The Ballot or the Bullet

Malcolm X refers to the mainstream civil rights movement’s actions as outdated and likens their approach to racist oppression as akin to Uncle Tom, the title character from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous 19th-century novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Uncle Tom was an old man who spent his lifetime in slavery but refused to become angry or resentful about his status. He was, instead, very often a friend to white people, particularly his young charge, Little Eva, and exhibited a Christ-like ability to maintain love for his oppressors despite their violent abuse. Uncle Tom became a symbol among black nationalists for black people who were too naïve or brainwashed to fight back against those who insisted on withholding their rights and liberties.

Former Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry, in 1812, passed a law that created new senatorial districts, resulting in the Federalist Party’s votes being concentrated in just a few districts. Thus, the Democratic-Republican Party got disproportionate representation in his state. Political cartoonist Elkanah Tisdale pointed out how much the new electoral map resembled a salamander and created a mythological animal based on the new outline, called the “Gerry-mander.”

In the context of his speech, Malcolm X claims that Democratic politicians in Northern states manipulate the power of the black vote through gerrymandering. While white Southerners intimidate black people out of voting or force them to take citizenship tests, Northerners used the more surreptitious method of gerrymandering.