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Kenneth ClarkKenneth Clark
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Session:         Page of 763

Q:

Let me come back to Malcolm X. There's one other question. Malcolm X's rhetoric of course can be properly characterized as inflammatory.

Clark:

Yes, which he understood.

Q:

Yet he did not advocate violence.

Clark:

No. In fact he was opposed to violence. Very much so.

Q:

Did he ever discuss with you his rationale? Or did you ever hear how--

Clark:

Malcolm had rightly felt that the victims of violence would be the blacks, that they couldn't gain through violence. By the way, he was also a very kind person inside, believe it or not. I gave you the examples of how he was positive in response to young people, without regard to race. He'd come to my classes and he would not be racist in his communication with my students. My wife and I took some high school students who wanted to meet him to his office. I think the majority of them were white. He stopped everything and talked with them. In California, when a number of Muslims were killed by the police, he was supposed to go up to my son's prep school. My son had invited him up to camp. He called me and said “I can't go”, and he was crying. He had just gotten word that some of the muslims in California (I think it was Los Angeles) had been killed. He was no actor. He was genuinely disturbed. So Malcolm





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