Malcolm X speaks for us

Malcolm X speaks for us

Elizabeth S. Catlett

1969 - 2004

Color linoleum cut
Signed, titled, dated and numbered 9/60

By the 1960s, Catlett’s work also reflected her support of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the US. The print Malcolm X speaks for us was completed four years after the human rights activist was assassinated in 1965. It is, in part, an homage to the leadership and message of Malcolm X. However, upon closer examination, one notes that Catlett places the man’s recognizable portrait in the midst of an array of anonymous faces of Black women, reminding her viewers that Black women were active participants in movements for Black liberation, although they are often erased from mainstream narratives about the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. The series of faces across the top is a reprisal of her relief print I am the Negro Woman, made in 1947 at the Taller de Gráfica Popular as part of her Negro Woman (Black Woman) series. This large print also begins to incorporate color, an aspect that will increase in her later work; she reprinted it in 2004.

Museum Purchase, 2021.10.1