We continue to acknowledge the fifty-nine years since the Eminent Prophet and King Omowale Malcolm X was taken from us in a hail of assassins bullets at the Audubon Ballroom in New York.

As we reflect on his life and the latter stage that amounts to about a decade of activism, the last eleven months of his life (i.e. post Nation Of Islam) are paradoxically the least covered and most misunderstood, yet eliciting the most divergent views on his legacy.

A good example of this is propagated by the likes of the late Columbia University Professor Manning Marable:

“He became less intolerant and more open to multiethnic and interfaith coalitions. By the final months of his life he resisted identification as a “black nationalist,” seeking ideological shelter under the race-neutral concepts of Pan-Africanism and Third World revolution.” (1)

Unfortunately, Professor Marable is no longer around to explain how he equates Pan-Afrikanism with being “race-neutral.” Similarly, ‘Cross Cultural Solidarity’ advocate, Lynn Burnett manages to corrupt the legacies of both Omowale Malcolm X and Marcus Mosiah Garvey in the space of a few sentences:

“He no longer believed in Marcus Garvey’s black separatism. He no longer believed in Garvey’s notion that that the development of black capitalism would lead to black liberation… And through Islam, Malcolm was even laying the hopeful foundations for the Afro-Asian solidarity that Marcus Garvey taught would overcome global white supremacy, and the colonialism and neocolonialism it supported.” (2)

Yet, Prophet Omowale, in his own words during speech in on January 7^th 1965 stated his position explicitly:

“The first thing [when] I returned I kept being asked the question by some reporters, huh, ‘we heard you’ve changed.’… how in the world can a white man, expect a Black man to change before he has changed? How do you expect us to change when you haven’t changed? How do expect us to change when the cause that made us as we are has not been removed? Why it’s infantile, it’s immature, it’s adolescent on your part to expect us to change. To expect us to be dumb enough to change. When you have not yet gone to the cause of the condition that makes us act as we do. You got the wrong man!” (3)

Moreover, not only was he seeking to reconnect with Papa Garvey’s ideological programme and ideals:

“So the first step that has been taken, brothers and sisters, since Garvey died, to actually establish contact between the 22 million Black Americans with our brothers and sisters back home..” (4)

He also sought to revive the economic one:

“The economic philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that we should own and operate and control the economy of our community… the economic philosophy of Black Nationalism shows our people the importance of setting up these little stores and developing them and expanding them into larger operations.” (5)

Indeed, he even began to adopt Garveyite phraseology, to espouse the Black Nationalist philosophy:

“We have one destiny and we’ve had one past. In essence, what it is saying is instead of you and me running around here seeking allies in our struggle for freedom in the Irish neighborhood or the Jewish neighborhood or the Italian neighborhood, we need to seek some allies among people who look something like we do. It’s time now for you and me to stop running away from the wolf right into the arms of the fox, looking for some kind of help.” (6)

From the foregoing, it was clear that the underpinning philosophy was organically rooted in the culture:

“As this race pride develops it has the tendency to make us want to unite together and work together. And your western imperialist consider this to be a grave threat. More a threat than communism, socialism or Maoism or anything else. Afrikanism is what they consider to be the real threat.” (7)

All of Omowale Malcolm X’s active political life was rendered through the framework of organization – the parental foundation of the UNIA-ACL, the grounding in the Nation Of Islam, the transitional Muslim Mosque Incorporated and finally the Organisation of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) where there was a clear orientation to reconnect the circle to the Garveyite foundations. (8)

So at the time of his death Omowale Malcolm X was preparing to outline the programme of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), which pledged to:

• “Offer to downtrodden Afro-American people courses of action that will conquer oppression, relieve suffering, and convert meaningless struggle into meaningful action.”
• “Launch a cultural revolution which will provide the means for restoring our identity…”
• “The Organization of Afro-American Unity welcomes all persons of African origin to come together and dedicate their ideas, skills, and lives to free our people from oppression.”
• “Branches of the Organization of Afro-American Unity may be established by people of African descent wherever they may be and whatever their ideology — as long as they be descendants of Africa and dedicated to our one goal: freedom from oppression.”
• “The exclusive ethnic quality of our unity is necessary for self-preservation.” (9)

The guiding principle of the OAAU was unity, not adherence to some mythical ideological purity. This can been seen as the challenge confronting those claiming to be descendants of Omowale. For some it seems preferable to go searching for external “allies” than working to build internal unity. From the starting point of his personal transformation and growth (Malcolm Little > Detroit Red > ”Satan” > Malcolm X > Al Hajj Malik Shabazz> Omowale), Malcolm X advocated the same for the race in pursuit of the goal of freedom from oppression.

As indicated above, the means by which the OAAU sought to promote unity was to engage not in ‘endless struggle,’ but through “meaningful action” to establish the institutions – economic, educational, security along with a nascent reparations agenda (restitution) – that their programme demanded.

(1) Manning Marable (2011) Malcolm X: A Life Of Reinvention. Viking. p. 339

(2) Lynn Burnett (18/02/16) The International Malcolm X. http://crossculturalsolidarity.com/the-international-malcolm-x/.

(3) Omowale Malcolm X (07/01/65) The Prospects for Freedom in 1965 (Audio). http://brothermalcolm.net/mxwords/whathesaidarchive.html

(4) Omowale Malcolm X (15/05/65) There’s A Worldwide Revolution Going On. http://malcolmxfiles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/a-worldwide-revolution-going-on-feb-15.html

(5) Omowale Malcolm X (12/04/64) The Ballot or the Bullet. http://malcolmxfiles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-ballot-or-bullet-april-12-1964.html

(6) Omowale Malcolm X (28/06/64) Speech at the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. http://www.blackpast.org/1964-malcolm-x-s-speech-founding-rally-organization-afro-american-unity

(7) Omowale Malcolm X (1966) in Malcolm X: struggle for freedom. Grove Press. Film Division https://archive.org/details/malcolmxstruggleforfreedom.

(8) Kwende Ukaidi (2014) From Ajar to Omowale: The Spiritual & Garveyite Journey of Malcolm X. Ku-Amba Productions. p. 30.

(9) Program of the Organization of Afro-American Unity Malcolm X, et al. (taken from the Malcolm X Museum). http://www.malcolm-x.org/docs/gen_oaau.htm.

So we ask the question:

What is the OAAU?

1. Why are there so many divergent views on the last stage of Malcolm X’s life?
2. What was the main objective of the OAAU?
3. What impact did his assassination have on the organisation?
4. How do we assess the legacy of the OAAU?

Our special guests are:

Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK and national co-Chair of the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament. Bro. Ldr is a veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An Africentric Guide To Excellence.

Baba A.PeterBailey: was a member of the OAAU under Omowale Malcolm X and was editior of its newsletter. He taught as an adjunct professor at three universities, an associate editor of Ebony, and a president of the New York Association of Black Journalists. He has written for numerous publications including Jet, Essence, Black Enterprise, Newsweek, The New York Times and the New York Daily News. Baba Bailey is the author of the memoir Witnessing Brother Malcolm: The Master Teacher and Brother Malcolm X’s Strategic Pan Africanism.