Selling Malcolm X
September 28th, 2008 by Steve BowbrickThe true function of Speechification is to uncover the gems you missed or the ones you heard and would like to hear again. I suppose this is the kind of thing we might expect the BBC to do for us but while they’re getting around to it, here’s another terrific programme from my archive: it’s about Malcolm X and his influence but it’s also about a remarkable moment, just a few years ago, when history sort of leaked through into the present: on eBay of all places. Excellent. Here’s the MP3 and the show’s web site which has some background.
October 15th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Thank you, Steve, for this wonderful piece of radio journalism, which I got from my nephew, Tae Mawson. Malcolm X was such a wonderful speaker: witty, articulate, honest, and a huge loss. I have the Norton anthology of African-American literature, which includes a cd on which there is a speech of Malcolm’s. I feel moved and inspired every time I listen to that.
I don’t suppose you have either of Professor George Fraser’s plays, do you? (He is the Director of the Space Research Centre, Dept of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leicester, as well as playwright and short story writer.) One was about the atom bomb (broadcast somewhere around the 50th anniversary of the first bomb, so that must have been 1995?); the other took the Nobel prizewinner, Chandrasekhar, as its subject. I used to have links to the plays but lost them when I changed computers one time.
Thank you again - with best wishes, Pam