Manning Marable Quotes

Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.

One of the greatest difficulties the left faces in reaching out to masses of people in America is its profound disrespect of spirituality and religious life…people on the left need to acknowledge – we need to grapple with – the question of religion.

One of the major differences I see in the political climate today is that there is less collective support for coming to critical consciousness – in communities, in institutions, among friends.

There is no greater serenity of mind,” Malcolm reflected, “than when one can shut the hectic noise and pace of the materialistic outside world, and seek inner peace within oneself.

To blacks, it was abundantly clear what groups like the NAACP and CORE wanted; the NOI, by contrast and largely by design, had no clear social program that realistically could be implemented (215).

...we have to be aware of the power and importance of organizing not just around identity, but the materiality of daily life, which still, in many respects, is racialized for people of color. You build from that, but you have a grander social vision that transcends it and recognizes the strengths and limitations that are drawn from the particularity of identity.

Simply because one is Black or Latino or lesbian or gay or whatever does not guarantee the person’s fidelity to a body of politics that empowers the particular constituency that they supposedly represent. The number of black elected officials has risen from 100 in 1964 to more than 9000 today. The number of African Americans who were in congress 30 years ago was about five; today it is over 40, an 800 percent increase. But have Blacks experienced an 800 percent increase in real power? It hasn’t happened. So, I think the emphasis of this liberal notion of social change by working solely within the established electoral system is just fatally flawed.

Socialism lost its way largely when it became decoupled from the processes of democracy. My vision of a socially just society is one that is deeply democratic, that allows people’s voices to be heard, where people actually govern. C.L.R James sometimes used the slogan “every cook can govern” to speak to the concept that there should be no hierarchies of power between those who lead and their constituencies. This idea is related to Antonio Gramsci’s argument that the goal of the revolutionary party is for every member to be an intellectual. That is, everyone has the capacity, has the ability to articulate a vision of reality and to fight for the realization of their values and goals in society. Gramsci is pointing toward the development of a strategy that is deeply democratic, one where we don’t have elitist, vanguardist notions of what society should look like, but have humility and the patience to listen to and learn from working class and poor people, who really are at the center of what any society is.

For all the strides the Nation [of Islam] had made in promoting self-improvement in the lives of its members, its political isolation had left it powerless to change the external conditions that bounded their freedoms (177).

Within the Nation, he [Malcolm] explained that his purpose was to present the views of Elijah Muhammad and to challenge distortions about their religion. In fact, his objectives were to turn upside down the standard racial dialectic of black subordination and white supremacy, and to show off his rhetorical skill at the expense of white authorities and Negro integrationists (185).

only poetry could best fit into the vast emptiness created by men.

You will grow to be hated when you become well known.

In March 1955, Powell called for a boycott of Harlem savings banks that "practice 'Jim Crow-ism' and 'economic lynching.'" He urged Abyssinian Baptist Church's fifteen thousand members to withdraw their funds from white-woned banks and transfer them to either the black-owned Carver Federal Savings in Harlem or the black-owned Tri-State Bank in Memphis, Tennessee (108).

The Ku Klux Klan is the invisible government of the United States,” he told his followers at Liberty Hall in 1922, and it “represents to a great extent the feelings of every real white American.

United States history is that of a country that does whatever it wants to by any means necessary . . . but when it comes to your and my interest, then all of this means become limited,” he argued. “We are dealing with a powerful enemy, and again, I am not anti-American or un-American. I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power.” What

His aura was too bright and his masculine force affected me physically,” Angelou recalled years later. ʺA hot desert storm eddied around him and rushed to me, making my skin contract, and my pores slam shut. . . . His hair was the color of burning embers and his eyes pierced.

The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the smiling fox. The job of the Negro civil rights leader is to make the Negro forget that the wolf and the fox both belong to the (same) family. Both are canines; and no matter which one of them the Negro places his trust in, he never ends up in the White House, but always in the dog house.54

In famous speeches such as “Message to the Grassroots” and “Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcolm did not eschew politics. Rather, he suggested that Black people use their voting rights to develop an alternative power base. He remained deeply critical of the traditional Civil Rights leadership but advocated for a Black united front in which various political currents could contend. He also insisted on making self-defense a reality, not just a slogan, and held out the idea that a Black Nationalist army might eventually form if the Black masses were not given full rights.

More impressive than the size of the silently protesting crowd was the orderliness and simplicity with which it was dispersed. Assured that Hinton had received the proper care, Malcolm approached the crowd, raised his arm, and gave a signal. One bystander described it as “eerie, because these people just faded into the night. It was the most orderly movement of four thousand to five thousand people I’ve ever seen in my life—they just simply disappeared—right before our eyes.” Malcolm’s silent command also left a strong impression on the New York City police. The chief inspector at the scene turned to Amsterdam News reporter James Hicks and said, “No one man should have that much power.”2

Malcolm was such a spellbinding orator that the fact that he was also a political theoretician is little appreciated, but he was. He advocated, for example, that instead of pursuing the diversionary goal of integration, Black people ought to control their own communities economically and politically and fight to exercise their Fifteenth Amendment right to vote nationwide. Then they could extricate themselves from the hypocritical grasp of the two-party system and be an independent political power in their own right. But if America was unwilling to “do the right thing,” voting-wise and otherwise, Malcolm advised Blacks to emulate the revolutionary struggles of Africa, Vietnam, Cuba, Algeria, et al. and fight for their liberation too, i.e., “the Ballot or the Bullet.” Accordingly,

Ghana was a thoroughly triumphal visit for Malcolm X, with exception of one sour event: As Malcolm was departing from his hotel on the way to the airport, he bumped into Muhammad Ali, who was touring West Africa, and Ali snubbed him. Later Ali eagerly expressed his unconditional loyalty to Elijah Muhammad, ridiculing Malcolm to a New York Times correspondent and laughing at the “funny white robe” his onetime friend wore and his newly grown beard. “Man, he’s gone. He’s gone so far out he’s out completely.” With words he would later regret, the boxer added, “Nobody listens to that Malcolm anymore.

Most NYPD officers generally treated Malcolm X's murder case not as a significant political assassination, but as a neighborhood shooting in the dark ghetto, a casualty from two rival black gangs feuding against each other.

Malcolm X was ready to enter the international political stage, leaving the parochialism and backwardness of Yacub and the Nation of Islam far behind him.

There is no greater serenity of mind,” Malcolm reflected, “than when one can shut the hectic noise and pace of the materialistic outside world, and seek inner peace within oneself.” Later that evening Malcolm wrote, “The

Within the Nation, he [Malcolm] explained that his purpose was to present the views of Elijah Muhammad and to challenge distortions about their religion. In fact, his objectives were to turn upside down the standard racial dialectic of black subordination and white supremacy, and to show off his rhetorical skill at the expense of white authorities and Negro integrationists.

For example, political scientist Manning Marable said of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, “Ethnically, Thomas has ceased to be an African American.” Columnist Carl Rowan of the Washington Post wrote of black economist Thomas Sowell, “Vidkun Quisling in his collaboration with the Nazis surely did not do as much damage as Sowell is doing.” And Spike Lee said that Michael Williams, a black appointee in the Bush administration, was such a traitor to his race that he deserved to be “dragged into an alley and beaten with a Louisville slugger.”39

Brother MALCOLM ranks about third in influence. He has unlimited freedom of movement in all states, and outside of the Messenger's immediate family he is the most trusted follower. He is an excellent speaker, forceful and convincing. He is an expert organizer and an untiring worker. . . . MALCOLM has a strong hatred for the “blue eyed devils,” but this hatred is not likely to erupt in violence as he is much too clever and intelligent for that. . . . He is fearless and cannot be intimidated by words or threats of personal harm. He has most of the answers at his fingertips and should be carefully dealt with. He is not likely to violate any ordinances or laws. He neither smokes nor drinks and is of high moral character.

The devil[’s] strongest weapon is his ability to conventionalize our Thought . . . we willfully remain the humble servants of every one else’s ideas except our own . . . we have made ourselves the helpless slaves of the wicked accidental world.

a public event designed to be an interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians. Three preachers walked out in protest when Malcolm criticized the wealth of some African-American churches and the poverty of their worshippers.

especially as the freshness of new initiatives gave way to the inevitability of routine.