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Nobody Can Give You Freedom: The Real Mission of Malcolm X
The real political mission of Malcolm X, and why it needs resurrecting now – 100 years after his birth
Malcolm X is a titanic figure in political history, but he is also one of the most misunderstood. So much of what we know about his life and politics is from books, films and documentaries that are all guilty of peddling the Malcolm myth for their own nefarious interests. Forever known as the violent Yang to Martin Luther King’s Yin, in the years since his death he has been co-opted into the American project, punished by his enemies for his radicalism, and marginalised by decades of governments, academics and activists.
But here, for the first time, Malcolm is rediscovered. On the centenary of his birthday, in a world shaken by decades of injustice and racism, Malcolm’s political mission is more urgent than ever. In Nobody Can Give You Freedom, Kehinde Andrews reveals his real revolutionary programme. Malcolm’s activism was his philosophy, and paying attention to it reveals the true cultural icon – who, if he were alive today, would tell us to pick up the mantle, and overturn this wicked system for good.
Malcolm X is a titanic figure in political history, but he is also one of the most misunderstood. So much of what we know about his life and politics is from books, films and documentaries that are all guilty of peddling the Malcolm myth for their own nefarious interests. Forever known as the violent Yang to Martin Luther King’s Yin, in the years since his death he has been co-opted into the American project, punished by his enemies for his radicalism, and marginalised by decades of governments, academics and activists.
But here, for the first time, Malcolm is rediscovered. On the centenary of his birthday, in a world shaken by decades of injustice and racism, Malcolm’s political mission is more urgent than ever. In Nobody Can Give You Freedom, Kehinde Andrews reveals his real revolutionary programme. Malcolm’s activism was his philosophy, and paying attention to it reveals the true cultural icon – who, if he were alive today, would tell us to pick up the mantle, and overturn this wicked system for good.
329 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 1, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 4, 2025
This wasn’t a book written for me, and I enjoyed the intellectual stretch of that reality. Andrews is writing for a black audience in the sense he’s seeking to build a radical movement in alongside a more radical understanding of Malcolm X’s beliefs.
I found the re-centring of Malcolm X really refreshing, as a true radical. Whilst his politics are not my politics, it was great to think around two radical political standpoints (mine, and Malcolm X’s, rather than only considering one from the mainstream) as I read this.
Writing about a hero is always going to be risky though - no one is ever deserving of being put on a pedestal. I struggling with Andrews’ argument that Malcolm X wasn’t a misogynist and rejected the Nation of Islam’s beliefs around women. Analysing his speeches and particularly his use of the possessive ‘our women’, Andrews argued whilst this may be jarring to many feminists, for a black women in a culture of being abandoned by men, this was welcomed. I do not have the experience of being a black woman, so I cannot say whether this holds true, but nor does Andrews. This felt a little like the twisted logic of Third Republicans in France when they argued women didn’t need the vote because they already controlled how their husbands voted. Both made a step to recognising women exist and are worth mentioning, but neither consider them equals.
This was a really interesting, challenging and dynamic book that I really enjoyed and learnt much from. However, Malcolm X was a man of his time. Now Andrews has corrected the dominant narrative of his place in that time, he could remove the pedestal and make the radical ideas fruitful for the current time - constructive criticism included. As Jean Jaures said - ‘take from the past the fire, not the ashes’.
I found the re-centring of Malcolm X really refreshing, as a true radical. Whilst his politics are not my politics, it was great to think around two radical political standpoints (mine, and Malcolm X’s, rather than only considering one from the mainstream) as I read this.
Writing about a hero is always going to be risky though - no one is ever deserving of being put on a pedestal. I struggling with Andrews’ argument that Malcolm X wasn’t a misogynist and rejected the Nation of Islam’s beliefs around women. Analysing his speeches and particularly his use of the possessive ‘our women’, Andrews argued whilst this may be jarring to many feminists, for a black women in a culture of being abandoned by men, this was welcomed. I do not have the experience of being a black woman, so I cannot say whether this holds true, but nor does Andrews. This felt a little like the twisted logic of Third Republicans in France when they argued women didn’t need the vote because they already controlled how their husbands voted. Both made a step to recognising women exist and are worth mentioning, but neither consider them equals.
This was a really interesting, challenging and dynamic book that I really enjoyed and learnt much from. However, Malcolm X was a man of his time. Now Andrews has corrected the dominant narrative of his place in that time, he could remove the pedestal and make the radical ideas fruitful for the current time - constructive criticism included. As Jean Jaures said - ‘take from the past the fire, not the ashes’.
October 13, 2025
A very interesting book. Certainly not written for me as a white person, but a very nuanced and important resource for any white ally seeking to understand the currents of contemporary pan-Africanism in the UK.
Kehinde Andrews is an interesting writer who bases his analysis firmly in the works of Malcolm X, and has made me more curious to read more of the source material. I found myself agreeing with a significant proportion of his analysis. However, there was an extreme dancing around of Marxist thought, which Andrews writes off as a "white" ideology that Black people have no need of. This becomes particularly jarring, and frankly bizarre, at several junctures in the book. Cedric Robinson's seminal Black Marxism is written off as an attempt to make Black thinking palatable to the white academy, despite the fact that Marxism has never been mainstream in any part of America, let alone in its universities. Andrews speaks Europe's "underdevelopment" of Africa (he even uses the word "underdeveloped"), and yet pretends that the great Walter Rodney never wrote an entire book, grounded in Marxist analysis, on the topic (and undertaking a much deeper analysis on the topic than Andrews manages). Throughout the book, Andrews criticises Capitalism, and yet rejects the most robust, nuanced and developed methodology ever developed to understand it. In so doing, he ignores the incredible work done by so many great thinkers of the Black liberation movement, some of whom (such as Angela Davis) he even references elsewhere in the book. I was left scratching my straight-haired, blonde head and asking "why reject the ideology entirely?"
That said, his analysis of Malcolm X's work is highly nuanced and evidence-based, and it was inspiring to read him banging the drum for a radical Pan-African movement for Black Liberation. In many ways this was a call to arms, and if this book radicalises anyone that is welcome. I do just wonder what this means if such a useful (and increasingly undeniable) ideology as Marxism is deliberately left out. Lorde said that master's tools will never dismantle the masters house, but the AK-47 is on the flag of Mozambique for a reason.
Kehinde Andrews is an interesting writer who bases his analysis firmly in the works of Malcolm X, and has made me more curious to read more of the source material. I found myself agreeing with a significant proportion of his analysis. However, there was an extreme dancing around of Marxist thought, which Andrews writes off as a "white" ideology that Black people have no need of. This becomes particularly jarring, and frankly bizarre, at several junctures in the book. Cedric Robinson's seminal Black Marxism is written off as an attempt to make Black thinking palatable to the white academy, despite the fact that Marxism has never been mainstream in any part of America, let alone in its universities. Andrews speaks Europe's "underdevelopment" of Africa (he even uses the word "underdeveloped"), and yet pretends that the great Walter Rodney never wrote an entire book, grounded in Marxist analysis, on the topic (and undertaking a much deeper analysis on the topic than Andrews manages). Throughout the book, Andrews criticises Capitalism, and yet rejects the most robust, nuanced and developed methodology ever developed to understand it. In so doing, he ignores the incredible work done by so many great thinkers of the Black liberation movement, some of whom (such as Angela Davis) he even references elsewhere in the book. I was left scratching my straight-haired, blonde head and asking "why reject the ideology entirely?"
That said, his analysis of Malcolm X's work is highly nuanced and evidence-based, and it was inspiring to read him banging the drum for a radical Pan-African movement for Black Liberation. In many ways this was a call to arms, and if this book radicalises anyone that is welcome. I do just wonder what this means if such a useful (and increasingly undeniable) ideology as Marxism is deliberately left out. Lorde said that master's tools will never dismantle the masters house, but the AK-47 is on the flag of Mozambique for a reason.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews