By CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Director Jacob Bender
This past Saturday, Feb. 21, marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom in the year 1965.
I was a teenager when I first read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” and I can still remember the emotional impact it had upon me as a white student involved in the Civil Rights Movement, as well as upon my political development. The book was my first real introduction to the religion of Islam, and led to my life-long dialogue with its faith and the Muslim community.
Malcolm taught us that we all have the power, no matter the obstacles in front of us, to change the circumstances of our lives, and that the struggle for justice and freedom is an essential component of the religious life.
For African Americans, as the actor Ossie Davis memorialized at his funeral, Malcolm was “… our own Black shining Prince, who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so!”
For American Muslims, Malcolm’s spiritual journey continues to be an inspiration for all who take upon themselves the path of Islam. And as Muslim Chaplain Kameelah Mu’Min Rashad reminded us at a recent CAIR-organized conference of Philadelphia Muslim leaders, it is also the pre-Hajj Malcolm whose legacy we must honor.
For white Americans like myself, we should all be indebted to Malcolm, for it is he who taught us — with a burning intellect, but also with a mounting mercy — of the terrible toil that white supremacy has extracted from this nation.
May His Memory Be a Blessing.
