American Protest Literature

...,.. MAL_COI M-X

From The Ballot or the Bullet

1964

To white Americans, Martin Luther King, Jr., seemed the civil . h . ngtsrno puted leader. But Malcolm X (1925-1965), a Muslim minister a d Velllent's .

n a nau und,~ for the Nation of Islam, was another contender. Born Malcolm Littl 0 na1 spokes . h"I . . f e, he co~v illan Black Muslim religion w I e m prison or armed robbery. Up " erted to

0 n release h the spokesman for Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Isla e beta 111 m,andalll·. ea faith. They fell out, and when Malcolm remarked that John F. Kenn d , 1n1ster ofth

. " eysassas·. e "chickens coming home to roost, Muhammad banned him from . sinat1onwas . speaking· . 1964 Malcolm declared independence from the Nation of Islam and in Public. In

. K" ' h . I f h formed •• 1· Mosque, Inc. Decrying mg s r etorrca use o t e word "we" to include . '""11111 gested that King was the faithful "house negro" to his rebellious "field ne :h'.~es, he sug. oped what he called the "gospel" of black nationalism. Eldridge Cleaverg H, aricideve1. and Stokely Carmichael then translated this into the ideology of Black Po'w uey Newton,

er. Malcolm's speech ''The Ballot or the Bullet" is a full explication of black nat· 1 .

10na1smas the route to racial equality. Its original audience was young urban blacks, frustrated by what they saw as King's futile gradualism. Malcolm frequently criticized King's philos- ophy of nonviolence, instead advocating "whatever means necessary" to achieve equal- ity. These means included violence (though generally only in response to violence): "If you're going to get yourself a .45 and start singing 'We Shall Overcome,' I'm with you,' Malcolm once said. This prompted comparisons between Malcolm and the 19th-century slave rebel Nat Turner, and in 1965 the social activist Ossie Davis added that Malcolm stood in relation to the '"responsible' civil rights leaders, just about where John Brown stood in relation to the 'responsible' abolitionist in the fight against slavery."

Malcolm was in the tradition of the urban street speaker. He would use phrases like "what's good for the goose is good for the gander," while King described "radiant sta~ of love and brotherhood . . . with all their scintillating beauty." But writers in the Black

h d a saxophone Arts Movement, the artistic branch of the Black Power movement, ear , 'd · . h · se of poet!)', sa, solo m Malcolm's VOJce: "What I liked most about Malcolm was 1s sen ,.,

I d"d not have reau, Larry Neal in 1970. "Because I was not reared in the Black church • · · 1 . ded M I olm] remin access to the rhetorical strategies of Martin Luther King .. • [But a c entral · that was a' many of us of the music of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane-a music k'Uedwhile f

· h · · · "Malcolm was 1 orce 1n t e emerging ethos of the Black artistic consciousness. wrote 'A · · Baraka speaking in Harlem, on February 21 1965 The Black Arts poet Amin k men for

' • • ·tv blac ' Poem for Black Hearts" (196S): "For Malcolm's / pleas for your digrn.,, your life ."

Malcolm x I Th 8 e allot or the Bullet . Michael Dyson, Making Malcolm (1996); Alex Hale Th

readln9• Y, e Autobiogro. f~rt~er 1colm X (1965).

phYofrvfO - ----------------

to be the most explosive year America has eve . hreatens r witnessed The

1964 1 . year. Why? It's also a political year. It's the year h · explosive . w en all of the fl1ost .. . ns will be back m the so-called Negro community .. . . poht1c1a . Jiving you and white votes. The year when all of the white political crooks .11 b . f r some . . . wi e nght (Ile O and my commumty with their false promises bu·Jd·

k in your . . ' I mg up our bac letdown with their trickery and their treachery with th . f es for a ' , _ ' e1r alse hOP . hich they don t mtend to keep. As they nourish these diss t· f onuses w . . a 1s ac- pr . n only Jead to one thmg, an explosion; and now we have the typ f ·ons 1tca eo n ' on the scene in America today-I'm sorry Brother Lomax h 1 ck man ' -w o b a 't intend to turn the other cheek any longer.

·ustdoesn . I Don't let anybody tell you anything about the odds are against you. If they

U they send you to Korea and make you face 800 million Chinese If draft yo , · n be brave over there, you can be brave right here. These odds aren't as you ca

great as those odds. And if you fight here, you will at least know what you're

fighting for. I'm not a politician, not even a student of politics; in fact, I'm not a student

of much of anything. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican, and I don't even consider myself an American. If you and I were Americans, there'd be no problem. Those Honkies that just got off the boat, they're already Americans; Polacks are already Americans; the Italian refugees are already Americans. Ev- erything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an Ameri- can. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.

Well, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation; you wouldn't need any amendments to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil-rights filibustering in Washington, D.C., right now. They don't have to pass civil- rights legislation to make a Polack an American.

No, I'm not an American. I'm one of the 22 million black people who are ilie victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the vic- tims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So, I'm not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-wave~- no not I 1, t And I see America ' · m speaking as a victim of this American sys em.

357

358

d Black Liberation I THE LITERATURE Civil Rights an

es Of the victim. I don't see any American dre h the ey am-1 throug So it's time in 1964 to wake up. And h ' 8eean ightmare .. • w en A,,,. can ·th that kind of conspiracy, Jet them know y You~ ''"11. coming up w1 . I , . our eyes ¾ know you-somethmg e se thats wide open t are 0 And let them 00, Jt's P!ii,

h bullet The ballot or the bullet. If you're afrai'd & 0tto~.

ballot or t e · · to USe "'~ . 1.k that you should get on out of the country; you should an exPr s1on I e 1 • &et b

tch. you should get back m the alley. They get all th N ackin,1. cotton pa , . . . e egr0 ,, ft h Y get it the Negro gets nothmg m return. All they did Vote,.,,. aerte 1 • •• Whent '•

to Washington was give a few big Negroes big Jobs. Those big Negr hey ~ need big jobs, they already had jobs. That's camouflage, that's trick~didn•, treachery, window-dressing. I'm not trying to knock out the Dem ry, tha11

h . . t B · · 0Cratsfo111 .. Republicans We'll get to t em m a mmu e. ut 1t 1s true· you ,, • I put the De crats first and the Democrats put you last ... You and I.in Amertc m~ ,, a are facect with a segregationist conspiracy, we're faced with a government . . • , • conspiracy Everyone who's filibustermg 1s a senator-thats the government E ·

. • . · veryone who's finagling m Washmgton, D.C., 1s a congressman-that's th . . .. e govem. ment. You don't have anybody puttmg blocks m your·path but people who ii! a part of the government. The same government that you go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in a conspiracy to depriveyouofyoor voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you ofde. cent housing, deprive you of decent education. You don't need to go to the employer alone, it is the government itself, the government of America, that~ responsible for the oppression and exploitation and degradation of black~ pie in this country. And you should drop it in their lap. This government his failed the Negro. This so-called democracy has failed the Negro. And all these white liberals have definitely failed the Negro.

So, where do we go from here? First, we need some friends. We need some new allies. The entire civil-rights struggle needs a new interpretation, a broader interpretation. We need to look at this civil-rights thing from another angl1-:- from the inside as well as from the outside. To those of us whose philosophyu black nationalism, the only way you can get involved in the civil-rightsSllllt I· · · · . Jdedusltkepl g e is give It a new mterpretation. That old interpretation exc u · -~

us out. So, we're giving a new interpretation to the civil-rights strUggle, an~- terpretation that will enable us to come into it take part in it. And these ha k h' ' ctcompro-e_rc ief-heads who have been dillydallying and pus~y footing an ,~ m1s1ng-we ct ' . . • II and cornproill on t intend to let them pussyfoot and d11lyda Y any longer

. -How can yo th urs1 Holl' u ank a man for giving you what's already yo · 1 yl)II can you tha k h. dy yours. h , n

1m for giving you only part of what's alrea vehad aven t even d should h3 ed

al read T ,ma e progress, if what's being given to, you, you !JePoint y. hats not progress. And I love my Brother Lomax, thewaY

Malcolm X I The Ballot or the Bullet

k where we were in 1954. We're not even as far up as w

. tit baC e ot we're ng We're behind where we were in 1954. There's more segregation

0 • 1954, Th ' m r r · 1 · · er

e 1n s in 1954. ere s o e ac1a ammos1ty more racial ha 'II there wa , - 0 w than .

1 violence today in 1964, than there was in 1954. Where is the

n ore rac1a tred, (Tl progress? ou're facing a situation where the young Negro's coming up.

,And now y t to hear that "turn-the-other-cheek" stuff, no. In Jacksonville don't wan . , '[l!eY agers they were throwmg Molotov cocktails. Negroes have were teen , those h t before. But it shows you there's a new deal coming in. There's done t a never . . coming in. There's new strategy coming in. It'll be Molotov

thinking new . h' month hand grenades next month, and something else next ckta1IS t IS , . , . . . co it'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets. It II be hberty, or It will be death. The

rnonlh•ff ce about this kind of death-it'll be reciprocal. You know what is nlY d1 eren 0 b "reciprocal"? That's one of Brother Lomax's words. I stole it from

meant Y . , him. 1 don't usually deal with those big words because I don t usµally deal with

. ople I deal with small people. I find you can get a whole lot of small peo- . . ' le and whip hell out of a whole lot of big people. They haven t got anything

; 0

lose, and they've got every thing to gain. And they'll let you know in a min- ute: "It takes two to tango; when I go, you go."

The black nationalists, those whose philosophy is black nationalism, in bringing about this new interpretation of the entire meaning of civil rights, look upon it as meaning, as Brother Lomax has pointed out, equality of oppor- tunity. Well, we're justified in seeking civil rights, if it means equality of oppor- tunity, because all we're doing there is trying to collect for our investment. Our mothers and fathers invested sweat and blood. Three hundred and ten years we worked in this country without a dime in return-I mean without a dime in return. You let the white man walk around here talking about how rich this country is, but you never stop to think how it got rich so quick. It got rich be- cause you made it rich.

You take the people who are in this audience right now. They're poor. We're aU poor as individuals. Our weekly salary individually amounts to hardly any- thing. But if you take the salary of everyone in here collectively, it'll fill up a whole lot of baskets. It's a lot of wealth. If you can collect the wages of juSt

these peopl . h . Wh 1

e ng t here for a year you'll be rich-richer than nch. en you Ook at it l'k ' · h h' h 1 ·e that, think how rich Uncle Sam had to become, not wit t is anctful b t · · h h d' , ' u millions of black people. Your and my mother and fat er, w

0

~t~k . U

. r an eight-hour shift but worked from "can't see" in the morning ntil "c , '

rn k . ant see" at night and worked for nothing making the white man rich, a in U , , . .

blooct.g ncle Sam rich. This is our investment. This is our contnbution, our

Not only ct · . h id we give of our free labor, we gave of our blood. Every time e

359

360 1 k Liberation / THE LITERATURE Civil Rights and B ac

e were the first ones in uniform. We di d u to arms, w e on had a ca . man had. We have made a greater sacrifice th every bat Id the white an · tlefie . . America today. We have made a greater c . anyboo , t ndmg up m 0 ntribur Y who s s a I Civil rights, for those of us whose phiJosoph . 10n anct collected ess. , . Y 1s bl have . "Give it to us now. Don t wait for next year G· . ack na. . nalism means. . ive it to 110 'd that's not fast enough." . . . Whenever you demonst Us Yes. terday, ~n h ther it is segregated education, segregated hou _rate against segregation, w e sing, or

h I w is on your side, and anyone who stands in thew . any. ili~~~tea ~u¾ I er They are breaking the law; they are not represent t· the Jaw any ong • . . a 1ves of

. e you demonstrate agamst segregation and a man has th the .. , e~ l·ce dog on you kill that dog, kill him, I m telling you kill ty to put a po 1 ' . , that do

. 'f they put me in jail tomorrow, kill that dog. Then you'll p g. J say 1t, 1 . , ut a sto to . N if these white people m here don t want to see that kind of a . P 1t. ow, . Chon, get d n and tell the mayor to tell the police department to pull the d . . ~m That's all you have to do. If you don't do 1t, someone else will. ·

If you don't take this kind of stand, your little children will grow up and look at you and think "shame." If you don't take an uncompromising stand, 1 don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonvi- olent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do. And that's the way every Negro should get. Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal rights, within your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in. But don't die alone. Let your dying be reciprocal. This is what is meant by equality. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

When we begin to get in this area, we need new friends, we need new allies. We need to expand the civil-rights struggle to a higher level-to the level of human rights. Whenever you are in a civil-rights struggle, whether you know it or not, you are confining yourself to the jurisdiction of Uncle Sam. No one from the outside world can speak out in your behalf as Jong as your struggle is a civil-rights struggle. Civil rights comes within the domestic affairs of this country. All of our African brothers and our Asian brothers and our Latin· A · b d esticaf-mencan rothers cannot open their mouths and interfere in the om fairs of the United States. And as long as it's civil rights, this comes under the . . d' · d dnp- Juns !Chon of Uncle Sam . . . Uncle Sam's hands are dripping with bJoo ' ping w·th th b h' number· 1 e lood of the black man in this country. He's the eart s one hy · • g as the I pocnte. He has the audacity-yes he has-imagine him posm h JI eader of the fr ' . . "We S a 0 ee world. The free world! And you over here smgmg .- ~e vercome." Ex d h . . rights. ,a . . pan t e CIV!J-rights struggle to the level of human • ht it mto the United N · their weig 0 . ations, where our African brothers can throw ·cte n our side wh . . our s1 •

' ere our Asian brothers can throw their weight on

I I

Malcolm X \ The Ballot or the Bullet

·can brothers can throw their weight on our side and tin-Amert . . . . '

e 0 ur Lil Chinamen are s1ttmg there wa1tmg to throw their weight wJler soo million wJlere

0ur side. w how bloody his hands are. Let the world know the hy-o!l 0 rtd kn° , Pt the W t·ced over here. Let it be the ballot or the bullet. Let him ,.,. t's prac 1

p0crisY tha t be the ballot or the bullet. ~ow that it muks your case to Washington, D.C., you're taking it to the crimi-

you ta e . w11en "ble· it's like runmng from the wolf to the fox. They're all in 's respons1 , !la! wh0 They all work political chicanery and make you look like a wgether.

cahoots h eyes of the world. Here you are walking around in America before t e ' chumP be drafted and sent abroad, like a tin soldier, and when you

• g ready to getun eople ask you what are you fighting for, and you have to stick ver there, P get O • your cheek. No, take Uncle Sam to court, take him before the

your tongue ill world· · · · d I 22 ·11· Afr" · . w in this country, 1f you an , m1 100 1can-Amencans---

Right no , . . , . h t We are-Africans who are m Amenca. You re nothmg but Africans. that's w a

h . but Africans In fact, you'd get farther calling yourself African instead Not mg ·

of Negro. Africans don't catch hell. You're the only one catching hell. They don't have to pass civil-rights bills for Africans. An African can go anywhere he wants right now. All you've got to do is tie your head up. That's right, go anywhere you want. Just stop being a Negro. Change your name to Hooga- gagooba. That'll show you how silly the white man is. You're dealing with a silly man. A friend of mine who's very dark put a turban on his head and went into a restaurant in Atlanta before they called themselves desegregated. He went into a white restaurant, he sat down, they served him, and he said, "What would happen if a Negro came in here? And there he's sitting, black as night, but because he had his head wrapped up the waitress looked back at him and says, "Why, there wouldn't no nigger dare come in here."

_so, you're dealing with a man whose bias and prejudice are making him lose h1smind h's· t 11· , 1 m e 1gence, every day. He's frightened. He looks around and sees what's t k' . a mg place on this earth, and he sees that the pendulum of time is swinging in yo ct· . ' . th . ur 1rect1on. The dark people are waking up. They re losmg

e1r fear of th h" . . e w 1te man. No place where he's fighting right now is he wm- nmg. Everywh , . io ere hes fightmg, he's fighting someone your and my complex-

n. And they' b . . lie f . re eatmg him. He can't win any more. He's won his last battle. ailed tow· h That' 10 t e Korean War. He couldn't win it. He had to sign a truce. s a loss y , ,

got an h · · · ou ve got to have heart to be a guerrilla warrior, and he hasn t in th/ch:~:t. · · · The political philosophy of black nationalism is being taug~t CORE tian church. It's being taught in the NAACP. It's being taught m

meetings It' b . d" . Cornrn· · s emg taught in SNCC Student Nonviolent Coor matmg 1ttee me t · . e mgs. It's being taught in Muslim meetings. It's bemg taught

•

361

d Black Liberation I THE LITERATURE Civil Rights an

. b t atheists and agnostics come together It' b h e nothing u . . · s ein w er 1 k people are fed up with the dillydallying p g taught rywhere. B ac . , ussyf0 . ev e ach that we've been usmg toward getting 0 t1ng O • ising appro our f ' '%

prom ow but we're not going to get it saying "We Sh reedolll ,.," want freedom n • . au Ov · •ve

fight until we overcome ... The social philoso h erc0lll , We've got to p y of b e. . 1 means that we have to get together and rem lack n rtonahsm on Y . . ove the . a.

h l·sm drug addict10n, and other evils that are dest . e\lils, th vices aJco o I , roYing th e 'f ommunity. We our selves have to lift the level of ellloraJ fiber o our c . . our coll!

d d Of our commumty to a higher level, make our ow lllunih, the stan ar . . . n society ·,, h t We will be satisfied m our own social cucles and wo , beauti. fulsot a . . ntberu .

d here trving to knock our way mto a social circle wh nn,ng aroun ·,. . ere We'r t d So I say in spreading a gospel such as black nationalism . . e not wane . , ,lt1sno

signed to make the black man re-evaluate the white man-you know hit de. dy-but to make the black man re-evaluate himself. Don't chan rn aJ. ' . . p~-man's mind-you cant change his mmd, and that whole thing ab

. . . , out appeaJ. ing to the moral consoence of Amenca-Amenca s conscience is b . ankrupt She lost all conscience a long time ago. Uncle Sam has no conscience. ·

They don't know what morals are. They don't try and eliminate an .1 eV1 !Je. cause it's evil, or because it's illegal, or because it's immoral; they eliminate it only when it threatens their existence. So you're wasting your time appealing to the moral conscience of a bankrupt man like Uncle Sam. If he had a con. science, he'd straighten this thing out with no more pressure being put upon him. So it is not necessary to change the white man's mind. We have to change our own mind. You can't change his mind about us. We've got to change our own minds about each other. We have to see each other with new eyes. We have to see each other as brothers and sisters. We have to come together with warmth so we can develop unity and harmony that's necessary to get this problem solved ourselves . .. It's time for you and me to stop sitting in this country, letting some cracker senators, Northern crackers and Southern crack· ers, sit there in Washington, D.C., and come to a conclusion in their mind that you and I are supposed to have civil rights. There's no white man going wtell me anything about my rights. Brothers and sisters, always remember, ,f 11

doesn't take senators and congressmen and presidential proclamations to g,ve fr · nm eedom to the white man, it is not necessary for legislation or proclamatIO . Supreme Court decisions to give freedom to the black man. You let that wMe man know, if this is a country of freedom Jet it be a country of freedom; and ,f it' ' nother . s not a country of freedom, change it ... No, if you never see me a time in yo J'f "f 1 . . . . the ballot or ur I e, 1 die in the morning I'll die saying one thmg. . the bull t th b ' 't g01M to . e ' e allot or the bullet ... The black nationalists aren •vil wait Lynd 8 f h •s for Cl . · on · Johnson is the head of the Democratic Party. 1 e in nghts, let him g · . If Let hiJJI go 0 mto the Senate next week and declare h1mse ·

Malcolm X I The Ballot or the Bullet 363 d declare himself. Let _him go i~ there and denounce the

. }Jt 110W an . rty Let him go m there nght now and take a moral e fig f his pa . ther 11 brancll

O I t r Tell him, don't wait until election time. If he waits 111er not a e. . .

So0 right now, . ters he will be responsible for lettmg a condition de-nd-- and sis , sta g brothers h. h will create a climate that will bring seeds up out of 100 , try w IC . . . t00 .11 tlliS coun . n on the end of them looking hke somethmg these 10P 1 • h vegetat10 ve 0011d wit f In !964, it's the ballot or the bullet. the gr r dreamed o .

le oeve peoP

LY NDON B. JOH.NSON '_

from The American Promise

1965

ress by President Johnson (1908-1973) points to the unkept prom- ch to Cong . .

n,isspee I tion of Independence and the Emanc1pat1on Proclamation. Existing I the Dec ara . . , . ises O • d' •mination laws had never overcome state officials resistance to the Fif-i anti- ,sen federa d ent In the 1890s, some states enacted disenfranchising laws: poll taxes h Amen m . , teent ts and disqualification of voters for "crimes of moral turpitude." White su- literacy tes ' · · 'd · d I · d' · . t roups practiced violent 1nt1m1 at1on, an e ect1on 1stncts were gerryman-premac1s g

dB 1910 nearly all black citizens in the former Confederate states were disenfran-dere . Y chised. In 1965, only a third of eligible African Americans, as opposed to two-thirds of eligible whites, were registered in these states.

Martin Luther King, Jr., desperately wanted the voting rights legislation to be enacted and planned a march in its support from Selma to Montgomery on March 7, 1965. But Johnson, who had advised King against the demonstration, called him, to Washington, D.C., for a meeting. Six hundred marchers crossed the bridge over the Alabama River and were attacked on the other side by two hundred troopers and deputized "possemen" with clubs and tear gas. Seventeen marchers were hospitalized and a Boston minister died, Americans watched the televised violence and thousands headed to Selma to help the voter registration drive. Johnson gave his speech on March 15, and on March 21 the demonstration began again, with federal protection. On August 5, Congress passed the bill, parts of which follow the language of the Fifteenth Amendment. It provided for unprecedented federal intervention and ended the use of literacy requirements for vot- ing" .

in six states. Most southern states opened voter registration lists to blacks and control passed to the Justice D · · · d · I M. · . . epartment in sixty-two counties that remame resistant. n 1ss1s- sipp1 black r I h, vo ing enrollment went from 6 percent in 1965 to 44 percent by 1968. 0 nson'

islati s speech acknowledges civil rights protest as the driving force behind the leg- on, and he ·ct

civil ri h pa, further tribute to protestors in an address of June 4, 1965. But the ers a;d ts movement had been a training ground for several prominent antiwar protest-

, as Johns times u . on escalated the Vietnam war effort between 1964 and 1968-some- Vietna~1~~the language of his voting rights speech to explain America's presence in Prolllise") e are there because we have a promise to keep ... And I intend to keep that C -protester t ct· t· 0mlllitte s urned against him. In 1966 the Student Nonviolent Coor ma mg th r e noted· "161¾ 'fl e 1beration · 0 of the draftees from this country are Negroes called on to st1 e home." Kin of Vietnam, to preserve a 'democracy' which does not exist for them at much 9 noted in 19 . as it c 67 that the Vietnam war had destroyed his Poverty Program,

arne to h · d h M L . in er Johnson's Great Society program. In the wake of t e Y ai

369

370

Ill

ciVil Rights and Black Liberation / THE LEGACY

massacre, Johnson's description in his voting rights sp eech f face of a young child" seemed painfully ironic.

0

the "sea rs on the h OP!fOI

. nd fate meet at a single time in a single Pia At times history a ce to sh . . n's unending search for freedom. So it was ape a !ti ing poIOt IO ma at Lexin tn.

S ·twas a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last &ton and concord. 0 1 Week · There long-suffering men and women peacefully p 1n Sel!JJa Alabama. ' rotested ,

. f h . rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted O the de. ma! o t eu • ne go f G d was killed. There is no cause for pride in what h Od lllan a man o O , • . • as hap ,

Th re is no cause for self-sat1sfact10n m the Jong denial f Penect in Selma. e . 0 equal . f .11. ns of Americans. But there 1s cause for hope and for f . h !ights 0 m1 10 . . a1t in ou

cy in what is happening here tomght. For the cries of . r de. h ns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into co the the mai·esty of this great Government-the Government of the gre t au

. . . a est Nation on earth. Our m1ss10n 1s at once the oldest and the most basic of th· . . 1s country: to right wrong, to do 1ust1ce, to serve man.

In our time we have come to live with moments of great crisis O . . . . . m~ have been marked with debate about great issues; issues of war and pe . ace, is-

sues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved Nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For with a country as with a person, "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans-not as Democrats or Republicans-we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a pur- pose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North anct South: "All men are created equal"-" government by consen'. of the governed"-"give me liberty or give me death." Well, those are not 1ust clever wo d · . Amencans r s, or those are not just empty theories. In their name h y have fought d ct· d he world t e an ied for two centuries and tonight aroun t ea stand there as ct· ' . h words ar

. guar ians of our liberty risking their hves. T ose . . ii)' Promise to ev . . ' This d1gn ery citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. or in cannot be found i . h. s power,

his pos·t· n a man's possessions; it cannot be found in 1 . pportu· 1 10n. It rean al in° Y rests on his right to be treated as a man equ

Lyndon B. Johnson / The Amen· Pr . can om1se

It says that he shall share in freedom he shall ch h ' others. ' oose 1s _111 10 ail h's children, and provide for his family according to his ab·i·ty

01,, ctucate 1 . 1 1 ders, e a human bemg. 1ea eri ts as . d 11is J1l ther test-to deny a man his hopes because of his col an I anY o . . . or or ro apP Y . or the place of his birth-is not only to do ini·ustice ·t . t . religion . . , 1 1s o

ace, 111s d to dishonor the dead who gave theII hves for American fr r erica an . . . ee- deoY AJJl believed that 1f this noble view of the rights of man wa t ur fathers s o dorn- 0 t be rooted in democracy. The most basic right of all was th

. h it rnus . . e a0ur1s ' your own leaders. The history of this country, in large measure choose . , rigllt to f the expansion of that nght to all of our people.

history 0 is tile f h issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But l,{anY o t e . . h e can and should be no argument. Every Amencan citizen must ut this t er

abo I right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of ve an equa ha . There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we thatnght. f · h · ure that right. Yet the harsh act 1st at m many places in this coun-have to ens

men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes. Ev- try d •ce of which human ingenuity is capable has been used to deny this ery ev1 . . ht The Negro citizen may go to register only to be told that the day is . . . .

wrong, or the hour is late, or the official m charge 1s absent. And if he persists, and if he manages to present himself to the registrar, he may be disqualified because he did not spell out his middle name or because he abbreviated a word on the application. And if he manages to fill out an application he is given a test. The registrar is the sole judge of whether he passes this test. He may be asked to recite the entire Constitution, or explain the most complex provisions of State law. And even a college degree cannot be used to prove that he can read and write. For the fact is that the only way to pass these barriers is to show a white skin.

Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot over- come systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books-and I have helped to put three of them there-can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it. In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution says that no person shall be kept

f g ecause of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath be ore God to sup · b ct· port and to defend that Constitution. We must now act IO O e 1- ence to th t . d t . a oath. On Wednesday I will send to Congress a law designe 0 ehminat · 11 . • · · d e I egal barriers to the right to vote This bill will stnke own restrictions . . . . b to voting in all elections-Federal State and locaJ-whICh have eenusedt ' ' · · I un·r O deny Negroes the right to vote. This bill will estabhsh a simp e, 1 0 rm stand ff t flout our C . ard which cannot be used, however ingenious the e ort, 0

0nstitur ffi · J of the United ion. It Will provide for citizens to be registered by O cia s . states Government if the State officials refuse to regiSter them. 11 WIii

371

372 Civil Rights and Black Liberation I THE LEGACY

1. . te tedious unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right e 1mma 1 • to v 0 h. 1 gi·slation will ensure that properly registered individuals te. Fina,, t 1s e . are n 1/,

. d fr voting . .. To those who seek to avoid action by th . 0 t Proh·b 1te om . . etrNati 1 . t •n their own commumt1es; who want to and Who 0na1 Go ernmen 1 seek to v.

1 local control over elections, the answer is simple· Op maintain pure y · en Your laces to all your people. Allow men and women to register and Polling

p d h . ht f · · Vote Wh h olor of their skin. Exten t e ng s o c1t1zenship to eve . . atever t e c . . . ry citizen 1 d There is no const1tut10nal issue here. The command of th of this an . . . e Consu . is plain. There is no moral 1~sue. It 1s wr~ng--:1eadly wrong-to den tulion your fellow Americans the nght to vote m this country. There is any of States rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for h no issue of

uman ti h have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer. g ts.1 The last time a President sent a civil rights bill to the Congress it .

contained Provision to protect voting rights in Federal elections. That civil right b' a s 1II was Passed after eight long months of debate. And when that bill came t . from the Congress for my signature, the heart of the voting provision had b

h . . h b een eliminated. This time, on t 1s issue, t ere must e no delay, no hesitation and no compromise with our purpose. We cannot, we must not, refuse to protect the right of every American to vote in every election that he may desire to par- ticipate in. And we ought not and we cannot and we must not wait another eight months before we get a bill. We have already waited a hundred years and more, and the time for waiting is gone. So I ask you to join me in working long hours-nights and weekends, if necessary-to pass this bill. And I don't make that request lightly. For from the window where I sit with the problems of our country I recognize that outside this chamber is the outraged conscience of a nation, the grave concern of many nations, and the harsh judgment of history on our acts. But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What hap- pened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every sec- tion and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who muSt overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.

A onizing ra· s a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how ag he · I f 1· ·tudes and t eta ee mgs are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attt

ndred years, structure of our society. But a century has passed, more than a hu h O

a · h more t a smce t e Negro was freed . And he is not fully free tonight. It was artY,

hund d f another P re years ago that Abraham Lincoln a great President O tiOO signed the E • . ' . • a prociarna manc1patton Proclamation, but emancipat10n is . ualitY and not a f t A s smce eq ac · century has passed, more than a hundred year ' . ce the was pro · d A assed sin mise · nd yet the Negro is not equal. A century has P

0 me- 1

day of p o · A . has now c r mise. nd the promise is unkept. The time of juStlCe

- ~ -=-- Lyndon B. Johnson I The Ame .

ncan Promise 373

I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back It . . . u tnat . d . · is nght m the tell yo d God that 1t shoul come. And when it does I th' f roan an . , mk that da eyes o the Jives of every Amen can. For Negroes are not the 1 . . Y ighten on Y Victims will bf bite children have gone uneducated, how many wh't f . . ·

rnanY w . . 1 e am1hes !foll' d ·n stark poverty, how many white ltves have been scarred b f

e~l y~ bav have wasted our energy and our substance to maintain th b . use we e arners beca d terror? So I say to all of you here, and to all in the N 1. hatred an a 10n to- of those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at th . ht that e cost of oig .' u your future. This great, rich, restless country can offer 0 denying yo . . pportu-

d du cation and hope to all. black and white, North and South h •iy an e , s are-

01 nd city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance diseas cropper a , e. the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these en . .

ies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall overcome ... e:s we meet here in this peaceful, historic chamber tonight, men from the

th some of whom were at Iwo Jima, men from the North who have carried sou I Old Glory to far corners of the world and brought it back without a stain on it, men from the East and from the West, are all fighting together without regard to religion, or color, or region, in Viet-Nam. Men from every region fought for us across the world 20 years ago. And in these common dangers and these common sacrifices the South made its contribution of honor and gallantry no less than any other region of the great Republic-and in some instances, a great many of them, more. And I have not the slightest doubt that good men from everywhere in this country, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Golden Gate to the harbors along the Atlantic, will rally together now in this cause to vindicate the freedom of all Americans. For all of us owe this duty; and I believe that all of us will respond to it. Your President makes that request of every American.

The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and pro• te'.ts, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the con· science of this Nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call atten• lion to in· t· d . · f H has 1us tee, es1gned to provoke change designed to stir re orm. e m~du ' n pon us to make good the promise of America. And who among us ca say that w f h' sistent e would have made the same progress were it not or is per bravery and h' f . h art f battle for . ' ts a1th in American democracy. For at the real e 0 equality is ad l'ty depends not eep-seated belief in the democratic process. Equa 1 on the force f I . ht· not on re· 0 arms or tear gas but upon the force of mora ng ' course to . I ,, vio ence but on respect for law and order• • · •

" 1Y first 1·ob f .,., ·n a small MeXJ· ca a ter college was as a teacher in Cotulla, • exas, 1 k n-America h • h d J couldn't spea

rnu h n sc ool. Few of them could speak Enghs , an . h t c Span. h to class wit ou breakf ts · My students were poor and they often came . d' e They

ast hu · of pre1u JC · ' ngry. They knew even in their youth the pain

.. -

374 d Black Liberation I THE LEGACY Civil Rights an

d know why people disliked them. But they k never seeme to d h new it w . . their eyes. I often walke ome late in the aft as so ~-cause I saw 1t m ernoon , "1,

finished wishing there was more that I could d , afteqh classes were ' . o. But I

e h them the little that I knew, hopmg that it rn· a I I kn~. ~to~ ~h

. t the hardships that lay ahead. Somehow you never forget elp theni agams . What

d Can do when you see its scars on the hopeful face of Pover,,, and hatre . a Youn . ··, th Ught then in 1928, that I would be standmg here 1. 1

g ch1101 never o ' n 96s · CUrred to me in my fondest dreams that I might have h · It never even oc t e cha

h I the sons and daughters of those students and to help peopl 1 . nee to

e p e 1ketJie thl·s country. But now I do have that chance-and I'll let y . lllaU over . ou in on

cret-1 mean to use it. And I hope that you will use it with rne. a~. This is the richest and most powerful country which ever occupied th

The might of past empires is little compared to ours. But J do not egJo~. want to~ the President who built empires, or sought grandeur, or extended do . .

minion I want to be the President who educated young children to the wonde f ·. rs o theu world J want to be the President who helped to feed the hungry and to

· prepare them to be taxpayers instead of taxeaters. I want to be the President who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every cit- izen to vote in every election. I want to be the President who helped to end ha- tred among his fellow men and who promoted love among the people of all races and all regions and all parties. I want to be the President who helped to end war among the brothers of this earth . . .

Beyond this great chamber, out yonder in 50 States, are the people that we serve. Who can tell what deep and unspoken hopes are in their hearts tonight as they sit there and listen. We all can guess, from our own lives, how difficult they often find their own pursuit of happiness, how many problems each little family has. They look most of all to themselves for their futures. But I think that they also look to each of us.

Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States it says-in Latin- "God has favored our undertaking." God will not favor everything that we do. It is rather our duty to divine His will . But J cannot help believing that He truly understands and that He really favors the undertaking that we begin here tonight.

I I

AMIRI BARAKA

Black Art

1966

f ing shock value and expressing anti-Semitism, the Marxist anti-impe-cused o us . .. . often ac .. B raka (b 1934) claims that these cnt1cisms come from his saying "what . . oetArnin a . ,,

nahst P . 'd what is taboo, or opposed to the status quo. After the assassination of . t being sa1 , . f . 1s no . 1965 Baraka changed his name rom LeR01 Jones, moved from Greenwich tcolm X in , Ma H I m opened the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School, focused on commu-11 ge to are , Vi a and transformed himself from a Beat poet into a black nationalist. "Black Art" is nityart, d' cted at the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, Baraka's old friend, who replied in art1ally ire P "L -1 1 been done you wrong, I'm just an old Uncle Tom in disguise all along." l968: ero . . Malcolm's assassination also sparked into existence the Black Arts Movement (BAM),

led by Baraka, Larry Neal, and others. BAM poets believed that political action would come through artistic expression, and Neal noted that the movement, which stressed cultural heritage, the beauty of blackness, and a "Black Aesthetic," was "the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept." BAM poets believed that social and political action would come through artistic expression: BAM was "an attempt to capture the minds of the people, to . . . direct them," said Baraka in a recent interview. He also puts the movement on a continuum with the Harlem Renaissance and calls it "a version of Mao's Cultural Revolution, a form of the lndig isme of Haiti, the Negrismo of Latin Amer- ica, literally a sorting out and repositioning of cultural meanings." His own experimen- tal poetry subverts these cultural meanings: if "white" and "black" are conventional signifiers for "good" and bad," then Baraka uses the terms differently, celebrating what he calls "black magic."

The activist poet can "tell what side you're on . .. by your art," Baraka says. "Art sez . Mao is the ideological reflection of the world." Baraka also points to Bertoli Brecht's The- ater of Instruction, noting that "ethics and aesthetics are one." The greatest evil is "to see ~s stupid in the world or stupid to the world . If poetry is not to tell us something . • • then it serves what ? ' . . purpose. ' He adds, "All art is political. It takes a stand, wants to convince ~-~y h · 1·· or anot er. Those who claim art should not be political are making a po 111- cal statement ,, N . . . · 0 literature exists in a vacuum and any suggestion to the contrary means "onl t h , . t-1-11 . Y

O ave us look away from the real world so that 'the pleasure of the text is a 11 at1on of .. out f . empty sensuality. All's well in the big house while the great maionty • · · suffer o sight."

__j.___ 375