Vol. 75/No. 8      February 28, 2011

The event was organized by the Observatoire des Amériques (Observatory of the Americas) of UQAM and Pathfinder Books as part of Black History Month. It was chaired by Victor Armony, the director of the Observatoire and a sociology professor at UQAM.

The first speaker was Steve Clark, an editor of the book. He explained that in one of his last interviews, Malcolm X said, “I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing."

This is what millions around the world see beginning to unfold today in Tunisia and Egypt, said Clark: a clash between the workers, farmers, and youth on one side, and the capitalists and large landowners on the other backed by Washington, Ottawa, and other imperialist powers.

Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power discusses the need for workers to organize a revolutionary movement to seize political power from the hands of the exploiters in order to reorganize society in the interests of the working majority, continued Clark. This workers power is the most powerful tool that exists to begin to put an end to racism, sexism, and all the relations of oppression that characterize capitalism.

Clark recalled the intransigent opposition by Malcolm X to the twin parties of capital in the United States, the Democrats and Republicans. He also explained that the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and ’60s helped break down racial prejudices among working people, strengthening the working class as a whole.

Réginald Delva, Haitian-born host and producer at Radio Montreal, said, “Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by Jack Barnes is a rehabilitation of Malcolm X for both whites and Blacks.” He recounted how he was struck by the discrimination and racial segregation he saw during his first visit to the United States at the age of five in 1965. “No Negroes, no dogs” was written on the doors of certain restaurants.

Delva recalled the image of the “house Negro” who completely identifies with his master. “Malcolm was a field Negro,” Delva said. “When the master’s house caught fire, he wished that the wind would blow stronger.”

Reading the book helped him understand why you hear so much about Martin Luther King and relatively little about Malcolm X, Delva said. “Barnes presents another view of Malcolm X,” as a leader who “didn’t turn the other cheek.” It is a strong point, he added, that Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power talks about all the revolutions, in particular in Cuba and Algeria.

UQAM history professor Greg Robinson, a specialist in Asian immigration to the United States, spoke about Chinese and Japanese activists in the Black rights movement. Marie Conilh de Beyssac, a master student in sociology at UQAM, ended the panel with a comparison of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, the two most well known leaders of the U.S. civil rights movement.

Before and after the event, those attending browsed books and other materials on display at tables set up by Pathfinder Books, the Kepkaa Creole bookstore, the Quebec Committee for the Rights of Haitian Workers in the Dominican Republic and La pleine lune (Full moon) publishing house.
 
 
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