—Barrington Williams, B1Daily

Every year on May 19th, Black Americans honor Malcolm X, a revolutionary thinker, organizer, and unapologetic advocate for Black liberation.

Yet, too often, his legacy is watered down to a handful of motivational soundbites, stripped of their radical context. We plaster his words on T-shirts and Instagram captions while ignoring the depth of his message: that Black liberation requires more than self-help platitudes, it demands systemic dismantling.

Malcolm X didn’t just preach personal responsibility; he exposed the machinery of white supremacy and capitalism. He called out the hypocrisy of a nation that celebrated democracy abroad while denying basic rights to Black citizens at home.

His evolution from the Nation of Islam to an internationalist perspective, one that linked anti-colonial struggles in Africa and Asia with the Black American fight, showed his refusal to be confined by respectability politics or narrow nationalism.

Today, his words are often cherry-picked to fit a palatable narrative. “By any means necessary” becomes a vague call for hustle culture, divorced from its original meaning: a commitment to self-defense and radical action against oppression. Meanwhile, his critiques of integrationism, liberal pacifism, and the white power structure are conveniently overlooked.

Malcolm X didn’t fight for Black people to be included in a broken system, he fought for that system to be torn down. On Malcolm X Day, we must do more than quote him. We must study his speeches in full, engage with his unflinching analysis, and apply his lessons to today’s struggles. Liberation isn’t about inspiration; it’s about transformation. Are we ready for what that truly means?

The answer lies not in reducing Malcolm to a meme, but in embracing the uncomfortable truths he forced America to confront. His fight continues—will we join it?

—Barrington Williams, B1Daily