The Night Malcolm X Spoke at the Oxford Union

Many of our people in Paris, as well as from the African continent, are organizing. They are just as concerned with what is going on over here as you and I are. -Malcolm X, speaking to a rally in Harlem, November 29, 1964

Paul Robeson, the great African American actor, singer, and anti-imperialist activist, who petitioned the United Nations to condemn lynching in America in 1951, famously said that he discovered Africa in London, thanks to all the Africans he met there. For Malcolm X a decade or so later, somewhat the reverse was true: he discovered London in Africa. During his travels, he jotted down the names and addresses of dozens of Arab and African students who were studying in Britain, mostly in London, and in Paris, and he received invitations to both cities. By quite early in the summer, then, it was clearly on his mind to go there and meet with black immigrants and students. "If this [trip goes] as planned," he wrote to his wife, "I shall visit Kuwait, Arabia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanganyika, Morocco, Algeria, Paris, London-and then into New York. "63