Misunderstood and Misused

Happy Birthday Brother Malcolm

Today marks 101 years since the birth of Malcolm X — one of the most intentionally misunderstood Black political thinkers in American history.

America spent decades reducing Malcolm to a caricature because the truth of who he was remains threatening. They taught generations to associate him only with rage while ignoring his intellectual clarity, political analysis, global consciousness, and deep understanding of how narratives shape power.

One of the greatest false narratives ever told about Malcolm is that he preached hate. In reality, Malcolm consistently spoke about political education, self-determination, dignity, truth-telling, and the necessity of Black people understanding ourselves and each other outside of the distortions imposed by white supremacy.

As Malcolm said:

“Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past. Therefore, we need enlightenment. We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity. Once we have more knowledge (light) about each other, we will stop condemning each other and a United front will be brought about.”

That quote alone dismantles so much of the mythology built around him. The American education system and most mainstream portrayals of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm have been simplistic and sanitizing.

Malcolm was consistently growing in a way that allowed him to not only champion his own people’s plight more effectively but to tackle a broader set of interconnected issues. And while history seems to posit Malcolm as his polar opposite, Dr. King had begun to articulate many of the same positions that made Malcolm so unpopular.

And it feels especially relevant right now.

Because the same systems that redraw political maps to dilute Black voting power also work to distort Black political memory. Gerrymandering is not just about geography. It is about fragmentation. Isolation. Preventing solidarity. Preventing unified political power— especially in places where Black communities have built enough organizing strength to influence policy, budgets, prosecutors, school boards, judges, and congressional representation.

And narrative distortion works the same way. If people can be taught a false version of Malcolm, they can be taught a false version of Black resistance, Black communities, Black political demands, and even Black history itself.

That is why owning our stories matters. Because narrative is power. Memory is power. And Malcolm understood that liberation required both political consciousness and the courage to define ourselves instead of accepting the definitions handed to us.

In the words of the great James Baldwin, “As concerns Malcolm and Martin, I watched two men, coming from unimaginably different backgrounds, whose positions, originally, were poles apart, driven closer and closer together. By the time each died, their positions had become virtually the same position. It can be said, indeed, that Martin picked up Malcolm’s burden, articulated the vision which Malcolm had begun to see, and for which he paid with his life. And that Malcolm was one of the people Martin saw on the mountaintop.”

Happy Heavenly 101st Birthday, Malcolm X.