-chief Smokey D. Fontaine. We’re going over stories I’ll be covering in the upcoming year. .

“Do you think you could find Malcolm X’s grandson?” he asked. “That would make an interesting story.”

I shrugged.

“I can find anybody. You know that. But should we find him?”

Smokey rubbed his hands together and his face lit up.

“Of course we should! This young man is a part of history. Malcolm X never had sons of his own. So this young man is the male heir. And then he was found responsible in the death of Betty Shabazz, his own grandmother, Malcolm’s widow. That story would be crazy!”

Before we continue, let me tell you a little bit about Smokey.

Click here to read more.

Many people may see Malcolm X and Barack Obama as opposites of each other in the sphere of black political figures. While Malcolm pushed for black nationalism, didn’t renounce violence, came across as very militant and scared white people, Obama has pushed for an inclusive nation that includes people of all backgrounds, pushed a message of hope and change, and came across as very amiable and acceptable to white people.

However the comparison cannot be as cut and dry as that. Are we comparing the militant Nation of Islam disciple Malcolm X who railed against blue eyed devils or the Malcolm X who split with the Nation of Islam and renounced racism and met with Martin Luther King?

Even if we were to compare the nation of Islam’s Malcolm X to Barack Obama it is hard to cast them as opposites. Obviously one of the main differences between the two is the places and eras they grew up in. Malcolm X grew up in a time of segregation, police brutality, lynchings, and Jim Crow laws. These circumstances did a lot to shape his world view.

As someone whose father was killed by the KKK and whose world views were shaped by the NOI, Malcolm had a lot of hostility towards white people and America in general. Barack Obama grew up in the multiracial society of Hawaii and later in equally diverse, Indonesia, where he was minority in more ways than one, being both American and of African blood.

It wasn’t until Malcolm X went on a pilgrimage to Mecca that he abandoned the principles of racism upon meeting people of all colors who prayed to the same God as him and saw that they were good and decent people. Barack Obama grew up within that same diversity, with two white grandparents and a white mother who helped raise him, as well as with people from all sorts of backgrounds so he probably came to the realization of the futility of racism earlier in life.

Malcolm X Grandson Breaks Silence!

However even the militant Nation of Islam has endorsed Obama. Farrakhan has spoken very kindly of Obama, even referring to him as the Messiah and the hope of the entire world. With the leading figure for black nationalism in America praising the man who is now the President of the country he once demonized, the black nationalism of Malcolm X may have been replaced by inclusion in the greater United States of America. This is not to say that the struggle is over, but that it has taken a different form and philosophy.

Obviously Obama’s message of hope, unity and diversity counters against Malcolm X’s ‘blue eyed devil rhetoric.’ However the views that Malcolm X had after leaving the Nation of Islam are more in line with Obama’s. Here are some quotes from Malcolm after his epiphany of race in Mecca.

I realized racism isn’t just a black and white problem. It’s brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another.

In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I’m sorry for now. I was a zombie then — like all [Black] Muslims — I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march.

I am not a racist…. In the past I permitted myself to be used…to make sweeping indictments of all white people, the entire white race and these generalizations have caused injuries to some whites who perhaps did not deserve to be hurt. Because of the spiritual enlightenment which I was blessed to receive as a result of my recent pilgrimage to the Holy city of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of any one race. I am now striving to live the life of a true…Muslim. I must repeat that I am not a racist nor do I subscribe to the tenants of racism. I can state in all sincerity that I wish nothing but freedom, justice and equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.

VIDEO: Behind The Scenes Malcolm Shabazz

The last lines that Malcolm X said sound like something out of the declaration of independence or a Barack Obama speech. Here Malcolm, like Obama and MLK is tracing his struggle to himself and black people in general to n American struggle, a struggle based on the same principles that America was founded on.

Many people have compared Obama to Martin Luther King. People have compared King to Obama on their similarities but most often compare King and X on their differences. Despite the fact that they employed different tactics and rhetoric, in many ways King and X had the same goals. Here are some things that X had to say regarding King

I’ll say nothing against him. At one time the whites in the United States called him a racialist, and extremist, and a Communist. Then the Black Muslims came along and the whites thanked the Lord for Martin Luther King.

Dr. King wants the same thing I want — freedom!

After leaving the nation of Islam, X decided that he would work with leaders in the civil rights movement but wanted it to become a global human rights issue, rather than a domestic issue. In many ways Obama’s struggle for global human rights can be traced to Malcolm’s.

Malcolm also was one of the first black leaders to talk about the importance of the black vote, claiming that it was it would take the ballot or the bullet to bring about true change. Malcolm also realized and preached about the importance of the black vote, one of the major factors that got Obama elected.

Malcolm’s own family has come out publicly for Obama. Malcolm’s daughter Malaak said

Actually, him and Michelle remind me of my parents, and what they have to face with children, and with the climate that we’re dealing with politically. She’s brilliant. My mother’s brilliant. He’s brilliant. My father was brilliant. And they’re still sticking to the community. So, no, they are not Betty and Malcolm. But they are the present day Betty and Malcolm.

Obama himself has said that he admired Malcolm and even used some of his rhetoric. Obama used the ‘hoodwinked and bamboozled phrase’ made popular in Spike Lee’s epic Malcolm X bio-pic. Spike Lee, one on the biggest proponent’s of Malcolm’s legacy, has been very enthusiastic of his support for Barack Obama.

Obama would talk about the impact of Malcolm X’s Autobiography on his life and identity in his own Autobiography, Dreams From My Father.

Only Malcolm X’s autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will. All the other stuff, the talk of blue-eyed devils and apocalypse, was incidental to that program, I decided, religious baggage that Malcolm himself seemed to have safely abandoned toward the end of his life. And yet, even as I imagined myself following Malcolm’s call, one line in the book stayed me. He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that tan through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that, for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction. I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if and when I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border.

Reverend Wright, an important figure in his life can be seen as Malcolm to Obama’s Martin. While the media may have put a wedge between the two, it is clear that Obama understands the anger that both Malcolm and Reverend Wright have displayed against America.

Reverend Wright obviously drew a lot of inspiration from Malcolm X. His whole infamous God Damn America speech drew from Malcolm’s famous ‘chickens coming home to roost’ statement after Kennedy’s assassination. Reverend Wright is not the opposite of Obama and definitely helped shape Obama’s worldview as did Malcolm. After the controversy of Reverend Wright’s statements, Obama spoke on the anger that both Reverend Wright and Malcolm X in his More Perfect Union Speech.

The anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

Maybe because Obama grew up vastly different than Revend Wright or Malcolm X he is less cynical about racism and believes that progress can be achieved.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country — a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

So in no way is Barack Obama the ‘direct opposite’ of Malcolm X. Rather the two are complimentary figures. Malcom’s anger and militancy allowed white America to be more accepting of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. Malcolm came around before his death to incorporate his idea of Black Nationalism into the Civil Rights movement that set the groundwork for Obama’s presidency. Malcolm’s struggle developed into a struggle not only for black people but for oppressed people, a struggle that Obama has continued. Remember, like Obama, Malcolm X had his roots as a community organizer.

Here’s some final quotes to show the connection between Malcolm X and Obama

Malcolm X Was a Patriot and Died For This Country:

It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That’s the only thing that can save this country.

Malcolm X Realized The Factors For Change Before Obama:

Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

OPINION: Malcolm X To Barack Obama, 44 Years Of Change

“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.

On February 21, 2008, the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm Shabazz’s grandfather in front of his wife and children in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom, GIANT magazine asked Shabazz and world renowned photojournalist Antonin Kratochvil to pay homage to some of the iconic photographs of Malcolm X.

Perhaps, for Shabazz, this would become a new starting point.  Watch as the young man channels and celebrates his grandfather for this moving photo shoot and video.

CLICK HERE

For the full story of Malcolm Shabazz, Through The Fire, click here

To commemorate Malcolm X’s birthday, an icon who many consider to be the greatest Black leader who has ever lived, NewsOne presents this exclusive investigative story, photo gallery and video that, for the first time, speaks to Malcolm X’s first male heir, MALCOLM SHABAZZ.

TO WATCH THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO WITH MALCOLM SHABAZZ PHOTO CLICK HERE

Also Read

Malcolm X and Barack Obama: Far From Opposites

Malcolm X to Barack Obama: 44 Year Of Change

Top 5 Malcolm X Speeches

INTRODUCTION

His grandmother, Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, was killed in a fire he started 11 years ago. He was 12 years old. He had been shuttled in and out of correctional institutions until his release from Attica Prison in February 2007. Now MALCOLM SHABAZZ, 24, is on a mission: to clear his name, stay out of jail and rise from the ashes of his past.

During the course of a long-standing exclusive correspondence with Aliya S. King for NewsOne and GIANT magazine, Malcolm spoke candidly and introspectively about a checkered childhood, an unstable family life, and the burden of being the sole male heir to an icon whose life and legacy have transformed millions of lives.

The following are woven excerpts from hours of conversation with Shabazz:

People often describe me as troubled. I’m not going to say that I’m not. But I’m not crazy. I have troubles. A lot of us do. But you need to understand where I’m coming from and why I am the way I am. Considering what I’ve been through, it’s a miracle that I’ve been able to hold it together. I’m just trying to find my way. [I’ve read newspaper stories about me that] say, “Experts testify [that boy] is psychotic.” The way they describe me is wrong — bi-polar, depression, pyro, whatever. I know I’m not at all. Some of the things I’ve been through, the average person would have cracked.

All my life, I’ve had [moments where] I’ve lived in the lap of luxury in the Trump Towers and not wanted for a single thing. And the very next day I’m [living in] a slum in a gang-infested Philly neighborhood, eating fried dough three times a day. One minute, I’m in a situation with structure and discipline. The next minute I’m running the streets with no supervision at all. One of my aunts has a friend who is very devoted to his children. I was hanging out with them one day and all he talked about was [their] schedule and sports and taking his kids here and there. I wish I had that. I wish I had someone whose purpose in life was to take care of me. That’s how white people do it. They plan for [their] kids. We don’t. That’s cause we don’t plan our kids. I wasn’t planned.

Malcolm Lateef Shabazz was born in Paris, France in 1984. His mother is Qubilah Shabazz, the second of Malcolm X’s six daughters. She was only four years old when her father was killed right in front of her at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. According to her son, Qubilah grew up loving nature and being by herself. When she was still a young girl, she chose to become a Quaker. She later attended Princeton University, but left before graduating. As she told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in a 1995 interview: “I was under a lot of social pressure, largely due to who I was. I did not fit the view of who I was supposed to be. I didn’t arrive on campus with combat boots and a beret, and I didn’t speak Swahili.” After leaving Princeton, Qubilah traveled to Paris, where she began studying at the Sorbonne. It was here that she met Malcolm’s father, an Algerian. To this day, her son says he has never met his biological father.

I am [my grandfather’s] first male heir, his first grandson. [I’ve read and been told that] he always wanted a son. No boys in the Shabazz family until me. I used to think [Malcolm X] was my father. My mother told me that. I would ask and she would show me pictures of her father and tell me it was my father. I can’t talk to her about him. Nothing in-depth. She acts like she doesn’t know about him. She was there. She was four years old and sitting right there [when he was killed]. I don’t think she’s ever recovered from that.

Also Read

Malcolm X and Barack Obama: Far From Opposites

Malcolm X to Barack Obama: 44 Year Of Change

Top 5 Malcolm X Speeches

CHILDHOOD

Qubilah left Paris when Malcolm was still very young and moved back to the U.S. He remembers them moving around a lot, living in such places as Los Angeles and Brooklyn. His mother reportedly took odd jobs at places like Denny’s to earn enough to get by.

How do you [fill out an application at] Denny’s and put down Princeton and the Sorbonne as your education? I felt like she was better than that. And I didn’t like seeing [her work those kinds of jobs.] When I was 3 or 4, we lived in California. I used to run away from home. My mother drank and she would be asleep and I would be unsupervised. [According to various news reports, Qubilah Shabazz has had issues with alcohol and mental illness in the past.] I was very adventurous [so] I would walk up [and down] the street. It would end with the police bringing me home. One day I walked to my day care center [which was] miles away. One day I got on the bus and just hung out away from home and no one said a word. Whole day goes by before anyone stopped me. [My mom] loves me. I’m sure of that. Everyone is not meant to be a parent. She didn’t hug me. She’s just not that kind of person. It used to make me upset and angry [when I was younger].

After California, Malcolm moved to Philadelphia where he lived with his great-grandmother, Madeline Sandlin, the stepmother of his grandmother Betty Shabazz.

She’s a very strong woman. Native American—very strong and stern and strict. She [lived] in North Philly. [Her neighborhood] was so rough. It was so bad, I couldn’t go outside [and] play. It was like being behind bars. I started school at [a private school outside of Philadelphia]. I went to kindergarten and first grade. These kids were rich. [The bus] wouldn’t go to my house. [It] would go to the corner. [The kids] would say, “You live here?” This [white] girl called me a nigger [one time on the school bus]. I didn’t even know what it meant. I [just] knew it was something bad. I wanted to be white. They seemed happy, like they had everything they needed. White was equal to happy and rich. And black [was] just the opposite.

My aunt Attallah was visiting [in Philly] one day. I was looking at a magazine and [there was a picture] of a white boy in a suit. [I took the magazine to my aunt] and I said “I wish I was white like this white boy right here.” She said, “Why would you say that?”

My great-grandmother couldn’t take care of me forever. I ended up in [upstate] New York living with my teacher for second grade [at the school I was enrolled in]. I liked her–I was calling her “Mom.” She had a 16-year-old daughter. I had a pet hamster [and] a bike. I [was] on the Little League team, I [went to] church every Sunday. I had a crush on a white girl named Heidi. I had stability, something I never had before and I liked it a lot. I was the only black kid in the entire school but [I had] a lot of kids to play with. [My aunt] came to pick me up for the summer and I think she didn’t like [the situation]. I was happy and taken care of, but I don’t think she liked it. She [took me] for the summer [and] as it got closer to September I [kept] asking [if I was going back to Kingston]. She kept saying yeah, but I never went back.

ADOLESCENCE

As Malcolm tells it, he led a nomadic childhood, living at different times with his mother, his grandmother and his aunts.

I was always happiest around my aunt Ilyasah. She always smelled good. I loved staying at her house because she’d always have a tidy home. I loved being with her. She was always funny. One day we were on [an] elevator and I was about to throw up. She cupped her hands up to my mouth like she was going to catch it. When we got off the elevator, I threw up everywhere, all over the floor, all over her hands, but she kept her hands there. That gesture showed how much she felt about me. [It] made an impression on me. I said back then [that] if I ever had a daughter, I would name her after Ilyasah.

[As for] my grandmother, I never saw her relax. She was speaking at colleges [and] going overseas. On vacation, she would take me to a hotel to swim and she would sit there with books and paper. I never saw anyone work that hard. That’s why I couldn’t live there full time. All [of] my aunts [also] worked a lot [so] I had to shuttle around. That was taught with school. My grades ended up being really poor even though the work was not hard. I wasn’t challenged and the teachers couldn’t make the connection because I was all over the place.

I started driving when I was 9. I would watch my aunt [Check with writer to determine which aunt] and memorize [each step]. One day, early in the morning I took [her] keys. I had difficulty starting [the car] at first, [but] I drove to school [and] parked [and] went to school like it was nothing. My aunt found out and came to school. They didn’t even believe her, but it was true. My mother put me in a mental institution after that. She was really angry. I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t crazy. I had done something wrong and needed discipline. But not [being sent] to a hospital.

[At the hospital] they start asking me all these questions. [Stuff like] Do you hear voices? I was into Marvel comic books at the time. There were two characters I liked, Mister Sinister [from the X-Men] and the Human Torch. [So] I was like, “Yeah, here’s my friend that told me to do it.” I just picked them out randomly and drew pictures of them. But I had no idea it would follow me that way it did. I was just making it all up. One time, my aunt came to visit me. She said “You know you don’t hear voices. You need to stop.” And I did. In my experiences, [the doctors] want to find something wrong with you. That’s how they get paid. When I [was in] jail, they said I was depressed and anti-social. I was in jail. I’m in solitary confinement. They gotta say something [is wrong with you].

TO WATCH THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO OF THE MALCOLM SHABAZZ PHOTO SHOOT CLICK HERE

As Malcolm remembers it, after he was discharged from the hospital, he and his mother moved to Minneapolis, where Qubilah had reconnected with an old schoolmate named Michael Fitzpatrick.

She said she was going for a fresh start and I was excited too. First we [stayed] in a hotel. They would meet there and talk. I heard them talking about Farrakhan. It stayed in my mind, but I didn’t really know what they were talking about. I found out later that there were cameras everywhere because there were federal agents watching my mom.

According to published news reports, Fitzpatrick was an FBI informant who helped the agency gather information about an assassination plot against Louis Farrakhan. Qubilah was arrested and charged with plotting to hire a hit man to kill the Nation of Islam leader, who she reportedly believed to have played a part in her father’s death. After his mother was arrested, Malcolm was sent to live in a group home and remembers being transferred to foster parents who he claims wanted to adopt him until they learned who his mother was. Qubilah was later cleared of the charges against her, but Malcolm says he didn’t see her again for almost two years, at which point she had resettled in San Antonio, Texas.

I went to a boarding school in Connecticut for a while. I lasted there about a month. They went in my property and found a laptop computer that belonged to one of the students on another campus. And they had this kid with a slash in his coat and he said I stabbed him. None of that happened, but my grandmother came and got me out of there. I know she was upset, but we never talked about it. That’s how I ended up back in Philadelphia. [When] I was 11, [I] had a fight with a 16-year-old kid. I’m going in so hard, my body goes numb and I couldn’t even pick up my arms anymore. I won that fight and [afterwards] I would come out [of my house] and people were different. [They said] “Don’t mess with him, he’s crazy.” [But] I wasn’t crazy. I was just scared. I had to adapt to survive.

[My grandmother] didn’t know the extent of what I was going through. I told her, but I don’t think she believed it. Malcolm was eventually reunited with his mother in San Antonio, where she reportedly worked for a radio station owned by Percy Sutton, who was Malcolm X’s attorney before he was killed. She also had a new boyfriend, who Malcolm liked right away.

He would give me hundred dollar bills [for no reason]. And he let me drive his car. We lived in a [nice apartment] with a balcony and a Jacuzzi. My mom was working at the radio station [and I was going to a] private school. We lived in a Mexican neighborhood and everyone made a big deal that I was from New York. [When you're from New York] all the girls like you [and] all the dudes hate on you. I got kicked out because my mom started drinking again. [And] her boyfriend ended up going to jail for an attempted murder [charge]. [Suddenly,] there was no food in the house. She’s not taking me to school [so] I’m falling behind. She wouldn’t get up to take me to school and I started falling behind. [One morning,] I woke her up to tell her to take me to school. She got belligerent. She tried to bite me. And I pushed her. She said I hit her, but I didn’t. She put me in a mental hospital for two weeks.

After that incident, Malcolm says he was sent back to New York, even though he wanted to stay with his mother.

All my life, I had been shuttled back and forth, living with this [person] or that [person], never knowing where I was going to lay my head or wake up. I was so sick of it. I wanted to be back with my mom. [The day I came back to New York] it was cold and rainy. My grandmother came to pick me up [at the airport]. I had the big skater pants [on] and the earring. My grandmother said, “Can we please get you to stop wearing those pants?” [After that] I started acting out. I was doing a lot of things–I was stealing money from my aunts to save up to buy a ticket [back to Texas].

THE DEATH OF BETTY SHABAZZ

In the middle of the night on July 1, 1997, authorities responded to a fire at Betty Shabazz’s residence in Yonkers, New York. According to reports, Malcolm X’s widow sustained burns over 80% of her body. Her grandson was held under suspicion of starting the blaze. On June 23, after several operations in the hospital, Betty Shabazz died. She was 63 years old. On July 10, Malcolm, then 12, pleaded guilty to the juvenile equivalent of manslaughter and arson. He was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile facility for troubled adolescents. He remained in state custody for almost four years. In April 2001, he was sent home with an electronic monitoring device, but soon ended up back in detention due to curfew violations. In January 2002, he was arrested in Middletown, New York on robbery and burglary charges. That September, he was sentenced to 3½ years in prison. He received parole in May 2006.

I didn’t mean for my grandmother to get hurt. I wasn’t thinking anything like that would happen. [I thought] she would go to the fire escape [but] she walked through the fire to get to me. I didn’t think she would walk through a fire for me. People say [to me] “Oh you are the one who burned down your grandmother’s house?” [But]…it didn’t really happen like that. I’ve always told the same story. [I was] coerced to say something else, because [I was told] it would be better for me. [I was told] I would go to jail forever…

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Also Read

Malcolm X and Barack Obama: Far From Opposites

Malcolm X to Barack Obama: 44 Year Of Change

Top 5 Malcolm X Speeches

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

- Malcolm X

Who is in agreement with Malcolm X on this point? If  you do agree with him on this point let me give you some information that is a bit more recent. Are you ready? Regardless here it is… WE ARE THE MEDIA. I’ll give you some time to let it sink in… WE ARE THE MEDIA! Each and everyone of us, yourself included. This is called the information age for a reason. The ability to share our unique voice to others within our own community is the true power of BlackPlanet.com.

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