Ancient Black Civilisation
by Malcolm X
The following is an excerpt from a speech recorded on January 24th 1965
"........Now
then, once you see that the condition that we're in is directly
related to our lack of knowledge concerning the history of the
black man, only then can you realise the importance of knowing
something about the history of the black man. The black man's
history - when you refer to him as the black man you go way back,
but when you refer to him as a Negro, you can only go as far back
as the Negro goes. And when you go beyond the shores of America
you can't find a Negro. So if you go beyond the shores of America
in history, looking for the history of the black man, and you're
looking for him under the term Negro, you won't find him. He doesn't
exist. So you end up thinking that you didn't play any role in
history.
But
if you want to take the time to do research for your-self, I think
you'll find that on the African continent there was always, prior
to the discovery of America, there was always a higher level of
history, rather a higher level of culture and civilisation, than
that which existed in Europe at the same time. At least 5,000
years ago they had a black civilisation in the Middle East called
the Sumerians. Now when they show you pictures of the Sumerians
they try and make you think that they were white people. But if
you go and read some of the ancient manuscripts or even read between
the lines of some of the current writers, you'll find that the
Sumerian civilisation was a very dark-skinned civilisation, and
it existed prior even to the existence of the Babylonian empire,
right in the same area where you find Iraq and the Tigris-Euphrates
Rivers there. It was a black-skinned people who lived there, who
had a high state of culture way back then.
And
at a time even beyond this there was a black-skinned people in
India, who were black, just as you and I, called Dravidians. They
inhabited the subcontinent of India even before the present people
that you see living there today, and they had a high state of
culture. The present people of India even looked upon them as
gods; most of their statues, if you'll notice, have pronounced
African features. You go right to India today - in their religion,
which is called Buddhism, they give all there Buddhas the image
of a black man, with his lips and his nose, and even show his
hair all curled up on his head; they didn't curl it up, he was
born that way. And these people lived in that area before the
present people of India lived there. The black man lived in the
Middle East before the present people who are now living there.
And he had a high culture and a high civilisation, to say nothing
about the oldest civilisation of all that he had in Egypt along
the banks of the Nile. And in Carthage in northwest Africa, another
part of the continent, and at a later date in Mali and Ghana and
Songhai and Moorish civilisation - all these civilisations existed
on the African continent before America was discovered.
Now
the black civilisation that shook the white man up the most was
the Egyptian civilisation, and it was a black civilisation. It
was along the banks of the Nile which runs through the heart of
Africa. But again this tricky white man, and he's tricky - and
mind you again, when I say this, it's not a racist statement.
Some of them might not be tricky, but all of them I've met are
tricky. And his civilisation shows his trickiness. This tricky
white man was able to take the Egyptian civilisation, write books
about it, put pictures in those books, make movies for television
and theatre - so skillfully that he has even convinced other white
people that the ancient Egyptians were white themselves. They
were African, they were as much African as you and I. And he even
gave the clue away when he made his movie, "King Solomon's
Mines," and he showed the Watusis, you know, with their black
selves, and he outright admitted in there that they looked like
the ancient pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Which means that the white
man himself, he knows that the black man had this high civilisation
in Egypt, whose remains today show that the black man in that
area had mastered mathematics, had mastered architecture, the
science of building things, had even mastered astronomy.
The
pyramid, as the white scientists admit, is constructed in such
a position on this earth to show that the black people who were
the architects of it had a knowledge of geography that was so
vast, they knew the exact centre of the earth's land mass. Because
the base of the pyramid is located in the exact centre of the
earths land mass, which could not have been situated by it's architect
unless the architect in that day had known that the earth was
round and knew how much land there was in all the directions from
where he was standing.
The pyramid was built so many thousand
years ago that they don't even know the exact time it was built,
but they do know that the people who brought it into existence
had mastered the science of building, had mastered the various
sciences of the earth and had mastered astronomy. I read where
one scientist said that the architecture
of the pyramid had built a shaft that went outward from the centre
of the pyramid, and the place it marked in the sky was the location
where a star, a blue star I think, some kind of a star, made an
appearance only once every 50,000 years. Now they say that this
architect's knowledge of astronomy was so vast that he evidently
had access to histories or records that spotlighted the existence
of a star that made its appearance at a certain spot in the sky
only once every 50,000 years. Now he could not have known this
unless he had records going back beyond 50,000 years. Yet the
pyramid is a living witness today that the black people who were
responsible for bringing it into existence had this kind of knowledge.
When
you read the opinions of the white scientists about the pyramids
and the building of the pyramids, they don't make any secret at
all over the fact that they marvel over the scientific ability
that was in the possession of those people way back then. They
had mastered chemistry to such extent that they could make paints
whose colour doesn't fade right until today. When I was in Cairo
in the summer, I was in King Tut's tomb, plus, I saw that which
was taken out of the tomb at the Cairo Museum, and the colours
of the clothing that was worn and the colours inside the tomb
are as bright and vivid and sharp today as they were when they
were put there some thousands of years ago. Whereas, you know
yourself, you can paint your house, and have to paint it again
next year. This man hasn't learned how to make paint yet that
will last two years. And the black man in that day was such a
master in these various scientific fields that he left behind
evidence that his scientific findings in that day exceeded the
degree to which the white man here in the West has been able to
rise today. And you must know this, because if you don't know
this, you won't really understand what there is about you that
makes them so afraid of you, and makes them show that they find
it imperative for them to keep you down, keep you from getting
up, because if they let you up one inch, you've got it and gone
- just one inch, you've got it and gone. And you should get it
and go.
Just
behind the pyramids is a huge statue which many of you are familiar
with, called the Sphinx. The people who live over there call it
Abou Al-hole, which means "father of everything". This
too was put over there so long ago they don't know who did it,
nor do they know how long ago it was done. And they marvel at
it. What causes them to marvel is the fact that the black man
could have been at such a high level then, and now be where he
is today, at the bottom of the heap, with no outer sign that he
has any scientific ability left within him; he thinks that he
has to turn to the man for some kind of formula on even how to
get his freedom or how to build his house.
But the black man by
nature is a builder, he is scientific by nature, he's mathematical
by nature. Rhythm is mathematics, harmony is mathematics. It's
balance. And the black man is balanced. Before you and I came
over here, we were so well balanced we could toss something on
our
head and run with it. You can't even run with your hat now - you
can't keep it on. Because you lost your balance. You've gotten
away from yourself. But when you are in tune with yourself, your
very nature has harmony, has rhythm, has mathematics. You can
build. You don't even need anybody to teach you how to build.
You play music by ear. You dance by how you're feeling. And you
used to build the same way. You have it in you to do it. I know
black brickmasons from the South who have never been to school
a day in their life. They throw more bricks together and you don't
know how they learned how to do it, but they know how to do it.
It just comes to you. That's what makes you dangerous. When you
come to yourself, a whole lot of other things will start coming
to you, and the man knows it."
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