If we criticize ourselves, then that begins to change things. I think groups that deal in power become impatient with groups who are strangers to power. I think even in individuals you can see this. A good example is Malcolm X. (I am reading his autobiography now.) When he talks about Uncle Toms, he puts it clearly. He's saying that these guys will go to work for the devil white man. He's saying a lot more (he doesn't make it clear but I'm sure this is his thinking), that the Negro thinks that if he gets ahead he is going to be getting his people ahead. Malcolm X knew about power although he didn't put it in those words. (Interviewer: Malcolm X had a tremendous effect on black organizers.) He knew what he was doing. They understood him, and they didn't understand the others. But he had a good base; he came right from the gutter so he wasn't compromised. The guys who don't come from the gutter have to compromise because they're going to school, they're getting a job, they're working for the government, all these little compromises which, by the time you get to be a leader, have got your hands tied up. You organize for power so that you can get something. You organize so that you can build power to do something with it, and so, when you look back, you've got to see some people out there doing something. What I'm trying to say is you can't organize by just speaking. The civil rights movement's biggest drawback is that they don't have a group that pays its own way. They don't have a membership group. This is the kind of power that is needed. Malcolm X was an organizer, but Stokely Carmichael is entirely different. I don't see any building. The approach that Malcolm X used was the house meeting. He was doing those things that we know pay: being patient and just accumulating, committing people and so forth. He's gone, but his spirit continues.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "If we criticize ourselves, then that begins to change things. I think groups that deal in power become impatient with groups who are strangers to power. I think even in individuals you can see this. A good example is Malcolm X. (I am reading his autobiography now.) When he talks about Uncle Toms, he puts it clearly. He's saying that these guys will go to work for the devil white man. He's saying a lot more (he doesn't make it clear but I'm sure this is his thinking), that the Negro thinks that if he gets ahead he is going to be getting his people ahead. Malcolm X knew about power although he didn't put it in those words. (Interviewer: Malcolm X had a tremendous effect on black organizers.) He knew what he was doing. They understood him, and they didn't understand the others. But he had a good base; he came right from the gutter so he wasn't compromised. The guys who don't come from the gutter have to compromise because they're going to school, they're getting a job, they're working for the government, all these little compromises which, by the time you get to be a leader, have got your hands tied up. You organize for power so that you can get something. You organize so that you can build power to do something with it, and so, when you look back, you've got to see some people out there doing something. What I'm trying to say is you can't organize by just speaking. The civil rights movement's biggest drawback is that they don't have a group that pays its own way. They don't have a membership group. This is the kind of power that is needed. Malcolm X was an organizer, but Stokely Carmichael is entirely different. I don't see any building. The approach that Malcolm X used was the house meeting. He was doing those things that we know pay: being patient and just accumulating, committing people and so forth. He's gone, but his spirit continues." in the context of "Cesar Chavez 1971 interview, anthologized in An Organizer’s Tale (2008)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.