malcolm x

The Editors 12-01-2020
The left photo is of Christina Cleveland posing in a green dress with her hands folded. In the right photo, Black civil rights activists are gathered in a bar, a scene from the film 'One Night in Miami.'

A Change is Gonna Come

Regina King’s film One Night in Miami is a reflective depiction of Black excellence and the crossroads faced by a generation’s luminaries. Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke consider their callings in this intimate imagining of a night that actually happened. Amazon Studios.

A Way Forward

From Seneca Falls to Stonewall to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons maps the traditions of progressive Christian activism in the U.S. A healing balm and a mobilizing guide, Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity invites readers to the co-creation of a just world. Broadleaf Books.

Ryan Herring 2-21-2016

Image via 'Vanguard of the Revolution'/Facebook

The similarities between 1966 and 2016 are frightening. Vanguard of the Revolution serves as a stark reminder that not much has changed in this country for black Americans. But we are here, and we are still fighting, despite knowing the full extent to which the American Empire will go to silence black outrage and destroy black unity. That should make us the vanguards of hope.

Lisa Sharon Harper 7-16-2015
book of genesis

Hand scanning the Book of Genesis. Suzanne Tucker / Shutterstock.com

I didn’t see the film Malcolm X in theaters. I waited to see it on video. Big mistake.

I watched it in my home, just off campus from University of Southern California, late at night when everyone else was sleeping. Another big mistake.

At the time I was living in a house with one other black person and a bunch of white and Asian friends. I was attending a mostly white school and a mostly white church and had attended a mostly white institute for urban transformation that was borne out of my church. Ironically, it was there that I was required to read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. But I never read the whole thing, only sections.

So, I sat in the dark living room, lit only by the television screen, and watched Denzel Washington bring Malcolm X to life … by myself. And there, in the dark, Malcolm’s words about Jesus hit me to the core.

Susanne Cervenka 2-18-2015
Photo via RNS

Photo via RNS

Rodnell Collins stood next to his uncle, Malcolm X, as the latter stared thoughtfully at Plymouth Rock during a visit to Massachusetts when Collins was a child.

It wasn’t until years later that Collins, the son of Malcolm’s sister, Ella Little Collins, would learn what his uncle was thinking: “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us.”

Malcolm X, the African-American nationalist leader and onetime minister of the Nation of Islam who was assassinated 50 years ago Feb. 21, inspired countless people with the frank and uncompromising way he spoke about race relations in America. And much of what he said about the experiences of black Americans remains true today, experts say.

Yet, while other civil rights leaders of the 1950s and ’60s are more broadly celebrated as American heroes, the fire with which Malcolm X spoke still overpowers the words he was saying.

QR Blog Editor 6-02-2014

Yuri Kochiyama, a Japanese-American human rights activist, died on Sunday at the age of 93. Kochiyama's family was among those Japanese-Americans interned by the United States during World War II.

NPR reports on her work:

Living in housing projects among black and Puerto Rican neighbors inspired her interest in the civil rights movement. Kochiyama held weekly open houses for activists in the family's apartment, where she taped newspaper clippings to the walls and kept piles of leaflets on the kitchen table. "Our house felt like it was the movement 24/7," said her eldest daughter Audee Kochiyama-Holman.

Kochiyama is also known for rushing towards Malcom X after his assination, where she appeared images of the incident, according to NPR:

Minutes after gunmen fired at Malcolm X in 1965 during his last speech in New York City, she rushed towards him and cradled his head on her lap. A black-and-white photo in Life magazine shows Kochiyama peering worriedly through horn-rimmed glasses at Malcolm X's bullet-riddled body.

Rev. Billy Talen 8-10-2011

The Christianized Jesus -- the turning of a radical into a conservative shadow of his former self -- explains our problem of establishing and celebrating freedom fighters today. It is important that our progressive heroes be given their deserved fame, an accurately reported fame, and this is crucial in ways that impact our own activism.

Jesus of Nazareth was not a Peak Performance Strategist as the prosperity preachers would have it. Nor was he a foreigner-hating patriot as the tea party would argue. Obviously American politicians and their lobbyists pursue so many policies that are against the teachings of Jesus but are supported by mainstream Christian opinion. In fact, Jesus' parables and sayings push the spiritual revolution of gift economies, and of justice through radical forgiveness.

When we think about world events, we often think about them in relation to larger-than-life people -- the leaders of nations or of revolutions.
Jonny 5 5-04-2010

About a year ago, when we were writing our song "White Flag Warrior," my friend (and fellow frontman) Stephen and I had quite a conversation. We talked about Leonard Cohen's song "Story of Isaac" and about Kierkegaard's multiple interpretations of Genesis 22, about Malcolm X challenging MLK Jr.

Seth Naicker 6-02-2009
Homecoming is on my mind in this day and this hour.
Seth Naicker 5-19-2009
In this hour, amongst everything else that is on my mind, I am mindful of the 19th of May, 2009, marking the birthday of a mystic activist and voice of justice.