Malcolm X was Minister of Temple Number 7, at Lenox Avenue and 116th Street, from 1952 to December, 1963. Temple Number 7—earlier known as the Muhammad Temple of Islam and later as Muhammad’s Mosque Number 7—was the most important Muslim temple in America, outside of the Chicago headquarters, and Malcolm, as its spiritual leader, was Elijah Muhammad’s most articulate disciple. In addition to his temple lectures, which in the early days he delivered personally three times a week, Malcolm wrote regular columns for a number of black or black-oriented newspapers, and thus was widely known to at least a certain segment of the black community. But until 1957 he was virtually unknown to the public-at-large, that is to say White America, which pays little or no heed to black activities so long as they don’t spill over or threaten the white status quo.
I, like most blacks—or “Negroes” as we then called ourselves—had heard of Malcolm X prior to 1957, but my idea of him was confused and, undoubtedly, erroneous. I vaguely knew him to be a black nationalist and the leader of the religious group called the Muslims, who were often referred to in Harlem as “God’s Angry Men.” What brought them, and Malcolm as their leader, to my attention was an incident that occurred early in the spring of 1957.
Late in the evening of April 26, 1957, three men, two of whom were later identified as Muslims, were witness to an altercation between the police and a man the police had accused of beating an unidentified woman. As the police started working over their victim, a man named Reese Poe, the three men began to remonstrate with them. “You’re not in Alabama,” one of the Muslims, Hinton Johnson, was reported to have called out, “this is New York.” At first the police merely ordered Johnson and his companions to move on. When they refused they were placed under arrest and taken to the 28th Precinct station house, but not before one of the policemen, Patrolman Mike Dolan, had hit Johnson with his nightstick.
The subsequent chain of events, which is worth relating in detail for a number of reasons, was reported as follows by The Amsterdam News:
A woman who had witnessed the incident then rushed to the Moslem restaurant on Lenox Avenue and told the Moslems that one of the brothers had been beaten by a policeman.
A group of Moslems, led by their spiritual leader Minister Malcolm X, then went to the station house and asked to see their brother. Mr. X claims that the police first told him that they did not have such a man in the station.
But as the word passed through Harlem the Moslem crowd swelled around the station house and finally police admitted that they did have the Moslems inside.
The Moslems asked to see their brother. Mr. X was permitted to see Hinton. He claims that Hinton told him that when he had been brought into the station house he was suffering from the blows of the nightstick and that in his pain he fell down on his knees to pray.
He told Mr. X that when he was on his knees praying in the station house the lieutenant in charge came upon him and hit him across the mouth with a nightstick and also hit him on his shins with the stick.
Mr. X demanded that Hinton be sent to a hospital for attention. Police finally agreed and sent him to Harlem Hospital.
While he was being treated there the Moslems, joined by a group of Nationalists and other Harlemites, congregated into a crowd of 2,000 outside the hospital.
As the crowd grew, police rose to the emergency and all available cops were pressed into duty, with Deputy Inspector McGowan taking command.
Then, to the surprise of all, Hinton was released from Harlem Hospital and taken back to the 28th Precinct, where he was placed in a cell.
The Moslems followed. They formed a solid line half a block long in front of the 123rd Street station house and waited orders from their leaders. Their discipline amazed police, and more than one high-ranking officer expressed growing concern.
By this time Mr. X was in the station house with his attorney, Charles J. Beavers of 209 W. 125th Street. They arranged for bail for Pots and Tall1 and then asked to see Hinton.
When Attorney Beavers saw Hinton’s condition he immediately asked that he be sent to the hospital, charging that he was in no condition to remain in jail.
But police flatly refused, saying that he had already been to the hospital. They said Hinton must remain in a cell for arraignment in court Saturday morning. . . .
It was 2:30 A.M. by this time. But the Moslem followers were still in front of the station house. Mr. X left the station house, gave one brief command to his followers, and they disappeared as if in thin air.
One amazed policeman, on seeing this, said: “No one man should have that much power!”
What the policeman—who was later identified by the writer of the article, James Hicks, as being Deputy Inspector McGowan himself—meant, of course, was: “No one black man should have that much power.” But it was that same power and presence which so impressed and frightened the police that also attracted me and thousands of other young so-called Negroes to Malcolm. Here was a man who could walk boldly into the jaws of the lion, walk proud and tall into the territory of the enemy, the station house of the 28th Precinct, and force the enemy to capitulate. Here was a man who could help restore the heritage, the pride of race and pride of self, that had been carefully stripped from us over the four hundred years of our enslavement here in White America. I knew, when I first heard of the Hinton Johnson incident, that, at the very least, I had to go and hear this man. But before relating, briefly, my first contact with Malcolm, it is worthwhile detailing the subsequent events of that weekend, for what they reveal about Malcolm’s stubborn devotion to his followers and about the methods of the police in Harlem.
After the crowd had dispersed, a number of Muslims assembled, at 4:00 A.M., at the restaurant they own on Lenox Avenue to discuss the matter. Malcolm, it was reported, made the decision that they would not appear en masse at Hinton Johnson’s arraignment the following day. Malcolm appeared, however, together with the attorney Charles Beavers and another Muslim, Mr. John. The editor of The Amsterdam News, James Hicks, was also present. As Hicks relates:
Here again the police irritated the Moslems by attempting to arraign Hinton without his lawyer being present. Actually they did put him on bail while Attorney Beavers was in Judge Baers court on another case.
After bail was set at $2,500, without Hinton’s lawyer being present, the Moslems quickly put up the bail money and stood outside where they were told Hinton would be delivered to them.
But instead of Hinton being delivered to them he was turned loose in the building to find his way out alone.
He came out of the jail staggering, bleeding, and alone. This enraged the Moslems.
They then rushed him to Dr. Leona Turner in Long Island. She took one look at him and ordered him to the hospital at once. Back sped the car across the island to Manhattan, and Hinton was finally admitted to Sydenham.
There it was found that he had a clot on the brain, that he was bleeding internally. Hospital authorities gave him a 50—50 chance to live.2
As he battled for his life, the Moslems gathered again Sunday. This time in daylight in the square opposite Sydenham Hospital. They marched around the square protesting, and police soon discovered they had been joined by Moslems from Boston, Hartford, Baltimore, Washington, and Wilmington.
Though they were stern in their protest, they were as orderly as a battalion of Marines.
With the crowd growing around the hospital, the Moslems were joined by some teen-agers carrying zip guns. As soon as this was learned, Mr. X once more dismissed his followers and sent them home. He stated that it was not their intention to start any violence.
But Monday, as Hinton’s life hung in the balance, reports spread through Harlem that if Hinton died there would be a riot in Harlem Monday night.
Police prepared for the worst. High police officials arranged a meeting with Mr. X at an uptown location.
In the meeting he openly stated that his followers were ready to die when mistreated. But he insisted that they were not “looking for trouble.”
“We do not look for trouble,” he told police officials. “In fact we are taught to steer clear of trouble. We do not carry knives or guns. But we are also taught that when one finds something that is worthwhile getting into trouble about, he should be ready to die, then and there, for that particular thing.”
. . . At the meeting it was brought out that the Moslems have a witness, Harry Buffins, who is prepared to testify that an officer wearing shield number 2775 said in front of Harlem Hospital Friday night: “I’d have shot the nigger but the other cops kept getting in my way.”
The witness will also testify that an officer pointed at Mr. X and said: “We should break that bastard’s head because he is their leader.”
One of the things that added to the tension Friday night was that all officers involved in the Lenox Avenue fracas were white. . . .
It was this incident that really brought Malcolm X and the Muslims to my attention. I read about it in the papers and heard about it on the radio. Malcolm X! That “X” really struck me, and I kept repeating it to myself, as though there was something magic about it. And I kept thinking about what Malcolm had said about not looking for trouble but, when you find something really worthwhile getting into trouble about, being willing to die then and there for it. They were strong words, fighting words, and yet what impressed me most about Malcolm’s handling of the Hinton Johnson affair was his firmness with the white police—they knew he meant what he said—and the way he not only failed to stir up trouble but actually prevented it.
At that time, in April of 1957, I was working downtown for a recording company. I had my hair conked (and it had turned red from the sun) and wore a little goatee, trying very hard to be hip. A brother by the name of Leo used to come around all the time trying to interest me in the Muslims and trying to get me to read black history. In those days, I was caught up in astronomy and visiting museums. But black history? I didn’t even know there was one worth worrying about, much less reading about.
Nonetheless, after the Hinton Johnson episode some of the things that Leo had talked to me about, which earlier had fallen on deaf ears, began to pique my curiosity. I couldn’t remember whether he had talked to me specifically about Malcolm, but he had tried very hard to get me to come to the mosque. Now I decided to go.
I went one day—it was a Sunday—with a friend of mine from my home town. What struck me most about our arrival was the fact that we were searched. No one likes being frisked, and I was no exception. They didn’t actually search my pockets, but they ran their hands down my clothes to see if I had any concealed weapons on my person. And they stood very close to see whether I had any alcohol on my breath. If I had been carrying any weapons they would have taken them away from me, not so much perhaps because they were afraid of nonbelievers—what Malcolm called “lost-founds”—causing trouble but because it had always been a custom among the Muslims not to allow any dangerous weapons into the mosque. If I had had alcohol on my breath, I would have been turned away, for they did not want anyone in the mosque who was drunk, or even who had been drinking.
Inside, what struck me immediately was the “uprightness,” the sobriety of the brothers walking around. I am not sure whether the first impression was favorable or unfavorable, but I am sure that with my conked hair in contrast to their close-cut haircuts and my dress and demeanor quite different from their sober, dignified air, I was not fully at ease.
When Malcolm came to the rostrum his first words were, “As-Salaam-Alaikum”—“Peace be unto you”—which I had never heard before and which struck me as strange. Black people have—or had at the time—an aversion to foreign names, foreign words and languages. Whenever we would hear Africans talking—or Japanese or Chinese—we would laugh and make fun of them. We thought they were talking gibberish. Why couldn’t they speak a civilized tongue like English? What we had failed to realize, of course, and Malcolm helped to make clear for us, was that this was part of the conditioning process to keep us unaware of our own heritage and language.
After his greeting, Malcolm began teaching. His subject that night was slavery, the slave history of America, and I was spellbound. Now I understood for the first time why brother Leo had been after me to learn black history. I had never in my life heard a man speak like that, and I knew then that something in my life had changed, or was about to change. I had been like a boat adrift, and I had found my course. Malcolm must have talked for well over two hours, but it passed so quickly it seemed like a matter of minutes. When he had finished, he asked if anyone had any questions. I may have had some, but my head was spinning, and besides I was too shy to stand up and ask any. Then Malcolm said:
“How many of you would like to join onto your own kind? It will cost you nothing. All you have to do is be black and brave. I know you’re black. Let’s see how brave you are!”
I got up and followed the brothers toward the rear. There the secretary of the mosque explained to us what we had to do, in a very simple manner. There was no ritual. All you had to do was affirm that you believed what you had heard, that you believed it was the truth. In addition, you had to copy a letter, before officially receiving your “X,” stating that you had attended meetings and believed in the truths you had heard. Although you only had to copy the letter, it had to be copied exactly. I wrote the letter nine times before I finally got it correct. That may seem a minor annoyance, being made to copy a letter so many times, but it was part of a discipline, part of learning to concentrate.
Six months after I began coming to the mosque I received my “X”—which of course is substituted for the slave name given to our forebears by the plantation owners, “X” being the unknown factor, since we did not know what our rightful names were. Since there had been another Benjamin to receive an “X” before me, my new name became Benjamin 2X. By the time this happened I was a changed person, inside and out. I got my hair cut and began to look like those other brothers I had noted with a mixture of curiosity and concern that first day at the mosque. I was never much of a drinker, but now I drank not at all. I had been a fairly flamboyant dresser, but now I dressed soberly. I had been a great curser, but now I stopped completely. I had been a pork eater, and now I stopped completely. I had once read somewhere that profanity is an attempt of a lazy, feeble mind trying to express itself forcibly, but until I became a Muslim the words seemed to make no impact upon me. It was as though I had been reborn, a new person. Through Malcolm I had seen a great light, and for the next seven years I was to be the devoted disciple of the Muslims, and of Malcolm.
There were three lectures a week at Mosque No. 7—two in the evening during the week and one on Sunday at 2:00 P.M. Even before I had officially received my “X” I spent so much time at the mosque that people thought I was already a member. In those days Malcolm would speak at all three sessions, and there was always standing room only. Often as many as a thousand people came, and many were the times when people had to be turned away. After the Hinton Johnson incident, however, Malcolm became a national figure and began to do a lot of traveling. Thus he needed assistant ministers not only for Temple No. 7, but also to visit and lecture at the various places where, partly thanks to the national coverage he had received, new mosques had been founded.
Malcolm set up classes to prepare others to help and fill in for him. It was a kind of Muslim university, which emphasized public speaking but also taught history, geography, current events (both national and international), and Bible concordances. Malcolm set the class up, and in the early days presided over it. Later he chose me to take it over, when the pressure of traveling became too great for him to continue on any kind of regular basis. He chose me, I suppose, because I was, if not the best, at least the hardest working student. Later I traveled a great deal myself, substituting for Malcolm at various mosques when he himself could not be present. And, often, I would “open up” for him when he was the main speaker at Mosque No. 7. “Opening up” meant, really, a speech in itself, ranging in time from half to three-quarters of an hour, preparing the audience for Malcolm’s message. It was, in a sense, warming the audience up, so that when Malcolm began they would already be attuned to the essence of what he wanted to say.
I remember very clearly the day that Malcolm X delivered the speech entitled “Black Man’s History,” which comprises the first section of the present volume. It was a speech also referred to as “Yacub’s History.” I opened up for him that day, and this may be as good a time as any to describe an opening. The first thing I did was welcome the audience to the mosque and lead them in prayer. I would ask the audience to stand and stretch forth their hands, as the Muslims pray. The only thing we did not do was go through the prostrations.
For the newcomers in the audience, the most perplexing aspect of the mosque was the blackboard on the rostrum itself. On the left side of the blackboard was drawn an American flag, and beneath it were written the words: SLAVERY, SUFFERING & DEATH. To the right was a painting of a black man hanging from a tree, and on the far right was a Muslim flag with star and crescent and, in each of the four corners, the letters I F J E, which stood for Islam, Freedom, Justice, and Equality. Written out beneath the flag were the last three of these words while, in the center of the board, was written: WHICH ONE WILL SURVIVE THE WAR OF ARMAGEDDON? What I did that day, as I generally did, was explain what the words and symbols on that blackboard meant. The SLAVERY, SUFFERING & DEATH referred to what we had received here in America. We have suffered and been put to death—physically, spiritually, and mentally. Islam was the force that would free us from the chains of physical and spiritual slavery. A man, I would explain, cannot be free if his mind is not free. Once his mind is free, he will free himself.
Then I would talk a bit about the question: WHICH ONE WILL SURVIVE THE WAR OF ARMAGEDDON? Black people who are Christians are taught, and believe, that the war referred to is war between spiritual forces, between the concepts of good and evil. We taught that the war is one that will take place on this earth, a war between the oppressed and their oppressors—a race war. It will be a race war simply because the oppressor is by and large white, except for the nonwhites he has pressed into his service. It will be a war in which there will be a winner, a war where one side will survive and the other perish. In this war, this final war, in the final phases of this final war, no prisoners will be taken: all of which relates, and brings us back, to the prophesy in the Bible which we know as the War of Armageddon.
Having explained the words and symbols on the blackboard, I would then generally move on to one of Malcolm’s favorite notions. He always stressed etymology, going back to the roots and sources of things, and one of the words he dissected was the word “Negro,” trying to explain why we had been taught to call ourselves Negroes. Most of us knew it came from the Spanish, that it was an adjective meaning “black,” but Malcolm taught that it was allied to and derived from the prefix “necro-” meaning “death,” “corpse,” “dead tissue.” So I would write the word “nekropolis,” which is the Greek form for “necropolis,” explaining that we were a dead people living here in the wilderness of North America, and that what had put us to death was our sojourn here in slavery. Then I would go to the Bible and take this prophesy of Abraham that the Jews apply to themselves, where it says (Genesis 15:13): “Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge. And afterward shall they come out with great substance.”
Then, depending on the time allotted me and the subject of Malcolm’s lecture, I would go into history—Egyptian history, world history, archaeology—trying to impress on the audience, as Malcolm had taught, the importance of history to us, that history of which we had been systematically deprived.
I remember clearly that day in December 1962. While I was opening up I saw Malcolm come in, carrying his tan briefcase that bore in gold letters the name, Malik El Shabazz. He first spoke with some officials, then walked over to the secretary’s compartment, opened his briefcase, took out some cards or a small notebook and began making some notes. Something about the way I was opening up seemed to catch his attention; he stopped what he was doing and walked over to beneath the clock directly opposite me about fifty feet across the auditorium. He put his left hand under his right elbow and cocked his right arm, holding his notebook to his ear to hear what I was saying. I was fully aware of his presence and, as always —how I don’t know—I knew that he approved of what I was saying. He never needed to let me know in so many words; I could always tell instinctively whether he approved or disapproved.
I also noted as I talked that day that he was wearing his blue suit and red tie. This was his “burning suit,” which he wore when he was fully prepared and intended to give a very deep lecture. After a few minutes he walked back over to the secretary’s compartment and said something to Captain Joseph. Then they both began walking toward the rostrum, with Captain Joseph on Malcolm’s right. This was a habit with Malcolm when approaching the rostrum: he was concentrating on what he was going to say, and generally asked the captain or one of his lieutenants to accompany him to the speaker’s platform.
Malcolm climbed the couple of steps to the rostrum and sat down behind me at a little table. I went on developing whatever point I was making, knowing that no matter what I might be expounding on I would be expected to interrupt whenever Malcolm indicated he was ready. When I heard the words behind me, “Make it plain,” that was my cue to cut it short, and I would finish up as gracefully and quickly as possible, then introduce Malcolm. He disliked any kind of long-winded or flowery introduction, so I said, merely: “Now I bring before you Brother Minister Malcolm X, who will give you a better knowledge and clearer understanding of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, what he is teaching here in the wilderness of North America.”
Six months after his lecture at Temple No. 7, Malcolm was invited, in June of 1963, by Adam Clayton Powell to speak at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. At that time, Powell had opened up his church to what he called a Black Forum, inviting all shades and opinions of black thought to come and speak their minds freely. He invited the nationalists, the heads of the African Nationalist movement, he invited other ministers and heads of various Negro organizations, and, of course, he invited Malcolm. I say “of course,” but the fact is that Powell was one of the few ministers with the courage to ask Malcolm to lecture at his church. Most Negro preachers are very careful about whom they invite to speak to their congregations. But Powell is more independent, more courageous than most and, besides, I suspect he liked Malcolm. I think he saw a little of himself in Malcolm. The feeling was mutual, I might add, for Malcolm respected Powell, and admired his intelligence and independence. However they may have differed on some matters, they saw eye-to-eye on many of the basic problems facing all black people in America: better housing, better schools for their children, equal job opportunities, etc. Where they differed, no doubt, was on the long-term solutions. At the time he made this speech at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, Malcolm was very strongly for separation of the races. There has never been a time in the history of the world when the slave masters have ever made their slaves their equals, and Malcolm was convinced that America in the 1960s was no exception. Some people would dispute this, saying: “Look at all the progress we have made since 1865.” To which Malcolm would inevitably reply: “The only progress we have made is as consumers. We still don’t manufacture anything, we still don’t legislate for ourselves. Our politics is still controlled by white people, our economy is still controlled by white people, therefore we have no real say about our future.” Malcolm, perhaps more than any other black leader, was as much concerned about the future as about the immediate problems confronting his people. He tried to make his audiences think not only of the present generation but also of their children’s children, and their children after them. There were people who said that Malcolm was not being realistic when he talked about separation, but they failed to realize that in stressing this concept he was preparing for the future, thinking of the unborn generations yet to come.
This second speech, “The Black Revolution,” is an interesting contrast to the “Black Man’s History,” in many ways. In the earlier speech, which lasted for about two hours, the entire audience of over a thousand people was so quiet throughout that you could have heard a pin drop. In the speech at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, which was less than half as long, the audience responded vocally almost from the beginning to Malcolm’s words, in an emotional give and take. Malcolm’s mastery of the Bible is also apparent in “The Black Revolution.” He knew the Bible as well as, and probably better than, most Christian preachers. Here, speaking to a basically Christian audience—there were perhaps a dozen or so Muslim brothers present, who had come with Malcolm—Malcolm begins by clarifying his position: he is a Muslim, speaking from a religious rather than a political platform. Malcolm, or the Muslims, referred to the Bible as a “poison book” in that, for him, it had been used by theologians to poison the minds of Negroes throughout the centuries. Since virtually all black people in this country are Christians, whether they go to church or not, most of Malcolm’s audiences, outside of his mosque lectures, were Christians. Whenever he spoke to Christian audiences, he went on the assumption that the people he was addressing were as dead, and that his job was to raise them from the dead, to cast some light into their darkened minds. Because he knew the Bible so well, and because he knew exactly what the black ministers had taught black people out of the Bible, he would use the Bible to his own good advantage. If black people have only one book to their name, chances are that book will be the Bible, and most of them have at least a nodding acquaintance with portions of it. Much of the time Malcolm would use familiar portions of the Bible to illustrate his point, such as his comparing Moses and the slaves in ancient Egypt to our situation here in present-day America. But he also resorted to little known and little understood portions of the Bible. There is one book of the Bible that most black (and I suspect white) preachers shy away from, because it is very confusing and difficult to explain, and that is the Book of Revelation. Malcolm saw in that book, and went to considerable pains to explain it, a parallel and a prophecy, for it deals with the judgment and the destruction of a world, which Malcolm explained in terms of race, of the coming judgment and end of white world supremacy.
If a great number of Malcolm’s speeches were made to adult, Christian audiences—predominately or exclusively black—he was also much sought after as a speaker on college campuses. It was said that during the first three years of the sixties, the only speaker more in demand in America on college campuses was John F. Kennedy. “The Old Negro and the New Negro” was the theme of one of his favorite speeches. The version which appears in this volume was delivered in Philadelphia in the fall of 1963. Actually, Malcolm gave essentially the same speech twice on the same day, the first time at the University of Pennsylvania, and again that same evening over a Philadelphia radio station. I was with him at the radio station that evening, and by the time he was halfway through his speech his voice was fading. He had probably talked for six or eight hours that day, and, as often happened with Malcolm, his voice would be hoarse by mid evening. But he had a remarkable gift of recovery, and within a few hours the voice would be back as strong and clear as ever.
At the University of Pennsylvania, of course, Malcolm was speaking to an audience of both blacks and whites. But his manner and the content of his talks were essentially the same whether he was addressing an all black or an integrated student audience. Malcolm believed, by the way, in Student Power: not only did he feel that the college-educated black, if he could retain (as he must) his sense of reality and history, and refrain from being absorbed into the white world by its material enticements, was obviously better equipped to cope with the problems besetting his people in America, but he also believed, or hoped, that the white college student was more receptive to change than were his parents. He believed, and tried to emphasize to white students, that they could not follow in the path of their elders and survive in today’s world. To illustrate his point, he reminded them of former Prime Minister Macmillan’s press conference in New York in which he spoke of the changing geography of the world, of the decline of empires, saying that in his own lifetime he had seen England, and other Western powers, shrink from vast empires to second-rate powers.
For me, “The Old Negro and the New Negro” paints a beautiful picture of the new thinking prevailing among black people. Malcolm felt that the people were evolving much faster than most of their so-called leaders, and that the leaders would have to catch up with the people. It is this “New Negro” who is causing the moderate leaders to speak more militantly, whether they want to or not. Malcolm once said that the moderate Negro leader is going to wind up more militant than the militants, if only to save his own life. He predicted that black people would become so fed up with their condition, with the hypocrisy and procrastination of the white man, that one would have to be like a lion to lead them, or fall by the wayside. Malcolm predicted that Martin Luther King would change his ways and his tune, and he was right. He also predicted that the young blacks would no longer allow themselves to be exploited and brutalized without fighting back. And he was also optimistic about new black leaders rising up to take his place and the place of others. I have often heard it said what a vacuum Malcolm left, that there is no other leader of his stature on the horizon, and in a sense this is true. But even in death he remains a source of great inspiration, and, as he predicted, I am sure new black leaders will arrive, drawing on him as a source of strength, seeing in him a symbol of what one man can do.
One final point: what struck me most about Malcolm’s visits to campuses was the open-minded attitude of his listeners wherever he went. There were some exceptions, of course. I remember once when Malcolm was speaking at Harvard, a man got to his feet during the question-and-answer period and, although Malcolm had said nothing anti-Semitic in his speech, equated him to Hitler. “You’re a racist,” the white student screamed, going on to list all the crimes that Hitler had committed against the Jews. Malcolm answered him by saying that racism had been going on in this country long before Hitler had been born, that he was not a racist but someone simply telling the truth about what was happening here in this country. And if America has problems today, he said, they are race problems, and until these are solved America will continue to be beset by internal strife.
But most students, black and white, received his message openly, and after a lecture would crowd around him, asking him all kinds of questions. I always had the feeling that the students were not only impressed by him but that they really liked him, and this was true of every college he visited.
“God’s Judgment of White America” was the last speech Malcolm gave while still a member of the Nation of Islam, on December 4, 1963. Mr. Muhammad had been scheduled to speak, but he had had to cancel and Malcolm suggested that he speak in his place, in order not to disappoint the crowd. Unlike most of his speeches, which though prepared and thought out in Malcolm’s mind were delivered extemporaneously, this speech was typed. In it Malcolm dwells at some length on the March on Washingtion, using it to illustrate what he considered the failure of Negro leadership, showing how cooperative ventures with whites invariably turn into co-opted ventures. This march started out as an all-black march, then it became an integrated march, and soon the whites were in complete charge. Malcolm points out that the whole affair was controlled. People had to arrive at a certain time, march at certain times between two presidents—Washington and Lincoln—and leave at a certain time. He notes that some black leaders whose speeches were known to be antagonistic to the Kennedy administration were not allowed to speak.
One important point that should be made about the Manhattan Center speech: this is the speech that has come to be known as “The Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost” speech, because of Malcolm’s use of this term in the course of the evening. But readers of the speech may be surprised not to find it anywhere in the body of the text. That is because Malcolm used the phrase in response to a question from the audience.
A week or so earlier, just after President Kennedy’s assassination, Mr. Muhammad had given strict orders that no minister should make any derogatory remark about the dead President. It should be remembered that a great number of black people really loved President Kennedy and, thought the Messenger, to attack him might create enemies not only for the Muslims but for black people in general. When a minister speaks, he is not speaking personally but for all Muslims and for the Messenger: he is expressing the attitude and thought of the Nation of Islam.
Following the speech, Malcolm was called to Chicago by Mr. Muhammad, after which his suspension was announced. It was a ninety-day suspension, to run through March 4, 1964. I have heard it said that the Messenger used Malcolm’s derogatory reference as an excuse for suspending him, that there were basic differences between them and this was an easy way of solving them. Personally, I have never believed these stories. I believe Mr. Muhammad took the disciplinary action he felt he had to, as a father disciplines a child he loves, knowing that if he comes through the trial he’ll be a better man for it, but also knowing there is a chance he’ll lose him if he doesn’t come through. One thing that most people forget is that the Nation of Islam continued to exist after Malcolm was gone, that as powerful and magnetic a force as Malcolm was—and he was personally responsible for bringing a great many people into the Nation of Islam—the fact remains that the people were not for the most part following Malcolm, they were following The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I’m not pretending that Mr. Muhammad taught Malcolm everything he knew, but he did give him the keys to knowledge and understanding. This is one key point in Malcolm’s life that is still generally misunderstood, or overlooked.
These four speeches are only a fragment of Malcolm’s thought, of course, but taken together they do represent a fair cross section of his teaching during that crucial last year as a leader in the Nation of Islam. They are the words of an impassioned and inspired man who, in spite of the portraits painted of him by the mass media during his lifetime, did not spend his adult life looking for trouble, but who, when he found something worthwhile getting into trouble about, stood ready to die for it, then and there.
January, 1971