The Willie Lynch Letter and Other Controversial Texts and Ideas That Have Influenced Black Thought
By Any Means Necessary
“We declare our right on this earth…to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.” There’s no question as to who uttered these memorable words in 1965. It was the phrase that summed up the political legacy of Malcolm X, a civil rights leader who was distinguished from his fellow activist Martin Luther King Jr by his more aggressive approach to Black progress. Although some assert that the term was coined by French intellectual Jean Paul Sartre, Malcolm X made the words influential. A self explanatory phrase, he endorsed the route of employing all tactics to achieve the desired end of black equality.
