by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary on MARCH 20, 2015:
February 21, 2015 marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of one of the most iconic leaders of the 20th century, Malcolm X El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. His life — as a black figure, as a Muslim figure, and as an international figure — and legacy have gotten widespread media and scholarly attention.
There are many academic Malcolm X representations, readings, and interpretations, and with many great figures in human history, their legacy is more and something other than that great person’s biography.
Said Duke Islamic Studies Center Director Omid Safi: “We are living through the 50th anniversary of many of the monumental events in the history of the civil rights movement. The protests in Ferguson, New York and elsewhere tell us that issues of racism, brutality, poverty and militarism are still with us.”
A national conference on “The Legacy of Malcolm X: Afro-American Visionary, Muslim Activist” was held on 2/20/15 and 2/21/15 at Duke and UNC — co-organized by Safi, UNC-Chapel Hill Islamic Studies professor Juliane Hammer, and African & African American Studies professor and host of Left of Black Mark Anthony Neal.
“Our aim is to commemorate his life, his thought and his unique contributions to struggles for justice, recognition and change in a world he experienced as both a challenge and a promise,” said Hammer.
The conference was sponsored by the Duke Islamic Studies Center. Cosponsors included the Asian & Middle Eastern Studies (Duke University), Department of Religious Studies (Duke University), African and African American Studies (Duke University), and the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations (UNC-Chapel Hill).
Conference participants included Safi; Hammer; Neal; William Chafe (Emeritus, Duke); William “Sandy” Darity (Duke); Michael Muhammad Knight (UNC Chapel Hill); Hisham Aidi (Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs), Maytha Alhassen (University of Southern California), Zaheer Ali (CUNY, Columbia University, Malcolm X Project), Abbas Barzegar (Georgia State University), Sohail Daulatzai (University of California-Irvine), William “Bill” Hart (University of North Carolina-Greensboro), and Jamillah Karim (author).
VIDEOS OF THE CONFERENCE SESSIONS/DAY 1 (2/20/15):
The Legacy of Malcolm X: Opening Remarks by Omid Safi and Juliane Hammer
Omid Safi is Director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center and professor, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies at Duke. A specialist in classical Islam and contemporary Islamic thought, Safi’s research on American Muslims; Prophet Muhammad and the Qur’an; debates in contemporary Islam; and Sufism and Persian literature has been published in academic publications. Omid is the editor of the volume “Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism,” which offered an understanding of Islam rooted in social justice, gender equality, and religious and ethnic pluralism. His works “Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam,” dealing with medieval Islamic history and politics, and “Voices of Islam: Voices of Change” were published 2006. His last book, “Memories of Muhammad,” deals with the biography and legacy of the Prophet Muhammad. He has forthcoming volumes on the famed mystic Rumi, contemporary Islamic debates in Iran, and American Islam.
Juliane Hammer is Associate Professor and Kenan Rifai Scholar in Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She specializes in the study of American Muslims, contemporary Muslim thought, women and gender in Islam, and Sufism. She is the author of “Palestinians Born in Exile: Diaspora and the Search for a Homeland” (2005) and “American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than a Prayer” (2012), as well as the co-editor of “A Jihad for Justice” (with Kecia Ali and Laury Silvers, 2012) and the “Cambridge Companion to American Islam” (with Omid Safi, 2013). She is currently working on a book project focusing on American Muslim efforts against domestic violence, and on a larger project exploring American Muslim discourses on marriage, family, and sexuality.
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PANEL ON “THE GLOBAL MALCOLM”
Hisham Aidi on “Du Bois, Ghana, and Cairo Jazz: The Geo-Politics of Malcolm X”
Aidi’s presentation discusses Malcolm X’s sojourn in Egypt and Ghana in 1964, his engagement with local cultural and political movements, and with the African American expatriate communities of Cairo and Accra that were, in the words of Julian Mayfield, trying to forge a Black Aesthetic for the cause of Black Liberation. This presentation also examines how fifty years after his death, Malcolm X has become central to Muslim youth movements and to debates about integration and radicalization in Europe.
Hisham Aidi teaches political science and African Studies at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is the author of “Redeploying the State” (Palgrave 2008) a comparative study of neo-liberalism and labor movements in Latin America; and co-editor, with Manning Marable, of “Black Routes to Islam” (Palgrave 2009). From 1999-2003, he was part of Harvard University’s Encarta Africana project, and worked as a cultural reporter, covering Harlem and the Bronx, for “Africana.com,” “The New African” and “ColorLines.” More recently, his work has appeared in “The Atlantic,” “Foreign Affairs,” “The New Yorker” and “Salon.” Since 2007, he has been a contributing editor of “Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Culture, Politics and Society.” Aidi is the author most recently of “Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture” (Pantheon 2014), a study of American cultural diplomacy. He tweets @UptownBerber.
Sohail Daulatzai on “Malcolm X: The Martyr That Upsets the Peace”
Malcolm X continues to haunt. From the racial liberalism of the Cold War to the imperial multiculturalism of the “War on Terror,” this talk explores the meaning and implications of Malcolm’s recurrent presence within the culture and politics of U.S race craft. From his challenge to the Cold War and Civil Rights in the era of Third World decolonization, to his re-emergence within hip-hop culture in the Reagan-Bush-Clinton era that coincided with the end of the Cold War, the emergence of the “culture wars,” and the rise of Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” thesis, to his relevance in the post-9/11 climate and elections of Obama, Malcolm X has been an enduring reminder, the martyr that upsets the peace.
Sohail Daulatzai is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies and the Program in African American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International” and “Black Freedom beyond America.” He is co-editor of Born to Use Mics, a literary remix of Nas’s album Illmatic. He is the curator of the exhibit Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop, and editor of the limited edition, companion commemorative book of the same name, which includes an interview with Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def), essays by Chuck D and Sohail Daulatzai, the work of Jamel Shabazz, Ernie Paniccioli, and others, as well as album cover art, photography, flyers and other ephemera. Some of his writings have appeared in The Nation, Counterpunch, Al Jazeera, and Souls, amongst others. He also curated the exhibit “Histories Absolved: Revolutionary Cuban Poster Art and the Muslim International,” which showcased the work of the Havana-based OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America) and their political graphic art of the 1960’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s around the anti-imperialist struggles in Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and other Muslim majority countries. He tweets @SohailDaulatzai.
Maytha AlHassen on “The Ummic Imperative: Appraising the influence of Islamic Humanism on Malcolm’s pro-Palestine politics.”
Although Malcolm X’s Egyptian Gazette “Zionist Logic” op-ed published on September 17, 1964 received considerable attention from Malcolmologists, origins of his political philosophical development on the Palestine Question remain a mystery. This presentation seeks to appraise the influence of a praxical Islamic Humanism on Malcolm’s pro-Palestine politics.
In order to explore the political and spiritual relevance of his experience with the Arab world, Alhassen examines one of Malcolm’s post-Hajj political passions underserved by “The Autobiography”: support for Palestinian liberation. Sharp reliance on “The Autobiography” and historical renderings on the man continue to repackage and sell the myth to the general public that Malcolm X was anti-Semitic.
In countering this in what follows, Alhassen argues that it was not anti-Jewish sentiment but Malcolm X’s advocacy of radical humanism through the lens of Islam, and more specifically his post-Nation of Islam (NOI) spiritual education, that fundamentally shaped and formulated his anti-Zionist politics. Malcolm, it appears, did not just want to internationalize the African American plight and link it up to the “Darkskinism (or the dark world’s struggle).” He wanted to internationalize Islamic humanist principles.
Although Malcolm, it can be argued, was fully committed to and preliminary concerned with Black American liberation, he did so within the underpinnings of a spiritual compass that valued principles of universal brotherhood, human rights (defined as Freedom, Justice and Equality), and tawhid (the Oneness of God). Malcolm, thus, not only prescribed Islam as an antidote to America’s “cancer of racism,” but as a spiritual commitment that pushed his advocacy of human rights for “22 million African Americans,” his support for third world “dark-skinned” anti-imperialist liberation movements worldwide and his political and ethical concerns over Zionist practices and policies; especially in the ways it repackaged American “dollarism.”
Maytha Alhassen is a University of Southern California (USC) Provost Ph.D. Fellow in American Studies and Ethnicity, studying historical encounters between Black internationalism and the Arab diaspora, race & ethnicity, social justice & the arts, travel & global flows, gender, media and narrative healing. Her work bridges the worlds of social justice, academic research, media engagement and artistic expression. Artistically, Alhassen writes and performs poetry and has worked as a performer and organizer for the play “Hijabi Monologues.” Alhassen regularly appears on Al Jazeera English social media focused program “The Stream” as a guest co-host/digital producer. She regularly appears on “HuffPost Live,” “Fusion Network,” “Pivot” and “The Young Turks.” Alhassen’s writings have appeared in “CNN,” “Huffington Post,” “La Vanguardia” (in Catalonia and Spanish), “Mic,” “Counterpunch” and in academic journals (Journal of Africana Religions, American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences) and she has been featured in the “Los Angeles Times,” “Miami Herald,” and “The Nation.” Alhassen has a master’s in Sociocultural Anthropology from Columbia University. While at Columbia, she researched Malcolm X’s connections to the Arab world for the Malcolm X Project and worked with arts-based social justice organization Blackout Arts Collective. Alhassen recently co-edited a book on the Arab uprisings, youth and social media with HuffPost Live host Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, “Demanding Dignity: Young Voices from the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions” (White Cloud Press). She can be reached through her website, mayalhassen.com; by email at alhassen@usc.edu; or on Twitter @mayalhassen.
Q & A on “The Global Malcolm” — Moderated by Abbas Barzegar
Questions from the audience were answered by Hisham Aidi, Sohail Daulatzai, and Maytha Alhassen.
Abbas Barzegar has been an assistant professor of religious studies at Georgia State University since 2010, after receiving his Ph.D. from Emory University. His doctoral research specialized in the formation of Sunni orthodoxy in late antiquity, while his current work explores the contemporary themes of political Islam, nationalism, and post-colonialism. He is co-director of the digital archiving and research consortium, After Malcolm: Islam and the Black Freedom Movement, housed at Georgia State University. His work has been supported by the US Institute of Peace, The British Council, The Carter Center, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Georgia Humanities Council. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, he is the co-author of “Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam” (Stanford, 2009). His public commentary and analysis can be found in a variety of print and broadcast media outlets, including “The Huffington Post,” “The Guardian,” CNN, Aljazeera, and Fox News.
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PANEL ON “THE AMERICAN MALCOLM”
William “Bill” Chafe on “Positioning Malcolm”
Bill Chafe discusses how Malcolm X embodied a militant, black-power perspective—a perspective that was rooted in both his own history and his religious convictions. Malcom X’s revised perspective on the Nation of Islam after his trip to Africa made him ready—and willing—to help more moderate leaders of the movement, like Martin Luther King, Jr., tactically by making Dr. King seem reasonable by comparison with the more radical stances Malcolm embrace.
Bill Chafe is Emeritus Professor of History at Duke University. Much of his professional scholarship reflects his long-term interest in issue of race and gender equality. His dissertation and first book focused on the changing social and economic roles of American women in the fifty years after the woman suffrage amendment. Subsequent books compared the patterns of race and gender discrimination in America. His book on the origins of the sit-in movement in North Carolina helped to re-orient scholarship on civil rights toward social history and community studies. Chafe has written two books on the history of post-World War II America, a major new overview of 20th century (“America The Rise and Fall of the American Century”), a history of personality and politics in modern America (“Private Lives/Public Consequences”), and a biography of the liberal crusader Allard Lowenstein. He is currently working on a revisionist overview of the Jm Crow era to be entitled “Behind the Veil: African American Life During the Age of Segregation.” The author of twelve books overall, he has received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award (1981) for “Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina” and the “Black Struggle for Freedom” (1980), the Sidney Hillman book award (1994) for “Never Stop Running: Allard Lowenstein” and the “Struggle to Save American Liberalism” (1993), and the Lillian Smith Award for “Remembering Jim Crow” (2003).
Sandy Darity on “Black Men Willing to Resort to Violence: Comparing Images of Malcolm X and Nat Turner”
Black men who express or demonstrate a willingness to take violent action in the cause of liberation stir a vast response in American literature and film. The portrayals of Malcolm X and Nat Turner in both fiction and historical works constitute paradigmatic examples of that interest.
Darity’s presentation explores the thick array of parallels in the treatment of these two militant figures in America’s racial iconography. A central message. paraphrasing the title of Charles Burnett’s film on the Turner revolt, is both men are “troublesome properties”in terms of who “owns” their respective stories.
William A. (“Sandy”) Darity Jr. is the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics and the director of the Duke Consortium on Social Equity at Duke University. He has served as chair of the Department of African and African American Studies and was the founding director of the Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality at Duke. Darity’s research focuses on inequality by race, class and ethnicity, stratification economics, schooling and the racial achievement gap, North-South theories of trade and development, skin shade and labor market outcomes, the economics of reparations, the Atlantic slave trade and the Industrial Revolution, the history of economics, and the social psychological effects of exposure to unemployment. He has published or edited 12 books and published more than 210 articles in professional journals.
Zaheer Ali on “These Are the Breaks” (and Continuities): Curating the Malcolm X Mixtape Project”
Malcolm X’s life and legacy had a profound impact on popular culture, especially evidenced in the use of his voice, image, and ideas in popular music. The Malcolm X Mixtape Project is a digital humanities project documenting his musical legacy that—by the time of its completion — will include nearly 50 songs released from 1970 to the present, covering a range of music genres, including spoken word, world music, hip hop, rock, punk, and folk. Published online, the purpose of the Malcolm X Mixtape Project is to provide a curated archive of music, video, image, and text that traces popular memorials of Malcolm X, as a means through which to examine the changing social contexts in which artists and their audiences experienced these memorials.
Through that frame, this particular presentation examines the ways that 1980s and early ‘90s recoveries of Malcolm X in hip hop reflected an ambivalence about his break from the Nation of Islam (NOI). While noting the selectivity of these memories, this presentation argues that the long tradition of African American Muslim community organizing, public engagement, and justice work — especially embodied institutionally in the NOI — was prioritized in these selections. Finally, the presentation concludes by reflecting on the social need for historical continuity (rather than fracture) and the importance of activism in fulfilling that need.
Zaheer Ali is a Ph.D. student in history at Columbia University, where he is completing his dissertation on the history of the Nation of Islam’s Mosque No. 7 in Harlem, New York, 1954-1965. He worked for several years as project manager of Columbia University’s Malcolm X Project–a multi-year research initiative on the life and legacy of Malcolm X–where he associate edited an online, annotated version of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”; and he contributed as a lead researcher for Manning Marable’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.” He currently teaches in the City University of New York (CUNY) system, where he has taught courses on Islam in the African American Experience, and Malcolm X.
Q & A on “The American Malcolm” — Moderated by Mark Anthony Neal
Questions from the audience were answered by William Chafe, Sandy Darity, and Zaheer Ali.
Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of African & African American Studies at Duke University where he was the 2010 Winner of the Robert B. Cox Teaching Award. The author of several books including the recently published Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities, Neal is also the co-editor of the acclaimed That’s the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. Neal is the host of the weekly webcast Left of Black, which is produced in conjunction with the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdiciplinary and International Studies at Duke.
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READ/WATCH MORE:
1) Watch here for a panel discussion “Malcolm X Now” co-sponsored by Duke’s Forum for Scholars and Publics and the Duke Islamic Studies Center featuring Maytha Alhassen, Zaheer Ali, Bill Hart, and Michael Muhammad Knight.
2) There’s a Twitter Storify of the entire conference (2/20-2/21), as well as a selection of articles and interviews about Malcolm X that aired or were published that week by or about scholars who participated in our conference.
3) Ahead of the conference we had asked the invited scholars to choose their favorite quotes by and images of Malcolm X. CLICK HERE for responses from Zaheer Ali, Michael Muhammad Knight, Jamillah Karim, Bill Hart, Sandy Darity, and Sohail Daulatzai. Included also are some archival videos in which they discuss their research related to Malcolm X.