3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

snakes" ; in fact, he suggested, "the whole world would honor you or honor anyone who did
what the federal government refused to do . . ."so It was these oblique suggestions at which
Malcolm excelled .
In this same speech, Malcolm suggested how white liberals, eager to prove their
commitment to the cause, could help out . "When they tell me that they're liberal, I tell them,
`Gr+eat, go get me one of those snake heads ."'s ~ He believed that many white college students
were sincere in their desire to help blacks, but he felt that "encouraging our people to be
nonviolent" was misguided . He induced liberals to ~, not talk :
I'm telling you how to do it : You're a liberal ; get you a shat . And get you something
up under that sheet that you know how to use, and walk right on in that camp of
sheeted people with the rest of them . And show how liberal you arc . I'll come back
and shake your hand all day Iong. s2
If a white person were sincere in his commitment to aiding blacks, let him infiltrate a Ku
Klux Klan meeting with a gun and start bring. Dressed as a Klansman, with a weapon
secreted under his robes, a white person could do much to further the cause . Actions, after
all, spoke louder than words. s3
s3He presented a similar scenario to Robert Penn Warren in 1965, saying : "If I see a white
man who was willing to go to jail or throw himself in front of a car in behalf of the so-called
Negro cause, the test that I would put to him, I'd ask him, `Do you think Negroes--when
Negroes arc being attacked--should defend themselves even at the risk of having to kill the
one who's attacking them?' If that white man told me, yes, I'd shake his hand." Malcolm X,
quoted in Robert Penn Warren, Who Sneaks for the Negro? (New York : Random House,
1965), 258 .
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