On WBAI, Malcolm X and Mississippi Burning
WBAI recently broadcast a speech of Malcolm X using the term by any means necessary. WBAI is a listener supported radio station broadcasting on FM 99.1 in New York City and over the internet all over the world. He addressed the Mississippi Burning murders of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman.
On June 21, 1964, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, three Civil Rights Volunteers - James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman - neglected to report back before dusk. Volunteers staffing the Meridian home office of Congress of Federated Organizations (COFO) - the umbrella association of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) - expected that the young men had been kidnapped or even murdered.
At last, following a month and a half, the mystery was solved when a local informer gave the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) a tip as to the location of the bodies. Three Ku Klux Klan members had admitted to the FBI and related in detail how Klansmen - including law enforcement officers - had captured, killed, and eventually buriedx Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman 30 feet underneath an earthen dam on the edges of town. Three years after the homicides, seven men from Neshoba County and close by Lauderdale County were sentenced on Federal charges that they denied Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman their Civil Rights. Nonetheless, in spite of more than 44,000 pages of FBI documentation , there were no charges for homicide - a state charge that no Mississippi prosecutor would bring forward until 2005.
Though at the beginning of '64 we were told that our political rights would
be broadened, it was in 1964 that the two white civil-rights workers, working
with the black civil-rights worker, were murdered. They were trying to
show our people in Mississippi how to become registered voters. This was their
crime. This was the reason for which they were murdered.
And the most pitiful part about them being murdered was the civil-rights organizations
themselves being so chicken when it comes to reacting in the way that they should
have reacted to the murder of these three civil-rights workers. The civil-rights
groups sold those three brothers out—sold them out—sold them right down
the river. Because they died and what has been done about it? And what voice
is being raised every day today in regards to the murder of those three civil-rights
workers?
So this is why I say if we get involved in the civil-rights movement and go
to Mississippi, or anyplace else, to help our people get registered to vote,
we intend to go prepared. We don't intend to break the law, but when you're
trying to register to vote you're upholding the law. It's the one who tries
to prevent you from registering to vote who's breaking the law, and you've got
a right to protect yourself by any means necessary. And if the government doesn't
want civil-rights groups going equipped, the government should do its job.
Malcolm X refers to the three men as brothers. The two white men and the one black man. All as brothers. Media has often suggested that Malcolm X was racist. Was Malcolm X a racist? Not according to the speech above.
By any means necessary. We intend to go prepared. Zealot? Only if the law does not protect the people.
An obscure speech by Malcolm X, a deeper insight into his thinking. Made available by WBAI. The authentic voice of the people.
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