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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

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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