cog: To understand this, you have to go back to what
young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro, back
during slavery.
There was two kinds of slaves, there was the house
Negro and the field Negro. The house Negro, they lived in the house, with
master. They dressed pretty good. They ate good ‘cause they ate his food.
What he left.
Laughter.
cog: They lived in the attic, or the basement, but
still they lived near their master. And they loved the master more than the
master loved himself. They would, they would give their life to save the
master’s house quicker than the master would.
The house Negro, if the master said “We got a good
house here” the house Negro would say “Yeah we got a good house here.”
Laughter.
cog: Whenever the master said “we” he said “we”,
that’s how you could tell a house
Negro.
Laughter.
cog: If the master’s, if the master’s house caught
on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the
master would.
If the master got sick, the house Negro would say
“What’s the matter boss, we sick?”
Laughter.
cog: We
sick?
Laughter, whistling, applause.
cog: He identified with his master more than the
master identified with himself.
And if you came to the house Negro and said “Let’s
run away. Let’s escape. Let’s separate.”, that house Negro would look at you and
say “Man you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than
this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food
than this?”
That was that house Negro.
In those days, he was called a “house nigger”,
cog: Yes sir!
cog: and that’s what we call them today, ‘cause we
still got some house niggers running around here.
Applause.
cog: This modern house Negro loves his master. He
wants to live near him. He’ll pay three times as much as the house is worth
just to live near his master, and then brag about “I’m the only Negro out
here.”
Applause
cog: “I’m the only one on my job.” “I’m the only one
in this school.” you’re nothing but a house Negro. And if someone come to you
right now and say “Let’s separate”, you say the same thing that the house Negro
said
cog: Yes sir!
cog: on the plantation: “What you mean, separate?
From America? This good white man?
Where you gonna get a better job than you get here?” I mean this is what you
say, “I don’t- I ain’t left nothing in Africa” that’s what you say. Why, you
left your mind in Africa.
Applause.
cog: On that same plantation there was the field
Negro. The field Negro, those were the masses. There was always more Negroes in
the field than there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught
hell.
He ate left-overs.
In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro
in the field didn’t get nothing but what was left of the insides of the hog.
They call them chitt’lins nowadays. In those days they called them what they
were: guts. That’s what you were, a gut-eater.
And some of you all still gut-eaters.
Applause.
cog: The field Negro was beaten from morning ‘til
night. He lived in a shack, in a hut. He wore cast-off clothes.
And he hated his master. I say he hated his master. He
was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master, but that field Negro,
remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master.
When the house caught on fire he didn’t try and put
it out, that field Negro prayed for a wind,
Laughter.
cog: for a breeze. When the master got sick the
field Negro prayed that he died. If someone come to the field Negro and said
“Let’s separate, let’s run” he didn’t say “Where are we going?” he’d say “Any place is better than here.”
Applause, whistling.
cog: You got field Negroes in America today. I’m a field Negro. The masters are the field Negroes. When they see this man’s house on
fire you don’t hear those little Negroes talking about “Our government is in trouble”, they say “The government is in trouble.”
Applause.
cog: Imagine a Negro, “our government”. I even heard one say “our astronauts”.
Laughter.
cog: They won’t even let him near the plant, and
“our astronauts”. “Our navy”, that’s a Negro that’s out of his mind. That’s a
Negro that’s out of his mind. Just as the slave-master in that day used Tom,
the house Negro, to keep the field Negroes in check, the same old slave-master
today has Negroes, who are nothing but modern Uncle Toms, 20th century Uncle Toms, to keep you and me
in check, keep us under control, keep us passive and peaceful, and non-violent.
That’s Tom
making you non-violent.
It’s like when you go to the dentist, and the man is
going to take your tooth, you’re gonna fight him, when he start pulling. So he
squirt some stuff in your jaw called novocaine to make you think they not doing
anything to you. So you sit there and ‘cause you got all that novocaine in your
jaw you suffer peacefully ha ha ha ha.
Laughter.
cog: Blood running all down your jaw and you don’t
know what’s happening, ‘cause someone has taught you to suffer peacefully.
The white man do the same thing to you in the
street. When he gone wanna put knots on your head, and take advantage of you
and don’t have to be afraid of you fighting back, to keep you from fighting
back he get these old religious Uncle Toms to teach you and me that just like
novocaine, suffer peacefully. Don’t stop suffering, just suffer peacefully. As Reverend Cleage pointed
out “Let your blood flow in the streets”.
This is a shame. And you know he’s a Christian preacher if it’s a shame to
him you know what it is to me.
Applause.
cog: There’s nothing in our book, the Qu’ran, as you call
it Koran, teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion
teaches us to be intelligent.
cog: Right! Right!
cog: Be peaceful. Be courteous. Obey the law.
Respect everyone. But if someone puts his hand on you send him to the cemetery.
Applause.
cog: That’s a good
religion. In fact, that’s that old time
religion.
Laughter, applause, shouting.
cog: That’s the one that Ma and Pa used to talk
about. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and a head for a head, and a
life for a life.
That’s a good
religion, and then anybody, no-one
resents that kind of religion being taught but a wolf, who intends to make you his meal. This is the way it is with
the white man in America: he’s a wolf,
and you are sheep. Anytime a shepherd, a pastor teach you and me, not to run from the white man, and at the same time
teach us don’t fight the white man,
he’s a traitor, to you and me. Don’t lay down our life all by itself, no,
preserve your life. It’s the best thing you got, and if you got to give it up,
let it be even-steven.
Applause.
-Malcolm X
-Message to the Grass Roots (extract)
-Northern Negro Grass Roots Leadership Conference
-King Solomon Baptist Chrurch, Detroit, Michigan
-10th November, 1963
