Today is Malcolm X’s 85 birthday, rest in peace to a legend.  I guess in our contemporary culture it has been a proven taboo to cite Malcolm X as a hero—but he was one of mine, along with Assata Shakur, Huey P. Newton and my mommy—so I guess I’m not conventional.

Growing up, I always learned that Malcolm X was someone to look up to because like Martin Luther King or Gandhi he was fighting for a cause he believed in but just in different methods.  He never got praised for what he did by outsiders, like the others but just got compared to Marcus Garvey, which in my opinion was a little unjustified.

I’ve read his biography too many times, I’ve read his speeches too many times, and have too many of his quotes memorized (wrote them in my journal and in several different essays) but I believe he was a remarkable man.  I remember when I was in kindergarten I had a crush on him because he looked really smart and tall—but that lasted until Ray-J came along.  I also remember, in high school being debated with by a student in my class at my all white high school, because I didn’t think that he was a bad person.  I remember this debate got so heated that I got escorted out of class and cried my way out of detention when the other kid got it.

But anyway, I’m going to just end this post with some of my favorite Malcolm X quotes.  We need to keep his legacy alive as well as the legacy of other greats—MLK, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Huey P. Newton, Walter Cronkite and etc.  We also need to do a better job at celebrating the iconic figures that we still have living—Nelson Mandela, Oprah to some, Bill Clinton to some, and etc.

“Truth is on the side of the oppressed.”

“If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.”

“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against.”

“If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.”

“In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.”

“Stumbling is not falling.”