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Malcolm X wrote to Alex Haley, his collaborator for “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” from Saudi Arabia in April 1964, about ten months before he was gunned down at a New York City hotel ballroom. The publisher of the autobiography later gave the letter to Syracuse University as part of a larger cache of papers to be used by researchers.

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But Haley’s son, William Haley, said the publisher never had legal title to the letter and could not give it away. His lawyer said Tuesday he plans to make a legal demand this week for the letter, which he believes is worth at least $650,000.

“The history is important for us as a family, the legacy,” William Haley said. Haley said he was acting on behalf of himself and his two sisters. Haley said it’s possible the family would decide to sell the letter, but that would be a group decision.

Alex Haley died in 1992.

“So much of African-American history gets lost and is sometimes not in the place where we prefer it to be,” Haley said.

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Malcolm X’s letter, written after a pilgrimage to Mecca, addresses the recent time he spent with Muslims “whose skin was the whitest of white.”

“In fact, what I have seen and experienced on this pilgrimage has forced me to `re arrange’ much of my thought patterns, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions,” he wrote.

The letter was sent to publisher Grove Press for inclusion in the autobiography, which was first published in 1965. Grove included the letter in files it gave to Syracuse University in 1969.

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Sean M. Quimby, senior director of the university’s Special Collections Research Center, said it has documentation from Grove that shows Syracuse owns the transferred archive. He said the school’s ownership had never been challenged before in 43 years and he has not seen any evidence that the letter was lent, instead of given, to Grove.

“Our library and our special collections are publicly available to anyone, and there is a greater good served,” Quimby added.

Haley’s attorney, Gregory J. Reed of Detroit, said Haley passed along the letter to Grove only so it could be included in the autobiography and that Grove never had legal title.

Haley said he is acting now because he only found out about details of the letter recently after talking to Reed, who collects Malcolm X material.

As he evolved away from his past as Detroit Red, he transformed himself first, into a loyal protégé of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, then, into a world renowned human rights activist. He never hid behind his legend to avoid speaking of his time as a petty criminal, instead using his story to bolster the confidence of everyday men facing his same struggles. He let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they didn’t have to have a pristine past to make a difference in the present and the future.

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The seismic shift that occurred in our culture, politics and philosophy as Black Americans in the ’50′s and ’60′s will forever be linked to brother Malcolm and his strength in the face of adversity, his unwillingness to bow to the hypocrisy that he had grown to see within the Nation of Islam, and his refusal to dilute his power for a country that feared his influence.

When looking back at the often tumultuous days of Malcolm’s life, one can not help but wonder what was on his mind. As he began to separate from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the man he credited with saving his life, as he broke ranks with the Nation of Islam, the brothers he had molded into the image of Black manhood that was deemed necessary for the separation of Black and White Americans to be successful, as his philosophy began to shift away from merging race and religion, to his belief that matters of human rights can not be confined by such a flimsy institution, as he begin to realize that he was living a lie and all White Americans were no more our enemies than all Black Americans were our friends, what was on his mind?

Many of us forget that he was only 39-years-old when he was gunned down in the Audubon Ballroom just north of Harlem, New York on February 21, 1965. In his short life he went through three pivotal transformations that culminated with the founding of Organization of Afro-America Unity and Muslim Mosque, Inc. Though the two convergent movements never gained the traction and power of the NOI, it spoke to Malcolm’s influence that he was able to step out on purpose and take people with him that were ready to die for him.

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Where are those leaders today?

As we celebrate the birth of Malcolm, I’m reminded of the day that I had the honor of meeting his eldest daughter, Ambassador Attallah Shabazz in Los Angeles. I was able to look into her eyes and see her father’s spirit, intelligence, resilience and passion — and to also tell her that he shaped my philosophy on religion, politics and race. I shared with her that he gave me strength to stand on principal when it seemed that no one was standing by my side. She smiled when I told her that when I was first introduced to his focus on human rights, rather than civil rights — because how can we expect civility until we are first considered human? — it changed my life.

In a poem I penned last year on this date, I recount how I was also able to share my unyielding love and respect for the great El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz with my 7-year-old son:

Today, May 19, 2011, my son went to school like any other day
He took his shower, brushed his hair, ate his breakfast and
Kissed me goodbye
But not before I told him about a man
Not before I explained to him that, though this man’s time was brief
His impact on the world is one that shook the buildings in Washington
And the hoods from Detroit to Harlem
Not before I told him that here stood a Prince who stood for something
A brotha who struggled in the trenches each and every day
To shed light in darkness
To weld the power burning in our collective psyches
Into Weapons of Mass Instruction
Not before I told him that because of one Warrior
Freedom will forever be a word in his mother’s vocabulary

Because I’m ready to die for it

Not before I told him that there once was a man
Whose body was defiled by bullets and lies
His death certificate signed by traitors and bureaucrats
A man who could not contain brilliance so bright it lit minds
From the ghettos of this stolen nation to the deserts of Africa
Reminding us that the shackles of slavery have been broken
Yet we still have to escape the plantation
I told him about a Soldier who refused to withdraw from a battle with a country
That refused to define him as man and in that defiance of oppression
Taught an entire generation that equality  — on our terms — will be had

By Any Means Necessary

Before my son walked out of the door
I told him about his brother, his teacher, his elder, his ancestor
Who refused to live a lie even if it assured his death
Who refused to kowtow or step and fetch it
Or be a diluted version of the man he was destined to be
Just so he could later be deemed acceptable enough
To warrant a holiday on the day of his birth
Yes, my son went to school today…

But not before I told him about brother Malcolm.

Today, I hope we all take a moment to honor the life of a man who died for us all — and continue to walk in his legacy.

Happy Birthday, brother Malcolm.

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The video was the start of the “Poor People’s Campaign,” in which Dr. King would go around the nation speaking on behalf of those who’d been forgotten in the depths of poverty.

I thought to myself, “Wow, Dr. King sounds a lot like Dr. Cornel West right now.  I wonder if they would be calling him a hater too?”

I thought about how Dr. King has been racially castrated and reduced to little more than a polite little McDonald’s commercial.  He is the cute, lovable image that makes everyone, from every background, snug and comfortable in a cesspool of hypocrisy.  The man who lived as a rock was transformed into a pillow, loved by millions of people who would hate him if he were alive today.

Dr. King might have been better off if historians had simply given him a sex change.  Marketing has an amazing power to turn the true into the false and the false into a fantasy.   As a business school professor, I observe this phenomenon regularly.

The postmortem transformation of Dr. King came from tools no less powerful than those used to turn Tiger Woods into a saint, Britney Spears into a virgin and Whitney Houston into the girl next door.  If you tell enough lies with intelligent marketing, you can make anything appear to be anything else, for reality is in the eyes of the beholder.

I’ll admit that I was inspired by Dr. King’s speech.  He even sounded a little like Malcolm X, and made it clear that his goal was not to become a pet to the establishment.  He directly challenged the power of the White House and held our government accountable to the values it claims to promote.  He wasn’t willing to throw poor people under the bus for a more comfortable agenda and spoke truth to power no matter what the cost.

Dr. King was not rewarded for his words, he was punished for them.  He became highly unpopular for his insistence upon doing God’s work and listening to his conscience in a world that encourages all of us to look the other way.  One then has to ask if it’s simply a matter of coincidence that shortly after this speech and the start of the “Poor people’s movement,” Dr. King was assassinated.  Perhaps there is a price to telling the truth.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Minister Farrakhan will deliver the keynote address today at 2:00 p.m. at the United Center Arena in Chicago. His speech is entitled, “What Will 2012 Bring to America, The World and Black and Oppressed People.”

Shareef Nasir, CEO of Mizan Studios, illuminated the role of the MGT-GCC in his groundbreaking documentary, “Lost Found: An African-American’s Journey to Al-Islam.” In an exclusive interview, he spoke with me about how the African-American experience has shaped the way that women are treated in the Nation of Islam and Al-Islam, as opposed to traditional Islam:

Because of the shared history of African-Americans in the United States, how [Muslims in the Middle East] view women, and how they treat women, is different from ours. There is a different global perspective that is different from ours. As you see in “Lost-Found,” there are sisters in high positions of power. Such as Saffiya Shahid, and Ayesha K. Mustafaa, she is the head honcho at the Muslim Journal. In the film, by highlighting the MGT-GCC, I wanted to show that women were, and still are, the foundation of the NOI, and subsequently, Al-Islam.”

Established by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Saviours’ Day celebration commemorates the birth of Nation of Islam founder Master W. Fard Muhammad (February 26, 1877). Previous speakers include Malcolm X, who later left the Nation of Islam due to an irreversible rift with Honorable Elijah Muhammad, to form Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of African-American Unity (OAAU) and  Wallace Muhammad, son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who disbanded the NOI in 1976.

Leadership was transferred to Wallace by his father on the day of his death, February 25, 1975.  Changing his name to Imam W. Deen Mohammed — to better reflect his traditional Islamic beliefs –  he restructured the NOI as an orthodox Muslim sect, the World Community of Al-Islam — later renamed the American Society of Muslims.  Minister Farrakhan, not content with the direction of the NOI, formed a replica of the original Nation of Islam under his leadership.

Saviours’ Day is celebrated by both the NOI and the American Society of Muslims.

For those who would like to view Minister Farrakhan’s 2012 Saviours’ Day keynote, please click here:

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He truly epitomized how an intellectually fit and civic-minded black man should face down the indignity of racism-no matter how socially powerless blacks were in protecting themselves from it. He was known during his time as a “northern troublemaker,” one of those uppity Negros (to put it nicely) who refused to stay in “his place.” Malcolm’s persona was often measured against more “amiable” Negro leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who didn’t rub whites the wrong way. (Though the “turn-the-other cheek” characterization is not particularly accurate of King, either)

Malcolm’s defiant attitude and measured radical rhetoric was needed for the Negro masses who never warmed to King’s more conciliatory tone. Simply put,  Malcolm told it how it was and refused to sugar coat how negative the debilitating effects  of Jim Crow rule and black passivity towards racism was on black male masculinity.

Of all of his speeches, Malcolm’s discussion of the “House Negro and the Field Negro” was, in my mind, one of his greatest historical references of how black men during his day should maintain their pride in the face of racism.

Here is a snippet of the longer speech below:

“The field Negro was beaten from morning til night. He lived in a shack, in a hut. He wore castoff clothes. And he hated his master. And I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. The house Negro loved his master. But that field Negro, remember, he was in the majority. And they hated the master. When the house caught on fire, he didn’t try and put it out. That field Negro prayed for all wind. For a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he died. If someone went to the field Negro and said, ‘let’s separate. let’s run.’ He didn’t say, ‘Where are we going.’ He said, ‘Anywhere is better than here.’

You got field Negros in America today. I’m a field Negro.

The masters are the field Negros. When they see this man’s house on fire, you don’t hear these Negros talking about ‘our government is in trouble.’ They said, ‘The government is in trouble. Imagine a Negro, ‘Our government.’ I heard one saying, ‘Our astronauts.’ They won’t even let him near the plant. ‘Our astronauts. Our Navy.’ That’s a Negro that’s out of his mind.”

Though our society has progressed from being down-trodden Negros of the 1960s to high-achieving African-Americans occupying the White House, it was still important for us to have people like Malcolm who refused to bat an eye and dip their heads in humiliation to white prejudice.

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So on this day, the anniversary of his tragic assassination, I pen this short piece in remembrance of a great man who taught masses of black men to lift their heads to the sky with dignity, no matter how often racist cops pushed them into the dirt.

Thank you, Brotha Malcolm, for being a “field Negro.”

House Negro, Field Negro Speech

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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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1. By Any Means Necessary

2. Ballot or the Bullet

3. House Negro Vs. The Field Negro

4. Speech on Police Brutality

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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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

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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.

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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…”

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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.

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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.

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T.I. & Tiny Arrested

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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

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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.

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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.

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

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.

RELATED: OPINION: 45 Years After His Murder, Malcolm X Deserves More Respect

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.

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

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Obama and Malcolm X: Far From Opposites

OPINION: 45 Years After His Murder, Malcolm X Deserves More Respect

Mehlman/News; Haggins/AP

The man who murdered Malcolm X with a 1965 shotgun blast was released Tuesday from prison.

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

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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!

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Man Who Murdered Malcolm X Will Be Released Next Month

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