The Rhetoric of Malcolm X Author(s): Archie C. Epps Reviewed work(s): Source: Harvard Review, No. 3 (Winter, 1993), pp.

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ARCHIE C. EPPS The Rhetoric of Malcolm X

X was born Malcolm Little on May The black radical Malcolm 19, Louise was a 1925, the son of Louise and Earl Little of Omaha, Nebraska. British West mulatto of Grenada, Indies, and Earl, a six-foot, very dark man a second wife, bore six children: Wilfred, from Reynolds, Louise, Georgia. There were three children Yvonne, and Reginald. Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Ella, Earl, and Mary. Little had migrated with his family from then Omaha, and finally to to first toMilwaukee, the Midwest, Philadelphia was tomove out forced later the months Several family Lansing, Michigan. of Lansing proper by the white supremacist Black Legion Society. The Society for his radical views on civil rights. had set Little's house afire as punishment two miles out of town. Malcolm Little built a four-room house spent his talk of in this rural setting, surrounded childhood "equal rights" and by by Marcus Garvey. a pre in Roxbury, to live with a half-sister went In 1941 Malcolm A few months after his arrival Boston. of section Greater black dominantly X secured a job as a shoeshine in Roxbury, Malcolm boy at the Roseland in the Back Bay, but a hustler career seemed a tempting option to Ballroom to be too was soon peddling him. Malcolm narcotics, but Roxbury proved small for him. In 1942, he took a job as a railroad dining car porter, working in Harlem and became He finally settled out of Roxbury and Harlem. and narcotics). Malcolm involved in criminal activities (robbery, prostitution, the rules of the Harlem hustler society: describes
... Iwas a true hustler, uneducated, unskilled at anything honorable, and I

a first wife:

considered myself nervy and cunning enough to live by my wits, exploiting ever slows down, the any prey. A hustler knows that if he ever relaxes, if he
other won't hungry, hesitate restless to make foxes, him ferrets, their wolves, prey. and vultures out there with him

social arrangements, The hustler societies were fleeting constantly soon man another's enemy. Malcolm wars that rendered every threatened by ? the to nickname his He lived in hustler's the learned to survive up society. was called Malcolm In Red." "Detroit Roxbury, tough, urbane, devil-like "Detroit New York, "Red" became "Red," but in the more urban-conscious sons the were of blacks devil, red-headed the To Red." literally superstitious, After a year in Harlem, violence. cruel of and capable quick-tempered was officially initiated into the hustler society. Malcolm a life of crime upon his return to Boston, X continued Malcolm in own his gang in 1945. He was arrested for robbery house-robbing forming seven years. for to the Charlestown sent 1946 and prison February

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in prison, Malcolm While became a follower of Elijah Muhammad, in Detroit, Chicago, the leader of a small, urban prophet-cult, with branches and New York. Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad communicated through the him in and Malcolm's sister and brother visited mails, prison, urging him to the two men was similar cult. The relationship between join Muhammad's on "West Indian Archie" in some respects toMalcolm's in brief dependence Harlem. The main difference, of a of course, was the religious dependence on a prophet. believer Harlem hustler society was thoroughly secular and individualism and competition for the spoils of among members encouraged crime. Elijah Muhammad believe in him "100 percent," insisted that Muslims as it was put. The cult was an autocratic Full in actuality brotherhood. was in In the vested Muhammad. of crisis, authority Elijah equality periods of the brotherhood Indeed, this gave way to Elijah Muhammad's policies. in the Black Muslim movement X's young contradiction pitted Malcolm hustler friends against Muhammad's Most older cult members. important, ithelped distinguish themore secular Black Muslims from themore religious. room in Harvard On March 18, 1964 the Leverett House dining an was scene event. The the of College speaker was Malcolm extraordinary X. He had just resigned from the Nation of Islam, the Black Muslim to protest the ninety days of silence imposed upon him by its Movement, the for his Honorable He had been silenced leader, Elijah Muhammad. X had said, comments about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Malcolm come home to roost," ? in other words ? "Chickens "you reap what you But he was sow." He argued that a society that sows violence violence. reaps a silenced he had alternative voice to because become actually powerful a In Malcolm Muhammed. about the last conversation between Elijah play and Elijah, the two men clashed over the direction of the Black Muslim was too in his effort to build Movement. Malcolm fast Elijah thought going a black nationalist was exercising too movement. of the He civil rights wing in effect challenging Muhammed much discretion ? leader for the primary in that conversation, his belief in ship role. Malcolm was uneasy expressing his leader but struggling with the inner freedom he had begun to experience to his since joining the Nation he was grateful of Islam. Like many disciples, leader, to the man who had saved him from a life of crime, but now he was of the Black Muslim Mosque ready to strike out on his own. He was minister inNew York, one of themost influential pulpits in the Nation. He also served as Ambassador at Large from the Nation of Islam to America, and eventually was a leader of the newly that would thrust black-nationalist emergent a was the interior of black America. He successful reshape politics speaker and a television celebrity; he was popular with the public. On the evening that he came to Harvard, to get in to the Leverett dining the crowd wanting hall was so large that we opened Room and in addition the Junior Common broadcast the speech on toMill Street. Ihad invited Malcolm X to speak at Leverett eight days after he broke Iwas to know. with the Black Muslims. "What was his next step?" Iwanted an asked why Iwanted him to come toHarvard. "He had become important

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voice

in that time," I had answered, "and had important things to say." He invitation. the accepted Why was Idrawn toMalcolm X? Primarily because he embodied my I could never lose sight of the great cost that Itwas also because struggle. racial strife exacts from human dignity. If white people could only bring was so to understand X at themselves Malcolm them and at the angry why craven blacks he thought their stooges, then maybe would learn to they

X respect the black people with whom they shared this country. Malcolm even captured by it. Even as his views seemed haunted by his anger?driven, evolved and became more he was cosmopolitan, trapped by his earlier conversion rhetoric. He liked to call himself the "angriest black in America." I would not wish his state of mind on any human being. I tried to describe his inner logic in the Introduction to this of my book, and also what happened man who saw the world we the darkness when through spiritual experience we allow racial to rule our lives. animosity reasons why But there were other, more personal this subject was me. to I to book make wanted First, my contribution important through my to the achievement that I of black equality of privilege from the position a use on I to could scholar's the craft shed enjoyed. Maybe light personality so many in the establishment whom feared or disdained. Perhaps an honest X and his ideas would evaluation of Malcolm strip American society to the bone, revealing our national pathos. Second, a first book, as this one was, is issues of personal One seeks to grapple with usually autobiographical: in and life the of the of identity meaning youth. Like every passionate days other American black, the issue of identity was central to my experience Iwas committed to racial integration, but during the civil rights movement. I knew that some American blacks were being drawn to the black nationalist its separatist message that had been carried so persistently the Could the we, years. through through the voice of Malcolm X, understand that movement? of origins X. We met in Boston in the early 1960s, Third, Ihad known Malcolm inAmerica. We the of C. Eric Lincoln's Black Muslims before just publication cream in my coffee met at lunch and he chided me impishly for putting on his part, and (mixing white and black). It seemed a ridiculous observation the conversation that ensued was full of such remarks. He took full advan to warn me of the perils of becoming what he tage of our time together a black." He was a unique and angry spirit, called "professional derisively and, setting aside some of his rhetorical excesses, had something important to say tome. I attended his first speech at Harvard. He had packed Sanders banner and Theatre with his Black Muslim followers. He frightened and puzzled many talk of no longer turning the other cheek. of the students with his ominous From then on I followed his career in the media, and we met several more for long, discursive times at Harvard talks. InMalcolm X's semantic sphere, throughout his public career, there fear. Malcolm, and word clues, denoting standout?word-slogans continually a he the hustler, talked of wolves, described foxes, ferrets, snakes, vultures;

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animals (as men) hunted one another. As a Black Muslim, jungle in which Allah's X's world, embodying animals and cosmic bodies invaded Malcolm of and signalling destruction the impending retribution against the whites X thought himself followed by assassins American society. When Malcolm in 1965, he located himself in a jungle and said, "Those who would hunt aman hunt the those who would need to remember that a jungle also contains was on two laws X's conception of society based hunters." Indeed, Malcolm of the jungle: one, the conflict between natural enemies; and two, the survival of the fittest. An analysis of Malcolm X's language is a way to begin to understand his thought. His conception of society and history were often hidden behind not In fact, Ralph Ellison sees the is unusual for black orators. imagery. This use of indirect reference of this sort characteristic of the black group as a whole. It is at once a defence against saying what one is really afraid to say it is rebellious, and at the same time, a kind of secret language for the because Malcolm X's language reflects most of one's true sentiments. expression In to in black that follow America. the sense, Ellison, specifically experience on the national ideals and the national "it had to do with a special perspective It has to do with conduct, and with a tragicomic attitude toward the universe. with forms special emotions evoked by the details of cities and countrysides, of labor and with forms of pleasure; with sex and with love; with food and with drink; and with with machines and with animals; with climates with of with of and entertainment; garments places worship dwelling; places and dreams and idioms of speech; with manners and customs; with religion and art; with and with that special sense of predica lifestyles and hoping; ment and fate which gives direction to the freedom move and resonance
ment."

in describing X was most the special sense of successful Malcolm movement. and He had identified of the black freedom fate predicament in Reverend Martin Luther King's non-violent what he thought a paradox a civil rights movement; indeed, which was actually at the heart of paradox, a X stated it this way: Black Muslim Malcolm instead. policy "Any time run a me not to the and white from teaches man, and, you pastor, shepherd, at the same time, teaches us not to fight the white man, he's a traitor to you X assumed and me." Malcolm that a victim of racism had either to cringe or could not support what he called King's strategy of passive in for the the status quo. black neutrality accepting neutrality accepted X realized later that Elijah Muhammad Malcolm had served the status quo more than Reverend King. Muhammad had kept the Black Muslims praying in their temples, keeping them out of civil rights and away from the voting booth while Martin Luther King actually led the black crowds of Birmingham in their protest marches. to transform X urged the Black Muslims Malcolm this paradox into an active, if not violent, strategy. Indeed, when he got his X urged the blacks to adopt a full-fledged violent strategy, chance, Malcolm inmeans. almost anarchist X's language was full As we shall see, Malcolm of descriptions of the violent nature of American that the society. He believed attack. He ?

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white and black races were at war. He described a cruel conflict: the only way that blacks could cope with the society was to become beasts of prey. He said of the whites: Get the ape off our backs [It] used to be like an eagle, but now it'smore
strong

like a vulture.

It used to be

enough
they more were

to go and suck anybody's

strong or not. like But now the vulture,

blood whether
it has and become it can

cowardly,

only suck the blood of the helpless. The whites exposed often them. hid their true identity from the blacks, but Malcolm X

You can let those hooded people know

_Those Those three no were brothers in any were ... snakes. that killed There that is those snakes twenty-one in Mississippi.... society on earth

law

would hold it against anyone for taking the heads of those snakes. Itwas the black the black also difficult for the blacks to distinguish war. were animals. in The also this blacks enemy
I hear a lot of you ... are parrot what the [white] man says.

friend from

...

Our

leaders

parrots.

It's like running from the wolf

to the fox.

The use of images of nature to describe social conflict was also very to in the X had belonged of the hustler society that Malcolm characteristic nature for in Boston of that day. We find that criminal underworld emerges, in a famous blues song of the same period. Billie Holiday's Strange example, X's of nature," as we find inMalcolm Fruit shows the same "consciousness tomen as a "completely in nature a which consciousness appears imagery, relations are and unassailable force, with which men's alien, all-powerful ?" are like beasts overawed Paradoxically, purely animal and by which they a protest against man's powerlessness, and by impli Strange Fruit conveyed in America. a sentiment anti-black black protest against cation, Strange Fruit ? from drawn nature in a The the South. described symbolism lynching ? was also characteristic with black of idiom Southern experience agrarian southern whites. Ms. Holiday sang about white lynchers. The blues song was It was at once a the great events of black history. real history, chronicling a of mood. an evocative event and tragic report of

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Southern

trees

bear

strange

fruit,

blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
strange Here for for for the is a fruit rain to for fruit hanging crows to from the poplar trees.

the

pluck,

the wind the sun

gather, to suck,

to rot, and bitter

for the tree to drop.

Here is a strange crop.

? Cosmic forces the sun, wind, rain ? conspired with the lynchers to attack even the dead body. Even the tree rejected him: "Here is a fruit.. in for the tree to drop." The total passivity of the victim is vividly portrayed as a song of protest, Strange Fruit did not the images. Although described in do anything about the injustice. Its protest was urge that the audience out victim occurred. But X's that had Malcolm simply pointing lynching not have accepted would this treatment passively. Malcolm X's nature a a of and of retribution defence strategy strategy imagery conveyed against the white lynchers and the white race as we find in these passages:
One can't unite bananas with scattered leaves.

If [thewhite man] waits too long ... he will be responsible for letting a condition develop in this country which will create a climate that will bring seeds up out of the ground with vegetation on the end of them looking like something these people never dreamed of. In his speech of November 10,1963, given before the Detroit confer ence of northern civil rights leaders, Malcolm X implied that blacks should cease being subservient this and become like beasts of prey. Only by adopting came to "You He could become free. told the blacks, strategy they truly on a slave ship, in chains like a horse or cow or a chicken-The American white man in American is a wolf and the black nothing but a sheep." A great deal of passion In the passage lay behind all this rhetoric. X actually repeated his point several times, as he often did. above Malcolm John Illo, in his article,"The Rhetoric of Malcolm X," argues that "the frequent are communications inMalcolm X's rhetoric... of the passion that repetitions is not satisfied by single statement, but that beats through the pulse." Here X repeating himself again, with the image of blood shaped over isMalcolm and over again: "As long as the white man sent you to Korea, you bled. He sent you to Germany, you bled. He sent you to the South Pacific to fight the You it comes to seeing bled. bleed for white people, but when Japanese, you own little black church bombed and murdered, you haven't your being girls The listener blood." is into the of the taken any picture overwhelming destruction of human bodies. Quickly he is taken even further into the midst a trained was of Malcolm X's bestiary. The black listener becomes "dog." It

69

not that Malcolm X wanted the blacks to reject the cruelty of this bestiary. He the black "to bark and bite" of his own free will. "You bleed simply wanted when the white man says bleed; you bite when the white man says bite; and the white man says bark." you bark when Observers that Malcolm X's oratory was very generally agreed effective on a black audience. X's rhetoric Indeed, John Illo viewed Malcolm as performing the function of actual revolution. Illo believes that "rhetoric, like revolution, is a way of redefining X using the reality." He saw Malcolm crossing explore crossing not to confound of opposing ideas, "not deceptively, realities, but to to untangle the calculated fantasies of the American the press, X once put it this way: of image and reality." Malcolm
end up you enemies_The your like he's ... hating your press friends is so and powerful loving in its

image-making

role, will

it

can make a criminal look like he's the victim and make
the criminal... If you aren't careful,

the victim

look
have

the newspapers

you hating the people who are being oppressed

who are doing the oppressing.

and loving the people

In technique, Malcolm X "wished to demonstrate rather than sug the analogy to the more condensed and poetic metaphor gest, he preferred.. ...." Illo is worth quoting at length on this point:
Metaphors... restricted in number, often suggested truth, like the analogies,

by fusing image and symbol, as in poetry: Blake's little black thing amid the snow is sensuously and spiritually black, the snow sensuously and spiritu
ally white.

Malcolm

X used

image by which
Everything American.

of perception the same deliberate ind?termination in America: he characterized white immigrants

that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing

in this

is already

an

were a force "In trying to defend the thesis that the [black] Muslims in the black movement Illo continues, though numerically insignificant," an implicit "Malcolm them with the Mau Mau, then condensed [X] compared ... a to metaphor and, with characteristic expanded analogy simplification, X used a halting style the metaphor into analogy." Malcolm and explicated in such passages, of delivery the dramatic impact of his repeti heightening "a microscopic tions. he began, also a minority," 'The Mau Mau was to but it was the Mau Mau who not only brought independence minority, but it brought it?that wick. The powder keg is always larger than Kenya... ... If s the wick that the wick you touch that sets the powder off." X's images of the blacks were always dual-images, Malcolm usually denoting strength and weakness. outlook as hustler and, toward Malcolm X used the images that marked his the end of his life, as the "African in exile" in

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America: the jungle, the prison, the lost, happy state of pre-slave life in Africa. on Africa. All these images were projected of his One catches a glimpse in his assessment sadness over the black state of impotence of the effect which the old image of Africa had on American blacks. Here he was concerned with the black's lack of pride and with the Africa he came to think of as his homeland. X spoke of Africa, he also spoke in very personal When Malcolm terms. He believed
Africa and ... savage

that blacks
[was]

had been

taught
where with

that:
were cannibals, animals. naked Such an

a a wild jungle, place overrun in a countryside

people dangerous

image of the Africans was so hateful to [blacks] that they refused to identify with Africa. We did not realize that in hating Africa and the Africans we
were tree hating itself. ourselves. Blacks You certainly cannot cannot hate at the the roots of a tree and time hate Africa not hate and the love same

themselves.
shape end up of our

We blacks hated

the African

features: the African

nose,

the

the color of our skin, the texture of our hair. We could only lips, we a a ourselves. Our skin became felt inferior, trap, hating prison; helpless.

inadequate,

He thought a favorable image of Africa was a source of strength for the black. Malcolm X reinterpreted the idea of Africa as a jungle. "Africa was a jungle," indeed, but as Malcolm X claimed, itwas "rich, a jungle is only a ? the soil is so rich and the climate is so good place that's heavily vegetated that everything grows, and it doesn't grow in season?it grows all the time." of Malcolm "... seems marvel "The achievement X," Illo continues, ous. Someone had to rise and speak the fearful reality, to throw the light of reason into the world of the capitalist and biracial society that hallucinating thinks itself egalitarian, that thinks itself humanitarian and pacific. But itwas that the speaking should be done with such power and precision unexpected field black translated from conventional thief to zealot and by a russet-haired at the end nearly toMarxist and humanist." Illo has surely claimed too much. The actual effect of Malcolm X's rhetoric can only be determined by measur the X achieved. Malcolm Observers have response ing generally agreed that the response was overwhelming with black audiences. to The hard question ask is, however, is "what was the basis of that almost magical communication X and his black audiences?" between Malcolm The basis of that communica as yet, for we have not even begun research on tion cannot be fully discerned this aspect of Malcolm I think that what Illo X's biography. Tentatively, in in his is elsewhere the direction. Illo's definition of suggests essay right rhetoric is the place to begin. "Rhetoric is... poeticized revised logic, logic by the creative and critical imagination recalling original ideas." Illo returned again to the importance of the integrity of the "original idea" in his essay: "In the rhetoric of Malcolm X, as in all genuine rhetoric, figures correspond to the critical imagination to the idea and the conscience restoring original protest of the idea ...." In this way, rhetoric redefines ing the desecration reality. Some argue that toward the end of his life Malcolm X's views were

71

with those of Martin Luther King. Others say that he remains to converging ? momen black underclass this day the only authentic voice of America's to erupt. You may full of anger, for the right moment tarily silent but waiting, Hate Hate Produced," That "The television recall the Mike Wallace special as one of the most X and his emergence which told the story of Malcolm It is still a black voices of the twentieth and disturbing century. powerful relevant voice today. X is the great puzzle of the civil rights era, perhaps because Malcolm of the was the most the "inner emancipation" his achievement important: he told his fellow blacks how To achieve this breakthrough, black people. and the whites. Unlike his them between the still defined relationship slavery Muhammed and the back-to-Africa and Marcus Elijah Garvey predecessors, never for the right to seek from blacks he shied movements, away claiming had treated them. for the way white Americans retribution X sought to carve out a special place for a nationalist Malcolm the then-activist was linked with one least dialectically at that alternative, for civil rights had achievements movement. civil rights Certainly King's an enormous crowd he before had stood The been impressive. year before, and delivered one of the most stunning speeches at the March on Washington to hear him on that sweltering in American history. The crowd that gathered was the last evidence of a powerful coalition of blacks and white day August victories win the liberals that would great voting rights and employment s was on the movemenf The March Washington through the legislative process. the a would new that It signaled reshape political political presence triumph. the in the years ahead. From King's initiative new claimants within landscape a white of were out whole to to reach class black middle range mostly ready coali financial institutions, constituencies, political including universities, for the someone black to for It remained and tions, speak political parties. classes' newly and towarn that they did not share in the middle dispossessed X spoke for those who were left out. won access. Malcolm X should neglect to recount his courage. of Malcolm No assessment and never in manner, sometimes In person, he was considerate, courtly to vision to his allow to and He continued also in debate. abusive grow his had he at his final Before Harvard, completed appearance expand. of races and colors. toMecca, where he saw amixture obligatory pilgrimage transformed him. It reaffirmed his international outlook, and The experience human rights. led him to view it in the context of the worldwide struggle for He sought to place this cause before the United Nations. to X thought himself confined most of his life, Malcolm Throughout of the black The canopy above him was the architecture the black world. and the old brown boards of shabby apartments ghetto; the bare wooden stone houses that were the hallmarks of the urban black areas of the 1930s. It life since X had lived amuch more cosmopolitan that Malcolm did not matter in 1961. Malcolm X seemed Minister National Muhammad's becoming Elijah to live in the old setting of his early adult life in Roxbury to think he continued The urban black crowds of the city seemed to surround him and in Harlem.

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or to fill his imagination even when he was not on a platform before them or streets of the ghetto. the walking along X never forgot the people and ideas of his past. Itwas a Malcolm full of tough realities and built on a social structure weak of social world inwhich Malcolm X lived and thought was the The black world pathology. of America. Iwas challenged to begin this inquiry into Malcolm X's life by Eric a in Hobsbawm's of radical leaders book, PrimitiveRebels, peasant areas study and urban centers. He has the following to say about the seemingly irrational and undisciplined in our times: revolutions underside
It is not movements, revolutionary make always core within the rational millenarian easy to recognize political for their very and lack of an effective lack of sophistication and tactics makes them of the revolu the strategy push logic

tionary position
?

to the point of absurdity or paradox...

appear more sensible and ? less

Without wishing
extraordinary moves than

to
it

[the movement] if the word movements

often is, it is advisable

realism revolutionary

for the historian to appreciate

can be used in this context are difficult to understand

the logic, and even the

which them, for otherwise.

X read the modern world correctly. The chief characteristic Malcolm of modern life was that "action develops under great stress." Black life has in a crucible. always developed was an The third ? and final ? Harvard speech intensely personal it alternated between romanticism and realism, it con speech. Although an intense search a X Malcolm for humane view whites. toward veyed by A dispute occurred inMalcolm X's mind about "the existence of a on in in a cruel and irrational world." moral order The dispute went X used Troilus and Cressida and inHamlet. Shakespeare's Ironically, Malcolm the example of Hamlet in the third Harvard to the dispute speech symbolize within him and to justify his call for violence. For Malcolm X, Hamlet had a "There was another man back right tomurder because he had been wronged. in history," Malcolm X began, obviously "whom I read himself, comparing about once, an old friend of mine whose name was Hamlet, who confronted, in a sense, the same thing our people are confronting in America." Hamlet was debating whether X argued. Malcolm X he could be himself, Malcolm claimed that an obvious strategy also lay before the black and before him. He said, "as long as you sit around suffering the slings and arrows and are afraid to use some slings and arrows yourself, you'll continue to suffer." in Malcolm X the black Ossie Davis, X's eulogy, called Malcolm Black Prince. So the world of Malcolm X and the world of Hamlet people's were at least. But, as Kott suggests similar to Davis in Shakespeare Our on can next the in a number Hamlet be (cited Contemporary page), interpreted of ways. At first, we must not be bothered by the juxtaposition of the medieval or by Malcolm and modern world by Ossie Davis ? X for that matter. What matters was that a black man was in in in exile the ghetto. Hamlet, trapped

73

a prison. He was in exile in his own country, X said America was a prison for him; he was in a fate for and was suffering because of it. What and more on his own. came to the second Harvard speech he was sur rounded by six black guards. When he came to the third and final Harvard came alone. speech he a philosopher, X's Hamlet was amoralist, Malcolm and an intellec in his brilliant book, "was unable to draw Kott contends tual ."The moralist," a clear-cut line between [was] unable to find good and evil.... The intellectual reason for action: sufficient the world's existence the [and to] philosopher, was amatter of doubt. vTo be' means for [Hamlet] to revenge his father and ? to assassinate vnot to be' means to give up the fight." the King; while was now Malcolm and politician, the black hustler reformed X, prophet X for his for and action. Malcolm travelled capacity distinguished by thought and philosopher. He moralist, intellectual, through all of these roads: s dilemma at least in thought, if not in deed. resolved Hamlef or in traditional X is not unique The phenomenon of Malcolm that is to and bandits He similar other societal rebels modern quite society. in pre-political in pre-industrial societies and especially appeared usually his turn said that Denmark in his own castle. Malcolm exile in his own country, Malcolm X; he was more X When Malcolm movements that seek These figures usually appear inmillenarian situations. to transform groups or social systems by radical religious rules and the like. about Europe, and Christopher The social historian Eric Hobsbaum, writing a in these Hill, revolutionary England, have described 17th-century specialist in their books Primitive Rebels and The World movements and personalities Turned Upside Down. X resemble this social type. The The early stories about Malcolm the it is unclear whether where has a criminal background rebel usually a was or was a There is of deserved miscarriage justice. imprisonment a A state or of conversion, illiteracy revelatory experience. through gradual, ? into compelling rhetoric is transformed through prose or poetry and There is a heroic into elegant sometimes literature, as with John Bunyan. A similar story circulated in the life story and aspects of gallantry. element rescue of a lady from the police in a Boston bar. He about Malcolm's arrest could her before the whisked her, put her in a away police apparently of this rescue spread taxi cab, paid the fare, and sent her home. Word It ismy assertion and among the police. the black community throughout indeed that hustler societies, from which he came, were based on heroic codes X was still influenced that the later Malcolm It ismy argument of this kind. ismore, in the story What the his hustler earlier community. membership by a a is about comment Prudence to follow of Malcolm Steiner, X, by colleague, women men transform societies and how that record and epic sagas myths for good and others for ill. through heroic action, sometimes X's contribution will, in the end, It remains to be seen how Malcolm that his life story is of compelling We know for the moment be evaluated. interest to Americans of all colors. We understand that he represented great

was

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and had he survived, might have been a voice for the reconciliation potential of the races, based on a realistic assessment of the nature of the black experience.

This lecture was given at the Harvard Divinity School on November 5,1992. Itwas drawn in part from the introductory essay "The Paradoxes of Malcolm X," which Malcom X: Speeches at Harvard edited by Archie Epps (Paragon House, appeared in October 1991).

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