Malcolm and Olatunji: Their Harlem-Fed PanAfricanism!
by 'bro. Zayid'
Do you know who this is in this picture with Malcolm and what it represents?
This is Nigerian percussion legend Olatunji who came to the United States in the 1950s with an unofficial PanAfrican sensibility and mission, particularly within the Jazz community, seeking to use the journey of our drum traditions to unite us culturally as African people.
This pic was taken in Harlem on Independence Day for Nigeria, which was October 1st, 1960.
The significance for both is that they both had hugely serious PanAfrican sensibilities that drove their work before they stated it formally as such.
Malcolm's sensibility came from his parents, Garveyites Earl and Louise Little.
His return to Harlem as Minister of Mosque No 7 for the Nation in 1954 came at a time when Harlem was the epicenter for an emerging global PanAfrican pulse that was about to drive the continent to Independence. It was the hub of cultural practice and performance and of official, starting with Ghana's Independence and opening their UN headquarters in 1957, and unofficial 'People to People' Solidarity. Malcolm placed himself at the center of that activity, which also includes necessarily the 1959 African People's Convention, and voraciously took in all he could from all of those currents.
He took Elijah Muhammad's notion that joining the Nation Of Islam would not only bring dignity to the Black man and woman, it would bring them 'friends in all walks of life'!...This was the NOI version of PanAfricanism and Internationalism. Malcolm's vision clearly went further than his leader's and was even 'put in check' at times for doing so...
"I'm not so much worried about 'foreigners', he had told Malcolm, "I'm going after the dead," meaning 'lost-found' Black people in the United States.
Malcolm saw them as inseparable. He would ultimately have to leave the NOI to organize around his vision.
Back to Olatunji...Not long after Malcolm's death, he would look to partner with none other than the immortal John Coltrane, whose own sense of Internationalism was fully taking over his music, to create a cultural center in Harlem that would teach music and the arts to the community from an African centered paradigm.
It actually came into being as The Olatunji Center of African Culture at 43 E 125th Street in Harlem. Trane would perform his last recorded concert to benefit the space in April 1967.
Tragically, ' Trane died suddenly just three months later, and, just as unfortunately, it did not last.
I spoke to Olatunji about that venture when i saw him last at the Million Youth March 2000 (the first having taken place in 1998). We both agreed that they were 'on time' and yet 'ahead of their time' with they what they were trying to do.
The great drum master and 'djali (griot) passed away not long after that on April 6, 2003 just a day shy of his 76th birthday and just two weeks shy of the 36th anniversary of Trane's Concert at the School.
The passing of Malcolm and 'Trane within two years of each other, however, would ignite a collective passion among Black Artists in America that would emerge as 'The Black Arts Movement,' the 'spiritual sister' of the Black Liberation Movement, with Malcolm and 'Trane as 'Fathers'!
PanAfricanism Or Perish!
X as in Malcolm is the Answer!
(c)2021
