Why Malcolm X Never Developed an Islamic Approach to Civil Rights
✍ Scribed by Edward E. Curtis IV
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2002
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 130 KB
- Volume
- 32
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0048-721X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
No student of Malcolm X's life has explored adequately the effects of Malcolm's relationships with foreign and immigrant Muslims on his approach to civil rights. This article argues that toward the end of his life Malcolm X accepted the Islamic ideology of his Arab Muslim sponsors, and in so doing, limited his own ability to conceptualise an Islam that was politically relevant to the struggle for black liberation. Embracing the idea that Islam was a universalistic tradition that, by definition, could have nothing to do with particularistic movements or struggles, the leader championed a pan-Africanist politics that sought to bring blacks together based on their common cultural and biological traits.