Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Why Embracing Anti-Colonialism Made Malcolm a Marked Man
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
22 Feb 2023
Why Embracing Anti-Colonialism Made Malcolm a Marked Man
Malcolm X Speaks in Harlem in June 1963 (Photo: AP)

Malcolm X was a legendary revolutionary who is still loved by millions of people. The anniversary of his assassination is an opportunity to reflect on his impact.

February 21, 1965, a diversionary scuffle broke out in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, known as Malcom X, addressed the people of Harlem and, as a result of his international standing, the people of the world. As the attention of the attendees moved toward the scuffle, at least two men approached the stage with weapons. Malcolm’s last words were “don’t do it.” But they did. Pumping Malcolm’s body with bullets and a fatal shotgun blast that took Malcolm from us physically. 

What the assassins and the evil powers behind the assassination could never understand was that they did not kill Malcolm. Yes, the body of Malcolm, his energy, his physical presence was no longer with us. But as an African ancestor, his revolutionary spirit never left. It has been animating generations, of not only African anti-colonial revolutionaries, but anti-colonial revolutionaries around the world since that fatal day in 1965. 

I have had the opportunity to move around the world through spaces occupied by revolutionary movements and states over the last 50 years. In the beginnings of my travels, I was struck by the consistent revolutionary iconography that I encountered. From the walls of huts that served as meeting places for activists in the forests in the global South, to grand spaces in the offices of movements that had gained some degree of state power in places like Vietnam, Nicaragua, North Korea, I would see consistently certain images – Karl Marx, Che Guevara and Malcolm X!

Malcolm is loved by the people of the world.

Malcolm’s uncompromising revolutionary spirit and political understanding of the fundamental interconnections of the domestic with the international influence a generation of emerging revolutionaries in the U.S.  African/Black revolutionaries like Robert Williams and the Revolutionary Action Movement, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party and other formations understood that, “You can’t understand what is going on in Mississippi if you don’t know what is going on in the Congo.” That internationalist perspective and practice politically and structurally integrated the struggles of Africans in the U.S. into the global anti-colonial/anti-capitalist movement.

This development provided the continuity of the African/Black radical internationalism from David Walker’s appeal through the Pan African movement; Garveyism; the mobilizations against the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and the battle against fascism in Spain; anti-colonial agitation at the United Nations; the wars in Korea; Vietnam and the fight for national self-determination of African nations throughout the African world.

The anti-colonial internationalism that Malcolm embodied and our movement continued after his assassination placed Malcolm in a place of reverence throughout the colonial world. A few years ago that universal appreciation was on display in Beirut, Lebanon where anti-colonial fighters, academicians and activists joined in a week long celebration of Malcolm that included a conference that I participated in and a play written on Malcolm’s visit to Beirut in 1964 where he was first denied an opportunity to speak but as a result of the actions of students he was allowed to speak on his second visit in September of that year. 

It was a moving experience to see the love and regard that people had for Malcolm, and by extension our movement.

What was Malcolm’s appeal? His simple but profound language that the oppressed and colonized instantaneously understood. On the question of liberation and human rights Malcolm reminded the oppressed that If you are not ready to pay the price required to experience full dignity as a person and as members of a self-determinant people, then you will be consigned to the “zone of non-being,” as Fanon refers to that place where the non-European is assigned. Malcolm referred to that zone as a place where one is a sub-human:

“You’re an animal that belongs in the cotton patch like a horse and a cow, or a chicken or a possum, if you’re not ready to pay the price that is necessary to be paid for recognition and respect as a human being.

“And what is that price? 

“The price to make others respect your human rights is death. You have to be ready to die… it’s time for you and me now to let the world know how peaceful we are, how well-meaning we are, how law-abiding we wish to be. But at the same time, we have to let the same world know we’ll blow their world sky-high if we’re not respected and recognized and treated the same as other human beings are treated.” 

The enemy of collective humanity fears liberating knowledge and the example of a Malcolm. That is why in their shortsightedness they thought that they would be rid of him if he was physically eliminated. They were wrong. Malcolm, like so many of our revolutionaries, will never die. They live in the memory and consciousness of the people and become manifest materially through the struggles of the people. Malcolm will be with us until we prevail. There are many more of us who are marked. But because we are ready to pay the ultimate price, we have no fear.

Revolutionary love brother Malcolm.

El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, Malcolm X Presente!!

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the Steering Committee of the Black is Back Coalition.

Malcolm X
Anti-colonialism
Black Liberation
African Liberation Movement

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Djibo Sobukwe
Malcolm X: Foundational Black Internationalism and the Anti-Imperialism of the Black Alliance for Peace
21 May 2025
Malcolm X didn’t just fight for Black liberation—he waged war on empire itself. As U.S.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Malcolm X and Human Rights in the Time of Trumpism: Transcending the Masters Tools
21 May 2025
This piece was originally published in Black Agenda Report i
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Françoise N. Hamlin and Charles W. McKinney, Jr.’s Book, “From Rights to Lives”
26 February 2025
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Malcolm X Presente!
19 February 2025
Every year, people around the world honor Malcolm X. Though he was taken from us prematurely, his memory and impact remain.
Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
Malcolm X, Black Nationalism and the Cold War
19 February 2025
United States intelligence agencies kept close watch over developments in the African American struggle for freedom, justice, equality and self
Austin Cole
Demanding More in the Struggle for Collective Liberation – A Conversation with Nicholas Richard Thompson, Part II
30 October 2024
As part of his research on grassroots economic projects toward Black Liberation, Austin Cole spoke with Nicholas Richard-Thompson about his com
Too Black
Unburdened by Palestine: Shedding Black liberalism for anti-imperialism
04 September 2024
Liberals are demanding that Black people in the U.S.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: In Our Hands: Thoughts on Black Music, Bernice Johnson Reagon, 1976
31 July 2024
For the late Dr.
Ujima People's Progress Party
Reflections on the Legacy and modern-day impact of Malcolm X
05 June 2024
The contributions of Malcolm X to African liberation cannot be understated.
Rosa Parks
Ingrid Banks , Jaime Alves
Antiblackness and Palestinian Humanity: A Call to Resist Fear
06 March 2024
Internationalism is the path toward Black liberation.

More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Biden's Fate and Israel's Sadistic Revenge
    21 May 2025
    Israel is starving Gazans to death and continuing its bombing attacks on civilians. Israel also specializes in personal revenge, targeting men, women, and children who might be the subject of…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Towards Lasting Peace, Shirley Graham DuBois, 1970
    21 May 2025
    Shirley Graham Du Bois on the liberation of Palestine.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Propaganda Watch: Kagame Is Not Traoré
    21 May 2025
    A recurring social media trope casts Rwandan President Paul Kagame as a defiant African hero, like Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré, resisting the West’s dictates, but nothing could be further from the…
  • Jon Jeter
    In DC, A New ‘Mayor 1 Percent” This Time in Blackface
    21 May 2025
    Muriel Bowser is proving that Black faces in high places don’t break systems, they grease them. While slashing wages for tipped workers and handing billionaires stadium deals, D.C.’s mayor is the…
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Temerity, Tartuffery, and Toxic Identity Reductionism…the Latest Democrat Party Hoggwash
    21 May 2025
    The Democratic Party would rather silence critics like Hogg than fix its own rot. Their reliance on Black Misleaders to do the dirty work exposes once again that the Democrats care more about power…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us