The Autobiography of Malcolm X

by Malcolm X

black “Liberal”…when a ten-million black vote bloc could be the deciding balance of power in American politics, because the white man’s vote is almost always evenly divided. The polls are one place where every black man could fight the black man’s cause with dignity, and with the power and the tools that the white man understands, and respects, and fears, and cooperates with. Listen, let me tell you something! If a black bloc committee told Washington’s worst “nigger-hater,” “We represent ten million votes,” why, that “nigger-hater” would leap up: “Well, how are you? Come on in here!” Why, if the Mississippi black man voted in a bloc, Eastland would pretend to be more liberal than Jacob Javits—or Eastland would not survive in his office. Why else is it that racist politicians fight to keep black men from the polls? Whenever any group can vote in a bloc, and decide the outcome of elections, and it fails to do this, then that group is politically sick. Immigrants once made Tammany Hall the most powerful single force in American politics. In 1880, New York City’s first Irish Catholic Mayor was elected and by 1960 America had its first Irish Catholic President. America’s black man, voting as a bloc, could wield an even more powerful force.

How black people should vote