An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

thinking was responsible for a generation after him who continued to frame
the Black American condition in colonial terms, even while they
acknowledged that those terms were imperfect. 47
In one of his final speeches, given in February 1965 at the Ford
Auditorium in Detroit, Malcolm made clear his attempt to globalize the US
Black freedom struggle. He articulated a particular version of colonialism:
“I might point out right here that colonialism or imperialism, as the slave
system of the West is called, is not something that’s just confined to
England or France or the United States.” 48 Malcolm continued, “It’s one
huge complex or combine, and it creates what’s known not as the American
power structure or the French power structure, but it’s an international
power structure.” 49 He understood the nature of imperialism, and how it
connected in unique ways. This international power structure that Malcolm
articulated was “used to suppress the masses of dark-skinned people all
over the world and exploit them of their natural resources.” 50 Although the
labor of Black Americans was being exploited, the question of whose land
was being exploited and, more importantly, who belonged on that land was
still in question.
Again, this discourse ignores Native histories and claims of exploitation
in difficult ways. Unfortunately, because of the assassination of Malcolm X,
we cannot know for sure his thoughts on Black liberation as it related to
Indigenous people. There were moments, however, where Malcolm
understood the preciousness of Black belonging in the United States was
based not only on how the state treated Black people but also how it treated
its Indigenous population.
BLACK BELONGING AND THE AMERICAN NIGHTMARE?
To be clear, Malcolm did not believe that Black people could integrate into
the burning house that was US democracy. He crafted a perspective on
Black belonging in the US that erased Indigenous peoples and histories. For
example, in the now resurrected “three chapters” that were recently
purchased by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, not
included in the published version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, he
made many remarks about Indigenous genocide as a foil through which to
understand the possibilities of Black liberation in the US.