Brown University Student Discovers a Lost Speech of Malcolm X

Malcolm Burnley, a student a Brown University saw a reference in an old copy of the university student newspaper to a speech given by Malcolm X in Providence in 1961. Burnley searched the university’s archives and found an audiotape of the address. No one had heard the speech for the past 50 years.

In the address before a crowd of 800 people, Malcolm X said the slavery “has made the 20 million Black people in this country a dead people. Dead economically, dead mentally, dead spiritually. Dead morally and otherwise. Integration will not bring a man back from the grave.”

Malcolm X stated that Black people should not look to integrate into White society but rather seek to create their own identities and develop their own culture.