The audiotape of Malcolm X's 1961 address in Providence might never have surfaced at all if 22-year-old Brown University student Malcolm Burnley hadn't stumbled across a reference to it in an old student newspaper. He found the recording of the little-remembered visit gathering dust in the university archives.

"No one had listened to this in 50 years," Burnley told The Associated Press. "There aren't many recordings of him before 1962. And this is a unique speech -- it's not like others he had given before."

In the May 11, 1961 speech delivered to a mostly white audience of students and some residents, Malcolm X combines blistering humor and reason to argue that blacks should not look to integrate into white society but instead must forge their own identities and culture.

At the time, Malcolm X, 35, was a loyal supporter of the Nation of Islam, a black separatist movement. He would be assassinated four years later after leaving the group and crafting his own more global, spiritual ideology.

The legacy of slavery and racism, he told the crowd of 800, "has made the 20 million black people in this country a dead people. Dead economically, dead mentally, dead spiritually. Dead morally and otherwise. Integration will not bring a man back from the grave."

The rediscovery of the speech could be the whole story. But Burnley found the young students in the crowd that night proved to be just as fascinating.

Malcolm X was prompted to come to Brown by an article about the growing Black Muslim movement published in the Brown Daily Herald. The article by Katharine Pierce, a young student at Pembroke College, then the women's college at Brown, was first written for a religious studies class. It caught the eye of the student paper's editor, Richard Holbrooke.

Holbrooke would become a leading American diplomat, serving as U.S. Ambassador to Germany soon after that nation's reunification, ambassador to the United Nations and President Obama's special adviser on Pakistan and Afghanistan before his death in 2010 at age 69.

But in 1961 Holbrooke was 20, and eager to use the student newspaper to examine race relations -- an unusual interest on an elite Ivy League campus with only a handful of black students.

Pierce's article ran in the newspaper's magazine and made her the first woman whose name was featured on the newspaper's masthead.

Somehow, the article made its way to Malcolm X. His staff and Holbrooke worked out details of the visit weeks in advance. Campus officials were wary: Malcolm X had been banned from the University of California-Berkeley and Queens College in New York City.

Tickets -- 50 cents -- for the Brown speech sold quickly. About 800 people filled the venue, the 19th-century, Romanesque Sayles Hall, meant to hold about 500.

Pierce introduced Malcolm X and recalls him vividly.

"He came surrounded by a security detail," she recalls. "You got the sense -- this is an important person. He was handsome, absolutely charismatic. I was just bewildered that my class paper could have led to something like this."

In his speech, Malcolm X outlined Black Muslims' beliefs and argued that black Americans cannot wait for white Americans to offer them equality.

"No, we are not anti-white," he said. "But we don't have time for the white man. The white man is on top already, the white man is the boss already... He has first-class citizenship already. So you are wasting your time talking to the white man. We are working on our own people."

Richard Nurse, one of three black students in his Brown University class in 1961, came to the speech with his mind made up against Malcolm X.

"I very strongly believed in integration," Nurse said in a telephone interview from his New Jersey home. "These were ideas I had accepted, adopted. Here I was at this Ivy League university. But he confounded me a little bit. I had never heard a black man in public speak as forcefully as Malcolm X did that night. It was cataclysmic."

Nurse, now 72 and retired from teaching at Rutgers University, said the speech didn't cause him to change his views. But he said he understood Malcolm X's message better years later when, in the U.S. Army, he was barred from all-white USO clubs and movie theaters in the South.

"Now things have changed to the point where that kind of notion (separatism) is no longer even considered," he said.

Pierce said the speech exposed her and other students in the audience to a different side of America. She gives Holbrooke credit for bringing Malcolm X to campus.

Holbrooke joined the foreign service after graduation and was posted to Vietnam in 1962. He visited Pierce in Hong Kong, where she worked as a teacher. She went on to work on international refugee projects and at Yale University and now creates computer training programs.

She said she wasn't surprised when Holbrooke became the diplomat presidents dispatched to hotspots like Bosnia and Afghanistan.

"He was a very good friend," she said of Holbrooke. "I was saddened to hear of his death, sad for myself and sad for the world."

The recording of the address is in pristine condition. Pierce obtained the tape after the event -- she isn't sure who made the recording -- and it sat in a box of mementos for years before she mailed it to the university archives.

Burnley has had the tape digitized and plans to air excerpts next week at an event hosted by the Rhode Island Black Heritage Association as part of Black History Month.

Lehigh University professor Saladin Ambar, who is working on a book about Malcolm X's 1964 visit to Oxford University, said any new recording of him is reason to celebrate.

"Malcolm's best speeches, they're just gone," he said. "He's not nearly as well-documented as he should be, when you consider his power as an orator."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

theGrio's Wanjira Banfield sat down with Dr. Muhammad to get an uncensored account of his love affair with black culture, his unwavering desire for a conscientious America and his commitment to the global advancement and experience of African-Americans.

theGrio: What led you to this journey to becoming a leader of black history preservation and eventually the director of the Schomburg Center?

Dr. Muhammad: I wanted to know black history for my own personal growth. When I was in college, there was a lot of controversy surrounding African-Americans, as well as debate about whether black students were qualified to be in well known prestigious universities such as my alma mater; the University of Pennsylvania. I didn't personally feel equipped to understand those arguments. This began with me deciding that I needed to get more familiar with African-American history. I needed to learn my history, my culture.

The more I learned, the more I wanted to know and the more committed I became to producing new knowledge where it didn't already exist.

What are some of the challenges you face in your position in engaging the younger African-American generation?

That is the challenge right there! (laughs)...The challenge is just that: to get young people to care deeply about the past. We live in a broader culture that doesn't value books, reading, history and so forth. Those are all means to an end and the end increasingly seems to be material accumulation and wealth.

Our young people don't get to learn about culture and the humanities for the sake of being full citizens and being civically engaged and I think our kids lose out the most in that. So for me the challenge is bringing the past to life for them in ways that meet them where there are. That means social media etc. So when I try to engage young people about why the past matters, I'm going to talk about issues I know they're thinking about such as policing, prisons, hip-hop, inequality and education. There are a number of issues but if can't talk about the war on drugs and if I can't talk about the fact that there are so many young black men who are either part of or know someone that's connected to that issue, I've failed. According to author Michelle Alexander...that's our new Jim Crow. So as a historian, I have to be able to provide a usable past that helps our younger generation feel like this is something bigger than the bad choices that some individual might make.

What should the core of Black History Month represent?

Black History Month seems to be just a kind of month long commemoration...more of a tribute to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. and much less about what historians really do; which is to teach us lessons of failure and setback and the unfinished work of the past. Regretfully, Black History Month doesn't allow us to stew in the messiness of the past because of the way it's framed and the way it's celebrated. It doesn't allow for people to learn something new and not to just simply be reminded about what they already know.

How critical is the existence of institutions such as the Schomburg Center in NYC and the African-American Research Library in Fort Lauderdale (Florida) to black culture?

They are life saving institutions and are as critical in the community as a defibrillator at an airport. If you listen to the stories of our elders of the civil rights generation, what you will hear consistently is that learning about the history of segregation for them...learning about what made the economic and racial exploitation of the South possible, changed their lives. It gave them a reason to become political. It gave them a sense of community that was bigger than the neighborhood. They were a part of something bigger. And unfortunately, we haven't been doing that in my opinion now, for two generations.

So, for people 5 to 45 years old...they have missed out on the life saving empowering narratives of history that make people feel like they are a part of something...part of the story. You see, the stories are important. For African-Americans, storytelling is often sacrificed to the latest round of doom and gloom statistics about the achievement gap, around prison rates, around poverty rates and that's why people like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston are so important because they were interested in the stories. They were interested in the poetry. They were interested in reminding us how imagination is the starting point to creating new realities.

What would you say are the top three concerns facing African-Americans in the 21st century?

The economy, the Criminal Justice system and education. It's important for me to make sure that what we are teaching our kids is that we are giving them a sense of the work that remains in this society which means that black people are more likely to be in poverty and means that the system is more likely to punish black poverty by the use of prison. If we don't educate our kids in a way that encourages them to be scientists and engineers and mathematicians, then we are reproducing the cycle that makes it possible for people to accept the status quo without complaint or concern and to blame their own communities for those levels of economic inequality.

Why do this? Why chose to commit your entire life to the preservation and richness of black culture?

It's simple. For me, I get comfort and humility in knowing that I'm doing my part in part of the longer story that is the story of humanity.

WATCH THE INCREDIBLE FOOTAGE FROM MLK's ASSASSINATION HERE:

MLK: The Assassination Tapes premieres Sunday, February 12, 9 pm (ET)

It opened to great fanfare and promise in 2004. Now, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, whose exhibits focus on the story of the American struggle for freedom, especially that of African Americans, is in deep financial trouble that could force it to shut down.

Located where African Americans crossed the Ohio River into freedom, the center has cut expenses severely but faces a $1.5 million shortfall in its 2012 budget, said Freedom Center board Co-chairman John Pepper and other center leaders.

Pepper, chairman of the board of Walt Disney; the Rev. Damon Lynch, Pepper's Freedom Center co-chairman; and Kim Robinson, the center's president and chief executive, discussed the threat of the center closing by the end of 2012.

Click here to read more

"We want to reach a time when there won't be Black History Month, when black history will be so integrated into American history that we study it along with every other history," she said in an interview from her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Wednesday. "That's the hope, and we have to continue to work until that is true, until that becomes a fact."

In the meantime, she said, she will continue to put the history out there.

Angelou is hosting an hour-long syndicated radio special on the civil rights era that will air throughout this month on about 200 public radio stations across the country. Her special features Grammy award-winning singer Mary J. Blige, Democratic Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, economist and Bennett College President Julianne Malveaux, and professor Nikky Finney, winner of the 2011 National Book Award for poetry.

Angelou, 83, said she hopes the program sends a message that "the work of making our country more than it is today" is unfinished.

"Our work still remains and we have to do the best we can do," she said. "The young people have a charge to keep, they have responsibility and some don't know that, or maybe some have heard it but don't recognize it."

The program details Lewis' work as a Freedom Rider, Finney's tribute to late civil rights activist Rosa Parks, Young's rise from small-town pastor to ambassador and Malveaux's involvement with the Black Panther movement in her youth.

The work and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. are also discussed in detail. Angelou, who vocally denounced a truncated inscription of a King quote at his new memorial in Washington as taking the slain leader's words out of context, said she was pleased to hear it will be changed by the National Park Service.

That decision, she said, showed that the park service had "the courage to say, 'Hmm, thank you for correcting me.'"

"The artists the sculptor and the architect had the right to put on their work what they wanted to place," Angelou said. "I am a friend of Martin Luther King and a mentee and so I had the right to say what I thought. That's all. And I'm glad that it will be rearranged."

Blige, younger than Angelou's other guests, speaks of how she was inspired by female civil rights figures Coretta Scott King, Ruby Dee and Angelou herself.

"She's just as charming as I would wish for a daughter of mine to be and just as dedicated to her field, and to be the best she can be," Angelou said of the singer. "Young people fascinate me, so I try to stay in current with what they're doing and what they're saying."

Angelou, who has authored more than 30 books and earned three Grammys for the spoken word, recently was presented with the BET Honors Literary Arts Award by first lady Michelle Obama and entertainers Cicely Tyson, Queen Latifah, Jill Scott and Willow Smith. The awards show will air on Black Entertainment Television on Feb. 13.

"My heart almost burst when Mrs. Obama came out and spoke so highly of my work and what it had meant to her and President Obama over the years," Angelou said.

The famed poet also quelled controversy after she expressed her disappointment in rapper Common using profanity, namely the n-word, and the b-word in reference to women, on his current album released in December, which features Angelou on the intro "The Dreamer."

Angelou says she doesn't support use of those words, but she still respects the rapper.

"I said I'm disappointed, but on the other hand, he's a fine artist and a good man as far as I can see," she said.

"So he uses the word this week. Maybe next week he won't, and I'll be smiling widely."

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Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

The documents and other artifacts belonged to late musician Malcolm "Shorty" Jarvis, who served in prison with Malcolm X and was one of his closest friends. Jarvis' 1976 pardon paper also is part of the collection, which was recently discovered by accident.

The items had been in a Connecticut storage unit that had gone into default, and were initially auctioned off to a buyer who had no idea what he was bidding on.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based Malcolm X Memorial Foundation, which oversees the Malcolm X Center located at his birthplace, will house and display the just-arrived archives. It split the cost with Black History 101 Mobile Museum, based in Detroit -- the birthplace of the Nation of Islam.

Mobile Museum founder and curator Khalid el-Hakim declined to identify the original buyer or the price the two organizations paid for the trove. Still, even after splitting the cost, he said it's the largest acquisition to date for his mobile museum, which includes Jim Crow-era artifacts, a Ku Klux Klan hood and signed documents by Malcolm X and Rosa Parks.

He said the buyer first contacted the foundation, which in turn contacted el-Hakim.

"Once (the buyer) found out that it was of a significant historical nature, he decided then he didn't want to break the collection up. He wanted to make sure it went to the right home," said el-Hakim, a former Detroit Public Schools teacher now in graduate school at Western Michigan University.

Malcolm X foundation Board President Sharif Liwaru said the public will get its first full look at the collection on May 19, Malcolm X's birthday. El-Hakim said the mobile museum is taking some items on a multistate tour that started in January and includes upcoming stops in Chicago; New York; Cleveland; Lexington, Kentucky; and Honolulu.

Among the most interesting is a document of the 1946 sentencing of Jarvis, Malcolm X -- then known by his birth name, Malcolm Little -- and three others. The yellowed jury report describes the 1945 larceny of a home in Arlington, New Jersey, in which they stole a pair of gloves, flashlights, a rug, two perfume bottles, 20 pounds of sugar and assorted jewelry. As a bookend, the collection also contains a letter of pardon 30 years later from the state of Massachusetts that exonerates Jarvis of the conviction and sentence.

The collection also reveals an enduring connection between the two Malcolms after their incarceration, Malcolm X's conversion to Islam and his rise to prominence. There's a 72-page scrapbook of Malcolm X's life that was maintained by Jarvis until after his friend's 1965 assassination.

One of the civil rights era's most controversial and compelling figures, Malcolm X rose to fame as the chief spokesman of the Nation of Islam, a movement started in Detroit more than 80 years ago. He proclaimed the black Muslim organization's message at the time: racial separatism as a road to self-actualization and urged blacks to claim civil rights "by any means necessary" and referred to whites as "devils."

After breaking with the Nation of Islam in 1964 and making an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, he espoused a more internationalist approach to human rights and began emphasizing that he didn't view all whites as racists.

Lawrence Mamiya, a Vassar College professor of religion and Africana studies, said there's no doubt that the two Malcolms had been accomplices and good friends. He said it's difficult to assess the collection's historical significance, though there could be some value in Jarvis' published and unpublished book manuscripts, particularly to the extent that they describe their relationship before and after their incarceration.

For his part, el-Hakim said the court paperwork "represents one of the pivotal times in Malcolm X's life," and has never seen the document in all of his years of research and collecting, which he began more than two decades ago as a college student. But he's also grateful to discover and share pieces from Jarvis, who deserves his own scholarly treatment.

"You find out there's two Malcolms here -- one that developed spiritually in Islam and (the other) in Christianity," el-Hakim said.

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Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

So what history was made on this day?

1865: A man of many accomplishments cleared for the high court

In 1865, John Swett Rock became the first African-American to be admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. Swett Rock (1825-1866), an abolitionist, lawyer, and one of the first black Americans to earn a medical degree, was admitted to the bar allowing him to argue before the nation's highest court on February 1, 1865, the same day Congress approved the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ending slavery. Rock would also become the first black person to speak before the U.S. House of Representatives. Read more about John Swett Rock here.

1965: Slavery's end made official

President Abraham Lincoln signed a joint resolution submitting the 13th Amendment to the states, marking the official end of slavery on February 1st, 1865. According to the Library of Congress, "The Senate debated and passed the 13th Amendment on April 8, 1864, by a vote of 38 to 6. After initially rejecting the legislation, the House of Representatives finally passed the 13th Amendment on January 31, 1865, by a vote of 119 to 56." The Amendment was ratified on December 18, 1865; eight months after Robert E. Lee surrendered on behalf of the Confederates, and Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in April of that year.

1902: Langston Hughes, dreamer, enters the world

On February 1, 1902, Lang - One of the most important poets in America's cultural history, Langston Hughes, was born in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes grew up in various places -- from Kansas to Illinois to Ohio, but he is best known for what he did once he moved to Harlem New York. Hughes was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance, as part of the early Black Arts Movement. During World War II, he wrote a column for the Chicago Defender newspaper. He is perhaps best known for his poem, "I dream a world." Hughes died on May 22, 1967.