Malcolm x mini biography harriet tubman

Few heroes of the liberation struggle inspired Black Americans as much as Harriet Tubman and Malcolm X. While watching the new film Harriet, I recognized parallels between their willingness to use, as Malcolm X famously said, “any means necessary.” Tubman would do anything to save her passengers, even threatening to shoot any of them who wanted to give up, which would jeopardize the chance for escape for the rest.

During the Civil War, she was a Union spy, and in the Combahee Ferry raid, she led Union soldiers in freeing 700 enslaved people. She is a national heroine.

Harriet Tubman Biography | Underground Railroad Abolitionists

But a century later, when Malcolm X endorsed using “any means necessary” to end racism, he was excoriated by mainstream America. Time magazine said he was “an unashamed demagogue” whose “creed was violence.” He has “turn[ed] many true gifts to evil purpose,” concluded the New York Times.

But to those they sought to liberate, Harriet and Harriet Tubman | Biography, Facts, & Underground Railroad ..., carousel ZYNAT