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"Malcolm relates integrationists to "Uncle Toms" who seek to intermarry with whites."


Malcolm relates integrationists to "Uncle Toms" who seek to intermarry with whites.
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. 23 January 1963.

Transcribed text from audio excerpt. [read entire speech]

And when I said that this Negro wants to force his way into the white man's family, this integrationist-minded Negro wants to force his way into the white man's family, some don't believe that. Some take issue with that. But you take all of the integrationists, all of those who are used to finance the program of the integrationists, the average so-called Negro celebrity, put all of them in one pile. And as fast as you name them off, you'll find that every one of them is married either to a white woman or a white man. From Lena Home, Eartha Kitt, Sammy Davis, and you could name 'em all night long, they--although they say that this is not what we want--that's what they've done. That's what they have. And we don't--the Black masses don't want what Lena Home wants or what Sammy Davis wants or what who's-his-name, the rest of them want.

Usually you'll find that before Sammy Davis and Lena Home and Eartha Kitt and Harry Belafonte become involved in a mixed marriage you could go into the Negro community, any one across the country, and find those stars with records on the jukeboxes in the Negro community. You can't walk into a Negro community today and find anybody that the Negro community knows is involved in a mixed marriage with their records being popular in the Negro community. Subconsciously a Negro doesn't have any respect or regard or confidence, nor can he be moved by, another Black man, a Black man who marries a white woman or a Black woman who marries a white man.

And when they put out that picture to you that all of us want your woman, no, just that twentieth-century Uncle Tom. He wants her. But, then when you fulfill--think you're going to solve your problem by pleasing him, you're only making the problem worse. You have to go back and listen to the problem as it is presented by the masses of Black people, not by these handpicked, handful of Uncle Toms who benefit from token integration.

SOURCE: X, Malcolm. "The Race Problem." African Students Association and NAACP Campus Chapter. Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. 23 January 1963.