While speaking at Michigan State University, Malcolm X called for reparations in the form of back wages and a section of the U.S. to be set aside for Black people. Later, in his book “By Any Means Necessary,” published posthumously, he talked more about reparations:
“If you are the son of a man who had a wealthy estate and you inherit your father’s estate, you have to pay off the debts that your father incurred before he died. The only reason that the present generation of white Americans are in a position of economic strength…is because their fathers worked our fathers for over 400 years with no pay…We were sold from plantation to plantation like you sell a horse, or a cow, or a chicken, or a bushel of wheat…. All that money…is what gives the present generation of American Whites the ability to walk around the earth with their chest out…like they have some kind of economic ingenuity. Your father isn’t here to pay. My father isn’t here to collect. But I’m here to collect and you’re here to pay.”
Malcolm X was assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965.
