Mila Hughes, Coventry Socialist Party
On 21 February 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated. Sixty years later, the lessons of his life remain just as relevant. He was one of the most radical and uncompromising fighters for Black liberation. His assassination was not just an attack on him as an individual but on the ideas he was increasingly an advocate for – a mass movement uniting Black liberation with working-class struggle. As socialists, we don’t just remember Malcolm X as a historical figure, his life and struggles have important lessons for our ongoing fight against and racism and all oppression, and the capitalist system which breeds it.
Malcolm’s life was shaped by his conditions, facing consistent racism and poverty. He was born in 1925 into a working-class Black family that suffered directly from white supremacist violence. His father, an organiser as part of Marcus Garvey’s ‘Back to Africa’ movement, was likely murdered by the white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan or one of its offshoots. Malcolm himself was pushed through the racist “justice” system, landing in prison by his early twenties. Like so many young Black men then and now, he was criminalized by the racist capitalist system working to keep Black workers and youth down.
Nation of Islam
It was in prison that Malcolm developed his political conscious, joining the Nation of Islam. The Nation’s Black nationalist message struck a chord with thousands of Black workers and youth who had seen firsthand the reality of racism and white supremacy. But the Nation, for all its fiery rhetoric, didn’t offer a real path to liberation. It preached religious doctrine and racial separatism rather than fighting for working-class unity and revolution.
As Malcolm X became one of the Nation’s most well-known figures, he also began to come up against its limits. His involvement with the Nation coincided with the developing civil rights movement which, although its leadership also had its own limitations, was beginning to mobilise hundreds of thousands in struggle against racist segregation. The Nation’s leadership however, derided the movement, even banning its members from attending the 1963 March on Washington. Malcolm and hundreds of other members defied, attending the march while raising criticisms of its leaders. He eventually broke with the Nation of Islam in 1964.
Malcolm was beginning to understand that racism wasn’t just about individual prejudice – it was built into the system. He started to understand that capitalism itself depended on racism to divide the working class and exploit Black workers even more brutally than their white counterparts.
Dangerous ideas
Malcolm X was becoming increasingly dangerous to the ruling class. During his international, travels he met revolutionary leaders involved in anticolonial struggles in Africa and the Middle East. He was beginning to see that the fight against racism in the US was part of a global struggle against imperialism and capitalism and began pushing for a mass movement that could connect Black liberation with a broader fight against the system.
If Malcolm had lived longer, there’s a real possibility that he would have become a socialist. He was moving in that direction, recognising that the only way to truly defeat racism was to overthrow capitalism.
State repression
The US government saw this shift and acted accordingly. The FBI’s ‘Cointelpro’ program worked to infiltrate and destroy radical Black organisations, including Malcolm’s, using informants, spreading lies and division. It is still not clear exactly who fired the shots that killed Malcolm X, but there is a lot of evidence that points to his murders were acting on the orders of the Nation of Islam’s leaders, including with the likely involvement of state operatives. The ruling class has always feared Black leaders who could inspire workers to rise up – not just Malcolm, but Martin Luther King Jr. Fred Hampton, and countless others who were targeted, jailed, or assassinated.
The system that killed Malcolm X is still in place today. Racism, police violence, poverty wages, and mass incarceration continue to define life for millions of Black workers. The ruling class still tries to divide us – by race, nationality, gender – so they can keep paying us less, keeping us down, and making profits off our backs. But we’ve also seen new waves of struggle: the Black Lives Matter movement, the rise in strikes, and the growing interest in socialism all show that people are fed up with capitalism.
Legacy
Malcolm X’s legacy isn’t just about resistance – it’s about learning the lessons to win.
First, that capitalism and racism go hand in hand. As Malcolm famously said: “You can’t have capitalism without racism.” Capitalism thrives by dividing workers and super-exploiting Black labour, paying lower wages, denying opportunities, and using racism to justify mass incarceration and police violence. The ruling class uses racism to keep workers fighting each other instead of uniting against our real enemy: the billionaires and politicians who profit from exploitation.
Second to bring an end to the racist capitalist system, protests alone are not enough – we have to build a movement that can challenge the system at its core. For that we need real revolutionary organisation.
Third, we need internationalism and working-class unity. Malcolm saw that Black workers’ struggle was part of a global fight. Today, we need to connect our struggle with workers everywhere – whether they’re fighting against police violence in the US, against dictatorships in Africa, or against corporate exploitation in Latin America and Asia.
In the struggle we have to understand that the capitalist state apparatus, which exists to defend the interests of the exploiting capitalist class, will do everything it can to stop us. The ruling class has a long history of repression, and we need strong, democratic, and militant organisations to withstand those attacks.
Malcolm X was killed because he was fighting for revolutionary ideas. His life and experience in struggle saw him develop an understanding of racism as a systemic issue, baked into the capitalist system. Increasingly he was arguing for a mass struggle of Black workers for liberation, alongside the struggles of white workers.
We honour his legacy not just by remembering his words but by continuing his struggle. The best way to do that is to fight for a socialist movement that unites all workers—Black, white, Latino, Asian, immigrant, and native-born – against the system that exploits and divides us.
Malcolm X once said, “If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.” The ruling class feared his words because they knew he was serious about revolution. Today, we have to be equally committed to the struggle.
If you want to be part of that fight for Black liberation and socialism, join us.
- Read more about Malcolm X’s life and struggle – ‘Where was Malcolm X going?’ at socialismtoday.org
