WARTIME ISSUE 7

WARTIME Issue 7: 100 Years of Malcolm X

In 1925, Malcolm X was born into a world hostile to Black life. In 2025, we still experience many of the same conditions.

And yet, in just 39 short years, he moved through multiple lives, each version of himself more rooted, more radical, more refined in purpose than the last.

From Malcolm Little to Detroit Red, from Malcolm X to Omowale or El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, we are blessed to have witnessed, studied, and been shaped by his journey. A journey not toward perfection, but toward constant transformation.

At Black Men Build, one of our core values states, “we are transforming to meet the moment.”

Malcolm lived that truth. In every chapter of his life, he responded to the conditions around him by reexamining who he was and who he needed to be. His life speaks to our own individual and collective callings to shift, to deepen, to rebuild the circle of accountability, love, and struggle.

As we revisit transformations of Malcolm in this issue, we offer them not just as a biography, but as a mirror to ourselves. When we reflect on these four lives within one man, we must also ask: What are the phases of our own transformation?

When were we first politicized? What was our Detroit Red phase, the moment we navigated survival with no roadmap? What institutions shaped us, broke us, or helped rebuild us? What are we unlearning, still?

And what are we becoming?

Malcolm X was not perfect. As you’ll read in this issue, especially in Farrah Jasmine Watkin’s piece, “Ironies of the Saint,” we must also grapple with Malcolm’s relationship to patriarchy and, at times, the limitations of his gender politics.

And in doing that work, we cannot forget the role of Dr. Betty Shabazz, his wife, partner, and comrade. Her influence on Malcolm’s life, evolution, and sense of purpose too often goes unspoken. And yet, her brilliance, strength, and presence were inseparable from his journey. To honor Malcolm’s legacy fully is also to honor Betty’s impact, to recognize that behind his transformations stood a woman who helped hold and shape the vision with him.

This too is part of the circle we must rebuild: one that sees, values, and uplifts the contributions of Black women in movement, in love, in revolution.

Transformation is not just about political clarity, it is also emotional, relational, and spiritual. Malcolm, like all of us, held contradictions.

And still, his life teaches us that new men must be born, not just once, but again and again.

So in this issue, as we honor the legacy of Brother Malcolm, we also issue a call to action. To look inward and onward. To rebuild the circle. To transform to meet this moment.

Because we must also ask ourselves: what would Malcolm think of our movement today? What would he say about the condition of Black folk and in particular Black men in 2025, our relationships, our responsibilities, and our sense of purpose? We can only have answers by studying his life but knowing more of ourselves and the conditions we are fighting through.

Some of the struggles we face are the same battles Malcolm fought, state violence, imperialism, disconnection, and dispossession.

But the terrain has shifted. Surveillance has gone digital. From the devices we use, to the podcasts we watch, to the Black celebrity misleadership class, the fascist state we face today seeps into every corner of our lives and attempts to disrupt our homes, our families, our friends and our ability to trust and love.

And so if our circle is broken, when did that happen and how do we fix it?

Malcolm would demand that we understand the context we are living in. He would urge us to name what we are fighting for and what we are fighting against and to understand how those forces shape our relationships with one another, especially as Black men.

And yet, even as the fascist state distorts and disrupts, we must fight to rebuild. We must remember that the circle, our communities, our accountability, our revolutionary love is not beyond repair. But we cannot rebuild what we don’t understand. That means knowing our history. Knowing ourselves. And knowing the moment we are in.

As we think about new life, about babies born, about legacies carried, we must ask: what is the role of Black men in revolutionary times?

The answer is not mysterious, it’s not vague, or ambiguous. It’s in Malcolm’s life. It’s in our ancestors’ blood and in our own lived realities:

To resist the fascist state.

To rebuild the circle.

To transform to meet the moment, and then move it forward.

What does that look like for you?

For your comrades?

For your community?

We are still writing that story.

May we do as sons/daughters/heirs of Malcolm with clarity, courage, and commitment.

Always fighting towards our individual and collective liberation.

History isn’t made, it’s built.