Malcolm and Martin, closer than we ever thought – CNN.com

This historical snapshot reminded me of a recent chat I had with the young Pakistani storekeeper at a store I frequent. His growing up years have been split between both here and there and while his curiosity is insatiable, there are huge gaps in his knowledge of American cultural history.

We were discussing where and when rock and roll started. “A lot of people think it started with Elvis, his contemporaries, or the black musicians that they ripped off,” I said. “..But I think rock as we know it came out of the sixties.”

“What happened in the sixties that started it?”

“Um, Ah….” My mouth hung open in indecision. That’s a pretty broad topic and I wasn’t sure how to sum it up.

“Well there was all of these mini-cultural revolutions going on. People were breaking away from how things had always been done: women’s rights, protesting war, civil rights. The music started out resembling the kind of music that had been made for decades. It sort of resembled the hopeful, we can change things things way of thinking that we hear permeated all of these movements too. Then all of the leaders of all of those different movements were all killed and the music got less innocent, less hopeful, and a little angry. That is where I think rock and roll comes from.”

“Why were they killed? Who did it?”

“Uh… Well, there were people who thought they shouldn’t be shaking things up and changing things. It wasn’t like an organized plan from what we know but they all got shot. Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy. By the end of the sixties all of the inspiring leaders who convinced all of these millions of people that justice would prevail if they all worked together were all dead. They got killed by different people but it was all people who disagreed with them or were scared by the changes they wanted to make.”

I seriously need to review my U.S. history if I’m going to continue having conversations like that.

Sidenote – Malcolm X was a hater and I don’t like haters but I definitely think he was motivated by all of the right things. When he came back from Mecca his new understanding of the brotherhood of man meant that he now had the capacity to unite people of all races under the banner of his cause.

I think that scared the shit out of the powers that be.

It was one thing when he was hater but when he wasn’t helping with the dividing (as in ‘divide and conquer’) anymore, when he began to speak in a away which promised to bring people together? Now that was dangerous to the establishment. Not saying any of those fat cats pulled the trigger but the timing of his death sure as heck was convenient for anyone who thought that way.