The following is from one of the last NYtimes interviews with Malcolm X directly:
*** here is a link to the official website for Malcolm X: www.malcolmx.com/biography/
Malcolm X broke last night with Elijah Muhammad's Chicago‐based Black Muslim movement and announced that he was organizing a politically oriented “black nationalist party.”
He said the party would seek to convert the Negro population from nonviolence to active self‐defense against white supremacists in all parts of the country.
“I remain a Muslim,” Malcolm said, “but the main emphasis of the new movement will be black nationalism as a political concept and form of social action against the oppressors.”
“I have reached the conclusion,” he said, “that I can best spread Mr. Muhammad's message by staying out of the Nation of Islam and continuing to work on my own among America's 22 million non‐Muslim Negroes.”
Malcolm has under suspension by Mr. Muhammad as the New York leader of the separatist Black Muslim movement.
He asserted last night that the movement had “gone as far as it can” because it was too narrowly sectarian and too inhibited.
“I am prepared,” Malcolm said, “to cooperate in local civil rights actions in the South and elsewhere and shall do so because every campaign for specific objectives can only heighten the political consciousness of the Negroes and intensify their identification against white society.”
Malcolm said he had accepted ary invitation to help a civil rights committee in Plaquemines Parish (County), La.
“There is no use deceiving ourselves,” Malcolm said. “Good education; housing and jobs are imperatives for the Negroes, and I shall support them in their fight to win these objectives, but I shall tell the Negroes that while these are necessary, they cannot solve the main Negro problem.”
Malcolm continued:
“I shall also tell them that what has been called the ‘Negro revolution’ in the United States is a deception practiced upon them, because they have only to examine the failure of this so‐called revolution to produce any positive results in the past year.
“I shall tell them what a real revolution means-the French Revolution, the American Revolution, Algeria, to name a few. There can be no revolution without bloodshed, and it is nonsense to describe the civil rights movement in America as a revolution.”
Malcolm said Elijah Muhammad had prevented him from participating in civil rights struggles in the South although he had had many opportunities to do so.
“It is going to be different now,” Malcolm said. “I'm going to join in the fight wherever Negroes ask for my help, and I suspect my activities will be on a greater and more intensive scale than in the past.”
“I shall also accept all important speaking engagments at colleges and universities,” Malcolm said, “because I find that most white students are more attuned to the times than their parents and realize that something is fundamentally wrong in this country.”
Malcolm has spoken at more than 20 colleges and universities, including Harvard and Yale. He said his popularity as a university speaker had aroused the animus and jealousy of Elijah Muhammad's family.
“Envy,” Malcolm said, “blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly. This is what happened.”
“Another thing. The Negroes still don't understand the power of the ballot in the North. We must make them understand that the Negro voters have it in their power to decide next November whether Johnson stays in the White House or goes back to his Texas cotton patch.”
Malcolm said he was not trying to split the Muslims.
“I want it clearly understood that my advice to all Muslims is that they stay in the Nation of Islam under the spiritual guidance of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. It is not my desire to encourage any of them to follow me,” he said.
Muslim Leaders Involved in Split
NY Times Article: www.nytimes.com/1964/03/09/ar...