THE RESTLESS CONSCIENCE OF MALCOLM X

When we speak of Black History Month, we are not only remembering triumphs—we are remembering tensions. We are remembering voices that comforted and voices that confronted. And on February 21, we remember a voice that refused to be quiet.

Today marks the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X who was killed on February 21, 1965, in New York City. He was 39 years old. His death was violent. His life had been turbulent. And his legacy remains deeply debated.

To understand Malcolm X is to understand why the word restless fits him so well.

He was born Malcolm Little in 1925, in a nation where segregation was law in many places and custom in many more. His father, Earl Little, a preacher influenced by the teachings of Marcus Garvey died under suspicious circumstances after repeated threats from white supremacists. His mother, Louise Little, later suffered a mental collapse and was institutionalized. Malcolm’s early years were shaped by instability, racism, and poverty—not as abstract injustices, but as daily realities.

As a young man, he fell into crime and was eventually sentenced to prison. There, he encountered the teachings of the Nation of Islam. In prison, Malcolm disciplined his mind. He read voraciously. He remade himself. Upon release, he became one of the Nation’s most articulate and forceful spokesmen. His message was unapologetic: Black Americans should reject white paternalism, reclaim dignity, and defend themselves “by any means necessary.”

For many moderate whites of the 1960s, Malcolm X was alarming. His rhetoric cut sharply. He rejected integration as it was being framed at the time. He criticized what he saw as hypocrisy in American democracy. In contrast to the nonviolent strategy of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm’s tone felt incendiary.

But for many Black Americans, especially in northern cities where segregation was de facto rather than de jure, Malcolm’s words named frustrations that were rarely acknowledged. While southern segregation was being challenged in courts and on buses, northern housing discrimination, economic inequality, and police tensions persisted. Malcolm gave voice to those who felt that patience was being preached to them without justice being practiced for them.

And yet—this is where the story deepens—Malcolm did not remain the same man.

In 1964, after breaking with the Nation of Islam, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca. There he encountered Muslims of every race worshiping together. He wrote that he had seen sincere brotherhood among people he once would not have believed capable of it. His perspective broadened. He began speaking more in terms of human rights than racial separatism. He remained firm in his demand for Black dignity and self-determination, but his language shifted. His conscience was still restless, but it was evolving.

For many, Malcolm X represents courage—a man who refused to soften the reality of injustice, who demanded self-respect and self-reliance, and who would not allow suffering to be minimized. For moderate whites, his legacy can be challenging—but it also offers an opportunity for honest reflection. He forces the question: what conditions produce such anger? What history stands behind such fire?

It is too simple to label him hero or villain. He was a man shaped by trauma, sharpened by study, propelled by conviction, and ultimately transformed by experience. His life reminds us that movements for justice are rarely inflexible. They contain different strategies, tones, and philosophies, sometimes in tension with one another.

February 21 is significant not only because of his assassination, but because it calls us to wrestle with unfinished questions. Have we learned to listen across difference? Have we confronted the roots of inequality? Have we created space for both accountability and reconciliation?

The restless conscience of Malcolm X still speaks—not because we must agree with every word he ever uttered, but because his life demands that we take injustice seriously and growth seriously. He reminds us that people can change. He reminds us that nations can change. But neither will do so without honest examination.

Black History Month is not about nostalgia or selective memory. It is about truth—the hard kind and the hopeful kind. On this day, we remember Malcolm X in full: the anger, the intellect, the transformation, the unfinished work. And perhaps the most enduring part of his legacy is this: a conscience that would not let him remain who he was yesterday.

So here is the real question: will you be as great a man as he was? Will you be willing to change when truth confronts you? Will you stand for what you believe is right, even when it costs you reputation, comfort, safety—even life itself? It is easy to criticize men like Malcolm X from the safety of hindsight. It is harder to live with even a fraction of the courage it takes to speak when silence would be safer. It is harder still to grow publicly, to evolve, to admit you were wrong in part and refine your convictions.

Malcolm’s life was marked by transformation. From the trauma of childhood, to prison, to disciplined study, to national prominence within the Nation of Islam to his eventual break with it and his pilgrimage abroad—he was never stagnant. He was restless. He demanded dignity for Black Americans in a nation that often denied it.

Even at his most militant, he was articulating arguments about self-defense and self-determination that many white people—especially Southerners—had long claimed for themselves. Whether one agreed with his rhetoric or not, the underlying demand was clear: human beings are not to be treated as lesser. And self-defense is not wrong.

No, he did not call for a race war as a policy or urge indiscriminate violence against white people. Again, even at his most militant, he consistently framed his position as one of self-defense, not preemptive aggression. He argued that if the government would not protect Black citizens from violence, they had the same natural and constitutional right to defend themselves that anyone else claims. He warned that continued injustice could produce violent upheaval, but that is very different from calling for one.

The irony, of course, is that many of his sharpest critics today strongly defend the right to armed self-defense in other contexts. To portray Malcolm as a violent man lies about the historical record; he was forceful, confrontational, and unapologetic—but his stated principle was defense against aggression, not initiating it.

if you are going to talk about him, tell the truth about what he actually said and taught.

Martin Luther King Jr. is one of my absolute heroes. I believe the nonviolent way he championed was the better way; as a Christian, I believe love and sacrificial suffering reflect Christ more fully than retaliation. But King and Malcolm were not cartoon enemies. Their relationship was complicated, marked by disagreement, yes—but not hatred. They represented different strategies within the same larger struggle for dignity and justice. Both men loved people. Both were willing to pay the ultimate price. And both did.

I am not anti–Malcolm X. To honor Dr. King does not require diminishing Malcolm. Mature reflection can hold tension. It can acknowledge that men shaped by different experiences will speak in different tones. It can admit that anger sometimes grows in soil watered by real injustice. And it can still affirm that reconciliation and love must be the goal.

Some say, “Let’s quit living in the past. Let’s forget all this.” Yet the same voices insist that history be taught in schools. Why? Because deep down everyone knows history matters. History shapes conscience. It trains moral instinct. It warns. It instructs. It humbles. To study Malcolm X is not to be trapped in the past. It is to understand the forces that shaped the present. If we learn honestly, we do better going forward.

If you want to understand him more deeply, read The Autobiography of Malcolm X (as told to Alex Haley). It is raw, searching, reflective—and fantastic—a portrait of a man in motion, wrestling with faith, race, identity, and purpose.

Watch Malcolm X by Spike Lee—one of the best films you will ever see, with an extraordinary performance by Denzel, Washington—a portrayal so layered it forces you to see the humanity beneath the headlines.

And consider One Night in Miami, which imagines a conversation between Malcolm, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown—a meditation on responsibility, influence, and the burden of public leadership at a turning point in history.

In the end, let us seek reconciliation, but reconciliation rooted in truth, not amnesia. Let us pursue unity, but unity that does not silence hard conversations. Let us practice love, not sentimental love, but courageous love. Because whether we are Black or white, we are standing on the shoulders of giants.

Giants who argued. Giants who disagreed. Giants who suffered. Giants who changed.

Giants like Malcolm X.

BDD