Amazing story of Malawian Louis Nthena and his relation to Malcom x

My name is Louis Nthenda (a Malawi national, now aged 72 and living in Japan). I am the young black man talking to the girl in the photo behind and to the right of Malcolm X. In 1964, I was a 25 year-old postgraduate student at St Antony’s College, Oxford with a closely cut beard. I would like to share with your readers the background of how Malcolm X came to visit UK and participate as the principal speaker in this debate. I first met Malcolm X in the New Stanley Hotel in Nairobi on the evening of 3rd (I think?) September 1964.malcom

I had flown in from Lusaka to catch the old (and the world’s first faster-than-sound plane) VC10 which in those days couldn’t land in Lusaka or Salisbury (now Harare) and flew only from Nairobi. Besides, it couldn’t do the Nairobi-London flight non-stop without refuelling stops. So from Nairobi we stopped for fuel in Khartoum and at Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci before finally landing at Heathrow.

I remember at Rome, it was a longer wait and we got off to stretch our legs and visit Duty Free shops. How technology has changed! But here I am digressing. Although I am a Malawi national, I was at the time in exile and working in Zambia. I had resigned my management position at the Anglo-American Nchanga Copper Mine, Zambia, to become Leverhulme Research Scholar at St Antony’s College, Oxford. I had to stay overnight in Nairobi. I was sitting at the dinner table by myself among a sea of white faces when I noticed another not-so-white face across the room also sitting by himself.

As Northern Rhodesia (this was before Zambia’s independence) had TV broadcasting, I easily recognised the face as Malcolm X’s. 1964 was the year he visited Mecca and he had been going around the Middle East giving “incendiary” speeches. He had just flown in from Nasser’s Egypt (or was it from the OAU meet in Addis Ababa?) and I had been following his pilgrimage through Newsweek and Northern Rhodesia TV. Anyway, I walked across and asked if I could move to his table with my dinner.

He said yes. We spent the rest of the evening talking about cabbages and kings. I was rather big-headed in those days (by some people’s accounts, I still am); so I told him that the first thing I was going to do when I got to Oxford was become a member of the Oxford Union and my first act was to arrange for the Union to invite him to a debate before the year-end. He warmed to the idea. And that’s what I did.

I became a member within days of my arrival and on the same day of my membership told the Union executive that I could arrange for Malcolm X to come to a Union debate. The Union didn’t have much money for such a big name debater from overseas. So someone rang up the BBC telling them, “there is a young gentleman here who says he can get Malcolm X to a Union debate. Could you sponsor the visit?” The BBC said absolutely; on condition that they televised the debate and that after the debate they could take over and arrange his programme to travel around the UK.

I wrote to him and the rest is history. The debate was between him and Enoch Powell — a brilliant but rebel former Conservative Cabinet Minister who espoused deporting all blacks and Asians from the UK. So the two debaters both took very extreme positions and both out of intellectual and personal conviction.

I thought Malcolm X, of course, won the debate, nem con. He was not just articulate but the house was quite clearly on his side. I checked the records though and they say that despite a prolonged ovation after Malcolm X finished speaking, the motion, which was a quotation from Goldwater’s acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention of that year, was lost 137 to 288. Memory is a strange thing and can be fooled by wishful thinking.

When Malcolm X arrived at Oxford, I was always by his side during the two / three days he was there. I did have letters from him both before and after the visit which were lost in Nigeria, where I went to teach after Oxford; but this story is the Nthenda family lore and now some of the pictures are beginning to surface. I was not aware of this photograph.

I am now going to trace the other two persons in the photo. Your readers and the world owe it to this incident and arrangement that we have surviving images and voice recording of this famous debate.

Thank you for the photo and for letting me share background information of this little episode with your readers.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Louis Nthenda – Chuo-ku, Tokyo JAPAN

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Dent Munthali
Dent Munthali
9 years ago

God bless Louise Nthenda!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hoitty
Hoitty
9 years ago

Zambia had tv in the 60s? shame on us

Presidential Advisor
Presidential Advisor
9 years ago

..fanzi, the old man is showing that a Malawian contributed to the on going emancipation of an African sold into slavery. That a huge contribution considering that it was Malcoms’ first visit to the UK, a nation which had equal numbers of people of slave parentage and were equally demanding equal rights – mwapanga bwanji anthu inu kodi?

j cholomandenga
j cholomandenga
9 years ago

Woah, this story hits me like a ton of bricks, i did not meet Malcolm X, but i know Dr L. Nthenda, I knew he was living somewhere in Japan, now i have to try and track him down and get him to share with me , his recollection of the great MX himself.

golo
golo
9 years ago

Thumbs up Nyasatimes.At least you have shared something that is very interesting. some of us have learnt a thing or two

njayawanjaya
njayawanjaya
9 years ago

just come back home to Chiradzulu, your relations are waiting for you. the house you left just behind the old CZ hospital is still there. we remember how KB feared you and the 24 hours short stay he used to give when you visited. COME NAMESAKE!!!!!!!!!

where are Malawians?
where are Malawians?
9 years ago

so what? whats impressive here?????

Kanyimbi
Kanyimbi
9 years ago

This guy should not fool us. He is appearing twice on the same photo with different appearances and different dressing which can not happen on earth. This shows that the picture is produced by a photo editor software application such as Photoshop, U lead etc. The old man is still thinking Malawi is still Nyasaland. Technology reached Malawi along time ago. And with this picture which is edited, I don’t trust your story. Kanyimbi samapusitsidwa.

Kanyimbi
Kanyimbi
9 years ago

This mtchona has nothing to offer to Malawians. Please know that we declared you dead already. People in diaspora are helping the flood victims and all you can offer us is a story of you meeting Macolm X?

Gimbogo
Gimbogo
9 years ago

Did he bring Malcom X to Nyasaland

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