马尔科姆演讲稿：选票还是子弹 The Ballot or the Bullet由刀豆文库小编整理，希望给你工作、学习、生活带来方便，猜你可能喜欢“马尔科姆”。
The Ballot or the Bullet
by Malcolm X
April 3, 1964
Cleveland, Ohio
Mr.Moderator, Brother Lomax, brothers and sisters, friends and enemies: I just can't believe everyone in here is a friend, and I don't want to leave anybody out.The question tonight, as I understand it, is “The Negro Revolt, and Where Do We Go From Here?” or What Next?“ In my little humble way of understanding it, it points toward either the ballot or the bullet.Before we try and explain what is meant by the ballot or the bullet, I would like to clarify something concerning myself.I'm still a Muslim;my religion is still Islam.That's my personal belief.Just as Adam Clayton powell is a Christian minister who heads the Abyinian Baptist Church in New York, but at the same time takes part in the political struggles to try and bring about rights to the black people in this country;and Dr.Martin Luther King is a Christian minister down in Atlanta, Georgia, who heads another organization fighting for the civil rights of black people in this country;and Reverend Galamison, I gue you've heard of him, is another Christian minister in New York who has been deeply involved in the school boycotts to eliminate segregated education;well, I myself am a minister, not a Christian minister, but a Muslim minister;and I believe in action on all fronts by whatever means neceary.Although I'm still a Muslim, I'm not here tonight to discu my religion.I'm not here to try and change your religion.I'm not here to argue or discu anything that we differ about, because it's time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you're a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist.Whether you're educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you're going to catch hell just like I am.We're all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man.He just happens to be a white man.All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppreion at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man.Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but it does mean we're anti-exploitation, we're anti-degradation, we're anti-oppreion.And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppreing and exploiting and degrading us.Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences.If we have differences, let us differ in the closet;when we come out in front, let us not have anything to argue about until we get finished arguing with the man.If the late president Kennedy could get together with Khrushchev and exchange some wheat, we certainly have more in common with each other than Kennedy and Khrushchev had with each other.If we don't do something real soon, I think you'll have to agree that we're going to be forced either to use the ballot or the bullet.It's one or the other in 1964.It isn't that time is running out--time has run out!
1964 threatens to be the most explosive year America has ever witneed.The most explosive year.Why? It's also a political year.It's the year when all of the white politicians will be back in the so-called Negro community jiving you and me for some votes.The year when all of the white political crooks will be right back in your and my community with their false promises, building up our hopes for a letdown, with their trickery and their treachery, with their false promises which they don't intend to keep.As they nourish these diatisfactions, it can only lead to one thing, an explosion;and now we have the type of black man on the scene in America today--I'm sorry, Brother Lomax--who just doesn't intend to turn the other cheek any longer.Don't let anybody tell you anything about the odds are against you.If they draft you, they send you to Korea and make you face 800 million Chinese.If you can be brave over there, you can be brave right here.These odds aren't as great as those odds.And if you fight here, you will at least know what you're fighting for.I'm not a politician, not even a student of politics;in fact, I'm not a student of much of anything.I'm not a Democrat.I'm not a Republican, and I don't even consider myself an American.If you and I were Americans, there'd be no problem.Those Honkies that just got off the boat, they're already Americans;polacks are already Americans;the Italian refugees are already Americans.Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American.And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.Look at it the way it is.What alibis do they use, since they control Congre and the Senate? What alibi do they use when you and I ask, ”Well, when are you going to keep your promise?“ They blame the Dixiecrats.What is a Dixiecrat? A Democrat.A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise.The titular head of the Democrats is also the head of the Dixiecrats, because the Dixiecrats are a part of the Democratic party.The Democrats have never kicked the Dixiecrats out of the party.The Dixiecrats bolted themselves once, but the Democrats didn't put them out.Imagine, these lowdown Southern segregationists put the Northern Democrats down.But the Northern Democrats have never put the Dixiecrats down.No, look at that thing the way it is.They have got a con game going on, a political con game, and you and I are in the middle.It's time for you and me to wake up and start looking at it like it is, and trying to understand it like it is;and then we can deal with it like it is.The Dixiecrats in Washington, D.C., control the key committees that run the government.The only reason the Dixiecrats control these committees is because they have seniority.The only reason they have seniority is because they come from states where Negroes can't vote.This is not even a government that's based on democracy.lt.is not a government that is made up of representatives of the people.Half of the people in the South can't even vote.Eastland is not even supposed to be in Washington.Half of the senators and congremen who occupy these key positions in Washington, D.C., are there illegally, are there unconstitutionally.I was in Washington, D.C., a week ago Thursday, when they were debating whether or not they should let the bill come onto the floor.And in the back of the room where the Senate meets, there's a huge map of the United States, and on that map it shows the location of Negroes throughout the country.And it shows that the Southern section of the country, the states that are most heavily concentrated with Negroes, are the ones that have senators and congremen standing up filibustering and doing all other kinds of trickery to keep the Negro from being able to vote.This is pitiful.But it's not pitiful for us any longer;it's actually pitiful for the white man, because soon now, as the Negro awakens a little more and sees the vise that he's in, sees the bag that he's in, sees the real game that he's in, then the Negro's going to develop a new tactic.These senators and congremen actually violate the constitutional amendments that guarantee the people of that particular state or county the right to vote.And the Constitution itself has within it the machinery to expel any representative from a state where the voting rights of the people are violated.You don't even need new legislation.Any person in Congre right now, who is there from a state or a district where the voting rights of the people are violated, that particular person should be expelled from Congre.And when you expel him, you've removed one of the obstacles in the path of any real meaningful legislation in this country.In fact, when you expel them, you don't need new legislation, because they will be replaced by black representatives from counties and districts where the black man is in the majority, not in the minority.If the black man in these Southern states had his full voting rights, the key Dixiecrats in Washington, D.C., which means the key Democrats in Washington, D.C., would lose their seats.The Democratic party itself would lose its power.It would cease to be powerful as a party.When you see the amount of power that would be lost by the Democratic party if it were to lose the Dixiecrat wing, or branch, or element, you can see where it's against the interests of the Democrats to give voting rights to Negroes in states where the Democrats have been in complete power and authority ever since the Civil War.You just can't belong to that party without analyzing it.I say again, I'm not anti-Democrat, I'm not anti-Republican, I'm not anti-anything.I'm just questioning their sincerity, and some of the strategy that they've been using on our people by promising them promises that they don't intend to keep.When you keep the Democrats in power, you're keeping the Dixiecrats in power.I doubt that my good Brother Lomax will deny that.A vote for a Democrat is a vote for a Dixiecrat.That's why, in 1964, it's time now for you and me to become more politically mature and realize what the ballot is for;what we're supposed to get when we cast a ballot;and that if we don't cast a ballot, it's going to end up in a situation where we're going to have to cast a bullet.It's either a ballot or a bullet.In the North, they do it a different way.They have a system that's known as gerrymandering, whatever that means.It means when Negroes become too heavily concentrated in a certain area, and begin to gain too much political power, the white man comes along and changes the district lines.You may say, ”Why do you keep saying white man?“ Because it's the white man who does it.I haven't ever seen any Negro changing any lines.They don't let him get near the line.It's the white man who does this.And usually, it's the white man who grins at you the most, and pats you on the back, and is supposed to be your friend.He may be friendly, but he's not your friend.So, what I'm trying to impre upon you, in eence, is this: You and I in America are faced not with a segregationist conspiracy, we're faced with a government conspiracy.Everyone who's filibustering is a senator--that's the government.Everyone who's finagling in Washington, D.C., is a congreman--that's the government.You don't have anybody putting blocks in your path but people who are a part of the government.The same government that you go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in a conspiracy to deprive you of your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you of decent housing, deprive you of decent education.You don't need to go to the employer alone, it is the government itself, the government of America, that is responsible for the oppreion and exploitation and degradation of black people in this country.And you should drop it in their lap.This government has failed the Negro.This so-called democracy has failed the Negro.And all these white liberals have definitely failed the Negro.So, where do we go from here? First, we need some friends.We need some new allies.The entire civil-rights struggle needs a new interpretation, a broader interpretation.We need to look at this civil-rights thing from another angle--from the inside as well as from the outside.To those of us whose philosophy is black nationalism, the only way you can get involved in the civil-rights struggle is give it a new interpretation.That old interpretation excluded us.It kept us out.So, we're giving a new interpretation to the civil-rights struggle, an interpretation that will enable us to come into it, take part in it.And these handkerchief-heads who have been dillydallying and puy footing and compromising--we don't intend to let them puyfoot and dillydally and compromise any longer.How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what's already yours? You haven't even made progre, if what's being given to you, you should have had already.That's not progre.And I love my Brother Lomax, the way he pointed out we're right back where we were in 1954.We're not even as far up as we were in 1954.We're behind where we were in 1954.There's more segregation now than there was in 1954.There's more racial animosity, more racial hatred, more racial violence today in 1964, than there was in 1954.Where is the progre?
And now you're facing a situation where the young Negro's coming up.They don't want to hear that ”turn the-other-cheek“ stuff, no.In Jacksonville, those were teenagers, they were throwing Molotov cocktails.Negroes have never done that before.But it shows you there's a new deal coming in.There's new thinking coming in.There's new strategy coming in.It'll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, and something else next month.It'll be ballots, or it'll be bullets.It'll be liberty, or it will be death.The only difference about this kind of death--it'll be reciprocal.You know what is meant by ”reciprocal“? That's one of Brother Lomax's words.I stole it from him.I don't usually deal with those big words because I don't usually deal with big people.I deal with small people.I find you can get a whole lot of small people and whip hell out of a whole lot of big people.They haven't got anything to lose, and they've got every thing to gain.And they'll let you know in a minute: ”It takes two to tango;when I go, you go.“
The black nationalists, those whose philosophy is black nationalism, in bringing about this new interpretation of the entire meaning of civil rights, look upon it as meaning, as Brother Lomax has pointed out, equality of opportunity.Well, we're justified in seeking civil rights, if it means equality of opportunity, because all we're doing there is trying to collect for our investment.Our mothers and fathers invested sweat and blood.Three hundred and ten years we worked in this country without a dime in return--I mean without a dime in return.You let the white man walk around here talking about how rich this country is, but you never stop to think how it got rich so quick.It got rich because you made it rich.You take the people who are in this audience right now.They're poor.We're all poor as individuals.Our weekly salary individually amounts to hardly anything.But if you take the salary of everyone in here collectively, it'll fill up a whole lot of baskets.It's a lot of wealth.If you can collect the wages of just these people right here for a year, you'll be rich--richer than rich.When you look at it like that, think how rich Uncle Sam had to become, not with this handful, but millions of black people.Your and my mother and father, who didn't work an eight-hour shift, but worked from ”can't see“ in the morning until ”can't see“ at night, and worked for nothing, making the white man rich, making Uncle Sam rich.This is our investment.This is our contribution, our blood.Uncle Sam's hands are dripping with blood, dripping with the blood of the black man in this country.He's the earth's number-one hypocrite.He has the audacity--yes, he has--imagine him posing as the leader of the free world.The free world!And you over here singing ”We Shall Overcome." Expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights.Take it into the United Nations, where our African brothers can throw their weight on our side, where our Asian brothers can throw their weight on our side, where our Latin-American brothers can throw their weight on our side, and where 800 million Chinamen are sitting there waiting to throw their weight on our side.Let the world know how bloody his hands are.Let the world know the hypocrisy that's practiced over here.Let it be the ballot or the bullet.Let him know that it must be the ballot or the bullet.
