TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY - Feb. 21

At That Moment

When they shot Malcolm Little down

On the stage of the Audobon Ballroom,

When his life ran out through bullet holes

(Like the people running out then the murder began)

His blood soaked the floor

One drop found a crack through the stark

Pounding thunder-slipped under the stage and began

Its journey: burrowed through concrete into the cellar,

Dropped down darkness, exploding like quicksilver

Pellets of light, panicking rats, paralyzing cockroaches-

Tunneled through rubble and wrecks of foundations,

The rocks that buttress the bowels of the city, flowed

Into pipes and powerlines, the mains and cables of the city:

A thousand fiery seeds.

At that moment,

Those who drank water where he entered...

Those who cooked food where he passed...

Those who burned light while he listened...

Those who were talking as he went, knew he was water

Running out of faucets, gas running out of jets, power

Running out of sockets, meaning running along taut wires -

To the hungers of their living. It was said

Whole slums of clotted Harlem plumbing groaned

And sundered free that day, and disconnected gas and light

Went on and on and on ...

They rushed his riddled body on a stretcher

To the hospital. But the police were too late.

It had already happened.

--Raymond R. Patterson

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) was assassinated on February 21, 1965. The poem above, by Raymond Patterson is one that I often use with my students to help them understand the devastating impact of having "our own Black shining prince" taken from us so soon. 

Here is the scene from Spike Lee's movie, Malcolm X which includes the voice of Ossie Davis reading his eulogy: