The Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) was a Pan-Africanist

Pan-Africanism

Pan-Africanism is a movement that seeks to unify African people or people living in Africa, into a "one African community". Differing types of Pan-Africanism seek different levels of economic, racial, social, or political unity...

 organization founded by Malcolm X in 1964. The OAAU was modeled on the Organisation of African Unity, which had impressed Malcolm X during his visit to Africa in April and May 1964. The purpose of the OAAU was to fight for the human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 of African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s and promote cooperation among Africans

African people

African people refers to natives, inhabitants, or citizen of Africa and to people of African descent.-Etymology:Many etymological hypotheses that have been postulated for the ancient name "Africa":...

 and people of African descent in the Americas.

Malcolm X announced the establishment of the OAAU at a public meeting in New York's

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 Audubon Ballroom

Audubon Ballroom

The Audubon Ballroom was a theatre and ballroom located on Broadway at 165th Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, north of Harlem in New York. It is best known as the site of Malcolm X's assassination on February 21, 1965....

 on June 28, 1964. He had written the group's charter with John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke , born John Henry Clark, was a Pan-Africanist American writer, historian, professor, and a pioneer in the creation of Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s.He was Professor of African World History and in 1969 founding chairman of...

, Albert Cleage

Albert Cleage

Albert Cleage was a Christian religious leader, political candidate, newspaper publisher, political organizer and author. He is founder of the Shrine of the Black Madonna Church and Cultural Centers in Detroit and Atlanta...

, Jesse Gray

Jesse Gray

Jesse Gray was a leader of rent strikes in Harlem in the 1960s and served as a New York State Assemblyman from 1972 to 1974.-Biography:...

, and Gloria Richardson

Gloria Richardson

Gloria St. Clair Hayes Richardson is best known as the leader of the Cambridge Movement, a civil rights struggle in Cambridge, Maryland in the 1960s. The Movement made significant strides against institutionalized racial discrimination in Cambridge by bringing attention to social injustices such...

, among others. In a memo dated July 2, 1964, FBI

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

 Director J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover

John Edgar Hoover was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972...

 described the nascent OAAU as a threat to the national security of the United States.

Malcolm X, along with John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke

John Henrik Clarke , born John Henry Clark, was a Pan-Africanist American writer, historian, professor, and a pioneer in the creation of Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s.He was Professor of African World History and in 1969 founding chairman of...

, wrote the following into the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) Basic Unity Program:

1. Restoration: "In order to release ourselves from the oppression of our enslavers then, it is absolutely necessary for the Afro-American to restore communication with Africa
   Africa
   Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
   
   ."
2. Reorientation: "We can learn much about Africa by reading informative books."
3. Education: "The Organization of Afro-American Unity will devise original educational methods and procedures which will liberate the minds of our children. We will ... encourage qualified Afro-Americans to write and publish the textbooks needed to liberate our minds ... educating them [our children] at home."
4. Economic Security: "After the Emancipation Proclamation ... it was realized that the Afro-American constituted the largest homogeneous ethnic group with a common origin and common group experience in the United States
   United States
   The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
   
    and, if allowed to exercise economic or political freedom, would in a short period of time own this country. We must establish a technician bank. We must do this so that the newly independent nations of Africa
   Africa
   Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
   
    can turn to us who are their brothers for the technicians they will they will need now and in the future."

The OAAU pushed for Black control of every aspect of the Black community. At the founding rally, Malcolm X stated that the organization's principal concern was the human rights of Blacks, but that it would also focus on voter registration, school boycotts, rent strike

Rent strike

A rent strike is a method of protest commonly employed against large landlords. In a rent strike, a group of tenants come together and agree to refuse to pay their rent en masse until a specific list of demands is met by the landlord...

s, housing rehabilitation, and social programs for addicts, unwed mothers, and troubled children. Malcolm X saw the OAAU as a way of "un-brainwashing" Black people, ridding them of the lies they had been told about themselves and their culture.

On July 17, 1964, Malcolm X was welcomed to the second meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Cairo as a representative of the OAAU.

When a reporter asked whether white people could join the OAAU, Malcolm X said, "Definitely not." Then he added, "If John Brown

John Brown (abolitionist)

John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...

were still alive, we might accept him."

Collapse

Malcolm X did not have sufficient time to invest in the OAAU to help it flourish. After his death, Malcolm X's half-sister, Ella Collins, took over the leadership of the OAAU, but dwindling membership and Malcolm X's absence eventually led to the collapse of the organization.

External links

• Program of the Organization of Afro-American Unity
• Malcolm X, Speech on the Founding of the OAAU, June 28, 1964 (PDF)