On February 16, 2026, Siphiwe Baleka joined the Afrika Speaks with Akelbulan program and discussed Ọmọ́wálé Malcolm X’s involvement as a Field Marshall for the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and his attempt to get assistance from the Organization of African Unity’s (OAU) African Liberation Committee from 1962 to 1965. The assassination of Ọmọ́wálé Malcolm X did not stop the New Afrikan Independence Movement (black nationalism in the United States). The Republic of New Afrika was declared on March 31, 1968. The response of the United States government was to launch its COINTELPRO attack against the movement and its leaders.

“There was an elder in Chicago, whose birth name was Patrick Diaz, but he was known as Elder Gabriel. Elder Gabriel came from Jamaica, and he grew up and was firends with a man named Mortimo Planno, Brother Kumi. Mortimo Planno, for those of you who know about the Rastafari movement, is a seminal figure in the Rastafari movement who received two medals from Emperor Haile Selassie I. He is the Rasta who, when Emperor Haile Selassie visited Jamaica and he couldn’t descend from the plane, went up and dispersed the crowd like Moses. Ok, so Morti Planno and Elder Gabriel were brothers like this. I lived in the basement of Elder Gabriel. He was my mentor in the Rastafari faith. I don’t carry my locks covenant now, but I came up in Rastafari, right? So Elder Gabriel was telling me that before he came to Chicago, he was in New York in those mid-sixties - 1963, 64. And Mortimo Panno was also in New York for a time at the same time that Malcom was there. And they used to meet at [Louis] Michaux [at the black nationalist book store at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue.] Morti Planno, Elder Gabriel and Malcolm X. So one day, they were having a meeting, a conversation, and Mortimo Planno said, ‘Malcolm, if and when the Nation of Islam’s plan for black nationalism fails, if they don’t give you the land or allow you to do that, when it fails, then what will you do? And that’s when Mortimo Planno told Malcolm, ‘your only hope at that point is going to be repatriation.’ And we now know in Malcolm’s political philosophy, Malcolm X said, ‘“The 22,000,000 so-called Negroes should be separated completely from America and should be permitted to go back home to our African homeland which is a long-range program; so the short-range program is that we must eat while we’re still here, we must have a place to sleep, we have clothes to wear, we must have better jobs, we must have better education; so that although our long-range political philosophy is to migrate back to our African homeland, our short-range program must involve that which is necessary to enable us to live a better life while we are still here.” [Interview with Malcolm X, by A.B. Spellman, Monthly Review, Vol. 16, no.1 May 1964] . Nobody ever tells you that Malcom X was planning for mass repatriation of black people, citizenship in Africa. That that was a vision, a goal, a plan for the OAAU. That was part of the long-term philosophy. . . . There are all of these narratives, these hidden stories that show that Emperor Haile Selassie was liberating all of Africa, all African people. Everywhere. He was coordinating all of it. He was giving instructions to the liberation groups, he was training them. He was funding them. And African Americans were not lost step-children that were excluded from this great divine plan.”