Bilal Ibn Rabah in the Black Religious Tradition

Malcolm X

In the last interview of Malcolm X’s life prior to his assassination, he announced his intentions to establish Islamic centers throughout black community. This agenda of Malcolm X is questioned by the interviewer who asks:

Is it true that even after your breakaway from Elijah Muhammad you still hold the black color as a main base and dogma for your drive under the banner of liberation in the United States?”

Contradicting widespread misconceptions that Malcolm X became a liberal multiculturalist after departure from the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X stated, “As a Black American I do feel that my first responsibility is to my twenty-two million fellow Black Americans who suffer the same indignities because of their color as I do.”

Malcolm X even goes so far as to criticize the Muslim world for their failure to address the problems of black people, stating that ”the Muslim world has seemed to ignore the problem of the Black American, and most Muslims who come here from the Muslim world have concentrated more effort in trying to convert white Americans than Black Americans.”

He then deploys Bilal to defend his focus on the black community, in a rhetorical question. “Was it not Bilal, the Black Ethiopian, who was [one of] the first to receive the seed of Islam from the Prophet himself in Arabia 1,400 years ago?” In Malcolm X’s vision, Black Americans were more receptive of Islam than other communities justifying his efforts there.

Next: Imam Warith Deen Muhammad