Analyse af Malcolm X's 'Message to the Grassroots'

Racial segregation has been a major problem in the United States of America but in the

1950s and 1960s, changes occurred. The civil rights movement started and a non-violent struggle began. Malcolm X disagreed with this non-violent struggle and chose to express his feelings through a public speech named “Message to the Grassroots”. The intention is to provoke the black people, which also is the intended receivers, and make them realize that revolutions do not happen without violence.

Malcolm X speaks to the black people in a very special way which already becomes clear at the beginning of the speech: "[…] And every time you look at yourself, be you black, brown, red, or yellow — a so-called Negro — you represent a person who poses such a serious problem for America because you’re not wanted”. At the beginning of the text, he starts by dividing the people into colored and not colored people. He refers to the colored as "us", thus he suggests that they as people are a major problem in the United States of America. This means that he from the beginning makes use of racial segregation and thereby he provokes his primary receivers. Moreover, he addresses them as negro, which is what they were called when they were slaves. By calling them a negro, he chooses to compare them to the past and tries to emphasize how oppressed they were - and according to him - still is.