The International Malcolm X

 

by Lynn Burnett

During the last year of his life, Malcolm X spent five months in Africa and the Middle East, and almost another month in Europe. In Africa, he built powerful relationships with anti-colonial resistance leaders and the presidents of new nations emerging from colonialism. In the Middle East, presidents and kings recognized Malcolm as the emerging leader of Islam in the United States, and gave him lavish support. In Europe, Malcolm X built relationships with the younger generations of African, Asian, and Middle Eastern leaders who were preparing for their future leadership roles through their studies at Oxford and other elite universities.

The story of the international Malcolm X culminates with Malcolm’s activities abroad during the last year of his life, and explores why Malcolm thought these travels were necessary for the Black liberation struggle in the United States.  However, the roots of Malcolm’s internationalism began before his birth: the roots lie in his mother’s heritage, with the political organization his parents dedicated their lives to, and with the values and visions Malcolm’s parents raised their children with.

 

Marcus Garvey and the United Negro Improvement Association  

Malcolm’s mother, Louise Langdon, was a light skinned Afro-Caribbean woman from the small island of Grenada. At the age of seventeen she moved to Montreal, Canada, during World War I. Montreal was a day’s drive from Harlem, New York, where tens of thousands of other Afro-Caribbeans migrated at this time. In Harlem, they contributed to the formation of a politically radical community that soon became known as the Black capital of the United States.

Afro-Caribbean men and women often experienced serious racism in the United States for the first time in their lives. Such treatment stunned and infuriated them. Many of the most militant Black voices from this period came from Afro-Caribbeans, most famously, from Marcus Garvey. Garvey preached that Black Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, and other members of the African diaspora needed to stop thinking of themselves as a small minority surrounded by overpowering White forces. Instead, they needed to think of themselves as members of the massive African and African diasporic population, which, if united, could gain complete freedom from White domination. Because Asia also suffered from European colonialism, Garvey went even further, advocating a united Asia working alongside a united Africa in the global battle against White supremacy.

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Source: The Cross Cultural Solidarity History Education Project