The Ballot or the Bullet (1964)

Summary

Arguably, the most controversial of all African-American leaders of the 1960s was Malcolm X. Born Malcolm Little (1925-65), he changed his name to Malcolm X upon joining the Nation of Islam while serving time in prison. Emerging as a natural public speaker and leader, Malcolm X advocated for the independence for those of African descent, arguing that descendants of slaves would never be treated fairly in America by whites. He had grown tired of the incrementalism of the civil rights movement, instead advocating for freedom, justice, and equality “by any means necessary” in a 1964 speech for the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

Selected by

Christopher Brooks

Professor of History, East Stroudsburg University

Kenneth Mack

Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Document Excerpt

America is just as much a colonial power as England ever was. America is just as much a colonial power as France ever was. In fact, America is more so a colonial power than they, because she is a hypocritical colonial power behind it. [applause] . . . [W]hat do you call second-class citizenship? Why, that’s colonization. Second-class citizenship is nothing but 20th century slavery. How you gonna tell me you're a second-class citizen? They don’t have second-class citizenship in any other government on this Earth. They just have slaves and people who are free! Well, this country is a hypocrite! They try and make you think they set you free by calling you a second-class citizen. No, you’re nothing but a 20th century slave. 

Just as it took nationalism to remove colonialism from Asia and Africa, it’ll take black nationalism today to remove colonialism from the backs and the minds of twenty-two million Afro-Americans here in this country. And 1964 looks like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet.

Why does it look like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet? Because Negroes have listened to the trickery and the lies and the false promises of the white man now for too long, and they’re fed up. They’ve become disenchanted. They’ve become disillusioned. They’ve become dissatisfied. And[,] all of this has built up frustrations in the black community that makes the black community throughout America today more explosive than all of the atomic bombs the Russians can ever invent. Whenever you got a racial powder keg sitting in your lap, you’re in more trouble than if you had an atomic powder keg sitting in your lap. When a racial powder keg goes off, it doesn’t care who it knocks out the way. Understand this, it’s dangerous.

And in 1964, this seems to be the year. Because what can the white man use, now, to fool us? After he put down that March on Washington – and you see all through that now, he tricked you, had you marching down to Washington. Had you marching back and forth between the feet of a dead man named Lincoln and another dead man named George Washington, singing, ‘We Shall Overcome.’ 

He made a chump out of you. He made a fool out of you. He made you think you were going somewhere and you end up going nowhere but between Lincoln and Washington.