At its core, Malcolm’s message spoke to people of every rank: white people are not superior, and black people are not inferior. 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.
