Feb. 21st marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. Several hundred people gathered in Harlem at the Audubon Ballroom, the site of his assassination, both to mourn his untimely death, and celebrate his enduring legacy.
Despite the gathering — and the fact that it is Black History Month, a time when America’s major political parties often make appeals to the black community — few politicians commemorated the event.
Could not the Republicans find it in their hearts to pay respect to a fallen family man, with a deep commitment to religious values? A man who openly exercised his Second Amendment rights? A man who once even referred to black Democrats as “political chumps”?
Could not the Democrats, always hungry to give lip service to social justice, pay homage to a man who openly and defiantly opposed war, colonialism, and racism? A man who rose above struggles against discrimination, poverty, substance abuse, and sectarianism, and went on to become one of the greatest civil rights leaders in American history?
It is of course precisely because of the complexity of his life, and the militancy of his views that make Malcolm X as much of a pariah to America’s white power structure of today as he was in his own time. The very mention of his name is taken as a threat by a white America that likes to believe that racism has ended, even in the face of continued police murders of black youth, a rise in black poverty, and a booming prison-industrial complex that specifically targets black people.
One could take some solace in the fact that the man who derided what he called the “American nightmare” and said that “I’m not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American, and got sense enough to know it”, would not want the phony praise or recognition of the people who still perpetrate that nightmare. It is precisely for that reason however, that those who would rather see him forgotten, must at least be made to remember him.

Maxwell Sharp is a Tower staff writer. Email him at maxwellcsharp(at)gmail(dot)com