Malcolm X Speaks
Malcolm X
Malcolm X Speaks
Has "After the Bombing", the Detroit speech of 14 February 1965, the day before the first speech of this book's last pair.
Read our takeMalcolm X: The Last Speeches
Malcolm X
Malcolm X: The Last Speeches
by Malcolm X
Six speeches and interviews, first printed in 1989, ending with the talk Malcolm X gave in Rochester five days before he was killed. He opened it with the week France turned him away.
- 1989
- 189
About Malcolm X
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeMalcolm X: The Last Speeches prints six speeches and interviews by Malcolm X that had never been published before. The biographer Bruce Perry edited the book, and Pathfinder published it in New York in 1989.[1][2] Two of the speeches come from 1963, while he was still in the Nation of Islam. Two are interviews from December 1964. The last two are speeches from February 1965, which the catalogue describes as the final two of his speeches in print. The final one, in Rochester, New York, opens with his being turned away from Paris the week before.[3]
The story, in more detail
The six pieces run in order of date. The first is a speech at Michigan State University on 23 January 1963, and the second a speech at the University of California on 11 October 1963. Next come two interviews given on 27 December 1964, one with Les Crane and one with Bernice Bass.[2]
The last two speeches are from the final week of his life. On 15 February 1965 he spoke at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, the day after his house in Queens was firebombed.[2][4] On 16 February he spoke at the Corn Hill Methodist Church in Rochester, New York.[3] He was shot dead at the Audubon Ballroom five days later.
Bruce Perry also wrote a biography of Malcolm X, published in 1991 as Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America.[5] The Nation's review of The Last Speeches said a reader can watch the slogan "by any means necessary" take shape in the book.[6]
What's inside
"Twenty million Black people in a political, economic, and mental prison", Michigan State University, 23 January 1963.[2]
"America's gravest crisis since the Civil War", University of California, 11 October 1963.
"Whatever is necessary to protect ourselves", an interview with Les Crane, and "Our people identify with Africa", an interview with Bernice Bass, both 27 December 1964.
"There's a worldwide revolution going on", Audubon Ballroom, New York City, 15 February 1965, and "Not just an American problem, but a world problem", Corn Hill Methodist Church, Rochester, New York, 16 February 1965.[2]
Themes and analysis
Rochester, and the week France turned him away
On 9 February 1965 French officials refused Malcolm X entry at Orly airport and sent him back to London. A week later he stood up in the Corn Hill Methodist Church in Rochester and began with it. He told the audience many of them had probably read that he had tried to go to Paris the week before and been turned away.
He asked why France should care so much about one American that it would keep him out. His answer was that France, Britain and the United States shared the same problem. Black people from the French West Indies were moving to France, and those from the British West Indies to Britain. The African community in France was starting to organize with Afro-Americans, and he said it was frightening France.
The rest of the speech builds on that start. He argued that Black Americans should call their cause human rights, not civil rights. Civil rights stayed a matter for the United States government. Human rights could be taken to the United Nations, where anyone in the world could become an ally.
The National Humanities Center reprints the whole speech from pages 151 to 181 of The Last Speeches, with Pathfinder's permission. A reader can read that speech in full there. In 1993 the Paris publisher Éditions Dagorno brought out a French translation, Derniers discours, with Bruce Perry's introduction.
Before and after the break, in one book
The book starts in 1963, when Malcolm X was still Elijah Muhammad's best-known minister. The first two speeches were given at Michigan State University and the University of California. He left the Nation of Islam in March 1964.
The two December 1964 interviews come from the weeks after his return from Africa. The February 1965 speeches come from his last days. Putting the 1963 speeches beside the 1965 ones lets a reader see what changed in his thinking and what did not.
Choice wrote that the short book holds two things of great interest to students of recent Black protest. Book News pointed out that none of the six pieces had been published before.
Quotes from Malcolm X: The Last Speeches
Many of you probably read last week I made an effort to go to Paris and was turned away. And Paris doesn't turn anybody away.
Any kind of movement for freedom of Black people based solely within the confines of America is absolutely doomed to fail.
Why we recommend it
His last two speeches
The book ends with the Audubon Ballroom speech of 15 February 1965 and the Rochester speech of 16 February, five days before he was killed.
It spans the break
Two speeches from 1963 sit beside four pieces from after he left the Nation of Islam, so the change can be read in one book.
Paris in his own words
The Rochester speech starts with the refusal at Orly and explains why he thought France wanted him kept out.
What this book explores
Timeline
1963
Malcolm X speaks at Michigan State University on 23 January and at the University of California on 11 October.
1964
He gives interviews to Les Crane and Bernice Bass on 27 December.
1965
France refuses him entry at Orly on 9 February. His house in Queens is firebombed on 14 February.
1965
He speaks at the Audubon Ballroom on 15 February and in Rochester on 16 February. He is killed on 21 February.
1989
Pathfinder publishes Malcolm X: The Last Speeches, edited by Bruce Perry.
1991
Bruce Perry publishes his biography, Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America.
1993
Éditions Dagorno publishes the French translation, Derniers discours, in Paris.
Book editions
- Paperback
- Pathfinder
- 1989
- 9780873485432
- Hardcover
- Pathfinder
- 1989
- 9780873485449
- Paperback
- Éditions Dagorno
- 1993
- 9782910019006
- Isabelle Chapman and Édith Ochs
Reader reviews
Readers may also like
By Any Means Necessary
Malcolm X
By Any Means Necessary
Prints his Paris meeting of November 1964 and his statement on being barred from France.
Read our takeThe End of White World Supremacy
Malcolm X
The End of White World Supremacy
Four more speeches from his Nation of Islam years, like the two that open this book.
Read our take
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
His life story, finished by Alex Haley after the assassination.
Read our takeMalcolm X: The Last Speeches: frequently asked questions
What was Malcolm X's last speech?
The last speech in this book is the one he gave at the Corn Hill Methodist Church in Rochester, New York, on 16 February 1965. He was shot dead at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem five days later, as he began to speak.
What is in Malcolm X: The Last Speeches?
Six speeches and interviews never published before 1989: two speeches from 1963, two interviews from 27 December 1964, and speeches in Harlem and Rochester on 15 and 16 February 1965.
Who edited the book?
Bruce Perry, whose biography Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America was published in 1991. Pathfinder published The Last Speeches in 1989.
What does the book say about France?
The Rochester speech opens with his being turned away from Paris the week before. He argues that France, like Britain and the United States, feared Black people from its colonies organizing with Afro-Americans.
Can I read any of it online?
Yes. The National Humanities Center reprints the full Rochester speech, pages 151 to 181 of the book, with the publisher's permission.
If you like Malcolm X
Explore authors with a similar voice, perspective, and influence.
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
View author
Frederick Douglass
American abolitionist — a campaigner for the abolition of slavery — orator and newspaper publisher, born into slavery in Maryland in 1818, who escaped north in 1838 and spent the next half-century arguing for Black citizenship in books, newspapers and federal office. In 1859 the American minister in London, the senior United States diplomat in Britain, refused him a passport for France on the ground that he was not a citizen of the country he had been born in: American law at the time held that no Black person could be one. The French minister in London issued him a permit to enter France at once. Twenty-seven years later he reached Paris anyway, aged sixty-eight, and spent weeks in its galleries.
View author
Henry Miller
The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.
View author
References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Malcolm X: The Last Speeches, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1↑Malcolm X: The Last Speeches — Library of Congress catalog record for the Pathfinder first edition, edited by Bruce Perry, ISBNs 9780873485432 (paper) and 9780873485449 (cloth) (LCCN 89061591)
ArchiveLibrary of Congress, 1989Used forLibrary of Congress record for the 1989 Pathfinder first edition: editor, collation and ISBNs.
3ab"Not just an American problem, but a world problem" — address at the Corn Hill Methodist Church, Rochester, New York, 16 February 1965, reprinted by permission from Malcolm X: The Last Speeches, pp. 151–181
WebsiteNational Humanities Center, The Making of African American Identity, Vol. III, 2007Used forThe Rochester speech, reprinted by permission from the book; source for both quotations.
4↑Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements
NonfictionGrove Press, 1965Used forBreitman's note on the firebombing of 14 February 1965.
5↑Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America, by Bruce Perry — Library of Congress catalog record (LCCN 90023350)
ArchiveLibrary of Congress, 1991Used forLibrary of Congress record for Bruce Perry's 1991 biography.
6↑Malcolm X: The Last Speeches — publisher's page, with review excerpts from The Nation, Choice and Book News
WebsitePathfinder PressUsed forPublisher's page, with review excerpts from The Nation, Choice and Book News.
7Derniers discours — Bibliothèque nationale de France catalogue record for the Éditions Dagorno translation, Paris, 1993, by Isabelle Chapman and Édith Ochs, introduced by Bruce Perry
ArchiveBibliothèque nationale de France, 1993Used forBnF record for the French translation, Paris, 1993.
8Malcolm X Part 34 — France entry refusal clippings and memoranda
Official recordFederal Bureau of Investigation — The Vault, 1965Used forClippings and memoranda on the refusal of entry at Orly.
9The Autobiography of Malcolm X
MemoirGrove Press, 1965Used forFor the date of his break with the Nation of Islam.
10Malcolm X — Open Library author and edition records, used to confirm that every ISBN listed here resolves to the book named
ArchiveOpen LibraryUsed forOpen Library edition records, used to check that each ISBN belongs to this book.
11HathiTrust copyright determinations for Malcolm X Speaks (1965), By Any Means Necessary (1992), The End of White World Supremacy (1971) and Malcolm X: The Last Speeches (1989), checked 23 September 2026 — every volume returns rights code "ic" (in copyright), search-only in the United States
ArchiveHathiTrust Digital Library, 2026Used forHathiTrust copyright status of the 1989 edition: in copyright, search-only.
12Malcolm X: The Last Speeches
NonfictionMalcolm X, 1989Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
i
Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
Explore more resources