On this special edition of Out-FM, we are excited to join WBAI’s six-hour WBAI celebration of the 101st birthday of El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, Malcolm X. The first four hours (3-7 PM EST) are produced by our colleagues Mimi Rosenberg and Michael David Smith. It is our honor to end the special with an engaging discussion of this remarkable man, including observations from the five of us who produce Out-FM: Stahimili Mapp, John Riley, Naomi Brussel, Pauline Park, and Bob Lederer.
 
We will begin with a short clip from an interview with Malcolm X recorded by the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) for the television program Front Page Challenge.  This program was broadcast on January 5, 1965, a few weeks before his assassination. (A video of the full eight-minute interview is available on the CBC website here).

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MUMIA ABU-JAMAL'S COMMENTARY ON WHITE RADICALS INFLUENCED BY MALCOLM X
?This will be read on the program:
 
First, a short excerpt of a commentary by Black political prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1991. It was titled "The Legacy of Malcolm X" and was published in a special issue of the revived Black Panther Party newspaper, marking the 25th anniversary of the party's founding. Mumia wrote:
 
"Several White anti-imperialist rebels, imprisoned now for principled resistance against the empire, have marked their transition from mainstream middle-class American life to radical rivers and tributaries and movements, from the moment they heard Malcolm, over 25 years ago - like Dr. Alan Berkman, fellow radical Laura Whitehorn, and others. Perhaps therein lies [Malcolm's] significance..."
 
Alan Berkman, who we lost in 2009, & Laura Whitehorn, happily still alive and well, were both among the co-founders of the May 19th Communist Organization, an anti-imperialist organization named after Malcolm's and Ho Chi Minh's birthdays. This followed their long histories of solidarity work with people of color domestically and internationally. Alan and Laura later went underground with the Red Guerrilla Resistance until their arrests in 1985. Alan was released in 1992, Laura in 1999.
 
Today Laura works with the prison abolition group RAPP, Release Aging People in Prison. Laura is an out lesbian who has long supported queer and women's liberation, as well as the freedom of all oppressed people worldwide.
 
Alan was a straight man who, in 1999, inspired Out-FM's John Riley and myself to work with him and ACT UP activist Eric Sawyer to cofound Health GAP, a national coalition to demand immediate access to powerful low-cost generic AIDS treatments, as well as major drug price reductions, in poor nations, particularly in Africa. Our goal of opposing Global South AIDS genocide was partly inspired by Malcolm's global analysis of white world supremacy. It is now estimated that the programs instituted by the U.S. and U.N. due to grassroots pressure worldwide, particularly from the U.S. and South Africa, saved well over 25 million lives, prior to Trump's recent horrendous rollback.