Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Malcolm X’s revolutionary truth endures
Sixty years after his murder, it is up to all of us to defy ruling-class attempts to sanitise or distort his revolutionary legacy by upholding his deep understanding of capitalism’s ties to racism and empire, writes ISAAC SANEY
Malcolm X, the militant leader and former member of the Nation of Islam, at the BBC's Broadcasting House, London, to record an interview for the Third Programme series "The Negro in America,” December 1964
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FEBRUARY 2025 marked the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, who later took the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz after his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964.
As a revolutionary internationalist and a leader of the black liberation struggle, Malcolm X shaped and influenced a generation of black activists, artists, revolutionaries and intellectuals. His impact has been profound and lasting. The assassination’s anniversary is, therefore, a time for serious contemplation of his living legacy.
While alive, Malcolm X faced an unrelenting vilification from the ruling circles; in death, the same forces that denounced him attempt to transform him into a benign symbol palatable to imperialist and neoliberal palates. He is now praised by those same powers that once condemned him. As Lenin poignantly noted in The State and Revolution:
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