The Ballot or the Bullet

“Whether you are a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Nationalist, we all have the same problem. They don’t hang you because you’re a Baptist; they hang you ‘cause you’re black.” 

Malcolm stresses the irrelevance of religious differences, which he has previously asserted as a personal matter. He cleverly includes “Nationalist” as a belief system to support his idea that both black Christians and black Muslims should rally behind nationalism to solve a common problem: a lack of civil rights due to being black. 

“Today it’s time to stop singing and start swinging. You can’t sing up freedom, but you can swing up on some freedom.” 

Malcolm’s ability to orate effectively, using the colloquial language that was familiar to his audience, makes him more relatable than some other civil rights leaders, particularly to an audience that is working class and less educated. His alliterative verb and gerund choices juxtapose the mainstream civil rights movement’s passive action—singing to get its message across—with his more militant belief in being forceful, sometimes violent, in the pursuit of justice. Malcolm uses language that refers to boxing, alluding to his relationship to Muhammad Ali, and the reputation that boxers long held in the black community as proxies in their fight against white supremacy.

“We need a self-help program, a do-it-yourself philosophy, a do-it-right-now philosophy, a [sic] it’s already-too-late philosophy. This is what you and I need to get with, and the only way we are going to solve our problem is with a self-help program. Before we can get a self-help program started we have to have a self-help philosophy.” 

Malcolm’s concepts of “self-help” and “do-it-yourself” are not unrelated to the American concept of “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps,” achieving success as a result of one’s own efforts and not seeking help from elsewhere. They also connect to Booker T.