USA: Why does Malcolm X not have a federal holiday named after him?
By Peter Topping
January 21, 2017
As a foreigner living in the US in the 80s, I sought to understand this fact. Basically, this is my view as American seemed hopeless and myopic when it came to explaining this fact. Even though it was in the 80s and two decades had passed. What prompted me to investigate was I was in New York City working in the village at a time when Public Enemy burst onto the scene. I could tell it was a landmark cultural moment. A few years previous I had heard "Indeep - Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtfZbj4J71A ) and I knew things were going on in America.
Malcom X was seen as a divisive character as opposed to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who was a uniting character.
Malcom X alienated many Americans whereas King sought to include them and seek common cause even when they hated him.
King used the "good book", the Bible a lot of the time as a moral vehicle and this is something many, Americans could relate to. Malcolm X used the language or 60s revolution and what was then called a very "American Islam" in his narrative, which the American mainstream found alienating.
King wanted African Americans to be a part of the American mainstream, equal, regardless of their color. Malcom X sought difference but also equality like King, but his vision was for African Americans in a more separate and standalone stream of the American Culture. He was to a large extent rejectionist and rejected the mainstream American culture for African Americans as inauthentic. He was looking for a more pure and unique expression of the African American culture.
Their approaches were starkly different, King sought to build a movement through dignified protest in the Gandhi-esque model whereas Malcom X was more militant and kick ass. He did not step back from confrontation when it there. He had a view common to many on the left in those days where violence was inevitable and a tool for revolutionary change.
Americans have a bipolar relationship with the revolution. They like and accept, their own and its child, the French Revolution, and by large as a culture and society, they are anti-revolution and disruptive change.
So Dr. King has a federal holiday named after him and is a widely accepted American hero of social change. It is America. So, if you get why Run-DMC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-DMC ) was acceptable to mainstream America but Public Enemy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PaoLy7PHwk ) was seen as just, then you will get the reason why Dr. King has a day and Malcom X doesn't.
Source:
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Malcolm-X-not-have-a-federal-holiday-named-after-him
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"Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate. Only Love Can Do That", Dr. Martin Luther King.
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Posted by: Nzinink <nzinink@yahoo.com>
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