Macolm X (2020) Painting by Erdna Andre

Acrylic painting on canvas. On June 28, 1964, Malcolm X spoke at the founding rally of the Organization of African-American Unity in New York. He called for freedom, justice and equality “by any means necessary” That's our motto. We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary. We don't feel that in 1964, living in a country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and supposedly the leader of the free world, we don't think that we should have to sit around and wait for some segregationist congressmen and senators and a President from Texas in Washington, DC, to make up their minds that our people are due now some degree of civil rights. No, we want it now or we don't think anybody should have it. Paul Sartre, where the two main characters say: Hoederer: It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lying: it is by using all means to suppress classes. Hugo: Not all means are good. Hoederer: All means are good when they are effective. Jean-Paul Sartre used the formula first in his 1963 play, “Les Mains Sales”. Malcolm X, during the last year of his life, used it in turn in 1965, introducing "By any means necessary" into the popular lexicon. Jean-Paul Sartre and Malcolm X used this phrase in the context of granting/restoring rights to people from whom they had been taken away. Whether it's class, race or both. Everyone is entitled to certain rights and obstacles to these must be removed by any means necessary; this often meant including violence if no other means sufficed.

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Malcolm XHomme NoirBlackActiviste