Malcolm X On Afro-American History

[Medicate]

From February 15,1965, a week before he was assassinated:

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/malconafamhist.html

Malcolm X On Afro American History

And next month they'll come up to show you another trick. They'll come at you and me next month with this Negro History Week, they call it. This week comes around once every year. And during this one week they drown us with propaganda about Negro history in Georgia and Mississippi and Alabama. Never do they take us back across the water, back home. They take us down home, but they never give us a history of back home. They never give us enough information to let us know what were we doing before we ended up in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and some of those other prison states. They give us the impression with Negro History Week that we were cotton pickers all of our lives. Cotton pickers, orange growers, mammies, and uncles for the white man in this country—this is our history when you talk in terms of Negro History Week. They might tell you about one or two people who took a peanut and made another white man rich.[Laughter] George Washington Carver —he was a scientist, but he died broke. He made Ford rich. So he wasn't doing anything for himself and his people. He got a good name for us, but what did we get out of it? Nothing. The master got it.

Just like a dog who runs out in the woods and grabs a rabbit. No matter how hungry the dog is, does he eat it? No, he takes it back and lays it at the boss's feet. The boss skins it, takes the meat, and gives the dog the bones. And the dog is going right on, hungry again. But he could have gotten the rabbit and eaten it for himself.[Laughter] And boss couldn't even have caught him until later, because he can outrun the boss.

It's the same way with you and me. Every contribution we make, we don't make it for our people, we make it for the man, we make it for our master. He gets the benefit from it. We die, not for our people, we die for him. We don't die for our home and our house, we die for his house. We don't die for our country, we die for his country. A lot of you all were fools on the front lines, were you not? Yes, you were. You put on the uniform and went right up on the front lines like a roaring hound dog barking for master. And when you come back here—you've had to bark since you came back.[Applause]

So Negro History Week reminds us of this. It doesn't remind us of past achievements, it reminds us only of the achievements we made in the Western Hemisphere under the tutelage of the white man. So that whatever achievement that was made in the Western Hemisphere that the spotlight is put upon, this is the white man's shrewd way of taking credit for whatever we have accomplished. But he never lets us know of an accomplishment that we made prior to being born here. This is another trick.

 

[Medicate]

The worst trick of all is when he names us Negro and calls us Negro. And when we call ourselves that, we end up tricking ourselves. My brother Cassius [Clay] was on the screen the other night talking with Les Crane about the word Negro. I wish he wouldn't have gone so fast, because he was in a position to have done a very good job. But he was right in saying that we're not Negroes, and have never been, until we were brought here and made into that. We were scientifically produced by the white man. Whenever you see somebody who calls himself a Negro, he's a product of Western civilization —not only Western civilization, but Western crime. The Negro, as he is called or calls himself in the West, is the best evidence that can be used against Western civilization today.[Applause]

One of the main reasons we are called Negro is so we won't know who we really are. And when you call yourself that, you don't know who you really are. You don't know what you are, you don't know where you came from, you don't know what is yours. As long as you call yourself a Negro, nothing is yours. No languages—you can't lay claim to any language, not even English; you mess it up. You can't lay claim to any name, any type of name, that will identify you as something that you should be. You can't lay claim to any culture as long as you use the word Negro to identify yourself. It attaches you to nothing. It doesn't even identify your color.

If you talk about one of them, they call themselves white, don't they? Or they might call someone else Puerto Rican to identify them. Mind you how they do this. When they call him a Puerto Rican, they're giving him a better name. Because there is a place called Puerto Rico, you know. It at least lets you know where he came from. So they'll say whites, Puerto Ricans, and Negroes. Pick up on that. That's a drag, brothers.[Laughter] White is legitimate. It means that's what color they are. Puerto Rican tells you that they're something else, came from somewhere else, but they're here now. Negro doesn't tell you anything. I mean nothing, absolutely nothing. What do you identify it with? Tell me. Nothing.

What do you attach it to, what do you attach to it? Nothing. It's completely in the middle of nowhere. And when you call yourself that, that's where you are—right in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't give you a language, because there is no such thing as a Negro language. It doesn't give you a country, because there is no such thing as a Negro country. It doesn't give you a culture—there is no such thing as a Negro culture, it doesn't exist. The landdoesn't exist, the culture doesn't exist, the language doesn't exist, and the man doesn't exist. They take you out of existence by calling you a Negro. And you can walk around in front of them all day long and they act like they don't even see you. Because you made yourself nonexistent.[Applause] It's a person who has no history; and by having no history, he has no culture.

 

[Medicate]

Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people. And when you look at us, those of us who are called Negro, we're called that because we are like a dead people. We have nothing to identify ourselves as part of the human family. You know, you take a tree, you can tell what kind of tree it is by looking at the leaves. If the leaves are gone, you can look at the bark and tell what kind it is. But when you find a tree with the leaves gone and the bark gone, everything gone, you call that a what? A stump. And you can't identify a stump as easily as you can identify a tree.

And this is the position that you and I are in here in America. Formerly we could be identified by the names we wore when we came here. When we were first brought here, we had different names. When we were first brought here, we had a different language. And these names and this language identified the culture that we were brought from, the land that we were brought from. In identifying that, we were able to point towards what we had produced, our networth. But once our names were taken and our language was taken and our identity was destroyed and our roots were cut off with no history, we became like a stump, something dead, a twig over here in the Western Hemisphere. Anybody could step on us, trample upon us, or burn us, and there would be nothing that we could do about it.

Those of you who are religious, who go to church,[know] there are stories in the Bible that can be used easily to pretty well tell the condition of the Black man in America once he became a Negro. They refer to him in there as the lost sheep, meaning someone who is lost from his own kind, which is how you and I have been for the past four hundred years. We have been in a land where we are not citizens, or in a land where they have treated us as strangers.

They have another symbolic story in there, called the dry bones. Many of you have gone to church Sunday after Sunday and got, you know, the ghost, they call it—got happy. When the old preacher started singing about dry bones, you'd knock over benches, just because he was singing about those bones, "them dry bones"—I know how they say it. But you never could identify the symbolic meaning of those bones—how they were dead because they had been cut off from their own kind.

Our people here in America have been in the same condition as those dry bones that you sit in church singing about. But you shed more tears over those dry bones than you shed over yourself. This is a strange thing, but it shows what happens to a people when they are cut off and stripped of everything, like you and I have been cut off and stripped of everything. We become a people like no other people, and we are a people like no other people,[there's] no other people on earth like you and me. We're unique, we're different. They say that we're Negro, and they say that Negro means black; yet they don't call all Black people Negroes. You see the contradiction? Mind you, they say that we're Negro, because Negro means black in Spanish, yet they don't call all Black people Negroes. Something there doesn't add up.

 

[Medicate]

Ancient Black civilizations

Now then, once you see that the condition that we're in is directly related to our lack of knowledge concerning the history of the Black man, only then can you realize the importance of knowing something about the history of the Black man. The Black man's history—when you refer to him as the Black man you go way back, but when you refer to him as a Negro, you can only go as far back as the Negro goes. And when you go beyond the shores of America you can't find a Negro. So if you go beyond the shores of America in history, looking for the history of the Black man, and you're looking for him under the term Negro, you won't find him. He doesn't exist. So you end up thinking that you didn't play any role in history.

But if you want to take the time to do research for yourself, I think you'll find that on the African continent there was always, prior to the discovery of America, there was always a higher level of history, rather a higher level of culture and civilization, than that which existed in Europe at the same time.

At least five thousand years ago they had a Black civilization in the Middle East called the Sumerians. Now when they show you pictures of the Sumerians they try and make you think that they were white people. But if you go and read some of the ancient manuscripts or even read between the lines of some of the current writers, you'll find that the Sumerian civilization was a very dark-skinned civilization, and it existed prior even to the existence of the Babylonian empire, right in the same area where you find Iraq and the Tigris-Euphrates rivers there. It was a black-skinned people who lived there, who had a high state of culture way back then.

And at a time even beyond this there was a black-skinned people in India, who were Black, just as Black as you and I, called Dravidians. They inhabited the subcontinent of India even before the present people that you see living there today, and they had a high state of culture. The present people of India even looked upon them as gods; most of their statues, if you'll notice, have pronounced African features. You go right to India today—in their religion, which is called Buddhism, they give all their Buddhas the image of a Black man, with his lips and his nose, and even show his hair all curled up on his head; they didn't curl it up, he was born that way. And these people lived in that area before the present people of India lived there.

The Black man lived in the Middle East before the present people who are now living there. And he had a high culture and a high civilization, to say nothing about the oldest civilization of all that he had in Egypt along the banks of the Nile. And in Carthage in northwest Africa, another part of the continent, and at a later date in Mali and Ghana and Songhai and Moorish civilization—all of these civilizations existed on the African continent before America was discovered.

 

[Medicate]

Now the Black civilization that shook the white man up the most was the Egyptian civilization, and it was a Black civilization. It was along the banks of the Nile, which runs through the heart of Africa. But again this tricky white man, and he's tricky—and mind you again, when I say this, it's not a racist statement. Some of them might not be tricky, but all of them I've met are tricky. And his civilization shows his trickiness. This tricky white man was able to take the Egyptian civilization, write books about it, put pictures in those books, make movies for television and the theater—so skillfully that he has even convinced other white people that the ancient Egyptians were white people themselves. They were African, they were as much African as you and I. And he even gave the clue away when he made this movie King Solomon's Mines, and he showed the Watusis, you know, with their Black selves, and he outright admitted in there that they looked like the ancient pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Which means that the white man himself, he knows that the Black man had this high civilization in Egypt, whose remains today show the Black man in that area had mastered mathematics, had mastered architecture, the science of building things, had even mastered astronomy.

The pyramid, as the white scientists admit, is constructed in such a position on this earth to show that the Black people who were the architects of it had a knowledge of geography that was so vast, they knew the exact center of the earth's land mass. Because the base of the pyramid is located in the exact center of the earth's land mass, which could not have been so situated by its architect unless the architect in that day had known that the earth was round and knew how much land there was in all the directions from where he was standing. The pyramid was built so many thousand years ago that they don't even know the exact time it was built, but they do know that the people who brought it into existence had mastered the science of building, had mastered the various sciences of the earth, and had mastered astronomy.

I read where one scientist said that the architect of the pyramid had built a shaft that went outward from the center of the pyramid, and the place it marked in the sky was the location where a star, a blue star I think, some kind of a star, made an appearance only once every fifty thousand years. Now they say that this architect's knowledge of astronomy was so vast that he evidently had access to histories or records that spotlighted the existence of a star that made its appearance at a certain spot in the sky only once every fifty thousand years. Now he could not have known this unless he had records going back beyond fifty thousand years. Yet the pyramid is a living witness today that the Black people who were responsible for bringing it into existence had this kind of knowledge.

 

[kp404]

Good thread homie

One of the best things about studying Malcolm is that he continued to evolve his thoughts and strategies on racial oppression in America. Like Huey Newton, he was exposed to numerous ways to organize and realized at the last minute that addressing the oppression from a RADICAL economic standpoint instead of a EXTREMIST religious standpoint was the best way to go about solving problems

 

[Medicate]

When you read the opinions of the white scientists about the pyramids and the building of the pyramids, they don't make any secret at all over the fact that they marvel over the scientific ability that was in the possession of those people way back then. They had mastered chemistry to such extent that they could make paints whose color doesn't fade right until today. When I was in Cairo in the summer, I was in King Tut's tomb, plus, I saw that which was taken out of the tomb at the Cairo Museum. And the colors of the clothing that was worn and the colors inside the tomb are as bright and vivid and sharp today as they were when they were put there some thousands of years ago. Whereas, you know yourself, you can paint your house, and have to paint it again next year. This man hasn't learned how to make paint yet that will last two years.[Applause] And the Black man in that day was such a master in these various scientific fields that he left behind evidence that his scientific findings in that day exceeded the degree to which the white man here in the West has been able to rise today.

And you must know this, because if you don't know this, you won't really understand what there is about you that makes them so afraid of you, and makes them show that they find it imperative for them to keep you down, keep you from getting up. Because if they let you up one inch, you've got it and gone—just one inch, you've got it and gone. And you should get it and go.[Applause]

Just behind the pyramids is a huge statue, which many of you are familiar with, called the Sphinx. The people who live over there call it Abou al-Hole, which means "father of everything." This too was put over there so long ago they don't know who did it, nor do they know how long ago it was done. And they marvel at it. What causes them to marvel is the fact that the Black man could have been at such a high level then, and now be where he is today, at the bottom of the heap, with no outer sign that he has any scientific ability left within him. And he himself doesn't believe that he has any of this ability within him; he thinks that he has to turn to the man for some kind of formula on even how to get his freedom or how to build his house.

But the Black man by nature is a builder, he is scientific by nature, he's mathematical by nature. Rhythm is mathematics, harmony is mathematics. It's balance. And the Black man is balanced. Before you and I came over here, we were so well balanced we could toss something on our head and run with it. You can't even run with your hat now [Laughter]—you can't keep it on. Because you lost your balance. You've gotten away from yourself. But when you are in tune with yourself, your very nature has harmony, has rhythm, has mathematics. You can build. You don't even need anybody to teach you how to build. You play music by ear. You dance by how you're feeling. And you used to build the same way. You have it in you to do it. I know Black brickmasons from the South who have never been to school a day in their life. They throw more bricks together and you don't know how they learned how to do it, but they know how to do it. When you see one of those other people doing it, they've been to school— somebody had to teach them. But nobody teaches you always what you know how to do. It just comes to you.[Applause] That's what makes you dangerous. When you come to yourself, a whole lot of other things will start coming to you, and the man knows it.

 

[Medicate]

European "civilization"

In that day the Black man in Egypt was wearing silk, sharp as a tack, brothers. And those people up in Europe didn't know what cloth was. They admit this. They were naked or they were wearing skins from animals. If they could get an animal, they would take his hide and throw it around their shoulders to keep warm. But they didn't know how to sew and weave. They didn't have that knowledge in Europe, not in those days.

They didn't cook their food in Europe. Even they themselves will show you when they were living up there in caves, they were knocking animals in the head and eating the raw meat. They were eating raw meat, raw food. They still like it raw today. You watch them go in a restaurant, they say, "Give me a steak rare, with the blood dripping in it." [Laughter and applause] And then you run in and say, "Give me one rare, with the blood dripping in it." [Laughter] You don't do it because that's the way you like it; you're just imitating them, you're copying, you're trying to be like that man. But when you act like yourself, you say, "Make mine well done." You like cooked food, because you've been cooking a long time; but they haven't been cooking so long—it wasn't too long ago that they knew what fire was. This is true.

You were walking erect, upright. You ever watch your walk? Now you're too hip to walk erect. You've come up with that other walk. But when you're yourself, you walk with dignity. Wherever you see the Black man, he walks with dignity. They have a tendency to be other than with dignity, unless they're trained. When their little girls go up to these, you know, highfalutin schools, and they want to teach them how to walk, they put a book on their head. Isn't that what they do? They teach them how to walk like you. That's what they're learning how to walk like—like you. Because you were almost born with a book on your head. You can throw it up there and run with it. I was amazed when I was in Africa to see the sense of poise and balance that these people over there have, all throughout Africa and Asia. They have that poise and that balance. But this is not an accident. This comes from something. And you have it too, but you've been channeling yours in another direction, in a different direction. But when you come to yourself, you'll channel it right.

 

[Medicate]

Also as I said earlier, at that same time there was another African civilization called Carthage. One of the most famous persons in Carthage was a man named Hannibal. You and I have been taught that he was a white man. This is how they steal your history, they steal your culture, they steal your civilization—just by Hollywood producing a movie showing a Black man as a white man.

I remember one day I told someone that Hannibal was Black. Some Negro, he was in college, one of these colleges—I told him Hannibal was a Black man, and he had a fit. Really, he did, he wanted to fight me on that. He said, "I know better than that." "How do you know?" He said, "I saw him." "Where'd you see him?" He said, "In the movies." [Laughter] And he was in college, really, he was a highly educated Negro— and he had a fit when I told him Hannibal was Black. And some of you all right now are having a fit because you didn't know it either.

Hannibal was famous for crossing the Alps mountains with elephants. Europeans couldn't go across the Alps on foot by themselves—no, they couldn't. Hannibal found a way to cross the Alps with elephants. You know what an elephant is—a great big old animal, it's hard to move him down the road. They moved him across the mountains. And he had

with him ninety thousand African troops, defeated Rome, and occupied Italy for between fifteen and twenty years.

This is why you find many Italians dark—some of that Hannibal blood. No Italian will ever jump up in my face and start putting bad mouth on me, because I know his history. I tell him when you talk about me, you're talking about your pappy,[Laughter] your father. He knows his history, he knows how he got that color. Don't you know that just a handful of Black American troops spent a couple of years in England during World War II and left more brown babies back there—just a handful of Black American soldiers in England and in Paris and in Germany messed up the whole country. Now what do you think ninety thousand Africans are going to do in Italy for twenty years?[Laughter] It's good to know this because when you know it, you don't have to get a club to fight the man—put truth on him.

 

[Medicate]

Even the Irish got a dose of your and my blood when the Spanish Armada was defeated off the coast of Ireland, I think around about the seventeenth or eighteenth century; I forget exactly, you can check it out. The Spanish in those days were dark. They were the remnants of the Moors, and they went ashore and settled down in Ireland and right to this very day you've got what's known as the Black Irish. And it's not an accident that they call them Black Irish. If you look at them, they've got dark hair, dark features, and they've got Spanish names—like Eamon De Valera, the president, and there used to be another one called Costello.

These names came from the Iberian Peninsula, which is the Spanish-Portuguese peninsula, and they came there through these seamen, who were dark in those days. Don't let any Irishman jump up in your face and start telling you about you—why, he's got some of your blood too. You've spread your blood everywhere. If you start to talk to any one of them, I don't care where he is, if you know history, you can put him right in his place. In fact, he'll stay in his place, if he knows that you know your history.

 

[Medicate]

West African cultures

So all of this Carthage, Sumerian, Dravidian, Egyptian, Ethiopian history took place B.C., before Christ. In this era that you and I are living in after Christ, right in West Africa, one of the most highly developed civilizations was Ghana. Ghana wasn't located where she is today geographically, she wasn't limited to that geographic location. She covered pretty much a great portion of West Africa, and dates the early history of that empire at almost up to the time of the birth of Christ. And it was a highly developed civilization, highly developed society, that prevailed right up until I think around the eleventh century, or perhaps it went out of existence as an empire just before the tenth or the eleventh century. But this was an empire in Africa that was the source of gold and ivory; and other art objects, what would be called today art objects or items of luxury, came from Ghana. They had one of the most highly developed governmental systems, tax systems, cultures, period, at that time when people in Europe—

When President Nkrumah (he wasn't president then, I don't think) visited New York (I think it was in 1959; Harriman was governor) they had a banquet for him downtown, which I attended. Governor Harriman, Abe Stark, Mayor Wagner, all of them were there. At one point when they were introducing Nkrumah, they were congratulating him. I remember Abe Stark said this: That Nkrumah comes from Ghana, a country which was highly civilized, wearing silks, at a time when we, he said, up in Europe, were painting ourselves blue. Pick up on that. Abe Stark at that time was right under Wagner, and he's Jewish, which means he knows a whole lot of Black history, and here he was admitting that a civilization existed in Africa, where you and I came from, that was so highly developed that the people were wearing silks when his people, the Europeans, were up in the caves painting themselves blue.

Now you would think, with him saying that, that the Black newspaper reporters present would have put it in the paper and used it to wake up some of us in Harlem. They didn't say a mumbling word. And I know—I could name the ones that were there right now, some of them occupying leading positions in Black newspapers in this city. They didn't say a mumbling word.

They should have put it in the headlines, so they could wake Black people up, and let our people know that the white man knows that he didn't get us out of the jungle, he didn't get us out of some place that was savage. He got us out of a place that was highly civilized in culture and in art, and then brought us down to the level that you see us on today. But they are afraid to let us know what level we were on. They'll tell the Africans because they know the Africans know it, but they don't want you and me to know it. Because the first thing you and I would start asking them is, "Well, what did you do to us?" And if you find out, then you'll want to do it to him. The only way you can forgive him is to not know what you're forgiving him for. And you don't know what you've been forgiving him for. If you find out what he did to you, you won't have any forgiveness. No, you'll say, let the good times roll, let the chips fall where they may.[Laughter and applause]

After Ghana in West Africa, there was another civilization called Mali. Mali is one of the most famous because it was made famous by a Black sultan named Mansa Musa. Mansa Musa was famed for a journey he took from Mali to Mecca.

 

[Medicate]

In the same area—all of these three empires were in West Africa—after the Mali, I think, it was the Songhai empire. The Songhai empire covered, I think, even more territory than the Mali empire. And in those days there was the fabulous, fabled city of Timbuktu. Timbuktu was a center of learning where they had colleges and universities; and this Timbuktu existed as a hidden city, or forbidden city, to the white man for many centuries. He was not permitted to go there, none of them had been there—it was for us. They had universities there in which scholars traveled from China, Japan, the Orient, from Asia, from Africa, all the parts of Africa, to come there and learn. This was in Africa, and this existed before the discovery of America.

These people who taught at this university, or these universities, had a knowledge of geography. They knew that the earth was round. It wasn't Columbus that discovered that it was round for people in Europe; they discovered it when they began to be exposed to the science and learning that existed in the universities on the African continent. But the white man is such a liar, he doesn't want it to be known that the Black man was so far ahead of him in science. Now, this isn't racist talk, when I say he's a liar. I'm not talking about all of them, I'm talking about those who are responsible for this false concept of the African image, and that is most of them. If I said all of them, they'd call me a racist. I can't say all of them, but most of them, those in power, that told lies deliberately and scientifically to distort the image of Africa in order to mold a better picture and image of Europe—you can see the crime that they committed once you begin to delve into the African continent today and find its real position in science and civilization in times gone by.

Also, at that same time or a little later was a civilization called the Moors. The Moors were also a dark-skinned people on the African continent, who had a highly developed civilization. They were such magnificent warriors that they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in, I think, the year 711, eighth century, conquered Portugal, what we today know as Portugal, Spain, and southern France, conquered it and ruled it for seven hundred years. And they admit that during this time Europe was in the Dark Ages, meaning darkness, ignorance. And it was the only light spot; the only light, the only light of learning, that existed on the European continent at that time were the universities that the Moors had erected in what we today know as Spain and Portugal. These were African universities that they set up in that area. And they ruled throughout that area, up to a place known as Tours, where they were stopped by a Frenchman known in history as Charles Martel, or Charles the Hammer. He stopped the invasion of the Africans, and these were Africans.

 

[Medicate]

They try to confuse you and me by calling them Moors, so that you and I won't know what they were. But when you go home, look in the dictionary. Look up the word M-o-o-r; it will tell you that Moor means black. Well, if Negro means black and Moor means black, then they're talking about the same people all the time. But they don't want you and me to know that we were warriors, that we conquered, that we had armies. They want you and me to think that we were always nonviolent, and passive, and peaceful, and forgiving. Sure, we forgave our enemies in those days—after we killed them, we forgave them.[Laughter and applause]

Invention of gunpowder

The Black man in those days had never been defeated on the battlefield. He was only defeated when the Europeans invented, or got access to, gunpowder. I started to say invented gunpowder, but they didn't invent it, the Chinese invented it. The Chinese used it for peaceful purposes. Marco Polo, I think it was Marco wasn't it—he got ahold of it, and brought it back to Europe, and immediately they started using it to kill people with. This is the difference—that European, he's got something going for him that other people don't have going for them: he loves to kill—oh yes, he does. In Asia and in Africa, we kill for food. In Europe, they kill for sport. Have you not noticed that? Yes, they're bloodthirsty, they love blood; they love to see the flow of other people's blood, not their own. They're bloodthirsty. But in all of your ancient Asian or African societies, the killing of game was done for food, not just for sport. You don't get your kicks killing. They get their kicks killing. It gets good to them. Oh yes, you watch them sometime when they shoot a pheasant. I've watched them; when I was a little boy, I lived on a farm with white folks. When they shoot something, they just go crazy, you know, like they were really getting their kicks. And we have heard stories where they have lynched Black people, and right while they were lynching that Black man, you could see them getting their kicks, the thrill, while they do it. Whereas you and I, when we kill, we kill because we need to, either for food or to defend ourselves. That's something to think about.

But they never defeated the African armies until they got gunpowder. Then with their gunpowder, they came in. In those days we had mastered the blade. Right now, you notice they have nightmares when they think a Negro's got a blade in his pocket.[Laughter] This is true, because they know you know how to use it, brothers. Historically, on the battlefield, no one could use a blade like you and me—yes. You see, it takes a man to use one, for one thing. It takes a man to use a sword and a spear, because you've got to have the heart to get up to someone close enough to work with him; [Laughter] you've got to have the heart. But anybody can take a gun and stand at a distance and shoot at something that's no danger to him anyway. You and I, we went right on into him. And once he got ahold of the gun, that suited his nature; and he used it, and took over the world, with that gunpowder and his lies—I don't know which was the most effective. He lied and killed, to take over the world.

 

[Medicate]

During the Crusades, we fought him and beat him; again, he didn't have the gunpowder. During the Crusades the Europeans fought against the Asians and the Africans—it was the war between what they called the Muslims and the Christians. In those days, you didn't have Black Christians. Christians meant the European nations: France, Belgium. You go read the history of the Crusades. You'll find that their chief general was the Pope, his headquarters was in Rome, and they made war trying to redeem the city of Jerusalem, in which was the tomb of Jesus. They wanted to regain it from the Muslims, but they never could do it. The Muslims defeated the Christian armies. And the Christian armies in those days were white; the Muslim armies were black, brown, red, and yellow.

Some of the leading warriors in the Muslim armies were from Africa. The Africans had mastered metalwork with such skill that they had a coat that they put on, made of steel, that was just as pliable as this. Whereas, when you see the white knight, you notice he had to have some help to get on his horse.[Laughter] Because he looked like he was inside of a stove. They didn't know how to work metal in Europe. But that Black man had mastered metalcraft, woodcraft, leathercraft—he was crafty, brothers, he mastered everything. But not a thing in Europe. And it was during the Crusades that many of the people in Europe realized what a high culture existed in Asia and in Africa. Why, these people were living in huts in Europe, and in holes in the hills, still in that day—they were savages almost, didn't know what learning was, couldn't read and write. The king couldn't even read and write, and he was over all of them. They got all their reading and writing and arithmetic from you and me. And you see what they did with it? They turned around and used it on us.

So the question is: If we were at such a level then, what happened to us to get us where we are now? If we had such a high culture, such a high civilization, what happened to get us where we are now?

When America was discovered and colonized by England, England populated her American colonies not with people who were refined and cultured, but, if you read the history, she did the same thing here that she did in Australia. All the convicts were sent here to found this country. The prisons were emptied of prostitutes and thieves and murderers. They were sent over here to populate this country. When these people jump up in your and my face today, talking about [how] the founding fathers were puritan pure, that's some talk for somebody else. No, the founding fathers from England came from the dungeons of England, came from the prisons of England; they were prostitutes, they were murderers and thieves and liars. And as soon as they got over here, they proved it. They created one of the most criminal societies that has ever existed on the earth since time began. And if you doubt it, when you go home at night, look in the mirror at yourself, and you'll see the victim of that criminal system that was created by them.[Applause]

 

[Medicate]

They were such artful liars, they were such artful, skillful liars, that they were able to take a criminal system and, with lies, project it to the world as a humanitarian system. They were the worst form of criminals themselves, but with their lies they were able to project themselves as pilgrims who were so religious, they were coming to this country so they could practice their religion. And you ate that thing up 100 percent. No, they were crooks that came here—Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Quincy, and the others, all of them were criminals. And if you doubt that they were, when they wrote this document talking about freedom, they still owned you. Yes, when they wrote, how does that thing go—about "all men created equal"?—that was later on. Who was it wrote that—"all men created equal"? It was Jefferson. Jefferson had more slaves than anybody else. So they weren't talking about us.

When I see some poor old brainwashed Negroes—you mention Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Patrick Henry, they just swoon, you know, with patriotism. But they don't realize that in the sight of George Washington, you were a sack of molasses, a sack of potatoes. You—yes—were a sack of potatoes, a barrel of molasses, you amounted to nothing, in the sight of Washington, or in the sight of Jefferson, or Hamilton, and some of those other so-called founding fathers. You were their property. And if it was left up to them, you'd still be their property today.