Feb. 21 has come and gone. At 3:15 p.m., on that Sunday in 1965, Black Muslim Minister Malcolm X was assassinated as he gave a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. It may seem like a strange cultural practice to mark such a tragedy—a day that claimed the life of not only a man, but also a father, a husband and a great leader. Nonetheless, to remember this day is to memorialize and examine the legacy, the many afterlives of Malcolm X.

—Ossie Davis, the eulogist for Malcolm’s funeral

I, like many children of the post-civil rights era, had learned little about Malcolm X growing up—until Spike Lee’s movie hit the big screen. As a middle-schooler, I headed with my parents to watch Denzel bring this slain hero to life. I remember my silent rage as we left the theatre. I didn’t want to speak. I only wanted to know more and to better understand the world that Denzel and Malcolm X had forced me to question. I went home and immediately opened the dictionary to the words “black” and “white.” What Malcolm X said was true. I rather suddenly became aware of the racial assumptions that had unconsciously governed my everyday life. I had thought nothing of God’s racial identity, but it was clear to me that I had assumed that even God was white. Though I knew I was black, never before had I consciously observed or even considered the effects of the words’ meaning. From this moment forward, I was armed with new questions that disrupted my existing self-awareness. So awakened, I endeavored to seek new answers and accept “the power words have over minds of men [and women].”

—Ossie Davis