By
Ossie Davis
Mr. Davis wrote the following in response to a magazine editor's
question: Why did you eulogize Malcolm X?
You are not the only person curious to
know why I would eulogize a man like Malcolm X. Many who know and respect me
have written letters. Of these letters I
am proudest of those from a sixth grade class of white boys and girls who asked
me to explain. I appreciate your giving me this chance to do so.
You may anticipate my defense somewhat by
considering the following fact: no Negro has yet asked me that question. (My
pastor In Grace Baptist Church where I teach Sunday school preached a sermon
about Malcolm in which he called him a "giant in a sick world.")
Every one of the many letters I got from my own people lauded Malcolm as a man,
and commended me for having spoken at his funeral.
At the same time—and this is
important—most all of them took special pains to disagree with much or all of
what Malcolm said and what he stood for. That is, with one singing exception,
they all, every last, black, glory-
hugging one of them, knew that Malcolm—whatever
else he was or was not—Malcolm was a man!
White folks do not need anybody to remind
them that they are men. We do! This was his one incontrovertible benefit to his
people.
Protocol and common sense require that
Negroes stand back and let the white man speak up for us, defend us, and lead
us from behind the scene in our fight. This is the essence of Negro politics.
But Malcolm said to hell with that! Get up off your knees and fight your own
battles. That’s the way to win back your self-respect. That's the way to make
the white man respect you. And if he won't let you live like a man, he
certainly can’t let you keep you from dying like one!
Malcolm, as you can see, was refreshing
excitement; he scared the hell out of the rest of us, bred as we are to
caution, to hypocrisy in the presence of white folks, to the smile that never
fades. Malcolm knew that every white man in
He also knew that every Negro who did not
challenge on the spt every instance of-racism, overt
or covert, committed against him and his people, who chose instead to swallow
his spit and go on smiling, was an Uncle Tom and a traitor, without balls or
guts, or any other commonly accepted aspects of manhood!
Now, we knew all these things as well as
Malcolm did, but we also knew what happened to people who stick their necks out
and say them. And if all the lies we tell ourselves by way of extenuation were
put into print, it would constitute one of the great chapters in the history of
man’s justifiable cowardice in the face of other men.
But Malcolm kept
snatching our lies away. He kept shouting the painful truth we whites and
blacks did not want to hear from all the housetops. And he wouldn't stop for
love nor money.
You can imagine what a howling, shocking
nuisance this man was to both Negroes and whites. Once Malcolm fastened on you,
you could not escape. He was one of the most fascinating and charming men I
have ever met, and never hesitated to take his attractiveness and beat you to
death with it. Yet his irritation, though painful to us, was most salutary. He
would make you angry as hell, but he would also make you proud. It was
impossible to remain defensive and apologetic about being a Negro in his
presence. He wouldn't let you. And you always left his presence with the sneaky
suspicion that maybe, after all, you were a man!
But in explaining Malcolm, let me take
care not to explain him away. He had been a criminal, an addict, a pimp, and a
prisoner; a racist, and a hater, he had really believed the, white man was a
devil. But all this had changed. Two days before his death, in commenting to
Gordon Parks about his past life he said: "That was a mad scene. The
sickness and madness of those days! I'm glad to be free of them."
And Malcolm was free. No one who knew him
before and after his trip to
And most of all, in the area of race
relations, he still delighted in twisting the white man's tail, and in making
Uncle Toms, compromisers, and accommodationists—I
deliberately include myself—thoroughly ashamed of the urbane and smiling hypocrisy
we practice merely to exist in a world whose values we both envy and despise.
But even had Malcolm not changed, he would
still have been a relevant figure on the American scene, standing in relation
as he does, to the "responsible" civil rights leaders, just about
where John Brown stood in relation to the "responsible" abolitionist
in the fight against slavery. Almost all disagreed with Brown's mad and
fanatical tactics which led him foolishly to attack a Federal arsenal at
Yet, today the world, and especially the
Negro people, proclaim Brown not a traitor, but a hero and a martyr in a noble
cause. So in future, I will not be surprised if men come to see that Malcolm X
was, within his own limitations, and in his own inimitable style, also a martyr
in that cause.
But there is much controversy still about
this most controversial American, and I am content to wait for history to make
the final decision.
But in personal judgment, there is no
appeal from instinct, I knew the man personally, and however much I disagreed
with him, I never doubted that Malcolm X, even when he was wrong, was always
the rarest thing in the world among us Negroes: a true man.
And if, to protect my relations with the
many good white folks who make it possible for me to earn a fairly good living
in the entertainment industry, I was too chicken, too cautious, to admit that
fact while he was alive, I thought at least that now, when all the white folks
are safe from him at last, I could be honest with myself enough to lift my hat
for one final salute to that brave, black, ironic gallantry, which was his
style and hallmark, that shocking zing
of fire-and-be-damned-to-you, so absolutely absent in every other Negro man I
know, which brought him, too soon, to his death.
*Ossie Davis in The
Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley and Malcolm X. Copyright © 1964 by
Alex Haley and Malcolm X. Copyright © 1965 by Alex Haley and Betty Shabazz, Reprinted by permission of Random House. Inc. and Ossie Davis. Mr, Davis was one of the speakers at the funeral of Malcolm
X.