February 21 is the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, arguably the most significant African leader within the U.S. since the heyday of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African League in the first quarter of the 20th Century.
At the First Congress of the African People’s Socialist Party held in Oakland, California in September 1981, a resolution was passed that marked the significance of Malcolm X in the struggle for the liberation of our people.
We are reprinting in part that resolution here in The Burning Spear to commemorate the death of Malcolm X and to reinitiate a tradition within our Party and movement that was once recognized to be important for advancing our struggle.
The struggle of African people to liberate our national homeland, Africa; to resist oppression and exploitation; to overthrow the system of imperialism and advance the cause of world socialism, has seen hundreds and thousands of our people make the ultimate heroic sacrifice, the sacrifice of life itself.
The history of our resistance has been written in blood and flames; it has been punctuated by the courageous examples of such martyrs as Nat Turner, Steven Biko, Patrice Lumumba, Walter Rodney, Nehanda Nyakasinkana, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, Amilcar Cabral, and Lawrence Mann, co-founder of the African People’s Socialist Party.
Historically, the oppressors of African people have attempted to turn history upside down and present the heroic examples of our freedom fighters as evidence of the futility, the hopelessness of our cause for political independence, African liberation and world socialism.
In many instances our oppressors have succeeded in demoralizing great numbers of our people by using the examples of brutally murdered African freedom fighters to prove the invincibility of imperialism and the permanence of African oppression and exploitation.
The African People’s Socialist Party rejects and denounces this reactionary view of the bourgeoisie and calls on all African revolutionaries of all countries to proclaim February 21, the anniversary of the 1965 imperialist assassination of Malcolm X, as the Day of the African Martyr.
The African People’s Socialist Party calls on all African revolutionaries of all countries to take command of the history of our people’s struggle for political independence, African liberation, and socialism, by taking command of the definition of that history and resistance.
The African People’s Socialist Party calls on all African revolutionaries of all countries to raise high, in a revolutionary manner, the heroic memory of all our fallen martyrs, of all those in every city, village, community and country where they fell as evidence of the determination of our people to fight every battle on every front until liberty has been won.
The African People’s Socialist Party calls on all African revolutionaries of all countries to initiate special ceremonies and programs in every community where an African revolutionary has fallen and to raise the memory of our fallen freedom fighters to its proper revolutionary and historical significance.
The African People’s Socialist Party calls on all Party members to win the masses within the U.S. in all mass organizations where the African People’s Socialist Party has influence to unity with this resolution.
