Malcolm X press conference on deadly police raid in Los Angeles (footage excerpt, 1962)

he took six days to look into it yes yes i was sent out uh i did come i came and yes the negro press did the negro negro press came to us and asked us our story the negro friends came to us and asked us what took place yes sir they need to listen ma'am the negro press the uh sentinel the eagle the herald dispatch jet all the negro press and not only them across the country new york amsterdam news philadelphia tribune all of the negro papers asked us uh what happened and i and what made me feel so good and it makes me even feel more good to see uh brother roy wilkins telegram that there's not a negro in america who was gullible enough to eat the story that chief conquer fed to the uh wire services yes sir i don't know sir i don't think well i i don't know if i would be wise to say what i think along that line but uh i i don't think it was calculated to happen right then because there was so much ignorance involved so many ignorant moves were made by the police it's impossible for me to believe that the police could have planned that thing they're making many mistakes they actually they they were very close and practically everything that they did i'm inclined to believe that one of them did say this when they were shooting up they shot around inside the inside the mouth so much so that you that we found bullets laying on the floor inside a religious house of prayer if someone throws a a glass through the window of a synagogue or through the window of a church everybody's up in arm all over the world here is the police department shooting up a house of prayer indiscriminately we have they and they didn't have any doubt about where they were because the sign in there says that this is authorized as a house of worship by the by the uh uh the los angeles uh and it was conformed with all of the los angeles and municipal clothes they were left lying on the street for some time and they were handcuffed they were handcuffed they were handcuffed and bleeding it arrived very late they were if they had arrived early as i told you earlier even the policeman said why should the ambulance hurry there's nothing but [ __ ] out there why if some of you heard if some of you could hear or were aware of the conversation that uh the police engaged in concerning this event i don't care how much anti-muslim you might be your own humane qualities would make you resent with shame and uh their disgraceful at behavior particular point at this particular point it's not our intention to divulge what we intend to do but i will say this that no matter how much effort is put forth by the daily press to suppress the facts of the brutal murder of this black man and the cold-blooded shooting of these other six black men the uh press in africa camouflages the press in asia won't camouflage it press in latin america won't camouflage it these facts will be said to them and it and it makes america look like uh uh uh imbecile to send billions of dollars to all of these doc countries trying to buy their friendship and their sympathy and their allegiance and then shoot down black men in this country in cold blood and think that they can sell their form of the democracy or ideology to those people over there i'll your common sense uh i don't like to go into the intricate details but here's one witness one witness tells us how the cop had shot a brother point blank through his groin and through his penis shot him in the guts like this so the brother grabbed the gun to keep from uh uh being shot again he was wrestling trying to keep that gun from pointing at him and someone hit him in his head when he hit him in his head the cop took it and blasted him right through here it's easy for me to tell how a cop got cookie could have gotten shot they could have shot each other they went mad that night they were wild that night they were like maniacs that night i don't think it's so much the work of the ku klux klan but they do say that there is a strong clan-like element in southern california and a clan don't have to put on a white sheet not in 1962 today they can put on business suits police uniforms lawyers in uniform they come all kinds of ways but they're just as much clansmen today as they were uh 30 years ago i don't think that against police brutality no matter whom it is practiced again sir what would your penalty be one of your members of your life went astray of your roof what would your penalties be he couldn't stay with us yet any muslim who can't abide by the laws of islam cannot walk with us that one could have had a weapon no no one didn't have a weapon you can get a microscope sir i know that a weapon must be found to in some way justify the atrocity that was committed they must find the weapon they can't find a weapon it's like not with a muslim a muslim isn't even allowed to have a a weapon in his home much less upon his purpose well if you are twisting someone's arm you're the one that attacks i said well the the when as i said our religion teaches us to always obey the law religiously i'm going to tell you our religion teaches us to always obey the law above all first and above all but at the same time anyone who attacks us we are allowed to defend ourselves to my knowledge the policeman in his questioning of the brother refused to accept the brother's answer he wanted the brother to be a burglar he wanted him to be a burglar and because he had no evidence that the man was a burglar he wanted the brother to be impolite but because the brother was polite to the extreme it infuriated him then he grabbed him and began to twist his arm and sir no they weren't no i think that the intricate details will be brought out in the investigation no no there were two brothers and two officers uh this uh negro special counsel i was telling you about he yeah he drove by and fired shots and naturally everybody came out and a lot of people running running a lot of the people that you thought were muslims probably weren't even muslims when you get excited everybody looks like a muslim too no uh uh a muslim doesn't carry a gun when he when the i'll tell you when this uh when he started shooting the alarm went out as i said and uh and from as the papers give it 75 kings but they didn't come from where the incident took place they came to the temple he was at the temple he didn't even know what had happened down the street all he heard was gunshots no sir when he heard gunshots he asked his wife who had his little baby so please go in the back someplace there's trouble outside he went up made a telephone call and when he came downstairs then the this is when the general alarm cops had had arrived and they arrived as i said were their guns blazing yes very important yes when uh when uh if the police in america have a special riot tactic which you're probably familiar with whenever there's trouble they pull up to the scene and firing up in the air that's one of the attacks this is supposed to put right into the uh persons who are involved and make them be quell well this is what these police did but when they pulled up with their guns blazing instead of those guns blazing in the air those guns were blazing at negro and what the and what proctor is trying to do now is make the negroes in the community think that we're not negro that we're something different and that all of them should be against us and once he gets us out of the way what they don't realize is they'll stand on him well the the any type of unity that's displayed by negroes today automatically is a threat to the power structure or the status quo and today for the first time negroes are beginning to show more unity in america than they've ever showed in in the history that we've been here uh our differences are are are set in the background and this is dangerous this is considered dangerous by some elements everybody else can be in together ambulances were rushing through the mosque so uh one officer said what's he what they rushing for just a [ __ ] just another [ __ ] shot and when he got to the precinct he turned to the brother and says uh uh i hope you don't mind what don't take offense at what i said back there under the heat of emotion because some of my best friends are colored this brother here whose head was beaten they told him one officer said to the other uh uh i broke my nightstick over the nigger's head so the other officer said to him well you should have had one of the new kind and it wouldn't have broken when the brother who was shot through the uh up above the heart and through the penis was laying on the floor was laying in in the in the station the officer was telling him [ __ ] get up and run so i can kill you these things happen well i think sir that when you read reports of the type of information that parker has been feeding to the press and the press has been feeding to the public and in turn also to the police officers it has created as the california eagle uh painted uh you can get the answer in the california eagle this week beautifully they described how parker has been uh uh filling his own men with fear and hatred of the black community and especially of the muslims well the man see when you give a man as much power as los angeles has given him and you don't have any around anyone around here who seems nerve enough to challenge him naturally he does the same thing that hitler did in germany he begins to think that he is god and any act that he commits is a godly act no matter how atrocious it is i doubt that any other police chief in any other city would dare to uh come along behind his men behind the type of crime that his comm his men committed in this negro community and try and sell it to the white public argument in order to uh clarify that you'd have to have a knowledge of what was taking place down there and i was born in america in omaha when you ask me about uh my name if a chinese were to come in here and say his name was patrick murphy you'd know that somewhere along the line he got in trouble or fell by the wayside so that's not a chinese no if a chinese if a chinese person has no business with an irishman's name if a yellow man has looks absurd wearing a white man's name it's even more absurd for a black man to have a white man's name if the negroes and you ask for an explanation you could take my explanation if you want if you want it take it the way i give it to you or you don't want it the negroes in this country who have uh english names those names represent the last slave master who owned their grandparents it is not their name it is the slave master's name so when we become muslims sir and we turn back toward our own culture we reject we we cut aside completely those things that stigmatized us in this country that also represents the unknown and i think you'll agree that this history of the black man before he was brought to this country you'll find that he came from africa which had a muslim culture in muslim civilization a great part of it and uh the mali empire stretched from the nile river over to the shores of west africa it was a muslim empire the moorish empire was muslim the uh the the empires that existed in northern nigeria were muslim kano one of the oldest cities in africa was a muslim city 500 years before columbus discovered america so now when you ask me how it when you ask the honorable elijah muhammad who is teaching the black people in this country that the only way that we can solve the race problem is not by forcing ourselves upon the white man but by doing something for ourselves teaches us also that we'll never have the incentive or the desire to do anything for ourselves until we first learn something about ourselves about our past naacp is against any type any type of brutality and uh which we are too the naacp is for integration we're for uh separation and uh we agree on the objective but we disagree on the message actually what both of us want is human dignity for the black people in this country and the naacp thinks that integration is the road that will bring about a solution to the problem that the black man is confronted with uh i'm uh minister malcolm x of muhammad's mosque number seven in new york city and the national representative of the honorable elijah mohammed who is our spiritual uh leader and teacher and friday night april the 27th at approximately 11 15 o'clock in what has since come to be seen as a tragic comedy of errors police errors seven innocent unarmed black men were shot down in cold blood by police chief william h parker's los angeles city police one of these seven innocent unarmed black man is now dead he was murdered in cold blood by police bullets another is paralyzed five others are hospitalized from bullet wounds and are also in serious condition these were seven innocent men seven innocent black victims of police bullets this did not happen in hitler's nazi germany this happened to innocent black men in los angeles california how could this brutal crime against innocent unarmed human beings occur in america with no public outcry by the well-thinking americans it is because police chief william h parker has misused the american press the radio television newspapers and the wire services to spread false propaganda in order to camouflage the true facts in one of the most savage ferocious inhuman and atrocities ever inflicted upon unarmed innocent human beings in a so-called democratic and civilized society this gestapo type atrocity and the effort to cover up the atrocity with the sanction and the support of the american press is in itself a crime against any society that professes to be civilized religious and god-fearing and makes america look like a savage uncivilized police state in the eyes of our brothers and sisters in africa asia and latin america and simply because chief william h parker's well-armed storm troopers wore police uniforms while shooting down these seven innocent black men in cold blood doesn't make the criminal actions of the policemen any more right than the uniforms worn by hitler and his uniform gestapo police who shot down the innocent jews in nazi germany despite police chief william h parker's efforts to justify this brutal act of cold-blooded murder by his police department and the seeming willingness of the white press to help him suppress the fact the truth must leak out and the good thinking americans who learned the truth about this case and failed to protest vigorously this type of police-state murder should never again speak out against hitler nazi germany and the gestapo police brutalities taxes against the innocent jews in nazi germany of the national association of the advancement of colored people written to ed edward warren president of the local naacp which he says and i quote national the national office supports fully the protest which the los angeles branch has lodged in the brutal police killing of ronald stokes police brutality against any segment of the population demands vigorous action by all elements in the city there is an incredible report circulating here that some sections of the los angeles negro community are remaining silent because stokes was a leader in the muslim movement we urge our los angeles branch to present press in all possible ways to bring the guilty police to account and to rally the other groups to do likewise never in its history has the naacp withheld condemnation of an action against police brutality because of race or religion and it will not do so now that's a statement made from our good friend roy uh wilkins making an attack on the ku klux klan the white citizens council or any group there's the policemen who police's dance hall came by and fired some shots and these shots caused an alarm to be sent out over the police network and instead of the instead of the police coming to the scene of the crime scene of the so-called incident of the incident which was a block away from our religious uh place of worship they came straight to the mosque and when they drove up there they drove up their shooting with their as the as the local press has already pointed out with their guns blazing the local press called it a a blazing gun battle muslims don't carry guns and what you described as a lo as a blazing gun battle was the blazing guns of policemen against unarmed black men found in cold blood by the officer he was unarmed and six other men were shot down in the same manner they were unarmed and every police department in america including the fbi no matter what criticisms they have of the muslims who follow mr muhammad they admit that we do not carry arms we're not even allowed to carry as much as a pen knife or a fingernail file but it was so after these men were uh when the police finally subdued them and as they shot them down they handcuffed him when ronald was uh shot the police weren't satisfied they beat him while he was while he was laying on the ground with a bullet through his heart they put a hole in his head with their club before right there how close they were when they let him how close they were upon him when they let him have it and after he had in the autopsy that was performed was performed without in the uh knowledge of his family of his relatives they just cut him open to get the bullet because he's just another negro and after after he was shot down it shows how they knocked a hole in his head with their club and then had the audacity to to maneuver the white press into saying that some policemen were injured but they never pointed out the injuries that they had afflict inflicted there one other negro was shot through the chest shut a quarter of an inch above his heart the bullet passed his uh hole in ronald stoke's head this is the this is the man that was murdered now why would he have to have his head knocked in besides a bullet through his heart i took uh these pictures were taken these weren't taken by me but they were taken i'm giving you the result of my investigation uh first let me answer this this man here was shot who was shot through the heart or rather shot a quarter of an inch above the heart and it came out uh through his back he was also shot in the penis it went through his stomach he spent 48 hours in police custody without hospitalization when finally he made bail 48 hours later along with two other brothers who had been shot we picked them up at police headquarters standing in the corridor where they had not received any medical attention a criminal who has just robbed the bank and murdered someone isn't treated like that what about the report that we the president has received from the police that after this altercation began at the corner of 57th and south broadway where the two suspects were being questioned and the the fight did begin a group of muslims from the mosque came out and said we must help our brothers and there is when the fight really began now our reports are for the effects of these men weren't necessarily unarmed there was a five-gallon jug i saw the judge myself by the way upon reportedly which the head of the policeman had been struck by one of the muslims and there was also a report that one of the muslim procedure knows and this is why it's so hard to sell this story to the negro public they have visited our meetings while you can't even enter the door with a fingernail file we are more anti-weapon than any group in the country and you can and the police yes do you mean to tell me that a man walked out of our mouth with a shotgun or a rifle as the press said and the police