414 ChaPter^8
Instead he called on blacks to reject white society and work for their own
liberation “by any means necessary.”
Malcolm X believed that Civil Rights laws had not come near solving
America’s race problems. As he saw it [not unlike C. Wright Mills], so long as
Whites controlled social institutions—banks, companies, politics—Black prog-
ress would be minimal. Blacks, he urged, should own businesses and run their
own neighborhoods and cities. “Once you gain control of the economy of
your own community,” he pointed out, “then you don’t have to picket and
boycott and beg some cracker downtown for a job in his business.” Importantly,
Malcolm, like King and the mainstream Civil Rights movement, was not chal-
lenging Capitalism but trying to make it inclusive, to give Blacks a role in the
robust private economy that made so many Americans prosperous. To Malcolm,
the southern movement had not addressed issues jobs and low wages, housing,
health care, or education. Malcolm X, however, never had the opportunity to
bring his message to the masses like King had. In February 1965—as he was
changing some of his militant nationalist views and reaching out somewhat to
King and other Civil Rights groups—he was assassinated by rival Black
Muslims. African Americans had been deprived, again, of a powerful spokes-
man for radical change. Others, however, would follow through on Malcolm’sFIGuRE 8-7 Malcolm X, 1964