Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

NARRATOR: To make his message clear, Malcolm used his own life as a lesson for all black Americans. He preached it in fables and parables, and later, in writing his autobiography with Alex Haley, he sought some control over how his life would be interpreted in the future.

ALEX HALEY: I would be rather taken by a statement he would make of himself. He would say, "I am a part of all I have met," and by that he meant that all the things he had done in his earlier life had exposed him to things, had taught him skills of one or another sort, all of which had synthesized into the Malcolm who became the spokesman for the Nation of Islam.

MR. HURLBURT: You were born in Omaha, is that right?

MALCOLM X: Yes, sir.

MR. HURLBURT: And you left — your family left Omaha when you were about one year old?

MALCOLM X: I imagine about a year old.

MR. HURLBURT: And why did they leave Omaha?

MALCOLM X: Well, to my understanding the Ku Klux Klan burned down one of their homes in Omaha. There’s a lot of Ku Klux Klan—

MR. HURLBURT: This made your family feel very unhappy, I’m sure.

MALCOLM X: Well, insecure, if not unhappy.

MR. HURLBURT: So you must have a somewhat prejudiced point of view, a personally prejudiced point of view. In other words, you cannot look at this in a broad, academic sort of way, really, can you?

MALCOLM X: I think that’s incorrect, because despite the fact that that happened in Omaha, and then when we moved to Lansing, Michigan, our home was burned down again. In fact, my father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, and despite all of that, no one was more thoroughly integrated with whites than I. No one has lived more so in the society of whites than I.

much more ......

Malcolm X: Make it Plain, documentary produced and directed by Orlando Bagwell and aired on the PBS series American Experience.
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/5/19/malcolm_x_make_it_plain

In a way..I'm ecstatic that Malcom never had to 'know' clarence....but maybe IF Malcom had still been around we would not have had a clarence on the court ... can you imagine? ..Malcom giving clarence (not by name of course ) hell about all those girls he took advantage of ? Malcom would have sliced and diced him in his way .. .and clarence would have stepped down and become a bad joke. Which he is .