One of Black America’s favorite lines to quote, wear on t-shirts and spout when displaying our unabashed Blackness is Malcolm X’s (El Hajj Malik el Shabazz’s) famous line, “By any means necessary.”
Malcolm’s OAU
After returning from his Hajj in the holy city of Mecca, on June 28, 1964, Brother Malcolm delivered his first public address on behalf of his newly-formed organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (a name created as a nod to the Organization of African Unity founded in 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by 32 African nations that sought to unite nations across the African continent to end colonization, neo-colonialism and any other issues blocking their empowerment).
Malcolm’s OAAU, thus, was about pushing past any and all issues that kept Black people and organizations in the U.S. separate and disunified, so they could engage in the same work of self-determination that their cousins on the continent (in the OAU) were taking part in.
Malcolm’s first OAU address post-Hajj
So, on behalf of his new organization, Brother Malcolm manned the stage at the Audubon Ballroom in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan—the same location where eight months later (Feb. 21, 1965) he would be assassinated via U.S. government-sanctioned efforts—and shared these words, a mere excerpt from a detailed address and call-to-action:
“We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”
Brother Malcolm was seeking to engender a sense of urgency in stateside Blackfolk, and used the African freedom movement that was sweeping the continent (inspired by Marcus Mosiah Garvey) as a standard and roadmap Blackfolk in the U.S. needed to follow.
He said:
“Just 10 years ago on the African continent, our people were colonized. They were suffering all forms of colonization, oppression, exploitation, degradation, humiliation, discrimination, and every other kind of -ation. And in a short time, they have gained more independence, more recognition, more respect as human beings than you and I have. And you and I live in a country which is supposed to be the citadel of education, freedom, justice, democracy, and all of those other pretty-sounding words.”
Malcolm’s Challenge
His point: if we’re serious about making a better world for our people, we’ve got work to do. And a huge part of that work involves utilizing any and all means to achieve the desired result… “by any means necessary.”
Brother Malcolm challenged individuals and organizations to look beyond their own dogma, strategies and beliefs about what works and what doesn’t. He was challenging us to be open to the possibility that some individual or organization beyond the one(s) any one person belonged to might have insight that could help our people collectively.
Be open. See beyond your narrow, limited perspective. “By any means necessary.”
And though it’s become a catchy slogan we like to use and reuse, we rarely put that approach into action.
We literally say, “By any means necessary,” then list all the things, ways, and strategies we would never employ… like voting.
Voting is a “Means”
Is voting the “end-all-be-all” solution to all our issues? Certainly not. Are their challenges and problems surrounding the universe of voting and electoral politics U.S. style? Absolutely. But there are benefits too. And again, voting, like other strategies and tactics, is one of those “means” available to us… at least for now.
There’s a political party with wealthy financiers backing it that believes so deeply in the power of the vote that they have worked for roughly 400 years to prevent us from deploying that particular “means.” That party today calls itself the Republican Party. the one who has unleashed a tsunami of voter suppression laws across the country and removed millions of eligible voters from voter rolls to reduce our voting power and crush our will and desire to even go to the polls. And again, as literally stated by countless Republicans, they’re pushing for ending our right to vote altogether.
Whatever issues/problems exist around voting pale in comparison to the problems people face who don’t even have voting as an option.
It’s time we move beyond rocking Brother Malcolm’s words on our chests and live them. Believing “by any means necessary” means exercising your current right to vote so you and I can prayerfully have that right in the future.
