Nyumburu Leadership Series

by Roland Sheppard

"When I looked up, I saw Malcolm X standing up and glaring down at one of his assassins. At that point, from the corner of my eye, nearby to my left, I saw a flash from a gun as I watched Malcolm X fall down and back about ten feet."

The Day the Music Died: Malcolm X's Assassination

by Roland Sheppard

An earlier edited version of this article appeared in the San Francisco BayView National Black Newspaper.

"It was the saddest day of my life."

In the afternoon, on January 21, 1965, I went to the Audubon Ballroom to hear Malcolm X speak. I also went to sell the newspaper, The Militant,  a radical newspaper, which at that time, printed the truth about Malcolm X, his speeches, and publicly defended him. 

When I got to the Ballroom, things were radically different -- there were no cops. (Normally Malcolm's meetings in Harlem were crawling with cops.) As I was selling papers, Malcolm X approached the Audubon Ballroom, I offered to sell him the latest issue, but he told me, "not today Roland, I am alone and in a hurry."  

A while later, as I entered the meeting room I again did not see any cops. I went in to sit down, where I normally sat along with the rest of the press in the front and the left side of the room. On the way to my seat, Gene Roberts, who later surfaced as a police agent member of the Black Panther Party, told me that I could not sit at my regular place, but on that day I had to sit in the front row on the right side of the hall, facing the stage.

As I sat down, I glanced over, to where I normally sat, and saw a large Black man, with a Navy Blue-gray trench coat. When the meeting started all was quiet, as the crowd listened to Benjamin X introducing Malcolm X.

When Malcolm approached the podium, he gave the normal Muslim greeting for peace, at that point a disturbance occurred in the room. Two men were standing about halfway back in the room and to the right of the Malcolm on stage. One was shouting "Get your hand out of my pocket." Malcolm was trying to calm things down, when the men, one later identified as Talmadge Hayer, started running down the aisle shouting and firing a pistol at Malcolm and ran out the exit doors by the stage, to the right of Malcolm X.

"I saw a flash from a gun as I watched Malcolm X fall down and back about ten feet."

Suddenly I heard gunshots fired from all over the place, and I instinctively hit the floor. When I looked up, I saw Malcolm X standing up and glaring down at one of his assassins. At that point, from the corner of my eye, nearby to my left, I saw a flash from a gun as I watched Malcolm X fall down and back about ten feet. In that instant, when Malcolm died before my eyes, I suddenly realized how big he was and I realized that he was a giant in stature, in the world.  This vision of Malcolm X, being assassinated, has haunted me till this day. (The fatal blast, which I later found out to be from a shotgun, came from the area where I had seen the large Black man, with a Navy Blue-gray trench coat!) 

When I left the hall, Malcolm's bodyguards told me that they had caught two of the assassins, one who was shot (Talmadge Hayer) and one whom the police took away.

A few weeks later, when I was questioned in the Harlem Police station, I was shown a series of photos of people whom I recognized as members of the Nation of Islam or Malcolm's organization. I also saw a picture of the large Black man, with a Navy Blue-gray trench coat, that I had seen at the Audubon Ballroom. I was thinking of how to respond to the cops and how to say that I did not recognize the photos of Malcolm's friends and supporters and the members of the Nation of Islam.

I then told the cops that I had to go to the rest room. When I got to the men's room door, I saw the same large Black man, coming out of the men's room, that I had seen in the Audubon Ballroom and in the photos that were just shown to me. Then he walked by me, he walked past the desks of the secretary pool, and went to his office inside the police station! At that point I knew that he and the government either killed Malcolm X or were part of the assassination plot. I became very nervous thinking about what I was going to say to the cops when I got back and how I was going to get out of the station alive. I then came up with, "I can not recognize anyone, for all Black people look the same."  The cops nodded in agreement and I was then allowed to leave the police station.

"At that point I knew that he and the government either killed Malcolm X or were part of the assassination plot."

Malcolm X was my one of my heroes. He was the most honest mass leader that I have ever known or seen.  He was a great orator and his speeches seemed like a conversation between himself and the audience. His speeches were like music to my ear and have inspired me for the rest of my life in the fight for social justice.

He was so human in his orations, I still remember him when made the Harlem 'Hate Gang' Scare speech at The Militant Labor Forum, on May 29, 1964 and other speeches when he chuckled a 'heh heh' when he was about to make a special comment.  At that Forum he said: "It's impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg... The system of this country cannot produce freedom for an Afro-American. It is impossible for this system, this economic system, this political system, this social system, this system period. It is impossible for it , as it now stands, to produce freedom right now for the Black man in this country - it is impossible.  And if ever a chicken did produce a duck egg, (heh heh) I'm certain you would say it was certainly a revolutionary chicken.  (heh heh)" 

Both he and Martin Luther King had come to similar positions about capitalism and the Vietnam War at the time of their death. That is why this government assassinated them. No one has followed in their footsteps. From the point of view of this government, the world leader in political assassinations, the two assassinations worked. For to this day, no mass leader has had the courage to pick up where they left off.  They were able to silence the art, science, and truth, of these two great orators. To me, February 21st is  "The day the Music Died." It was the saddest day of my life.

Roland Sheppard is a writer and activist and former BA of the Painters Union in San Francisco. Email him at rolandsheppard@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and visit his website, http://web.mac.com/rolandgarret.

According to a study released January 14 by the California Nurses Association, adoptiing a single payer system of universal health care in the US would create 2.6 million new jobs, as many as the Bush economy destroyed in 2006, and boost the revenues of private employers by an annual $317 billion. A single payer health care system would put more than $100 billion in the pockets of employees and add $44 billion to state, local and federal budgets in badly needed tax revenues.

The CNA study details the economic benefits of healthcare to the overall economy, showing how changes in direct healthcare delivery affect all other significant sectors touched by healthcare, and how sweeping healthcare reform can help drive the nation's economic recovery.

"These dramatic new findings document for the first time that a single-payer system could not only solve our healthcare crisis, but also substantially contribute to putting America back to work and assisting the economic recovery," said Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, which sponsored the study.

The numbers of new jobs created by single payer health care alone dwarf anything yet proposed by the Obama administration or the “Buy America” add-ons to its stimulus bills, in addition to fulfilling the public expectation that Democrats enact a plan of universal and affordable health care for every American this year.

"Through direct and supplemental expenditures, healthcare is already a uniquely dominant force in the U.S. economy," said Don DeMoro, lead author of the study and director of the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy, the NNOC/CNA research arm.

"However, so much more is possible. If we were to expand our present Medicare system to cover all Americans, the economic stimulus alone would create an immense engine that would help drive our national economy for decades to come," DeMoro said.

Amid the hue and cry around the bailouts of Wall Street and the unfolding economic meltdown, discussion of universal health care promised by Democrats in the election just past appears to have taken a back seat. But the study demonstrates that the adoption of Medicare-For-All in the US may be a far more potent economic stimulus at a lower price than bailing out the greedheads of Wall Street.

Right now, the US spends roughly $2.1 trillion in direct medical expenses, with one third of this total going to private insurance companies. These are the funds which finance their executive bonuses, bad investments, advertising, and a vast machinery of bookkeeping, red tape and litigation to deny the coverage that policy holders have paid for. By comparison, Canada's single payer health care system delivers adequate care to everybody from cradle to grave and spends less than 5% on bookkeeping and other non-medical expenses.

Adding a mere $63 billion to what the US already spends would amply finance a Medicare-For-All plan in the regime in which more than 95% of health care expenditures would for the first time be applied to actual health care. Under such an arrangement, all US citizens would be covered, and glaring disparities in health outcomes between black, brown, red, and white America would be immediately and substantially reduced or eliminated,at a fraction of the cost of the Wall Street bailouts. The $63 billion is one sixth the cost of CitiGroup's no-strings-attached welfare check, and less than half the federal bailout for AIG. Expanding Medicare alone to cover the 47 million uninsured Americans (as of 2006 data on which the study is based) could be accomplished for just $44 billion.

While nobody can credibly explain the precise voodoo-like mechanisms by which the Wall Street bailouts are supposed to create jobs, the California Nurses Association study demonstrates how health care expenditures have immediate and long term beneficial effects on the economic life of the nation.

Overall, every direct healthcare dollar creates nearly three additional dollars in the U.S. economy. In current form, healthcare:

• Generates 45 million jobs, directly and in other industries. 

• Accounts for 10.5 percent of all U.S. jobs and 12.1 percent of all U.S. wages.

• Totals 9.2 percent of the nation's Gross National Product.

• Contributes about 25 percent of all federal tax revenues. Federal, state, and local taxes from the healthcare sector in 2006 added up to $824 billion.

All those numbers would rise dramatically through comprehensive healthcare reform. But a single-payer system would produce the biggest increase in jobs and wages. The reason, DeMoro said, is that "the broadest economic benefits directly accrue from the actual delivery and provision of healthcare, not the purchase of insurance."

Medicare for all has numerous other benefits, of course, noted Jenkins, from a streamlined system with tens of billions less in private insurance administrative waste, guaranteed choice of physician and hospital, no loss of coverage when unemployed, and no one denied coverage due to age or health status.

"Only a single-payer, expanded Medicare-for-all approach ends the current disgraceful practice of insurance companies refusing to pay for medical treatment or engaging in rampant price gouging that discourages patients from going to the doctor, seeing specialists, or getting diagnostic procedures in a timely manner," said Jenkins.

In light of the apparent backtracking on national health care by Democrats including House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) the study by the California Nurses Association is hugely important. It indicates that the choice between “solving” the nation's economic crisis and delivering a coherent, understandable, affordable and effective system of national health care may be a false choice after all. Those who urge us to take our eyes off the health care ball while they concentrate on “fixing” the economy may intend to do neither.

The California Nurses Association study goes a long way toward proving that universal single payer national health care may be the best medicine not only for our health care holes and disparities, but for the economy itself. Whether the politicians who ran just weeks ago promising a national health care plan will take the prescribed medicine depends on our insistence, our tenacity, and our refusal to be distracted. People deserve universal health care, and the 2.6 million jobs created by single payer health care are equal to the president's claims for the entire stimulus package. It's time to take the medicine.

Download, read, repost and pass along the full study here.

Bruce Dixon is based in Atlanta and can be reached at bruce.dixon@blackagendareport.com