Malcolm X Calls for Self-Defense and an Honest 'Racial' Dialogue

Malcolm X being interviewed by an unidentified ABC News reporter following a news conference in the colorful Tapestry suite of the Park Sheraton Hotel, New York City, March 12, 1964.

Malcolm X called the news briefing to announce the formation of the Muslim Mosque, Inc. (MMI), which he was the president of. The MMI was a black nationalist group, which sought political, economic and social self-determination for "black" communities.

Four days earlier, he had broken with Elijah Muhammad's religiously sectarian, politically inert Nation of Islam (NOI), beginning the uncertain, painful but eventually liberating process of becoming his own man.

Although the MMI used a version of the NOI's Islam as its "religious base" to provide "the spiritual force necessary to rid our people of the vices that destroy the moral fiber of our community," it was open to all "black" people, regardless of their religious, or nonreligious, beliefs.

However, following Malcolm X's hajj, or religious pilgrimage, to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia, in late April 1964, he rejected the NOI's version of Islam and the MMI became a Sunni Islamic group, identified with the broader Muslim world.

Among those in attendance at the news conference was the neo-Garveyite "Professer" Lewis H. Michaux, the impish, fez-wearing proprietor of Harlem's famed National African Memorial Book Store, located on 7th Avenue a few doors north of 125th Street, who was a mentor and strong supporter of Malcolm X. He can be seen at 00.33.

(ABC News Video Courtesy The History Channel)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Malcolm X
• Park Sheraton Hotel
• New York City
• black nationalism
• Islam
• Nation of Islam
• Muslim Mosque
• Inc.
• self-determination
• Elijah Muhammad
• Lewis H. Michaux
• hajj
• Mecca
• Medina
• Saudi Arabia
• 7th Avenue
• 125th Street
• Harlem
• Marcus Garvey

[pauldarwinlee]

I'd like to believe that, with heartfelt wishes/prayers like yours, he is.

I have the honor to be

Cordial-Lee yours,

Paul Lee

[straitG]

I love malcolm. R.I.P bro