June 1964

After breaking with the Nation of Islam and completing his hajj to Mecca, Malcolm X founded the OAAU to build bridges between Black Americans and African liberation movements. The organization represented his evolved vision of pan-African internationalism and human rights rather than civil rights.

After breaking with the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1964, embracing a pan-African, human rights-based framework and reaching out to civil rights activists he had previously opposed. His evolution represented one of the most dramatic and consequential transformations in American political thought before his assassination in 1965.