Malcolm X

Simon Starr

"The Ballot or the Bullet" is the title of a public speech by human rights activist Malcolm X. In the speech, which was delivered on April 3, 1964, at Cory Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, Malcolm X advised African Americans to judiciously exercise their right to vote, but he cautioned that if the government continued to prevent African Americans from attaining full equality, it might be necessary for them to take up arms. It was ranked 7th in the top 100 American speeches of the 20th century by 137 leading scholars of American public address. "It's time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem - a problem that will make you catch hell whether you're a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether you're educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you're going to catch hell just like I am." Malcolm X

The Ballot Or the Bullet

Herodotus

Herodotus was a Greek historian who lived in the fifth century BC (c. 484-425 BC), a contemporary of Socrates. He is widely referred to as "The Father of History" (first conferred by Cicero); he was the first historian known to have broken from Homeric tradition to treat historical subjects as a method of investigation-specifically, by collecting his materials systematically and critically, and then arranging them into a historiographic narrative. The Histories is the only work which he is known to have produced, a record of his "inquiry" on the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars, including a wealth of geographical and ethnographical information in addition to first hand accounts of the ancient African civilisation of Kemet (ancient Egypt). "The Kemetians (ancient Egyptians) are religious to excess, beyond any other nation in the world...they are meticulous in every-thing which concerns the religion...it was only, if I may put it so, the day before yesterday that the Greeks came to know the origin and form of the various gods...The names of all of the gods came to Greece from Kemet... for the names of all the gods have been known in Kemet from the beginning of time."- HERODOTUS

Firsthand Account of the Ancient African Civilization of Kemet (Egypt)

Herodotus' Histories

By Any Means Necessary is one of Malcolm X's most well known and remembered speeches. It entered the popular civil rights culture through a speech given by Malcolm X at the Organization of Afro-American Unity founding rally on June 28, 1964 in the last year of his life. It is generally considered to leave open all available tactics for the desired ends, including violence; however, the "necessary" qualifier adds a caveat-if violence is not necessary, then presumably, it should not be used. "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." Malcolm X, 1965

Speech

Malcolm X's by Any Means Necessary

"Your knowledge of the gospel will allow you to find texts ordering, and encouraging your followers to love poverty, like "Happier are the poor because they will inherit the heaven" and, "It's very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God." You have to detach from them and make them disrespect everything which gives courage to affront us. I make reference to their Mystic System and their war fetish - warfare protection - which they pretend not to want to abandon, and you must do everything in your power to make it disappear. Your action will be directed essentially to the younger ones, for they won't revolt when the recommendation of the priest is contradictory to their parent's teachings. The children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the father of their soul. You must singularly insist on their total submission and obedience, avoid developing the spirit in the schools, teach students to read and not to reason." These are just some of the savage and heart breaking methods used against the minds of Africans which persist till this day.

Simon Starr

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