Malcolm X: Down for the cause before the cause

“He reached a point in his life where he could not not speak the truth, and in a society where we’re still in the process of desegregation,” Dodson said.

“Black men who had the courage — the audacity, quite frankly — to speak their minds were perceived as a threat,” he said. “It’s interesting that he was seen as a purveyor of violence. There’s no instance that I’m aware of in his public life in which he initiated violence against anyone. But he was a proponent of the defensive position — strike back if stricken.”

Not so far apart
Dodson dismissed another old assumption: that Malcolm X and King, the civil rights leader perceived as more palatable both in message and method, were light years apart in their thinking.

“The tendency to create polar opposites, which is what media did at that time, doesn’t reflect the struggle,” Dodson said.

“Malcolm had shifted into a broader humanistic perspective, upgrading the position of black, Hispanic and native Americans,” he said. “But they were part and parcel of the same program. Malcolm said in so many words, ‘either you deal with Martin King or you deal with me.’"

For Ilyasah Shabazz, one of six daughters in the Shabazz household, relationships between the two leaders were both a matter of history and a family affair.

“In American history we have Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. Both men are embraced and respected for what they contributed as fathers of their country. Malcolm and Martin also both contributed, tremendously,” she said.

“It’s too bad that African-Americans often pit one against another. Both gave their lives for our cause and both contributed, however differently or similarly, and both gave their lives for what they believed in. Our families have always been close. We share the same pain and outlook on life and joys.”

Growing up Ilyasah
Like her illustrious father, Shabazz took pen in hand to make sense of her past. “Growing Up X” (One World/Ballantine), her 2002 self-described “coming of age memoir,” is at once a tribute to her mother, Dr. Betty Shabazz; an attempt to come to grips with the loss of a father in highly unnatural terms; and an expression of a life in the shadow of one of the 20th century’s most powerful voices.

Ilyasah Shabazz finds that the country has shifted some in its reception of messenger and message.

“America has certainly changed in its embrace of brotherhood, in being able to look at humanity and accepting the contributions of all of us. I don’t know how much it’s changed."

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