"Malcolm X asked a very important question years ago, which I did not quite hear at that moment. We were doing a radio program with young students in 1961 when there were the two poles in America, Black Muslims on one hand, and the very beginning of the student sit-ins on the other. And I was there as moderator, because it was Malcolm and the students who were talking. And Malcolm was very good with a kid when he said: "If you are a citizen, why do you fight for your civil rights? If you are a citizen, you have civil rights. If you don't have them, you are not a citizen." Very harshly put, but absolutely correct. Therefore, the Civil Rights Movement is a misnomer in a sense. It clarifies matters at least for me to think of it as the last slave rebellion, for that is what it was. The last slave uprising, and the very last time that the American black people, who are no longer alone as they were even twenty years ago, will petition the American government. (1980)"
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Activists from the United StatesSpiritual teachersCivil rights activistsHuman rights activistsPeople from Omaha
Original Language: English
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