The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

The question of whether integration is preferable to separation surfaces throughout the text. Advocates of integration envision an America where all races coexist peacefully, with no thought to the color of anyone’s skin. Proponents of separation—like Malcolm, the KKK, and Marcus Garvey—believe that integration is a futile, destructive idea that can only further damage and dilute each race.

The legal symbol of the integration versus separation argument is the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision, which ruled that segregation was constitutional. It codified the concept of “separate but equal” (30) that emboldened white oppression, allowing them to deny black people housing, jobs, due process, education, and more. Once the doctrine of separation enjoyed full constitutional support, there was little that the oppressed could do to fight against it without subverting the law itself.

The question of integration versus separation places Malcolm X at odds with Martin Luther King Jr, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, and other prominent black leaders and thinkers, who all sought to integrate into white society. Their vision of victory assumed that whites could eventually treat them as equals. Their victory required that the two races live, work, worship, and learn alongside each other in America. Integration assumes a willingness to turn the other cheek, in the Biblical sense, and a willingness (and ability) to forgive one’s oppressors.

Malcolm and The Nation of Islam pursued a different agenda, as did Marcus Garvey, whose ideas were influential to so many of the NOI’s leaders. Garvey’s separatist beliefs allowed him no interest in overcoming the Plessy ruling of separate but equal. For separatists, Plessy v. Ferguson was the clearest signal yet that separation was the only answer. Garvey taught that a return to the African homeland was the best solution to the problem.  Those who didn't wish to return to Africa would remain in America and build an isolated black state within the country that would have its own laws, economy, and infrastructure.

Somewhat ironically, white supremacist movements like the Ku Klux Klan share similar aims. They do not see the point in trying to co-exist peacefully, but would prefer that white and black people have no contact whatsoever. Malcolm’s alignment with the visions of Garvey, Fard, and Elijah make his meeting with the Klansman W.S. Fellows possible. Near the end of his life, Malcolm’s trip to Mecca prompted him to abandon his commitment to the idea that peace was only possible through racial separation.

In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm credits Bembry for his initial interest in oratory and rhetoric. He says that his “primary attraction to the idea was that, even among the most reluctant cellblock audience, a person could fight and win respect ‘with his words’” (222). His insight that words were a way to win illuminate Malcolm’s constant strategizing, and his sense that he was always in a conflict. He wanted to improve his ability to speak and persuade in order to achieve results, not simply to aggrandize himself or appear intellectually superior.

The novelist Richard Wright describes his admiration for the writing of the essayist H.L. Mencken in similarly militant terms: “I pictured Mencken as a raging demon, slashing with his pen […]He was using words as a weapon, could words be used as weapons?” (222).

While Malcolm and Wright extol the virtues of words as weapons, Mencken and Bembry were not just skilled at rhetorical flourishes, they were accomplished thinkers. They harnessed the power of words in order to enhance their ability to think more objectively and critically. Words that do not have careful, committed thinking and curiosity behind them are ineffective. To this end, Malcolm’s forays into writing and reading gave him a greater range of expression, but they also sharpened his ability to think and study.

Bembry also showed Malcolm the benefits of being able to switch dialects depending on his listeners. He could render complicated ideas from various disciplines into terms that anyone could understand as “he ranged from Thoreau and human behavior back to the architecture of the state institutions where he had served time” (222). Malcolm would demonstrate a similar ability during his lectures, whose audiences comprised many races, ages, regions, and levels of education. His message did not change whether he was addressing a group of temple members, or whether he was speaking to white suburbanites in Hartford, but he learned to adapt his delivery for maximum benefit. Employing a weapon is an aggressive act, and Malcolm spoke with results in mind.

Even in an organization like the NOI, which created the enforcer group the Fruits of Islam, Malcolm chose to fight his own battles with words, rather than with violence. Many NOI members resented Malcolm’s eloquence and charisma, which were more useful recruitment tools than any polarizing display of physical or militant force would have been. Unfortunately, his enemies were willing to fight with violence to end his life.