As District organizations and leaders get ready to celebrate the 100th birthday of the late human rights leader Malcolm X on May 19, Northwest, D.C. resident A. Peter Bailey, a noted journalist, author and lecturer, is in a reflective mood about his friend and mentor.
“When I think about May 19, that is a day that honors him,” Bailey, 87, told The Informer. “No birthday party. We, as a people, need to honor him because he literally gave us life fighting for us. We should be thanking him for that.”
Bailey was a member of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, a group founded by Malcolm X after he split with the Nation of Islam in 1964. He served as the editor of the organization’s newsletter, the “Blacklash” and was a pallbearer at the Muslim leader’s funeral after his assassination in 1965.
After the human rights leader’s death, Bailey became an associate editor at Ebony Magazine, co-authored “Seventh Child, a Memoir of Malcolm X” with Rodnell Collins, nephew of the book’s namesake, and authored “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X: The Master Teacher.”
Working to keep his memory alive to this day, Bailey has attended Sankofa Video Books and Café’s nightly forums on Malcolm X since speaking there on May 7, often sitting in the back of the Georgia Avenue NW location listening intently to the speakers.
While Bailey is happy that many District residents will partake in celebrating Malcolm X’s legacy, he is not sure that the Muslim leader would be so enthused about the state of Black America.
“He would be upset that we are still not united,” said Bailey. “We are not organized. We are not unified in education, economics, politics, culture and communications. The [white power structure] don’t pay any attention to us because we are not working together.”
Malcolm X 100 Events in the District
Sankofa will feature Bailey as a speaker again on May 17 for a film screening and discussion on Malcolm X and his impact on Pan-Africanism. Dr. James Pope and Ethiopian filmmaker Haile Gerima, co-owner of Sankofa, will also participate in the event.
The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, in concert with The Shabazz Center—a facility in New York City that studies the life and work of Malcolm X— is scheduled to hold a reception and an opening of an exhibit on Malcolm X on May 16 starting from 6 p.m.-9:30 p.m. at the museum. The next day, the two institutions will team up again with “Community Storytime: Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew up to Become Malcolm X” at the museum with the program starting at 11 a.m. and ending at 1:30 p.m.
Additionally on May 17, the National Reparations Network, with the Reparation Education Project, will host the National Reparations Rally in Lansburgh Park in Southwest, D.C., commemorating Malcolm X’s birthday and the fight for continued justice and equity. Featured speakers at the rally include Dr. Maulana Karenga, a professor and chair of Africana Studies at California State University-Long Beach, often credited with starting Kwanzaa celebrations, and Dr. Benjamin Chavis, president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.
Throughout the event, Malcolm X’s enduring influence on liberation will be noted, while featuring music, cultural performances, speeches and calls to action, rally officials say.
“As someone who’s been in the trenches for over 50 years, I’m overjoyed to witness the reparations movement rise from the margins to the mainstream,” said Nkechi Taifa, executive director of the Reparation Education Project and National Reparations Rally convenor. “And how fitting that it also honors the centennial of Malcolm X, whose legacy still lights our path to liberation.”
On May 19, Bailey will host his own program, “Positive Black Folks in Action Honors Brother Malcolm X’s 100th Birthday” at Howard University’s Blackburn Center in Northwest from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. The event will include poetry readings, recitings of Malcolm X tenets and quotes, presentations and even greetings from Ghana.
For Bailey, the event is to expose a new generation to Malcolm X’s work and legacy.
“We are focusing on the young people and what Malcolm means to young people,” said Bailey. “We will honor him for what he did for our people.”
