This day, May 19th, marks the birthday of one of America’s most important voices, Malcolm X or Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz as he was known in the years prior to his death.
51 years after the assassination of Malcolm X, “his voice, perspective still speaks truth to power. In many ways his analysis of America’s racial divide or his prophetic views of electoral politics,as examined in his Ballot or the Bullet Speech, speaks to his genius and commitment to not skipping around the issue, American Racism.
And in celebration of what would have been Malcolm X’s 91st birthday, we present one of his last speeches, titled, “Friends and Enemies” given a week before he would be gunned down at the Audubon Ballroom in New York. This speech given in Detroit, 1965, the day after his house was firebombed.