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Kompass

Thinkers and political figures

Photograph of Malcolm X speaking at a microphone, 1963.

Portrait: Press photograph, 1963, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain

Malcolm X

Country
United States
Era
1925–1965
Tradition
Black nationalism, Pan-Africanism

Nation of Islam minister who rejected integration and non-violence as strategies, broke with the Nation in 1964, and in his last year moved towards a human-rights framing that internationalised the struggle before he was assassinated.

01

Documented positions

Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.

  • Argued for Black self-determination, self-defence and independent institutions rather than integration into white society
  • Rejected non-violence as a universal principle, defending the right of self-defence "by any means necessary"
  • Criticised the 1963 March on Washington as a demonstration managed by its opponents
  • Broke with the Nation of Islam in 1964 and, after the hajj, rejected its racial theology while keeping its politics of self-determination
  • Founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity to bring the case to the United Nations as a human-rights violation
  • Argued that the Black vote should be used strategically rather than delivered automatically to one party
02

Where it sits on each dimension

Personal liberty

50

Evidence: Documented

Tradition and change

92

Evidence: Well documented

Nation and the world

55

Evidence: Documented

Religion and the state

78

Evidence: Well documented

Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Wealth and inequality, The state in the economy, Power and its limits, Environment and growth, Crime and punishment

Sources

  • Malcolm X with Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X · 1965
  • Malcolm X, The Ballot or the Bullet · 1964

Last verified: