When the Word is Given...: A Report on Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and the Black Muslim WorldLomax, Louis E.
Religion
When the Word is Given...: A Report on Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and the Black Muslim World
Lomax, Louis E.
Black Muslims
The New York _Tribune_, in an editorial (Feb. 5, 1960), pointed out
that out of 11 million qualified Negro voters, only 2,700,000 actually
took time to vote. This means that, roughly speaking, only 3 million of
the 11 million Negroes who are qualified to vote take an active part
... and the remaining 8 million remain voluntarily inactive, and yet it
it is this small minority of Negro voters who help determine who will
be the next President.
If who will be the next President can be influenced by 3 million
Negro voters, it is easy to see why the presidential candidates of
both political parties put on such a false show with the civil rights
bill, and with promises of integration. They must woo or impress the 3
million voting Negroes who are the actual “integration seekers.”
If so much fuss is made over these 3 million “integration seekers,”
what would the presidential candidates have to do to appease the 8
million non-voting Negroes if they ever decided to become politically
active in this election year?
Who are the 8 million non-voting Negroes, what do they want, and why
don’t they vote?
The 3 million voters are the so-called middle- (or high-) class
Negroes, referred to by Howard University Sociology Professor E.
Franklin Frazier, as the “BLACK BOURGEOISIE,” who have been educated
to think as patriotic individualists, with no racial pride ... who
believe in, and look forward to, the future “integrated-intermarried”
society promised them by the Negro politicians ... and therefore,
this “integration-minded” 3 million remain an active part of the
white-controlled political parties. But it must never be overlooked,
that these 3 million integration seekers are only a small minority of
the 11 million qualified voters.
The 8 million non-voting Negroes are the majority, the downtrodden
black masses. They have refused to vote, or to take part in politics,
because they reject the Uncle Tom approach of the “clergy-politician”
leadership that has been hand-picked for the American Negroes by the
white man himself.
The clergy-politician leadership does not speak for the Negro majority;
they don’t speak for the black masses. They speak for the “BLACK
BOURGEOISIE,” the “brainwashed” (white-minded) middle-class minority
... who, because they are ashamed of black, and don’t want to be
identified with black or as being black, are seeking to lose this
“identity” by mingling, mixing, intermarrying, and integration with the
white man.
The race problem cannot be solved by listening to this white-minded
(brainwashed) minority. The white man must try to learn what does
the majority want. The next President would be wise to try and learn
what the black masses want. And, the only way to find this out is by
listening to the man who speaks for the black masses of America.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account