THE PAST...

"When you deal with the past, you're dealing with
history, you're dealing actually with the origin of a thing. When you know the
origin, you know the cause. If you don't know the origin, you don't know the
cause. And if you don't know the cause, you don't know the reason, you're just
cut off, you're left standing in mid-air. "

So the past deals with history
or the origin of anything -- the origin of a person, the origin of a nation,
the origin of an incident. And when you know the origin, then you get a better
understanding of the causes that produce whatever originated there and its reason
for originating and its reason for being.

It's
impossible for you and me to have a balanced mind in this society without going
into the past, because in this particular society, as we function and fit into
it right now, we're such an underdog, we're trampled upon, we're looked upon as
almost nothing. Now if we
don't go into the past and find out how we got this way, we will think that we
were always this way. And if you think that you were always in the condition
that you're in right now, it's impossible for you to have too much confidence
in yourself, you become worthless, almost nothing.

But when you go back into the past and find our where
you once were, then you will know that you weren't always at this level, that
you once had attained a higher level, had made great achievements,
contributions to society, civilization, science and so forth. And you know that
if you once did it, you can do it again; you automatically get the incentive,
the inspiration and the energy necessary to duplicate what our forefathers
formerly did.

But by keeping us completely
cut off from our past, it is easy for the man who has power over us to make us
willing to stay at this level because we will feel that we were always at this
level, a low level. That's why I say it is so important for you and me to spend
time today learning something about the past so that we can better understand
the present, analyze it, and then do something about it."



Malcolm X on Afro-American History