It's Very Simple: The True Story Of Civil Rights

As Lenin has said, a terrible clash between Soviet Russia and the capitalist, States must inevitably occur . . .

The ruling classes must be in the throes, of a major government crisis, so that the government is so enfeebled the revolutionists can speedily overthrow it. -- Joseph Stalin,

Soon after the assassination of President Kennedy, Malcolm X made it known in a speech that he was not displeased with the event. The remark caused Elijah Muhammad, to chastise his lieutenant, and this in turn caused a "split." The nature of the split has never been revealed, but it does make Mr. Muhammad a moderate, so that he plays Khrushchev to Malcolm's Mao.

Malcolm then formed a party, a Black Nationalist party, and opened his doors not only to Muslims but to people of all, religions, or of no religion, as long as they were black.

Then Malcolm took a trip to Mecca. There he had an experience; some called it holy. Malcolm described it in a, letter to a New York friend, and the letter was obtained by and appeared on the front page of the New York Times on, May 8, 1964:

I have never before witnessed such sincere hospitality, and the practice of true brotherhood as I have seen, and experienced during this pilgrimage here in Arabia.

In fact, what I have seen and experienced on this pilgrimage has forced me to rearrange much of my own thought-pattern, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions.

Malcolm did not say whether he had seen and experienced any money. But he did say that the white Muslims on the, pilgrimage turned out to be okay--unlike the vicious, white, Americans: Their sincere submission to the Oneness of God, and their true acceptance of all nonwhites as equals makes, the so-called whites also acceptable as equals into the brotherhood of Islam with the nonwhites. Color ceases to be a determining factor of a man's worth or, value once he becomes a Muslim. I hope I am making this part very clear, because it is now very clear to me.

What could be clearer?

If white Americans would accept the religion of Islam, if they would accept the Oneness of God (Allah), then they could also sincerely accept the Oneness of Man, and they would cease to measure others always in terms of their differences in color.

So that the reason white Americans exploit Negroes isn't just that they're white. It isn't because, as Malcolm used to crack, they are blue-eyed devils and white dogs. It's simply that they aren't Muslims. It's simply that they're Americans.

What Malcolm brought back from Mecca, then, was a message, printed on the front page of the Times, for Nasset, and Ben Bella--and American Negroes--to see, and which, clearly defines the true nature of the conflict:

. . . as America's insane obsession with racism leads her up the suicidal path, nearer and nearer to the precipice that leads to the bottomless pits below, I do believe that whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and universities, through their own young, less hampered intellect, will see the "handwriting on the wall" and turn for spiritual salvation to the religion of Islam and force the older generation of American whites to turn with them. (italics added),

Which would make quite an impression in Algiers.

5/19/57: The Voice of the Arabs: "The Algerian fighters of the holy war know perfectly well which is the way to follow that which was marked out and imposed on them, by God, by the Koran, by the Prophet and by their Fathers. 'It is meet for us to give victory to the believers.'"

Indeed, as early as the stammer of 1959, Malcolm visited the United Arab Republic ³ --a few months before Mr. Muhammad himself--where five years earlier, in Cairo, the decision was made and the money spent fo launch the Communist coup in Algeria.

Malcolm has pledged that Negro Americans "would be completely in sympathy with the Arab cause." ⁴

"He believes," says reporter William Worthy, himself a frequent visitor to Communist China and a perennial defender of Fidel Castro, "that any Negro freedom movement, not international in scope and perspective is foredoomed to failure . . ." Indeed:

At his March 12 press conference announcing his split with Elijah Muharnmad he declined, in an exchange with a British reporter, to rule out acceptance of possible Communist support.

. . . "Outside the UN," he told an interviewer recently, we have friends--700.000,000 Chinese who are ready to die for human rights." Malcolm has observed that the most thunderous applause from Negro audiences comes when he reminds them that, with China now openly in support, "we are not alone." ⁵

[Worthy speaks of] the reaction of Malcolm X to the racial goodwill policy of Mao. Reporting to his supporters this past spring after a tour of Africa, he said, "I had tea at the home of the Chinese ambassador, in Accra. He very politely reminded me that Mao Tse-tung was the first head of state to declare the open support of his government and its 800,000,000 [sic-Worthy] people behind the Afro-American struggle.''⁶

And that isn't all: "... Fidel Castro, during his dramatic sojourn in Harlem in the autumn of 1960, invited Malcolm X to a secret conference which lasted some two hours . . ."⁷

In the same article, Worthy describes what he calls the "spreading Negro underground":

In May of this year a conference of seventy-five, Negro students in Nashville (convened by some of the, undergraduates of Fisk University) called for unity, with the African, Asian and Latin-American revolution, and for efforts to obtain financial help from friendly, forces. Another resolution was for the "development, of a permanent underground secretariat to carry out, plans."

"Plans" include the "elimination of capitalism in this country and the world and support for revolutionary, black internationalism."

Worthy describes an outfit called RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement), which on July 4, 1964, sent the following message to the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam:

Congratulating our Vietcong brothers for their inspiring victories against American imperialism in South Vietnam and declaring our independence from the policies of the American government abroad and at home . . .we will not join in the American counterrevolution that is attempting, at home and abroad, to crush the mounting revolutionary struggles.

RAM calls for the use of the three basic principal powers held by Negroes:

"1. The power to stop the machinery of government.,

"2. The power to hurt the economy.

"3. The power of unleashing violence. ⁸

And how would this be done?,

Worthy quotes an underground leader who calls himself "Mr. Lumumba":

Black youth with the right orientation can stop this entire country. Small bands can damage the eight major dams that supply most of the electricity. Electricity means mass communications.

Gasoline can be poured into sewer systems in major urban areas and then ignited. This would burn out communications lines in an entire city.

What would emerge from this chaos? Most likely guerrilla warfare. I don't think the entire white community will fight. The Minutemen, Klansmen, the American Nazi party and other organized groups in the racist-fascist coalition will fight. But-the entire black community will be fighting.

We call the whites "cream puffs." We feel that when TV stops, when the felephone no longer rings, their world will almost come to an end. Like during a major air raid, they will stay in the house. They'll sit and wait for television to come back on.⁹

Worthy quotes Charles Johnson of Detroit, a member of Uhuru--Bantu for freedom--who wrote to his draft board: "There ain't no way in the hell that I'm going out like a fool and fight my nonwhite brothers in China, Africa and, Latin America for White Devils . . ." ¹⁰

"It is probable that substantial monies will soon begin to flow to the nationalist underground," says Worthy, and that "sympathetic governments and revolutionary forces abroad" will support the "freedom" movement because of "the extent of the police apparatus in this country." He says the government is infiltrating the nationalists but that "no amount of police infiltration can stop a revolutionary thrust, I, so closely paralleling colonial wars abroad." ¹¹ (italics added)

Mr. Worthy also reports the plans of one Robert F. Williams, a Communist and former chapter president of the NAACP, with whom North Carolina authorities are eager to discuss a kidnapping. Mr. Williams publishes a monthly, newsletter in Havana which he calls the Crusader, the February 1964 issue of which predicts as follows:

When massive violence comes, the U.S.A. will become a bedlam of confusion and chaos . . .The factory . . . telephone . . . and radio workers will be afraid to report to their jobs. All transportation will grind to a complete standstill . . .Essential pipelines will be severed and blown up and all manner of sabotage will occur. . . .A clash will occur inside the Armed Forces. At U.S., military bases around the world local revolutionaries will, side with Afro G.I.'s . . .¹²

In the May-June issue, ,Mr. Williams discusses varions means of killing policemen and other "domestic enemies," and explains that flame throwers can be manufactured at home." ¹³ "The Crusader loves the Muslims because they love oppressed black people and are teaching 'Negroes' to love, themselves, and Malcolm X is the greatest leader on the, American scene today . . ." ¹⁴ Mr. Williams also conducts a broadcast which he calls "Radio Free Dixie," originating in Havana--and heard from Florida to the city of Washington--on which he regularly recommends a new form of Negro protest: the "kill-in." ¹⁵ "Non-violence is what is dead," Mr. Williams explained on July 13, 1964:

� . . our people must be willing to die and to kill for freedom. Our lives have been miserable and tormented, since the first slave ships brought us to America. They will continue to remain so until we prove ourselves willing and ready to meet the violence and terror of oppression with the violence and terror of liberation.¹⁶

The Provisional Organizing Committee for a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (POC), the Progressive Labor Movement (PLM), Hammer and Steel and the Workers World party. They apparently are never short of funds.

In all, they run over 100 "clubs" in 10 major cities and in a number of communities in New England, North Carolina, Georgia, and on the West Coast. According to their boasts, these neo-radical operatives have some kind of organization in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, Williamsport, Pa., San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.

Some have ties with the violent fringe of the Black Muslims. Some organize youth groups for Cuba and for the "independence" of Puerto Rico. Some call for out-, fitting squads with rifles. Others infiltrate unions and attempt to stir violent action on picket lines.

. . . Most active in the championing of Communist China's policies of guerrilla warfare and violent revolution, has been the group known as Hammer and Steel. It operates out of Boston and boasts of covering all New England. It also calls for emulation of the Cuban revolution in the United States and actually demands an armed Negro, revolt.¹⁷

Why? one wonders. What's behind it all?

Mr. Worthy has the answer.

He speaks of an amazing new political theory:

. . . a growing acceptance of a concept that the U.S. is really composed of two nations, one the colonizer, the other the colonized, that Negroes are engaged in what Joseph Alsop has called a colonial war at home, that 20,000,000 black Americans are part of an international colored majority, and that victory here will come only when the world revolution against colonialism and neocolonialism finally triumphs . . .¹⁸

1. From the Stalin archives of the National War College in Washin,on, D.C., as quoted in Coronet, vol. 29, no. 3 (January, 1951), p. 25.

2. As quoted in The Communist Position (1947), p. 14 ff. See footnote I6, chapter 3.

3. Pittsburgh Courier (August 15, 1959).

4. C. Eric Lincoln, The Black Muslims in America (Boston, Beacon Press, 1961), p. 224.

5. William Worthy, The Red Chinese American Negro, Esquire, vol. 62, no. 4 (October 1964), p. 174.

6. Ibid., p. 173.

7. Lincoln, p. 18.

8. Worthy, pp. 174-176.

9. Ibid., pp. 177-178.

10. Ibid., p. 175.

11. Ibid., p. 179.

12. Ibid., p. 176.

13. New York Times (July 28, 1964), p. 13.

14. Crusader, vol. 4, no. 8 (May 1963), p. 7. This issue of Crusader is reproduced in full in Activities of the Southern Conference Educational Fund, Inc. in Louisiana, part 2, report of the, Joint Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities, State of Louisiana (April 13, 1964), pp. 31-38.

15. New York Times (July 28, 1964),p. 13.

16. As quoted by Senator lathes O. Eastland (D., Miss.), speech, Congressional Record (July 22, 1964), p. 16040.,

17. Los Angeles Times, part 2 (September 9, 1964), p. 5.

18. Worthy, p. 176.

Comments: Steven Montgomery

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