“The American black man should be focusing his every effort toward building his own business, and decent homes for himself. As other ethnic groups have done, let the black people, wherever possible, however possible, patronize their own kind, hire their own kind, and start in those ways to build up the black race’s ability to do for itself… The black man never can become independent and recognized as a human being who is truly equal with other human beings until he has what they have, and until he is doing for himself what others are doing for themselves.”

Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Grove Press, 1966), p.272, cited in C.M. Condit and John L. Lucaites, Crafting Equality (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 193.

This quote from Malcom X is an extract from his autobiography published in 1966. Even though it was written almost fifty years ago, the problems he raises are still relevant today. Indeed, despite what we may think and despite the election of Barack Obama two years ago, the US is not a color-blind society. However, contrary to what he seems to say, nowadays, Black people are fortunately considered as fully human being but the problem today is about affirmative action in every fields of the society. Nevertheless, we will only focus on the economic field for this essay. In this quote, we see the reflection of Malcom X’s philosophy about the Civil Rights movement. Indeed, its speech highlights his violence toward white people, but also his envy, favoring discrimination against them and favoring a total separation between the two races. So this quote raises the problem of letting the African American be economically independent, in a kind of separate society, so that they can be recognize as true human beings.

First of all, I partly agree with what Malcom X says in this quote, and especially with the first sentence. Indeed, as a part of the society, everybody should be able to have a