Bishop Lawson: First African Liberation Day

In 1958, the Conference of Independent African States declared the first observance of Africa Freedom Day (later known as African Liberation Day). This observance was part of a larger political effort African countries, most of which were Europeans colonies at the time, to sever ties with the countries that had colonized them. New York's observance in 1959 was part of the first worldwide observance.

There was an official program at Carnegie Hall, and an evening rally at Refuge Temple. Bishop Lawson would have gladly opened Refuge's doors for the cause, as he was a fervent Pan-Africanist. By this time he had made lengthy trips abroad to Africa and had established a relationship with Emperor Haile Selassie, royal head of the only African nation-state not colonized by a European nation. His opinion about the state of Africa, spiritually and otherwise, was super-optimistic. While I t is not clear whether or not Lawson himself was present for this occasion, someone who might be Lawson is sitting on the rostrum, applauding the speaker (with some judiciously delayed applause at the end).

Other notables were there, such as the Liberian ambassador to the UN, Charles T.O. King, and Manhattan borough president Hulan Jack. Jack spoke briefly and left. Taking up the empty space Jack left on the program was one Malcolm X, a minister in a 'cult' known as the Nation of Islam. Karl Evanzz, author of The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad, explains that Minister Malcolm's speech at the rally was attended to more than any of the previous speakers by the national media in attendance. The rally also "demonstrated that newly independent African and Arab nations were immensely interested in alliances with American Muslims" (Messenger, p. 192).

The US. government was also 'immensely interested' and collected information about the rally via FBI informants. Later, around October 1959, notes from Minister Malcolm's speech were deposited in a file. Not very keen on Christianity (probably for reasons that W.E.B. Du Bois outlined in "Of the Faith of the Fathers"), the minister nevertheless reached out to Harlem's religious black leaders to unite. The FBI notes also quote an article on the rally from the Los Angeles Herald Dispatch, wherein the writer expresses "surprise" at the "enthusiastic stomping and roaring" and "thunderous applause" that met Malcolm's caustic generalizations of the white race.

As powerful and moving a speaker as Minister Malcolm was, he would later come to throw off the teaching of 'the Messenger,' Elijah Muhammad, after revelations about ethical compromises in Muhammad's life and due his own spiritual awakening during his pilgrimage to Mecca. Was it Muhammad's apparent faith in Malcolm as a preacher that compelled him to develop into the prophetic titan of an orator that he became? Comparisons can be made in that regard, perhaps, to Pentecostal preachers sent out by Lawson and other Pentecostal leaders, and indeed preachers and religious workers of all stripes, who found their purpose and calling in the vision of great leaders, and stirred and challenged their communities. While many people used religion to transcend the present world, Malcolm remained fundamentally prophetic to the end; his messages still buzz on gadfly wings some 50 years after his death.

That being said, the whole affair -- Africa Freedom Day, Malcolm, CBS, the FBI -- happened at "Bishop Lawson's Refuge Temple" on Seventh Avenue, marking Lawson's religious headquarters as a venue of regional prominence, and at times national prominence.