Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast for Sun. May 18, 2014--Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe
Abayomi Azikiwe is editor of the Pan-African News Wire.
For Immediate Release
Media Advisory

Pan-African Journal: Special Worldwide Radio Broadcast for Sun. May 18, 2014--Hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe

To listen to this program hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, just click on the website below:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/panafricanjournal/2014/05/18/pan-african-journal-special-worldwide-radio-broadcast

This special broadcast came on the eve of the 89th birthday of the martyred Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik Shabazz). We have been discussing the significance of the 50th anniversary of the intervention of Malcolm X on the African continent and the Middle East during 1964.

After Malcolm X's resignation from the Nation of Islam in March 1964, the following month he traveled to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, making hajj in order to authenticate himself as an orthodox Muslim. Malcolm also traveled to 17 African states during two trips to the continent in April-May and later between July-November.

His impact on Africa, the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, as well as Britain and France, was phenomenal. He spent most of his time in Egypt at the invitation of the-then President Gamal Abdel Nassar.

Malcolm would form the first chapter of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) in Ghana during May 1964. He met with President Kwame Nkrumah and Shirley Graham Du Bois, the widow of W.E.B. Du Bois, both of whom were granted citizenship by the Nkrumah government.

This program features a tribute as well to African American journalist William Worthy, 92, who passed away earlier in the month in Massachusetts. Worthy defied the United States government travel bans by working as an investigative journalist in the People's Republic of China, Cuba, Indonesia and Iran from the 1950s to the 1980s.

We hear a recording of a speech by Malcolm X in May 1962 in NYC where William Worthy shared the platform with the-then Nation of Islam national spokesman. Later in the program an address delivered by Malcolm X in New York City during December 1964 after his long sojourn in Africa and the Middle East, featured the OAAU leader on a panel with the Vice Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer.

1964 in addition to being the year of the intervention of Malcolm in Africa, it was also the period of Freedom Summer where approximately 1,000 volunteers traveled to Mississippi and Southwest Tennessee to engage in voter registration and the formation of an independent political movement. 

No comments: