Nobody Can Give You Freedom

The real political mission of Malcolm X, and why it needs resurrecting now – 100 years after his birth Malcolm X is a titanic figure in political history, but he is also one of the most misunderstood. So much of what we know about his life and politics is from books, films and documentaries that are all guilty of peddling the Malcolm myth for their own nefarious interests. Forever known as the violent Yang to Martin Luther King’s Yin, in the years since his death he has been co-opted into the American project, punished by his enemies for his radicalism, and marginalised by decades of governments, academics and activists.But here, for the first time, Malcolm is rediscovered. On the centenary of his birthday, in a world shaken by decades of injustice and racism, Malcolm’s political mission is more urgent than ever. In Nobody Can Give You Freedom, Kehinde Andrews reveals his real revolutionary programme. Malcolm’s activism was his philosophy, and paying attention to it reveals the true cultural icon – who, if he were alive today, would tell us to pick up the mantle, and overturn this wicked system for good.

Kehinde Andrews is the UK's first professor of Black Studies, at Birmingham City University where he led the establishment of the first Black Studies programme in Europe, the Chair of the Harambee Organisation of Black Unity and editor in chief of Make It Plain. He is the author of The Psychosis of Whiteness, The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World, and Back to Black: Retelling Black Radicalism for the 21st Century.