Today is Malcolm X Day, an American holiday in honor of Malcolm X, and The Grandma wants to talk about this African American Muslimministerand human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement.
Malcolm X Day is an American holiday in honor of Malcolm X that is celebrated on either May 19 (his birthday) or the third Friday of May.
The commemoration of the civil rights leader has been proposed as an official state holiday in the U.S. state of Illinois in 2015 and Missouri as recently as 2019. As of present, only the cities of Berkeley and Oakland in California observe the holiday, with city offices and schools closed.
The Malcolm X Dayholiday has been an official holiday in the municipality of Berkeley, California, since 1979. Since then, there have been multiple proposals for the holiday to be official elsewhere. Most recently in 2014, a proposal put forth by the Council of Islamic Organizations of Chicago to make the holiday in the U.S. state of Illinois.
The Illinois proposal differs from the Berkeley, California resolution in that the holiday would be observed May 19 instead of the third Friday in May. Before that, unsuccessful attempts were made in Atlanta, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., with numerous calls for it to be celebrated alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday.
In 1993, this holiday was proposed at the federal level to Congress as H.J.R. #323 by Congressman Charles Rangel.
In 2015, the Illinois Senate unanimously passed the resolution for the official holiday designation where the law ... officially designated 'May 19, 2015, and every May 19 thereafter as Malcolm X Day. Though the resolution passed making the holiday official, the Illinois official list of holidays still has yet to reflect the holiday.
Today, The Grandma has been reading about the OAAU, the organization formed by Malcolm X on a day like today in 1964.
The Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) was a Pan-Africanist organization founded by Malcolm X in 1964. The OAAU was modeled on the Organization of African Unity, which had impressed Malcolm X during his visit to Africa in April and May 1964.
The purpose of the OAAU was to fight for the human rights of African Americans and promote cooperation among Africans and people of African descent in the Americas.
Malcolm X announced the establishment of the OAAU at a public meeting in New York's Audubon Ballroom on June 28, 1964. He had written the group's charter with John Henrik Clarke, Albert Cleage, Jesse Gray, and Gloria Richardson, among others. In a memo dated July 2, 1964, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the nascent OAAU as a threat to the national security of the United States.
Malcolm X, along with John Henrik Clarke, wrote the following into the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) Basic Unity Program:
-Restoration: In order to release ourselves from the oppression of our enslavers then, it is absolutely necessary for the Afro-American to restore communication with Africa.
-Reorientation: We can learn much about Africa by reading informative books and by listening to the experiences of those who have traveled there.
-Education: The Organization of Afro-American Unity will devise original educational methods and procedures which will liberate the minds of our children. We will... encourage qualified Afro-Americans to write and publish the textbooks needed to liberate our minds... educating them [our children] at home.
-Economic Security: After the Emancipation Proclamation ... it was realized that the Afro-American constituted the largest homogeneous ethnic group with a common origin and common group experience in the United States and, if allowed to exercise economic or political freedom, would in a short period of time own this country. We must establish a technician bank. We must do this so that the newly independent nations of Africa can turn to us who are their brothers for the technicians they will need now and in the future.
-Self Defense: In order to enslave a people and keep them subjugated, their right to self defense must be denied. We encourage the Afro-Americans to defend themselves against the wanton attacks of the racist aggressors whose sole aim is to deny us the guarantee of the United Nations Charter of Human Rights and of the Constitution of the United States.
The OAAU pushed for black control of every aspect of the black community. At the founding rally, Malcolm X stated that the organization's principal concern was the human rights of blacks, but that it would also focus on voter registration, school boycotts, rent strikes, housing rehabilitation, and social programs for addicts, unwed mothers, and troubled children. Malcolm X saw the OAAU as a way of un-brainwashing black people, ridding them of the lies they had been told about themselves and their culture.
On July 17, 1964, Malcolm X was welcomed to the second meeting of the Organisation of African Unity in Cairo as a representative of the OAAU.
When a reporter asked whether white people could join the OAAU, Malcolm X said, Definitely not. Then he added, If John Brown were still alive, we might accept him.
Malcolm X did not have sufficient time to invest in the OAAU to help it flourish. After his death, Malcolm X's half-sister, Ella Little-Collins, took over the leadership of the OAAU, but dwindling membership and Malcolm X's absence eventually led to the collapse of the organization.
On a day like today in 1968, MartinLuther King Jr, the African American Baptistminister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the American civil rights movement, was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
The Grandma wants to talk about the struggle of Black People along the American history, a struggle that continues nowadays.
Also, on a day like today, we celebrate the birthday of one of the greatest civil rights activist, MayaAngelou, who was a great poet and memoirist.
Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928-May 28, 2014) was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist.
She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, films, and television shows spanning over 50 years. She received dozens of awards and more than 50 honorary degrees.
Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), tells of her life up to the age of 17 and brought her international recognition and acclaim.
She became a poet and writer after a string of odd jobs during her young adulthood. These included fry cook, sex worker, nightclub performer, Porgy and Bess cast member, Southern Christian Leadership Conference coordinator, and correspondent in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonization of Africa.
She was also an actress, writer, director, and producer of plays, films, and public television programs. In 1982, she was named the first Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
She was active in the Civil Rights Movement and worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
Beginning in the 1990s, she made approximately 80 appearances a year on the lecture circuit, something she continued into her eighties. In 1993, Angelou recited her poem On the Pulse of Morning (1993) at the first inauguration of Bill Clinton, making her the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961.
With the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou publicly discussed aspects of her personal life. She was respected as a spokesperson for Black people and women, and her works have been considered a defence of Black culture. Her works are widely used in schools and universities worldwide, although attempts have been made to ban her books from some US libraries.
Angelou's most celebrated works have been labelled as autobiographical fiction, but many critics consider them to be autobiographies. She made a deliberate attempt to challenge the common structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing and expanding the genre. Her books centre on themes including racism, identity, family and travel.
Marguerite Annie Johnson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 4, 1928, the second child of Bailey Johnson, a doorman and navy dietitian, and Vivian (Baxter) Johnson, a nurse and card dealer. In an astonishing exception to the harsh economics of African Americans of the time, Angelou's grandmother prospered financially during the Great Depression and World War II because the general store she owned sold needed basic commodities and because she made wise and honest investments.
Angelou met novelist John Oliver
Killens in 1959 and, at his urging, moved to New York to concentrate on
her writing career. She joined the Harlem Writers Guild, where she met
several major African-American authors, including John Henrik Clarke,
Rosa Guy, Paule Marshall, and Julian Mayfield, and was published for the
first time.
In 1960, after meeting civil rights
leader Martin Luther King Jr. and hearing him speak, she and Killens
organized the legendary Cabaret for Freedom to benefit the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and she was named SCLC's
Northern Coordinator. According to scholar Lyman B. Hagen, her
contributions to civil rights as a fundraiser and SCLC organizer were
successful and eminently effective.
Angelou also began her pro-Castro and anti-apartheid activism during this time.
She had joined the crowd cheering for Fidel Castro when he first entered the Hotel Theresa in Harlem New York during the United Nations 15th General Assembly on 19th September 1960.
In 1961, Angelou performed in Jean Genet's play The Blacks, along with Abbey Lincoln, Roscoe Lee Brown, James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett, Godfrey Cambridge, and Cicely Tyson. Also in 1961, she met South African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make; they never officially married.
She and her son Guy moved with Make to Cairo, where Angelou worked as an associate editor at the weekly English-language newspaper The Arab Observer.
In 1962, her relationship with Make ended, and she and Guy moved to Accra, Ghana, so he could attend college, but he was seriously injured in an automobile accident. Angelou remained in Accra for his recovery and ended up staying there until 1965. She became an administrator at the University of Ghana, and was active in the African-American expatriate community. She was a feature editor for The African Review, a freelance writer for the Ghanaian Times, wrote and broadcast for Radio Ghana, and worked and performed for Ghana's National Theatre. Likewise, she performed in a revival of The Blacks in Geneva and Berlin.
In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr.
asked Angelou to organize a march. She agreed, but postponed again, and
in what Gillespie calls a macabre twist of fate, he was assassinated
on her 40th birthday (April 4).
When I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
was published, Angelou was hailedas a new kind of memoirist, one of
the first African-American women who were able to publicly discuss their
personal lives.
In late 2010, Angelou donated her personal papers and career memorabilia to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. They consisted of more than 340 boxes of documents that featured her handwritten notes on yellow legal pads for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a 1982 telegram from Coretta Scott King, fan mail, and personal and professional correspondence from colleagues such as her editor Robert Loomis.
In 2011, Angelou served as a consultant for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. She spoke out in opposition to a paraphrase of a quotation by King that appeared on the memorial, saying, The quote makes Dr. Martin Luther King look like an arrogant twit, and demanded that it be changed. Eventually, the paraphrase was removed.
In 2013, at the age of 85, Angelou published the seventh volume of autobiography in her series, entitled Mom & Me & Mom, which focuses on her relationship with her mother.
Angelou died on the morning of May 28, 2014 at the age 86. She was found by her nurse. Although Angelou had reportedly been in poor health and had cancelled recent scheduled appearances, she was working on another book, an autobiography about her experiences with national and world leaders.
During her memorial service at Wake Forest University, her son Guy Johnson stated that despite being in constant pain due to her dancing career and respiratory failure, she wrote four books during the last ten years of her life. He said, She left this mortal plane with no loss of acuity and no loss in comprehension.
Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.
Today, The Grandma is reading some information about the last protests inBarcelona and other Catalan cities. It is very difficult to find clear and honest information because the mass is contaminated by economic interests and fake news.
Social networks have changed journalism because they offer another point of view, non-official, less manipulated, and they always offer another explanation different to the official sources.
On a day like today in 1965, Malcolm X, an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist was assassinated. He was an uncomfortable voice for the power. TheGrandma wants to remember the life of a man who said something like If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. This sentence is nowadays more alive than ever in the streets of Catalonia.
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925-February 21, 1965) was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement.
He is best known for his time spent as a vocal spokesman for the Nation of Islam.
Malcolm
spent his adolescence living in a series of foster homes or with
relatives after his father's death and his mother's hospitalization. He
engaged in several illicit activities, eventually being sentenced to 10
years in prison in 1946 for larceny and breaking and entering. In
prison, he joined the Nation of Islam,adopted the name Malcolm X (to
symbolize his unknown African ancestral surname), and quickly became one
of the organization's most influential leaders after being paroled in
1952.
Malcolm
X then served as the public face of the organization for a dozen years,
where he advocated for black empowerment, black supremacy, and the
separation of black and white Americans, and publicly criticized the
mainstream civil rights movement for its emphasis on non-violence and
racial integration.
Malcolm X also expressed pride in some of the Nation's social welfare achievements, namely its free drug rehabilitation program. Throughout his life beginning in the 1950s, Malcolm X endured surveillance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for the Nation's supposed links to communism.
In the 1960s, Malcolm X began to grow disillusioned with the Nation of Islam, as well as with its leader Elijah Muhammad. He subsequently embraced Sunni Islam and the civil rights movement after completing the Hajj to Mecca, and became known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.
After a brief period of travel across Africa, he publicly renounced the Nation of Islam and founded the Islamic Muslim Mosque, Inc. (MMI) and the Pan-African Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).
Throughout 1964, his conflict with
the Nation of Islam intensified, and he was repeatedly sent death
threats. On February 21, 1965, he was assassinated in New York City.
Three Nation members were charged with the murder and given
indeterminate life sentences. Speculation about the assassination and
whether it was conceived or aided by leading or additional members of
the Nation, or with law enforcement agencies, have persisted for decades
after the shooting.
A controversial figure accused of
preaching racism and violence, Malcolm X is also a widely celebrated
figure within African-American and Muslim American communities for his
pursuit of racial justice. He was posthumously honoured with Malcolm X
Day, on which he is commemorated in various cities across the United
States. Hundreds of streets and schools in the U.S. have been renamed in
his honour, while the Audubon Ballroom, the site of his assassination,
was partly redeveloped in 2005 to accommodate the Malcolm X and Dr.
Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.
Malcolm Little was born May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, the fourth of seven children of Grenada-born Louise Helen Little and Georgia-born Earl Little. Earl was an outspoken Baptist lay speaker, and he and Louise were admirers of Pan-African activist Marcus Garvey. Earl was a local leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and Louise served as secretary and branch reporter, sending news of local UNIA activities to Negro World; they inculcated self-reliance and black pride in their children. Malcolm X later said that white violence killed four of his father's brothers.
Malcolm attended West Junior High School in Lansing and then Mason High School in Mason, Michigan, but left high school in 1941, before graduating. He excelled in junior high school but dropped out of high school after a white teacher told him that practising law, his aspiration at the time, was no realistic goal for a nigger. Later, Malcolm X recalled feeling that the white world offered no place for a career-oriented black man, regardless of talent.
In 1950, the FBI opened a file on Malcolm after he wrote a letter from prison to President Truman expressing opposition to the Korean War and declaring himself a communist. That year, he also began signing his name Malcolm X. Muhammad instructed his followers to leave their family names behind when they joined the Nation of Islam and use X instead. When the time was right, after they had proven their sincerity, he said, he would reveal the Muslim's original name.
In his autobiography, Malcolm X explained that the X symbolized the true African family name that he could never know. For me, my 'X' replaced the white slavemaster name of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears.
After his parole in August 1952, Malcolm X visited Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. In June 1953 he was named assistant minister of the Nation's Temple Number One in Detroit. Later that year he established Boston's Temple Number 11; in March 1954, he expanded Temple Number 12 in Philadelphia; and two months later he was selected to lead Temple Number 7 in Harlem, where he rapidly expanded its membership.
In 1953, the FBI began surveillance of him, turning its attention from Malcolm X's possible communist associations to his rapid ascent in the Nation of Islam.
During 1955, Malcolm X continued his successful recruitment of members on behalf of the Nation of Islam. He established temples in Springfield, Massachusetts (Number 13); Hartford, Connecticut (Number 14); and Atlanta (Number 15). Hundreds of African Americans were joining the Nation of Islam every month.
Besides his skill as a speaker, Malcolm X had an impressive physical presence. He stood 1.91 m tall and weighed about 82 kg. One writer described him as powerfully built, and another as mesmerizingly handsome... and always spotlessly well-groomed.
By the late 1950s, Malcolm X was
using a new name, Malcolm Shabazz or Malik el-Shabazz, although he was
still widely referred to as Malcolm X. His comments on issues and events
were being widely reported in print, on radio, and on television, and
he was featured in a 1959 New York City television broadcast about the
Nation of Islam, The Hate That Hate Produced.
In September 1960, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, Malcolm X was invited to the official functions of several African nations. He met Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea, and Kenneth Kaunda of the Zambian African National Congress. Fidel Castro also attended the Assembly, and Malcolm X met publicly with him as part of a welcoming committee of Harlem community leaders. Castro was sufficiently impressed with Malcolm X to suggest a private meeting, and after two hours of talking, Castro invited Malcolm X to visit Cuba.
On February 19, 1965, Malcolm X told interviewer Gordon Parks that the Nation of Islam was actively trying to kill him. On February 21, 1965, he was preparing to address the OAAU in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom when someone in the 400-person audience yelled, Nigger! Get your hand outta my pocket! As Malcolm X and his bodyguards tried to quell the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot him once in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun and two other men charged the stage firing semi-automatic handguns.
Malcolm X was pronounced dead at 3:30 pm, shortly after arriving at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. The autopsy identified 21 gunshot wounds to the chest, left shoulder, arms and legs, including ten buckshot wounds from the initial shotgun blast.
The public viewing, February 23–26 at Unity Funeral Home in Harlem, was attended by some 14,000 to 30,000 mourners. For the funeral on February 27, loudspeakers were set up for the overflow crowd outside Harlem's thousand-seat Faith Temple of the Church of God in Christ, and a local television station carried the service live.
Today, The Grandma has gone to the library to read about Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest boxers of the history.
The Grandma doesn't like boxing, in fact, she doesn't understand anything about this sport, but the figure of Muhammad Ali means much more than a simple athlete because he was an activist against war and a referent in the eternal fight for the civil rights of the minories. She wants to homage Ali, who died on a day like today three years ago.
Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. January 17, 1942-June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. He is nicknamed The Greatest and is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated sports figures of the 20th century and as one of the greatest boxers of all time.
Ali made his amateur boxing debut in 1954 against local amateur boxer
Ronnie O'Keefe. He won by split decision.
Ali was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and began training as an amateur boxer at age 12. He went on to win six Kentucky
Golden Gloves titles, two national Golden Gloves titles, an Amateur
Athletic Union national title, and the Light Heavyweight gold medal in
the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.
Ali made his professional debut on October 29, 1960, winning a six-round
decision over Tunney Hunsaker. From then until the end of 1963, Clay
amassed a record of 19–0 with 15 wins by knockout. He defeated boxers
including Tony Esperti, Jim Robinson, Donnie Fleeman, Alonzo Johnson,
George Logan, Willi Besmanoff, LaMar Clark, Doug Jones and Henry Cooper.
Muhammad Ali
He converted to Islam and became a Muslim after 1961, and eventually took the name Muhammad Ali.
He won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in a major upset at age 22 in 1964.
In 1966, Ali refused to be drafted into the military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. He was arrested, found guilty of draft evasion, and stripped of his boxing titles.
He was systematically
denied a boxing license in every state and stripped of his passport. As a
result, he did not fight from March 1967 to October 1970 -from ages 25
to almost 29- as his case worked its way through the appeals process
before his conviction was overturned in 1971.
He appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction in 1971, but he had not fought for nearly four years and lost a period of peak performance as an athlete.
During this time of
inactivity, as opposition to the Vietnam War began to grow and Ali's
stance gained sympathy, he spoke at colleges across the nation,
criticizing the Vietnam War and advocating African-American pride and
racial justice.
His actions as a conscientious objector to the war made him an icon for the larger counterculture generation, and he was a high-profile figure of racial pride for African Americans during the civil rights movement.
As a Muslim, Ali was initially affiliated with Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam (NOI). He later disavowed the NOI, adhering to Sunni Islam, and supporting racial integration like his former mentor Malcolm X.
Muhammad Ali
Ali was a leading heavyweight boxer of the 20th century, and he remains the only three-time lineal champion of that division. His joint records of beating 21 boxers for the world heavyweight title and winning 14 unified title bouts stood for 35 years.
Ali is the only boxer to be named The Ring magazine Fighter of the Year six times. He has been ranked the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, and as the greatest athlete of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated, the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC, and the third greatest athlete of the 20th century by ESPN SportsCentury.
He was involved in several historic boxing matches and feuds, most notably his fights with Joe Frazier, such as the Thrilla in Manila and his fight with George Foreman known as The Rumble in the Jungle which has been called arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century and was watched by a record estimated television audience of 1 billion viewers worldwide, becoming the world's most-watched live television broadcast at the time.
Ali thrived in the spotlight at a time when many fighters let their managers do the talking, and he was often provocative and outlandish. He was known for trash-talking, and often free-styled with rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry, anticipating elements of rap and hip hop music.
Outside the ring, Ali attained success as a musician, where he received two Grammy nominations. He also featured as an actor and writer, releasing two autobiographies.
Ali retired from boxing in 1981 and focused on religion and charity. In 1984, he made public his diagnosis of Parkinson's syndrome, which some reports attribute to boxing-related injuries, though he and his specialist physicians disputed this.
Muhammad Ali
He remained an active public figure globally, but in his latter years made increasingly limited public appearances as his condition worsened, and he was cared for by his family until his death on June 3, 2016.
DNA testing performed in 2018 showed that, through his paternal grandmother, Ali was a descendant of the heroic former slave ArcherAlexander who had been chosen from the building crew as the model of a freed man for the Emancipation Memorial, and was the subject of abolitionist William Greenleaf Eliot's book, The Story of Archer Alexander: From Slavery to Freedom. Like Ali, Alexander fought for his freedom. By the end of his boxing career Ali had absorbed 200,000 hits.
Ali said that he first heard of the Nation of Islam when he was fighting in the Golden Gloves tournament in Chicago in 1959, and attended his first Nation of Islam meeting in 1961. He continued to attend meetings, although keeping his involvement hidden from the public.
In 1962, Ali met Malcolm X, who soon became his spiritual and political mentor. By the time of the first Liston fight, Nation of Islam members, including Malcolm X, were visible in his entourage.
In a secret operation code-named Minaret, the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted the communications of leading Americans, including Ali, Senators Frank Church and Howard Baker, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., prominent U.S. journalists, and others who criticized the U.S. war in Vietnam. A review by the NSA of the Minaret program concluded that it was disreputable if not outright illegal.
In 1971, his Fight of the Century with Frazier provided cover for an activist group, the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI, to pull off a burglary at an FBI office in Pennsylvania, which exposed the COINTELPRO operations that included illegal spying on activists involved with the civil rights and anti-war movements. One of the COINTELPRO targets was Ali, which included the FBI gaining access to his records as far back as elementary school; one such record mentioned him loving art as a child.
He remained an active public figure globally, but in his latter years made increasingly limited public appearances as his condition worsened, and he was cared for by his family until his death on June 3, 2016.
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