Malcolm X stamp "cancelled" by U.S. race problems

Malcolm X stamp

When Malcolm X first burst upon the scene as a major spokesperson for disadvantaged black people his prophetic words struck fear into white Americans. Now the quintessential figure of Black Nationalism is back in prominence on the face of one hundred million commemorative 33-cent postal stamps. This iconic framing of Malcolm X has provoked diverse comments about America's lagging response to black demands for justice and equality.

Malcolm X was one of the rebel gods of U.S. cities that rise from troubled ghetto streets to the surface of American race politics every few decades. He challenged America with explosive themes: end segregation and racial discrimination NOW! "Either the Ballot or the Bullet", he thundered. Either "total liberty for black people still in chains or total destruction for white America".

Malcolm's Life and Work

Marcus Garvey

Malcolm's short life, his meteoric rise and equally blazing demise owe much to his lineage, and his religious and political background. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, May 19, 1925 as Malcolm Little, his Grenada-born mother, Louise Little, was a staunch follower of Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican leader of a popular black organisation called the United Negro Improvement Association.

Malcolm catapulted into notice in the fifties as spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, a black organisation founded by Prophet Elijah Muhammad. Eager to prove himself, Malcolm popularised the Prophet's tenets of black self-reliance and separation from slave-based white society. In a series of remarkable transformations, he established a powerful presence in Black America. He cast aside his "slave name" and became Malcolm X, minister of a Harlem NOI temple. He trumpeted his views in Muhammad Speaks, a publication he founded, and built the NOI into a powerful network of a hundred temples and thousands of dues paying members and supporters throughout the country.

In the last stages of his political development Malcolm staunchly supported revolutionary anti-colonial struggles sweeping Africa. He lobbied world governments to bring America before the World Court for human rights violations against peoples of African descent, in the U.S. and abroad. Back home he formed the Organisation of Afro-American Unity amidst constant harassment by police authorities and conservative white and black leaders. Finally, under siege by enemies on all sides, Malcolm died in a hail of bullets February 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom in New York while exhorting his new band of followers to unity.

Official Recognition
More than three decades later, Malcolm X, a man so complex and influential that his name still stirs controversy, received official acclamation. His stamp is the 22nd in the U.S. Postal Service's Black Heritage series commemorating highly respected African Americans. He joins the anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman, the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., the women's educator Mary McLeod Bethune, the scientist Ernest E. Just, and W.E.B. DuBois, the renowned scholar, militant and Pan-Africanist.

Malcolm's achievements were remembered by his family, friends and colleagues gathered at Harlem's famed Apollo theatre in January 1999. They praised Malcolm as a man impelled to lead his people from the valley of obscurity into the light of freedom - from contested civil rights to black liberation in step with a universal struggle against oppression.

His eldest daughter, Attallah, and her sisters Gamilah, Ilyasah, Malaak, Mallkah, and Qubilah Shabazz led the tributes. Attorney Percy E. Sutton, and actors Harry Belafonte, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee spoke of Malcolm's significant contributions to American history and culture. Added tributes came from U.S. Representative Chaka Fattah, Randall Robinson, president of TransAfrica Forum, and U.S. Postal Service Governor S. David Fineman.

Whose Malcolm?
The influential Washington Post newspaper noted that the idea for a postage stamp for Malcolm X would have been unthinkable years ago especially within the U.S. Postal service bureaucracy. "But when plans for the stamp were announced, there was much praise for it," the newspaper said.

Postal governor Fineman referred to Malcolm X as "a modern-day revolutionary who openly fought for the end of oppression and injustice. He was a visionary, a man who dreamed of a better world and dared to do something about it."

Co-religionists in the American Muslim Council offered praise, as did former critics in other communities. Jewish organisations, the Anti-Defamation League and B'nai B'rith International, which were highly critical of Malcolm X when he was alive, welcomed the stamp as evidence of Malcolm's change late in his life to "a more integrationist solution to racial problems," the Washington Post reported.

Controversy
These varied comments reveal the conflicting political interpretations of the Malcolm X stamp. Is the image portrayed that of Malcolm X the volatile minister of the Nation of Islam urging the cataclysmic separation of black and white Americans? Is it the Malcolm who denounced America for its anti-Black racism? Is it the man who became the most powerful Black leader in the U.S.A. since Marcus Garvey?

Radical ideologues protest that Malcolm belongs to them. The stamp celebrates the Pan-Africanist who frequently opposed his federal government's policies in Third World countries, some say. Left-wing theorists see in the stamp the latter-day socialist internationalist brother of all humankind. Cultural militants like Ossie Davis remember Malcolm as "our shining Black Prince". Malcolm's fellow co-religionists say with respect "He is the devout Muslim teacher El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz".

Clearly, in forging the commemorative stamp the whole of America took a deep breath. By consensus, Malcolm's image is now marketed as a good man, a piece of Americana that has uniquely crossed deep racial, social and cultural divides. Malcolm, the signifier of black militancy, has been commodified by the consumer society: not just in stamps, but celebrated in popular culture, song, film, books and T-shirts. His autobiography continues to sell more than 150,000 copies a year and generates a groundswell of interest in the life and death of this extraordinary man.

Devil stalking
Yet, all is not as it seems. The devil stalking white America was not Malcolm. It was the abject conditions of the large mass of Black people. In Malcolm's time, in 1950s and 1960s America, hunger, disease, unemployment, and prejudice trapped millions of blacks in urban slums and rural hovels. He tolled the litany of their needs: full employment, restitution for slave labour, decent housing and education, and an end to police brutality and false imprisonment.

In the intervening years, after many civil rights struggles and urban riots, black men and women have risen to prominence in all the arts, politics, business, diplomacy, law enforcement and the armed services. More families today earn average household incomes, and educate their children.

However, the legacy of slavery, of racial discrimination, and the intractable problems of being Black in America remain. Racial attacks and a culture of violence against blacks accompany the resurgence of white supremacist groups. Cut backs in government-supported equal access programs have dashed the hopes of many blacks for better education, jobs, and housing. Political emphasis on the "new ethnic diversity and multi-culturalism" of America now threatens to over shadow the resolution of the "race problem"

Legacy of Malcolm X
Decades after Malcolm's death, many white Americans stubbornly fail to accept his prophetic voicing of the Black freedom message. Ultra-conservatives have poured scorn upon the Malcolm X stamp. "Do we have to pander to the most radical blacks to show our "sensitivity" to the fact that they were historically abused?" argues the right-wing Foundation Center for America's Survival.

Today, the historic racial fault-lines of American democracy appear in stark contrast to promises of change. The "American Dilemma" that social scientist Gunnar Myrdal identified as white freedom based on Black slavery remains unresolved. Therefore, the re-framing of the sixties black revolution with a Malcolm X "stamp of approval" does not signal the demise of deep-rooted causes of black dissent. It only tolls the labours and sacrifices that must be made by yet another generation to ensure freedom and equality for all in America.