FROM:
MALCOLM, MARTIN and THE CARE OF SOULS
a Sermon by Rev. Bob delivered at UUCP February 27, 2000.
“When I ... walked ... in Pensacola on Martin Luther King’s birthday
...I felt hypocritical singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” sometimes
called "the Negro National Anthem ... It seemed an insult to my hosts and
hostesses for me to sing that song.... I question my right to a sentimental
identification with oppressed peoples – “black” folk, that people
who were “white” like me” kept, and to an intolerable extent,
still keep – in bondage.
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The competing visions that Malcolm and Martin symbolized in their days on earth
stand before us. One vision says two “nations” one "black"
one “white” sharing one piece of the earth, growing more equal economically
but growing more separate in culture every year. That vision is todayidentified
with Louis Farrakhan. The other vision: one integrated nation; a rainbow of
colors that “judges persons by the quality of their character not by the
color of their skin” .... I, like you, am committed to the latter vision
- as was Martin Luther King, Jr. - as was Malcolm X by the timehe was assassinated.
When Malcolm X ceased being a spokesman for Elijah Muhammad and the institution
Elijah Muhammad headed, he became an internationally admired leader of Islam
in America He began preaching brotherhood without regard to race or national
differences and respect for Judaism and Christianity, the other “religions
of the book” ....Three months after he formed his Orthodox
Mosque, he founded another organization: the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
Two weeks later he addressed the African Summit Conference. He appealed to the
delegates of the thirty-four African nations attending to bring before the United
Nations the plight of the twenty-two million people of African descent living
in the United States .... In September , October and November of 1964 Malcolm
visited eleven African nations, talked with their heads of state and addressed
most of their parliaments. He had moved beyond the ideology of racial separatism
and become an Islamic spokesman for African Americans as Martin Luther King
was a Christian spokesman for African Americans. And they began to come together
in their thinking about strategies for social change
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Two weeks before his death Malcolm ... addressed the First Congress of the Council
of African American Organizations. ... Five days later his house was bombed.
On February 16, 1965 he delivered the speech from which I’ve just quoted.
Five days later Malcolm was assassinated. …
We honor Martin Luther King because UU’s from all over the country rallied
to his cause in Selma when Jim Reeb was killed. But I think in addition to honoring
Martin Luther King we should honor “Malcolm X” as well.... it seems
pretty clear to me that both Malcolm and Martin were assassinated when their
activities moved beyond agitation for Civil Rights within the United States
into agitation for Human rights on a global scale. In the case of Malcolm it
was his attempt to get an incitement in the United Nation’s General Assembly
of America’s treatment of it’s "black" citizens. [Martin]
crossed the forbidden line when he took the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
into the anti Vietnam War movement. ... I am convinced that the very same people
who orchestrated the Assassination of Malcolm X orchestrated the assassination
of Martin Luther King and even today work to demonize Malcolm’s memory.
Despite the magnificent film by Spike Lee most Americans, "black"
and white identify Malcolm with [Louis Farrakhan] the talented promoter of the
racist message of Elijah Mohammed. This despite the fact that most African American
Muslims despise Louis Farrakhan the media promote him as their spokesman.
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go to uucp.faithweb.org for complete text.
Rev. Bob’s sermon on February 24, 2002 will honor el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz
(better known as Malcolm X). With an exploration of the “reparations controversy”
titled “Forty Acres and a Mule?”