Malcolm X: The Pragmatic Nationalist

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Chapter: Introduction:
Over the years, much has been written on Malcolm X, most particularly the last year of his life. The period extending from 12 March 1964, the date he officially announced his split from the Nation of Islam, to 21 February 1965, when he was assassinated, has attracted the most attention due to its political significance. The change in Malcolm X brought about by the split was both secular and religious. During the last year of his life, Malcolm s critique of the American social, political, economic structures was incisive as he identified and tried to solve the central problems facing the African-American community. Adopting a pragmatic position, Malcolm formulated conceptual strategies which he believed would help to bring an end to oppression. Central to this was his strategic use of race to unite African-American initially and then the oppressed people in the world. Race was used as a strategy with the aim to abolish racial oppression. The literature devoted to Malcolm s last year is both diverse and enriching. The scholarship which will be discussed in the following paragraphs either deals with how the domestic and international dimensions of Malcolm s thinking are linked or some of the domestic factors which shaped Malcolm s global perspective.
George Breitman was among the most prolific scholars writing on Malcolm X during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In line with his own socialist leaning, Breitman, in The Last Year of Malcolm X, explores Malcolm s links to the left, and posits that after his break from the Nation of Islam, Malcolm became increasingly pro-socialist and anti-capitalist. Breitman highlights the fact that the change in Malcolm s approach to the black struggle in the United States, his political involvement in particular, upset white supremacists who believed that the new Malcolm could pose a greater threat to the status quo than the Black Muslim Malcolm. Although Breitman identifies black unity as a

The author graduated with a BA (Hons) English degree from the University of Mauritius. His undergraduate dissertation focused on Native Americans and their relationship to the land. After that, he took an MA in American Studies at the University of Manchester where his thesis considered the African-Americans differing ideological struggles in the Civil Rights Movement.