Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” Speech (1964) Commentary by Carl Rollyson, Baruch Colelge, The City University of New York

Glossary

Cassius Clay American boxer who later converted to Islam and adopted the name Muhammad Ali

filibustering a way of obstructing a bill in a legislature by indefinitely prolonging debate

Johnson President Lyndon B. Johnson

Kennedy President John F. Kennedy

NAACP the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights organization

Patrick Henry American Revolutionary, most famous for his statement “Give my Liberty, or give me Death!”

Uncle Tom a central character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin; a character symbolic of black subservience to whites