The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

by Les Payne

The U.S. government essentially ran a two-tier program, encouraging a permanent Negro underclass of renters while operating the FHA-backed suburban home ownership program to stimulate a dramatic growth of the white middle class.

While it could be said that King dedicated his lifework to hammering away at the segregator’s “false sense of superiority,” Malcolm, under the influence of Elijah Muhammad, worked single-mindedly to help Negroes, the segregated, overcome their “false sense of inferiority.”

While black people have been conditioned by generations of oppression to feel a false sense of inferiority, Malcolm’s core messaging provides tools to move from this self-loathing to self-acceptance with the hope of redirecting oppressed people’s energy toward self-determination and community success. He reframed the oppression of black Americans from a civil rights issue to a human rights issue.