“Black people are fed up with the dillydallying, pussyfooting, compromising approach that we’ve been using toward getting our freedom. We want freedom now, but we’re not going to get it saying ‘We Shall Overcome.’ We’ve got to fight until we overcome.”

-Malcolm X (el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz)

I usually post a Malcolm X quote today, to underscore my disagreement with Dr. King’s tactics and goals and the white mainstream’s centering of King, plus my overwhelming preference for the work of radical and nationalist organizations in the Black freedom struggle.

My kids wear the names of Black radicals: Brother Malcolm himself, along with James Baldwin, Harriet Tubman and Josephine Baker. I’ll take Mabel & Robert F. Williams, Gloria Richardson, Stokely Carmichael, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker and the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, any day of the week, over the pastors over at the SCLC.

But today, I’m taking a break from my annually scheduled Black militant grouchiness to share this speech, given by Dr. King at Western Michigan University in 1963. I haven’t changed my mind. I simply think it’s cool that he spoke at my school. Enjoy.

P.S. Don’t know the names or work of the freedom fighters I named above? Wikipedia is free. Buying Peniel Joseph’s spectacular narrative history of Black Power in the United States costs $13.69, but yours truly gets a cut if you use this link.

Tierra

A malcontent with a heart of gold, Tierra is a first-year medical student, former high school teacher and history PhD candidate, plus mom to four of Bebe’s baddest kids. She curses a lot. Tierra is a DC native but lives in southwest Michigan and will happily exchange writing (hers) for cash (yours).