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Calls for social justice were a strong current throughout the acceptance speeches at last night’s 87th Annual Academy Awards. Accepting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in "Boyhood," Patricia Arquette called for wage equality for women. Winning the Best Original Song along with the rapper Common for "Glory," featured in the movie "Selma," singer John Legend paid tribute to protesters from the civil rights era to today. In her acceptance speech for Best Documentary "Citizenfour" — the inside account of how Edward Snowden exposed NSA surveillance — Laura Poitras thanked Snowden and all other whistleblowers exposing government wrongdoing. And accepting the award for Best Picture, Birdman Director Alejandro Iñárritu made a dedication to his home country, Mexico, and the millions of immigrants seeking fair treatment in the United States.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Calls for social justice were a strong current throughout the acceptance speeches at last night’s Academy Awards. Accepting the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Boyhood, Patricia Arquette called for wage equality for women.
PATRICIA ARQUETTE: To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.
AMY GOODMAN: The singer John Legend and rapper Common won Best Original Song for "Glory," featured in the movie Selma. Legend paid tribute to protesters from the civil rights era through to today.
JOHN LEGEND: Nina Simone said it’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live. We wrote this song for a film that was based on events that were 50 years ago, but we say that Selma is now, because the struggle for justice is right now.
COMMON: Yeah.
JOHN LEGEND: We know that the Voting Rights Act that they fought for 50 years ago is being compromised right now in this country today. We know that right now the struggle for freedom and justice is real. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850. When people are marching with our song, we want to tell you we are with you, we see you, we love you, and march on. God bless you.
AMY GOODMAN: The film Crisis Hotline, profiling a support center for veterans, won for Best Documentary Short. Producer Dana Perry dedicated the award to her late son.
DANA PERRY: I want to dedicate this to my son, Evan Perry. We lost him to suicide. We should talk about suicide out loud. This is for him. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Best Documentary went to Laura Poitras for Citizenfour, her inside account of how Ed Snowden exposed NSA surveillance. Poitras thanked Snowden and all other whistleblowers exposing government wrongdoing.
LAURA POITRAS: The disclosures that Edward Snowden revealed don’t only expose a threat to our privacy, but to our democracy itself. When the most important decisions being made affecting all of us are made in secret, we lose our ability to check the powers that control. Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage, and for the many other whistleblowers. And I share this with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists who are exposing truth. Thank you.
NEIL PATRICK HARRIS: The subject of Citizenfour, Edward Snowden, could not be here tonight for some treason.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Neil Patrick Harris, the host of the Oscars. Also on the stage with Laura Poitras was Glenn Greenwald and Lindsay Mills, who is the partner of Ed Snowden, who came in from Russia. And accepting the award for Best Picture, Birdman director Alejandro Iñárritu made a dedication to his home country, Mexico, and the millions of immigrants seeking fair treatment in the United States.
ALEJANDRO IÑÁRRITU: Finally, finally, I just want to—I want to take one second. I just want to take the opportunity. I want to dedicate this award for my fellow Mexicans, the ones who live in Mexico. I pray that we can find and build the government that we deserve. And the ones that live in this country, who are part of the latest generation of immigrants in this country, I just pray that they can be treated with the same dignity and respect of the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation. Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: Still, the Oscar nominations were the whitest in years. There was no—there were no people of color in either of the categories Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor or Best Supporting Actress.
The battle between Rahm Emanuel — a Democrat known as "Mayor 1 Percent" — and a host of challengers has reached a fever pitch in Chicago. Emanuel is struggling to keep his seat when voters head to the polls on Tuesday. Opponents say he has failed to improve the city’s schools and address gun violence. Emanuel’s re-election campaign has the endorsement of his former boss, President Obama, and a war chest of more than $15 million — about four times the amount raised by his four opponents. Most of his funds come from about 100 donors. Emanuel’s closest rival is Jesús "Chuy" García, a county commissioner who has support from the Chicago Teachers Union and other labor and progressive groups. We speak with Rick Perlstein, a Chicago-based reporter and author of several books, including "The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan" and the bestseller, "Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The battle between a Democrat known as "Mayor 1 Percent" and a host of challengers has reached a fever pitch in Chicago. Mayor 1 Percent is what critics call Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who is struggling to keep his seat when voters head to the polls on Tuesday. Opponents say he has failed to improve the city’s schools and address gun violence. Emanuel’s re-election campaign has a war chest of more than $15 million, about four times the amount raised by his four opponents combined. Most of his funds come from about a hundred donors. About half of the money, more than $7 million, has been spent on television ads like this one.
RAHM EMANUEL CAMPAIGN AD: Chicago’s leading voices support Rahm Emanuel for mayor. The Defender backs Rahm, praising the largest job gains of any major city. The Tribune says, because of Mayor Emanuel, students spend more hours in the classroom and have full-day kindergarten. The Sun-Times called Rahm "bold" and "courageous." And President Obama says Emanuel is the mayor we need.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: He’s making sure every Chicagoan in every neighborhood gets the fair shot at success that they deserve.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Featured in that ad is President Obama, who visited Chicago last week to endorse his former White House chief of staff.
AMY GOODMAN: Emanuel faces five challengers in a nonpartisan race that requires him to win 51 percent of the vote or face a runoff in April. The city hasn’t seen a runoff since it adopted the nonpartisan system in the 1990s. His closest rival is Jesús "Chuy" García, a county commissioner who has support from the Chicago Teachers Union and other labor and progressive groups. Polls show about 20 percent of voters back García. The other three candidates are businessman Willie Wilson, Chicago Alderman Robert Fioretti and William "Dock" Walls, who is a former aid to the former Chicago mayor, Harold Washington.
Well, for more, we’re going to Chicago to speak with journalist Rick Perlstein. His recent piece for In These Times is headlined "How to Sell Off a City: Welcome to Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago, the Privatized Metropolis of the Future."
Rick, welcome to Democracy Now! Why don’t you lay out this race for people who are not closely following it, especially those outside Chicago?
RICK PERLSTEIN: Absolutely. It’s a strikingly stark choice for the voters tomorrow about who’s going to control the city. Is it going to be the citizens or the 1 percent or the .1 percent? Juan mentioned that he raised $15 million—I refer to Rahm Emanuel. That’s misleading. He actually raised $30 million, $15 for his political action committee that he’s used to basically create a new Chicago political machine. And the things he’s been able to get away with with that money is absolutely stark, absolutely horrifying. And we really face a crossroads for the city tomorrow.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Rick, why don’t you lay out some of the signature initiatives that Emanuel embarked on during his first term?
RICK PERLSTEIN: Well, it’s pretty striking. With a month to go before the election, when the advertising started, he basically made him sound like Eleanor Roosevelt. He did talk about things like some actually excellent work he’s done with the community colleges and a minimum wage hike that’s going to be phased in over 10 years. But the fact of the matter is his real work has been in things like privatization. He struck a deal with a bunch of investment banks to use the preschoolers of Chicago as collateral for a deal in which a bunch of bankers are going to get money if the test scores of preschool kids increase. He did things like privatize the janitorial corps in Chicago schools, and they did such a bad job—this is the company Aramark, the services company based in Pennsylvania—that parents had to come in a week before the school year and clean the schools themselves. And Aramark’s response to that was to cut a quarter of its workforce. It goes on and on and on.
There’s been some excellent investigative journalism by the very publications that have shamefully endorsed Rahm Emanuel. The Chicago Tribune found that of his top 106 donors, 60 of them had received favors from the city. The Sun-Times did a really amazing exposé on a member of the school board that he appointed—we have an appointed school board in Chicago, which is also a scandal—who is an investment—who runs an investment fund for school privatization companies, and discovered that her company had basically increased its billing with the Chicago Public Schools about 300 percent and that a lot of these contracts were for $24,999, because if they’re for $25,000 or more, then you actually have to have accountability. A final investigative report by the International Business Times found that he’s using a kind of secret slush fund, called "direct voucher payments," in which he’s able to shovel money to his contributors without contracts, without bidding and without any kind of paper trail about how they’re spending the money, whether they’re using it to provide services to the city or not. He is a—really, really, really been a strikingly corrupt mayor. And his ability to get away with it, if he gets away with it tomorrow, will redound to the shame of the citizenry of this city.
AMY GOODMAN: Rick Perlstein, we’re going to break and then come back to this discussion. Rick Perlstein is a Chicago-based reporter whose recent piece in In These Times was headlined "How to Sell Off a City: Welcome to Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago, the Privatized Metropolis of the Future." This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back with Rick Perlstein in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: That’s John Legend and Common performing "Glory" at the Oscars last night. That song, the theme song from Selma, won for Best Song. And a slight correction on the headlines: Yes, the Oscars were the whitest in many years. There was no black actor or director who was nominated. The Mexican director, Alejandro Iñárritu, won for Best Director. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we continue on the Chicago mayoral elections. Last week, President Obama traveled to Chicago to designate the city’s Pullman area a national monument. He used the occasion to bolster Rahm Emanuel’s candidacy for mayor. This is part of what he said while speaking to a crowd of students and teachers at Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Before Rahm was a big-shot mayor, he was an essential part of my team at the White House during some very hard times for America. And I relied on his judgment every day and his smarts every day and his toughness every day.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama, speaking Thursday in Chicago. Last month, he also recorded a radio ad endorsing Rahm Emanuel.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: You know, even though I’m working in Washington right now, Chicago is my home. It’s the place that made me who I am. That’s why I care so deeply about who leads our city. Before Rahm Emanuel was mayor of Chicago, he was a key part of my team at the White House. And let’s be honest: At times the guy can be a little hardheaded. But there’s a reason Rahm fights as hard as he does: He loves our city, and he believes every child in every neighborhood should have a fair shot at success. Chicago had the shortest school day of any American city, until Rahm insisted that our kids get the same educational opportunity as other kids. He delivered full-day kindergarten to every Chicago child. That’s not all. He raised the minimum wage, and he helped create thousands of Chicago jobs by bringing new businesses to town. If you want a mayor who does what’s right, not just what’s popular, who fights night and day for the city we love, then I hope you’ll join me. Vote for Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday, February 24th.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was President Obama in a radio ad endorsing Rahm Emanuel. We’re joined once again by Rick Perlstein, Chicago-based reporter. Rick, talk about, specifically about, education and the—what Emanuel has done in education, what it meant that Karen Lewis, the Chicago Teachers Union president, had to drop out of a potential race against him.
RICK PERLSTEIN: Yeah, the president, in his commercial, said, you know, Rahm Emanuel is fighting for all the kids. And, you know, that’s nonsense. In the first meeting that Rahm had—we call him Rahm here, it’s kind of silly—with Karen Lewis, who’s the very progressive and very tough and very brilliant head of Chicago’s teachers’ union, he said 20 percent of the school kids in Chicago just can’t be saved. And she was shocked. I mean, she was aghast. And right then and there, she decided that this guy was a malevolent force for the schools in Chicago.
And she was vindicated in that judgment. The first thing he did in announcing that he was going to try and extend the school day, which everyone supported, was announce that he was not going to pay the teachers any more for extending their workday, and took away an already negotiated 7 percent pay increase. Of course, then they went on strike. And Karen Lewis and the Chicago teachers, in a great show of people power—Chicagoans all remember the vision of thousands of Chicago teachers in their red T-shirts at the Auditorium Theatre and then marching into streets—they humiliated him. They beat him in a strike that he went down to Springfield to rig the laws to prevent. He basically helped pass a law saying that a strike couldn’t happen unless they had 75 percent of the membership voting for it. Well, they had about 98 percent of the membership voting for a strike. And his response was to lay off teachers, which he’s allowed to do. The idea that teachers are hard to fire is certainly a myth when it comes to Chicago. He does it all the time, or, I should say, his appointed school board, answerable only to him, does it all the time.
And then, the coup de grâce was this absolutely shocking act of closing 50 schools, without any citizen input. I went to a meeting in which his school officials were standing on the stage, being cried to by adolescents who were begging them not to close their schools. And there was a police officer on stage, as if these 12-year-olds were going to somehow rush the stage. And when he announced he was going to close the schools, and he gave his explanation, and that explanation turned out to be threadbare, and he gave another explanation, the Chicago public radio station, WBEZ, did an analysis, and they found all eight explanations for why they were closing these 50 schools were all factually false and often contradicted each other. It was a complete power grab. And what he’s done is he’s emptied out the core, the skeleton of these communities in this divide-and-conquer strategy, and he’s basically used the resources that were created by closing those schools to strengthen the schools in kind of the white, yuppie neighborhoods. It’s absolutely scandalous.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what about—
RICK PERLSTEIN: And Karen Lewis, of course—yes.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: What about the candidate that Karen Lewis supported, Chuy García. Could you tell us something about him, as well?
RICK PERLSTEIN: Well, briefly, Karen Lewis was ready to announce for mayor and tragically was struck by a brain tumor, an absolute blow for social justice, for everyone who cares about social justice in America. And she kind of handed the torch to a very competent reformer named Chuy García, who has held all kinds of offices—state senator, alderman, now he’s on the county board. Every time he goes to work for the people of Chicago, the machine basically goes after him. That’s why he’s held so many offices. And he’s an excellent public servant.
With Toni Preckwinkle, who many of us had hoped would run, because she’s done such an excellent job as the president of the county board, together they were able to balance a very big budget deficit, while lowering taxes—they got rid of a sales tax—just by doing the thing all politicians claim they’re going to do: eliminating waste, fraud and abuse from the budget. They did it very effectively. And by the way, when the Chicago Tribune endorsed Rahm Emanuel for delivering balanced budgets, which I think he’s done using all kinds of budget chicanery, they ignored the fact that Chuy García, in addition to being a very strong reformer and a very compassionate man and a very competent public servant, had done the same thing for Cook County. He would be an excellent mayor.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And where is the most prominent Latino politician in Chicago, Luis Gutiérrez, in this race?
RICK PERLSTEIN: Well, I don’t believe—I am not aware of who he’s supporting, but he is not running. He, you know, is happy to be in Congress. And that would be an interesting question.
AMY GOODMAN: We played President Obama’s endorsement of Rahm Emanuel. Can you talk about how President Obama, of course, who lived in Chicago for many years, how his endorsement plays?
RICK PERLSTEIN: Yeah, it’s really striking that he’s won that endorsement. I mean, if Rahm Emanuel had his druthers, we wouldn’t have the—of course, the Affordable Care Act, because, you know, this idea that Rahm Emanuel is this tough, fighting politician who’s really courageous is, of course, nonsense. When he was the chief of staff in the White House, he advised Obama not to take on any fights that he didn’t know he could win in advance. And that’s why he thought universal healthcare was a bad play for him. And Nancy Pelosi had to talk Obama into it. And, you know, he’s a loyal guy, is Barack Obama, so he’s doing the announcement.
And Obama certainly doesn’t cover the kind of sway that he had in Chicago when he was elected. You don’t see the Barack Obama kitsch in the Walgreens, and you don’t see the kind of family portraits in the barbershops that you used to see, but certainly he does still command a lot of loyalty among the portion of the population that Rahm Emanuel is weakest with. African Americans abandoned him in droves because of the school stuff. They knew exactly what was going on. And no mayor can get elected in Chicago without African-American support. In fact, black voters were the backbone of the old Daley machine. So, this will shore up some of that crucial support, without which Rahm Emanuel’s re-election bid would be hopeless.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And one of the things that you’ve mentioned that most people are not aware of is the big issue that has arisen in Chicago over cameras and traffic lights—
RICK PERLSTEIN: Right.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —and what Emanuel has done. Can you explain that, in terms of traffic tickets?
RICK PERLSTEIN: It really speaks to the mendacity and corruption of this administration. Basically, he has claimed that he has instituted red light cameras at street corners all over Chicago for the safety of the city. Well, the first vendor actually lost the contract because one of the city officials had been bribed to the tune of several million dollars. And another consultant, actually, a guy named Greg Goldner, is a very close associate of Rahm Emanuel’s. Now, it turns out that the red light cameras are a revenue grab. They’re basically a regressive tax on the drivers of Chicago. And what he’s done is he’s shaved the time for yellow lights, so they could give out more tickets.
And he claims—his City Hall has claimed that it has lowered accidents of cars crashing into the side of other cars by 47 percent. Well, the Chicago Tribune did a study and found that it really had only lowered accidents 17 percent and increased rear-end accidents by a great deal. So he’s basically endangering the safety of the city of Chicago, giving the drivers of Chicago a huge hassle that they have to deal with, and he’s been increasingly dishonest about it. And he’s been called on it. And he’s been able to get away with it because he’s been able to buy $30 million worth of mailers and TV commercials and D.C.-style political consultants.
AMY GOODMAN: So, tomorrow, explain what happens. It’s an unusual election. A lot of cities don’t have a system like this, a nonpartisan election.
RICK PERLSTEIN: Right, right. We have a nonpartisan election. And it’s first past the post, if you get to 50 percent, and then it’s over. So, Rahm Emanuel—it’s basically Rahm Emanuel against everyone else. So, if he gets to 50 percent, he has another term. If he gets 49.9 percent, then there will be a runoff with the second-place finisher, who is likely to be Chuy García. And then, between February and April, we’ll have a real conversation about the future of this city. And that’s why progressives in Chicago absolutely have to get themselves to the polls. It’s 4 degrees today, it might be 2 degrees tomorrow, but this is a life-and-death situation for the citizens of Chicago.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you, Rick Perlstein, for being with us, Chicago-based reporter whose recent piece for In These Times is headlined "How to Sell Off a City: Welcome to Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago, the Privatized Metropolis of the Future." We’ll be back in a minute.
This weekend, people around the country marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, known as Malcolm X — one of the most influential political figures of the 20th century. In New York City, family members and former colleagues led a memorial ceremony in the former Audubon Ballroom where Malcolm X was gunned down on February 21, 1965. The Audubon Ballroom is now the Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center. We hear some of the event’s speakers, including Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz. We broadcast an excerpt of our 2006 interview with the late civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama, who witnessed the assassination and held Malcolm X as he lay dying. We also air the Pacifica Archives recording of the 1965 eulogy delivered by the actor and activist Ossie Davis.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: This weekend, people around the country marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, known as Malcolm X, one of the most influential political figures of the 20th century. Here in New York, his former colleagues were joined by family members who remembered the father of six at a memorial ceremony in the former Audubon Ballroom, where he was gunned down on February 21st, 1965. He was just 39 years old. Today, a blue light marks the spot where he was killed. This is Malcolm X’s daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz.
ILYASAH SHABAZZ: Our people cultivated this land, that was once barren, enslaved, and we can now call it the United States of America. And it’s important that we make sure that they are honored, that their lives were not in vain. And I would like to bring us into a moment of silence. It is around the time that my father was brutally assassinated, martyred, right here in this blue light. And if you could join us.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The Audubon Ballroom is now the Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center. Saturday’s memorial there also featured several speakers and artists. Singer Sharisse "She-Salt" Ashford shared this spoken word piece at 3:10 p.m., the exact time Malcolm X was shot.
UNIDENTIFIED: Please give a warm welcome to She-Salt.
SHARISSE "SHE-SALT" STANCIL-ASHFORD: Here, in this place, in this blessed space, where 50 years ago your life was taken in haste, was taken with hate, but, Brother Malcolm, they know. You can’t kill what God has purposed. If you bury seeds, they’ll grow. And that’s power. Three-ten, yes, that was your final hour, but your life is still speaking, your words are still teaching, and though black people still are bleeding, there are little signs of freedom. Self-determination is the reason that we keep on believing we’re seeing. There’s a worldwide revolution going on. Black folk are tired of being indicted before we’re even born, being buked and scorned, lord, for having skin of a darker hue. Got to campaign for our humanity as we’re trotting through, but still.
Who taught us to love ourselves? You. Who took our plight and then who flew across the blue waters so the world would know that the struggle is the same no matter where you go? From New York to the Congo, Mississippi to Belize, from Alabama to Mississippi, it’s the same. Please believe, Brother Malcolm. You declared this is not just an American problem, and it’s up to all Africans to band together to solve them.
Brother Malcolm, we thank you for your sacrifice. Ain’t too many out here who would give their lives for the truth. Despite bombings and the bashings, you still lived the life of courage and committed action, full of compassion, loving people, always staying in position, working overtime that we might see our condition. That was your mission. And there was no hate in your blood, just steadfast, unmoveable, boundless love and self-reliance. No, we don’t have to live in compliance with racism, oppression, sexism, all the violence against women.
Brother Malcolm, you would have something to say, because you rode with many sisters back in the day. Speaking of women, at this time I would like to pay homage to Dr. Betty, who worked night and day to preserve your legacy in a dignified way and is the very reason why we can assemble today, a mighty sister who raised your six daughters into queens, all the while becoming a doctor and fulfilling her dreams, a mighty sister who raised your six daughters into queens, all the while becoming a doctor and fulfilling her dreams. Turning tragedy into triumph, this space was created. Dr. Betty, we thank you, and we are elated.
Brother Malcolm, it’s been 50 years, and we still speak your name, brother Malcolm, the black prince that was slain. Let all the people in the place, if you will never forget, say "Ashay."
AUDIENCE: Ashay.
SHARISSE "SHE-SALT" STANCIL-ASHFORD: It’s been 50 years, and we still speak your name, Brother Malcolm, the black king that was slain. Let all the people in the place, if you will never forget, say, "Aameen."
AUDIENCE: Aameen.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was Sharisse "She-Salt" Ashford. Now I want to turn to the keynote speaker at Saturday’s memorial for Malcolm X at the former Audubon Ballroom. This is Dr. Ron Daniels.
RON DANIELS: You get a whole generation of people dealing with black power and coming to a new sense of self-awareness and so forth, all attributable to Malcolm. And, of course, we’ve spoken to his emphasis on human rights, because human rights, he said, is above civil rights. I mean, you’re not necessarily denigrating civil rights. That’s not the point. But if you’re in a society where the government is oppressing you, he said, you don’t—you can’t go to that court. If that’s who’s criminalizing you, take the criminal to court.
AMY GOODMAN: Last year, the civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama died at the age of 93 in California. Well, in 2006, I visited her in California and interviewed her for Democracy Now! She talked about the day Malcolm X was assassinated. She was with him in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom, cradling his head as he lay dying on the stage.
YURI KOCHIYAMA: The date was February 21st. It was a Sunday. Well, prior to that date, I think that whole week there was a lot of rumors going on in Harlem that something might happen to Malcolm. But I think Malcolm showed all along, especially around that time, that there were rumors going on. He was aware, because there were things even in the newspaper, that there was some, I think—I don’t know if it was a misunderstanding or just disagreeing about some things that Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm were talking about. They were personal things. ... There was disagreement between Elijah and Malcolm, and I think there was even talk that was going on, and after the assassination, however, many black people felt it could have been by people who had infiltrated or that the police department and FBI may have actually planted them in the Nation of Islam.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Yuri Kochiyama speaking in 2006. We had hoped today to be joined live by Ilyasah Shabazz, but she’s caught in serious traffic right now, so we’re going to turn to Malcolm X himself from the PBS documentary Malcolm X: Make It Plain.
MALCOLM X: And I, for one, as a Muslim, believe that the white man is intelligent enough. If he were made to realize how black people really feel and how fed up we are, without that old compromising sweet talk—why, you’re the one that make it hard for yourself. The white man believes you when you go to him with that old sweet talk, 'cause you've been sweet-talking him ever since he brought you here. Stop sweet-talking him. Tell him how you feel. Tell him how—what kind of hell you’ve been catching, and let him know that if he’s not ready to clean his house up, if he’s not ready to clean his house up, he shouldn’t have a house. It should catch on fire and burn down.
AMY GOODMAN: Half a year before his assassination, Malcolm X gave the famed speech, "By Any Means Necessary." This is an excerpt.
MALCOLM X: One of the first things that the independent African nations did was to form an organization called the Organization of African Unity. […] The purpose of our […] Organization of Afro-American Unity, which has the same aim and objective to fight whoever gets in our way, to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the Western Hemisphere, and first here in the United States, and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary. That’s our motto. […]
The purpose of our organization is to start right here in Harlem, which has the largest concentration of people of African descent that exists anywhere on this Earth. There are more Africans here in Harlem than exist in any city on the African continent, because that’s what you and I are: Africans. […]
The Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights are the principles in which we believe, and that these documents, if put into practice, represent the essence of mankind’s hopes and good intentions; desirous that all Afro-American people and organizations should henceforth unite so that the welfare and well-being of our people will be assured; we are resolved to reinforce the common bond of purpose between our people by submerging all of our differences and establishing nonsectarian, constructive programs for human rights; we hereby present this charter:
I. The Establishment.
The Organization of Afro-American Unity shall include all people of African descent in the Western Hemisphere […] In essence what it is saying, instead of you and me running around here seeking allies in our struggle for freedom in the Irish neighborhood or the Jewish neighborhood or the Italian neighborhood, we need to seek some allies among people who look something like we do. And once we get their allies. It’s time now for you and me to stop running away from the wolf right into the arms of the fox, looking for some kind of help. That’s a drag.
II. Self-Defense.
Since self-preservation is the first law of nature, we assert the Afro-American’s right to self-defense.
The Constitution of the United States of America clearly affirms the right of every American citizen to bear arms. And as Americans, we will not give up a single right guaranteed under the Constitution. The history of unpunished violence against our people clearly indicates that we must be prepared to defend ourselves, or we will continue to be a defenseless people at the mercy of a ruthless and violent, racist mob.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is Malcolm X almost a before he was assassinated, at a speech given in Detroit April 12, 1964, known as "The Ballot or the Bullet."
MALCOLM X: Just as it took nationalism to move—to remove colonialism from Asia and Africa, it’ll take black nationalism today to remove colonialism from the backs and the minds of 22 million Afro-Americans here in this country.
Looks like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet. Why does it look like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet? Because Negroes have listened to the trickery and the lies and the false promises of the white man now for too long. And they’re fed up. They’ve become disenchanted. They’ve become disillusioned. They’ve become dissatisfied, and all of this has built up frustrations in the black community that makes the black community throughout America today more explosive than all of the atomic bombs the Russians can ever invent.
AMY GOODMAN: Malcolm X. We now end today’s show with the late Ossie Davis, the actor and activist, delivering the eulogy for Malcolm X. This is from the Pacifica Radio Archive. It was at the Faith Temple Church of God in New York just a few days after Malcolm X was assassinated. He gave it February 27, 1965.
OSSIE DAVIS: My appreciation of Malcolm, in addition to all of the other things he meant as a leader, as a teacher, as a man, a philosopher, as a man who knew the facts of life, as an Africanist, as an economist, as a political scholar, as an agitator, the thing that struck me most about him was that Malcolm was a man. I mean man in a particular sense. Malcolm had created a new style for those of us who would be men to follow. Not only black men, but also white men. Malcolm left us the heritage of manhood, which in our country has long been going out of style.
And if you don’t believe it, if you’ll remember last February—last March, when 38 people sat by the telephone and refused to pick it up when a young lady was calling for help, and she called three times, and these 38 citizens, who represent us, let the lady die without picking up the phone to call the police. That is the state of our manhood in this country today. And those were not Negro people who did that. They were whites. We have ceased to care. We have ceased to be concerned. We have ceased to remember our humanity. We are things. We are cogs. We are close to being dehumanized in this great country of ours.
Malcolm came along and said, "Stop. Stop. You are men. Stop. You do care. Stop. There is life in you. Stop. There is still the possibility that manhood, that courage, that strength, that imagination, will make the difference." It was he who rallied our flagging efforts, who taught us to stand up off of our knees—especially the black men, but also the whites—to stand up off of our knees, to address ourselves to the truth, even if we were killed for it. And it’s been a long time since that kind of courage and bravery was abroad in our land.
We’ve had men, men who were martyrs, men who were mighty, men who set us great and good examples. But they had one advantage that Malcolm did not have. They were men of education. They were men of college. They had had training. Malcolm came from the lowest depth. And therefore, in measuring the man, we have to measure the place from whence he came. All of us sitting here tonight, men and women, black and white, can stand a little taller because a man like Malcolm X walked on our Earth, lived in our midst, smiled his smile on the face of Harlem.
I am happy to have known him. And if there is a possibility of redemption for me, for you, for Harlem, for our country, Malcolm is the man who said that such a redemption was possible, and when he died, he was pointing the way to this redemption. We sat tonight. We were uplifted by the singing, by the dancing, by the presence of great leaders among us, and you must have noticed that our greatest leaders turned out to be women. Now, this—there is a reason why this is so. And it’s the same reason why a man would hesitate to keep a picture of Malcolm X on his wall. And that reason is that as black men we have been the most systematically emasculated people on the face of the Earth. And we have learned, unfortunately, to accept and live with our emasculation as if this is the definition of what we are. Malcolm said, "No, you are a man. I will make you see that you are a man." He insisted on ripping the lies from our face, our middle-class smugness. He talked to all of us.
Get up off your knees. Come out of your hiding place. If your hiding place is gold, come out from behind it. If your hiding place is prestige, come out from behind it. If your hiding place is poverty, if you live in the slums, if you live in the gutters, stand up, look at the sun. You, too, are a man. And when Malcolm said it, when he looked at you, when he gave you the stuff of your own manhood, how could we resist or deny or do less than the little we did to honor him when he died and here tonight? Great things sometimes show up very small. The cloud no bigger than a man’s hand betokened the flood that destroyed the Earth. Many looking on the reception, what has happened since Malcolm has been dead, seeing the kind of reception that we have gotten and that we have not gotten, might make the mistake of thinking that we have measured the man, we have put him in his place, and therefore we can safely turn around and forget him forever. But that is not so. I say this to you, as I say to myself: If Malcolm and his message, so strong, so bright and so pure, was too good for those of us who have already reached manhood, there is a generation who is not yet spoiled, not yet degutted, not yet de-bold, not yet emasculated, who when they come into the light of this truth will rise up and redeem him and us and all the rest of the world. That is the meaning of Malcolm X.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Ossie Davis remembering Malcolm X. It’s the 50th anniversary of his assassination. He was killed February 21, 1965.
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