The Night Malcolm X Spoke at the Oxford Union

I am writing these things so that you will know for a fact the tremendous sympathy and support we have among the African States for our Human Rights struggle. -Letter from Malcolm X to actor and social activist Ossie Davis, May 19, 1964

Exposing American deceit and oppression was at the heart of Malcolm X's agenda when he visited Sudan, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Ghana in late April and early May. "You who think the black man has been emancipated in America," he told a group of five hundred students in Ibadan, Nigeria, "just go there and visit without your national costume and you will be subject to unheard of indignities. The government of the United States is a government of the white people, by the white people, and for the benefit of the white people. "45 To students in Accra, Ghana, he spoke of the dogs and bayonets, cattle prods and water hoses, that American police used against civil rights activists. As for members of the American Peace Corps, supposedly working for health and education in the poorer parts of Africa, they were "paving the way for neo-colonialism" by extending American influence over African life.46