On Wednesday, May 15^th, Baba Zayid Muhammad will again do the Malcolm X Remembered Lecture for the James Brown African-American Room at the Newark Public Library.

The lecture will take place at 6pm at Newark Public Library’s African-American Room. Admission is Free.

The Library is located at 5 Washington Street, Newark.

The presentation takes on a tragic emotional gravity with the suspicious death of El Hajj Malcolm Shabazz, Malcolm’s grandson, on May 9^th. Young Malcolm was an emerging activist in his own right.

“We have been very concerned about young Malcolm,” revealed a somber, dejected and angry Muhammad.

“We, and I am referring to some key elders when I say ‘we’, wanted badly to sitdown with him and create a support network around him, and now all of a sudden this.”

          Muhammad is a human rights activist with a 35 year public commitment. He is an area expert on Malcolm X. In addition to his duties with the New Black Panther Party, he is the founding press officer for the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee in New York. He is the author of the ‘Lick This: Insurgent Offerings for Malcolm,’ a collection of statements and poems penned in 2000 to mark the new century. He recently did a highly regarded interview on the subject for Your Black World.

On Sunday, May 19^th, the New Black Panther Party will observe the 88^th birthday of Malcolm X with the Sons of Afrika and the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee for the Annual Pilgrimage to the Gravesite of Malcolm X.

The Party will again serve as ‘the Honor Guard’ for the gravesite ceremony, a role humbly and proudly embraced since 2000.

Participants will assemble at the Harlem State Office Building located at 125^th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd in Harlem at 9am.

They will then caravan to the Ferncliff Cemetary in Ardsley, NY where Malcolm is buried.

For participants going up on Caravan busses, there is a donation of $10. for adults and $5 for children. Families should call and make reservations in advance. Please call the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee at 718-512-5008 to make those reservations.

The pilgrimage to Malcolm’s gravesite and the gravesite ceremony is the brainchild of the late Ella Little-Collins, Malcolm’s elder sister. Collins valiantly succeeded Malcolm as chair of the Organization of Afro American Unity after his assassination on February 21, 1965.

The responsibility for overseeing the pilgrimage and ceremony was given to Baba James Small shortly after it was initiated. Small has faithfully overseen the process ever since.

In 2000, Small asked the New Black Panther Party’s area leader Zayid Muhammad to have the New Black Panther Party serve as the gravesite ceremony’s ‘Honor Guard.’

          “This invitation has been one of the high points of the history of the New Black Panther Party,” exclaimed Muhammad who shortly thereafter became the Party’s first and only national minister of culture.

          This year’s ceremony will have a huge pall over it with the May 9^th murder of Malcolm’ s grandson in Mexico.

          “Young Malcolm was a promising fresh voice and face for our youth and he was taking his family’s legacy of struggle quite serious,” he said of the tragic development.

“I must say with as much discipline and restraint as I can muster that there is nothing but blood in my eyes with anger and suspicion at what happened and at what could be behind it,” he finished…