MALCOLM X EXPLAINS HIS NAME

European colonisers have stripped much from African people, including our identities, so we take back our power by defining ourselves.

In this 1963 clip, Malcolm X corrected a white reporter who posed multiple questions about the legality of the name ‘Malcolm X.’ Through Malcolm’s insistence on his right to self-define, he laid out the brutal history of chattel slavery that denied Africans in the Americas the right to know their identities and family histories.

In some traditional African societies, griots, or oral historians, were responsible for remembering and sharing family bloodlines. They would often refer to individuals as ‘the son of … who was the son of …’ and on it went.

While Malcolm X’s family may have understood that the US system denied them the knowledge of their lineage, Malcolm could place himself in the lineage of a new tradition, Black radicalism.