"Malcolm X at Oxford Union" Saladin Ambar (Oxford University Press, 2014)

In 1964 Malcolm X was invited to debate at the Oxford Union Society at Oxford University. The topic of debate that evening was the infamous phrase from Barry Goldwater's 1964 Republican Convention speech:"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." At a time when Malcolm was traveling widely and advocating on behalf of blacks in America and other nations, his thirty minute speech at the Oxford Union stands out as one of the great addresses of the civil rights era. 


Delivered just months before his assassination, the speech followed a period in which Malcolm had traveled throughout Africa and much of the Muslim world. The journey broadened his political thought to encompass decolonization, the revolutions underway in the developing world, and the relationship between American blacks and non-white populations across the globe-including England. 

Facing off against debaters in one of world's most elite institutions, he delivered a revolutionary message that tackled a staggering array of issues: the nature of national identity; US foreign policy in the developing world; racial politics at home; the experiences of black immigrants in England; and the nature of power in the contemporary world. It represents a moment when his thought had advanced to its furthest point, shedding the parochial concerns of previous years for an increasingly global and humanist approach to ushering in social change.

Set to publish near the fiftieth anniversary of his death, Malcolm X at Oxford Union will reshape our understanding not only of the man himself, but world politics both then and now.


table of contents

Prologue 1964
1 Introduction: "This is an interesting despatch"
2 Extremism: "The revolution is now on the inside of the house"
3 Liberty: "Please forward by any means necessary"
4 Moderation "It is no part of the moderate to refuse to fight"
5 Justice "To take up arms against a sea of troubles"
6 Virtue "Authentic Revolutionary"


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title: Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era
author: Saladin Ambar
publisher: Oxford University Press
year: Feb. 2014
no. of pages: 240
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author information

Saladin M. Ambar

Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Rutgers University

Saladin M. Ambar is Assistant Professor in the department of Political Science where he teaches courses on the American presidency and governorship, race and American political development, and political parties and elections. He is a graduate of Rutgers University's PhD program in political science and a former fellow of the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Professor Ambar is the author of How Governors Built the Modern American Presidency (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) . His next book examines Malcolm X's participation in the 1964 Oxford Union debate and the politics of national identity in both the United States and United Kingdom (Oxford University Press, February 2014) . He is currently working on a book on the political thought and life of former New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo (American Cicero: Mario Cuomo and the Decline of Liberal Politics in America). Professor Ambar has been active in Lehigh's Africana Studies program where he has taught courses in Black Political Thought, along with a First Year Seminar on the Political Philosophy of Barack Obama.