Michael X born Michael de Freitas, aka Michael Abdul Malik and Abdul Malik (1933-1975)
Single sheet with a handwritten note by this Trinidian-born Black activist, written on one side only,  addressed to “Sister” and signed with his usual “Peace and Love.” Undated but the address at the top is 101 Holloway Road, the site of the “Black House,”  a commune of which he was the self-appointed leader which was founded in 1969.  That was also the year that the Cleavers arrived in Algeria.  Michael X described the Black House  as a place where “that ‘get a gun’ rhetoric is over. We’re talking of really building things in the community needed by people in the community. We’re keeping a sane approach” although it was later the site of an attempted extortion, for which Michael and four of his colleagues were arrested  – and bailed out by John Lennon.  This note, which comments that the bearer works for an Australian underground magazine called Oz, co-founded and edited by Richard Neville, reveals how related the various movements of the late 60s were – from the Black Panthers in exile, to Richard Neville’s controversial publishing venture, to John and Yoko Lennon contributing to a fund-raiser for the Black House. Seen in the light of his last years when Michael X returned to Trinidad, where he was tried and convicted and sentenced to death for his involvement in the murders of two members of the commune he founded there (a story told by Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul in ‘Killings in Trinidad”),  closing with ‘Peace and Love’ seems ironic. Sheet measures approximately 12 1/2 in by 8 inches. less
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