Why did African-American audiences find Malcolm X’s speech “Message to the Grass Roots (Nov. 1963)” exhilarating an exhilarating rhetorical performance? Did you find the speech with its language of “house Negroes,” “field Negroes,” and “Uncle Tomes” uncomfortable or offensive? Why? Can those qualities be the same reason why others found it electrifying?
How does Malcolm X define revolution? Why is land so great a piece of it.
Even as he was emerging as an important voice (dare we say a leader) within the movement, he excoriated other Civil Rights leaders, why? Who? What did he see as the sins of people who accepted the mantle of leaderships? You can be general but also try to be specific.
Why does Malcolm X treat interracial resistance and integration critically? Why does he describe White participation in the 1963 March on Washington less as “integration” than as “infiltration”?
What are the defining elements of Black nationalism as a political philosophy, economic philosophy, and social philosophy?
Can you identify specific connections to other documents that we have read, especially Robert Williams on armed self-defense and the Civil Right Congress on physical and economic genocide?
Was the fear that Malcolm X produced in many moderates justified by his rhetoric?
