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The sale of material essential for the preservation of a national heritage is an attack on the memory of a people, and an attack on the possibility of history. We know of libraries that have been burned, and art treasures that have been consumed by the greed of rich people who hoarded national treasures in personal collections. When is this going to stop? The market forces have been at work before: 1. Malcolm X himself had to sign agreements to publish the autobiography - the start of the commodification process. 2. The family has been held captive to the capitalist contracts signed with Pathfinder Press to keep his speeches in print. <http://www.brothermalcolm.net/aastatement.html> 3. Small collections of papers have been sold and are now in library collections like at Emory University in Atlanta Georgia. <http://www.brothermalcolm.net/sections/emory.html> 4. Alex Haley's material was sold at auction by his family. <http://www.brothermalcolm.net/sections/haley/haleyestatemx.html> 5. Betty Shabazz signed a contract to franchise material with Malcolm's name on it - trying to keep quality control, but at the same time taking Malcolm X into the market place. <http://www.cmgww.com/historic/malcolm/business.html> 6. The address book with a bullet hole in it from the assassins bullet that killed Malcolm X was put up for auction and then had to be taken down and returned to the family. <http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/xdiary.shtml> NOW is the time to stop the commodification of Malcolm X. We need to liberate him and make him available to everyone, everywhere, for free via the World Wide Web - all words, all sound, all film/video, and all photographs. Malcolm X belongs to all of us.