by Yvette Moore
New York City schools were not racially segregated by law as in the South, but they were in reality because neighborhoods were racially segregated by seemingly unrelated policies.
More than 450,000 Black and Puerto Rican students observed the boycott and instead attended protests and “Freedom Schools” in church fellowship halls and community centers around the city. Malcolm X, recently disaffiliated from the Nation of Islam, promoted separation not integration.
He still held to the Nation of Islam’s basic teachings, but he wanted to work with other Black people and groups on our people’s problems. He attended the action as an observer.
The students in the story are familiar with Malcolm X because he is often in the news, but they still had questions for him. In this scene, the students get to ask some of those questions.
Introduction
El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X, was an African American activist who fought for justice for Black people.
He was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, May 19, 1925. His father, Earl Little, a Baptist minister from Georgia, and his Grenada-born mother Louise Helen Norton Little, were both local leaders in Marcus Garvey ‘s Universal Negro Improvement Association, which advocated for Black Americans to move to Africa.
In his autobiography, Malcolm X details how his parents’ activism drew the ire of a local Klan-like group that harassed the family, set their house on fire, and killed his father. His mother struggled financially and mentally to care for the children after the death of her husband. Consequently, Malcolm spent much of his adolescent years in foster care and juvenile detention centers. He does well in middle school and is elected president of his 8th grade class and aspires to be a lawyer.
As a young adult, he lived in New York City and in Boston and got involved in illegal activities. He converted to Islam while in prison on a burglary offense. He changed his surname to “X” to indicate that his true last name was unknown since Little had been the name of an enslaver.
Shortly after his release from prison in 1952, Malcolm X became a minister in the Nation of Islam, serving in several cities before being appointed to head Temple #7 in Harlem.
Malcolm X is known for his compelling oratory and the charismatic leadership he provided for an alternative strategy for the African American struggle for equal rights in America. While the Civil Rights Movement, led in part by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., used nonviolent resistance tactics of protests, boycotts, and civil disobedience to unjust laws to desegregate and integrate Black people into every aspect of American life, Malcolm X advocated the Nation of Islam’s call for separation from White America, self-reliance, and self-defense.
The Civil Rights Movement focused on African Americans being able to access all civil rights due to them as U.S. citizens including the right to vote, equal protection under the law, and protection from discrimination.
Malcolm X emphasized African Americans’ human rights-universal rights that all people have by virtue of being alive, including the right live, move, provide for yourself and your family in safety, and the right of self-defense. Malcolm X saw Black Americans’ struggle for justice very much aligned with African nations’ struggles to throw off European colonial powers that controlled their countries, struggles that were underway in Africa during his lifetime.
Malcolm X and Black civil rights leaders both wanted freedom and justice for Black people but had different views on how these goals could be accomplished.
Malcolm X was assassinated February 21, 1965, in Harlem, NY, while giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom.
Read the Just Sketching Excerpt
Have students sit in small groups of 4-5 students. Give each student a copy of the Just Sketching excerpt and each group a copy of the Timeline of Malcolm X’s life from the resource section below.
Give students 5 minutes to read the except and another 5 to peruse the timeline of Malcolm X’s life.
Excerpted from Just Sketching
When School Boycott Day came, I still wasn’t crazy about the idea of being bused out of the neighborhood to integrate a school in another district-but my mother was, so I joined 450,000 other students around the city at “Freedom Schools’ in church fellowship halls like ours….By noon, we’d left the small children in classes at the church and were downtown Brooklyn in front of the New York City Board of Education headquarters with thousands of other protesters chanting, “Jim Crow Must Go!” and “Freedom Now!” …There were speakers, lots of them. Most we didn’t know, but that was fine because we were having out own conversations anyway.
“Whoa, is that Malcolm X over there?!” I said, pointing. …
“Yeah, that’s him! Mr. X! Hey, Mr. X!” George started yelling, and we joined him.
Malcolm X was walking toward the entrance to the Board of Education on Adams Street where a smaller group of adults were walking in a circular picket line while the thousand-plus crowd that we were in stood in place chanting. Well, we chanted when we weren’t laughing and talking and now trying to get Malcolm X’s attention.
“Mr. X what you doing here?!” George’s voice must have traveled over all the noise because Malcolm X walked over to us. George always did take Malcolm X’s side when the topic of civil rights came up, but we all cheered when he came over to us and shook our hands.
“So why are you here, Mr. X?” I asked. “This boycott is for public school desegregation.”
He was tall but without bending down or yelling he looked directly in my eyes and spoke so that I could hear him.
“This rally is for the good of the community, the good of the black community,” he said. “And anything that is good for the black community, the white man should realize is good for his community.”
“So, you want integration now too? You’re not a Muslim anymore?” Razz asked.
“All of you know I’m not an integrationist,” he said. “I am still a Muslim. My religion is Islam. I’m no longer affiliated with the Nation of Islam. Now that I have the independence of action, it’s my intention to work with everybody-or against everybody, whatever the case may be-to try to get some kind of immediate solution to the problems that are confronting our people. Whatever kind of action program can be devised to get us the things that are ours by right, I’m for that kind of action no matter what the action is.”
“Honestly, I don’t want to be bussed across town to school, I said.
He nodded, “I believe in separation.”
“I don’t know about all that, I just don’t want to go way across town to go to school-especially if they don’t want me there,” I said.
“Hhun, I have a right to be anywhere I want, wherever the school is,” Pat said.
“So why are you here?” George asked me.
“My parents said if you’re in the same class as white kids, you’ll get just what they’re giving their kids,” I said.
“When you’re living in a poor neighborhood, you’re living in an area where you have to have poor schools,” Malcolm X said. “When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get poor education. If you get a poor education, you’re destined to be a poor man and a woman for the rest of your life. With a poor education, you can only work on a poor paying job. And that poor-paying job enables you to live, again, in a poor neighborhood.
“So, it’s a very vicious cycle. That’s why your parents said that. That’s why they support this action. And that’s why I support it.”
“Mr. X, I like you because you say Negroes should get guns and protect ourselves,” George said, all loud and laughing as usual.
Malcolm X didn’t smile when he spoke.
“What you and I have to let the man know is that we’re a peaceful people. We’re a loving people. We love everybody who loves us-but we don’t love anybody who doesn’t love us. We’re nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us. But we’re not nonviolent with anyone who is violent with us,” he said. “Once those intentions are known, we can get to the root of the problem-and we can correct the problem.
“As for guns, America is based upon the right of people to organize for self-defense. It’s in the Constitution of the United States. The Second Amendment to the Constitutions spells out the right of people under this governmental system to have arms to defend themselves. Read it for yourself.
“I have to go now. After this, I’ve got to head uptown to the rally in Harlem. But I’m glad you, young people, are out here fighting for our community. You’re strong and brave and smart. We need you.”
He waved and walked toward the adults on the picket line. We all cheer him and yelled good-byes.
Discussion questions:
Why are the students surprised to see Malcolm X?
What did Sheryl and her friends ask Malcolm X and why?
Why did Malcolm X think the boycott was important?
What questions would you have asked Malcolm X if you were attending the boycotts?
If Malcolm X were alive today, what would you like to ask him?
Just Sketch
Throughout Just Sketching the protagonist Sheryl Williams grows as an artist as she sketches her community and seeks justice. Ask students to sketch something that they think is important-for good or ill-that they’ve seen in their community. Based on what they’ve learned about Malcolm X, what would he say about the issue they sketched?
Key words
Segregate (segregation)-to separate or set apart from others or from the general mass, insolate; to cause or force the separation of (as from the rest of society).
Desegregate (desegregation)-to eliminate segregation; to free of any law, provision, or practice requiring isolation of the members of a particular race or group in separate units.
Integrate (integration)-to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole, unite.
Boycott- to engage in a concerted refusal to have dealings with (a person, a store, an organization, etc.) usually to express disapproval or to force acceptance of certain conditions
Nonviolent resistance- The principle of non-violence – also known as non-violent resistance – rejects the use of physical violence to achieve social or political change.
Human Rights- Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.
Civil Rights- : rights that citizens are guaranteed by their government through legislation or other government action to ensure equal opportunities (as for employment, education, housing, or voting) and equal protection under the law regardless of personal characteristics such as race, religion, or sex, especially : the rights of personal liberty guaranteed to U.S. citizens by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution and by acts of Congress.
Resources
“A Timeline of Malcolm X’s Life,” American Experience,
“Malcolm Comments on the Boycotts,” New York City Civil Rights History.
“Feb. 3, 1964: New York City School Children Boycotts School,” The Zinn Education Project,
“New York City History: The 1964 Freedom Day in New York City,” Tenement Museum.
United Nations: International Day of Non-Violence,
United Nations: Human Rights,
Civil Rights
