Malcolm X (66 page)

Within a few weeks, as he listened to Malcolm’s telephone conversations, office meetings, and public speeches, “what I heard was nothing like I expected.” The officer was impressed by his subject’s political analysis and arguments. “I remember saying to myself, ‘Let’s see, he’s right about that. . . . He wants [blacks] to get jobs. He wants them to get education. Wants them to get into the system. What’s wrong with that?’ ” Fulcher soon concluded that Malcolm was not “the enemy of white people in general” after all, which led him to the further realization that the NYPD's entire approach to Malcolm, and more broadly the Black Freedom Movement, required rethinking. He raised his concerns with his superior officers but got nowhere. Inside BOSS, “all black organizations were suspect.” From then on, he kept his opinions to himself, while continuing his wiretaps and tape recordings. BOSS even placed a recording device under the stage at the Audubon, to ensure that law enforcement could transcribe and analyze Malcolm’s speeches.

The day after the OAAU's founding rally, Malcolm met with some members to take stock of the event and to begin planning for his second excursion abroad that year. That Sunday about ninety individuals filled out forms to join the OAAU, far fewer than anticipated. The
New York Times
had estimated the rally’s attendance at only six hundred. Malcolm was quick to attribute the low number of new members to the fact that most Harlemites did not have the initial two-dollar membership fee.

If the OAAU lacked for early members, it was not on account of any lull in the charge for civil rights. For the two weeks prior to the rally, news of the disappearance of three volunteers in Mississippi on the first day of the Freedom Summer project had gripped the nation, as activists across the country demanded a full investigation. King himself was still in Saint Augustine, in and out of jail and under tremendous strain. Early on the morning of June 30 Malcolm sent King a telegram expressing his concern about racist attacks against civil rights demonstrators in Saint Augustine. He indicated that if federal authorities were not willing to protect civil rights workers, then he was prepared to deploy his people in the South to organize self-defense units capable of fighting the Klan. To reporters, he characterized these groups as “guerilla squads. . . . The Klan elements in the South are well known. We believe that whenever they strike against the Negro, the Negro has a chance to strike back.”

Later that day he flew to Omaha, Nebraska, upon the invitation of the city’s Citizens Coordinating Committee for Civil Liberties. Upon arrival, he kept up his provocative banter, charging that “in Omaha, as in other places, the Ku Klux Klan has just changed its bedsheets for policemen’s uniforms.” After addressing a local audience at Omaha’s City Auditorium, he checked out of his hotel, at three a.m., and later that morning was in downtown Chicago. He was a call-in guest on a local radio program, which alerted thousands of angry NOI members that he was in the city. Although he’d confirmed he would appear on the Chicago television show
Off the Cuff
, he never made it to the station; threats on his life, now openly expressed on the streets, forced him to return immediately to New York.

At the beginning of July, Malcolm’s former fiancée, Evelyn Williams, and Lucille Rosary filed paternity suits against Elijah Muhammad. The formal legal charge brought the fighting in the Black Muslim world to a boil, with death threats against Malcolm now seeming to come from everywhere. That same day, James 3X Shabazz, the powerful minister of Newark’s mosque and active leader of Mosque No. 7, released a broadside against Malcolm, describing him as “the number one hypocrite of all time” and “a dog returning to his own vomit.” One night in early July, either the third or fourth, Malcolm contacted the NYPD, alerting them that he was returning alone to his home at eleven thirty p.m. and that their presence might be necessary. When he pulled up in front of his home, he saw no NYPD officers present, but what he could see was two unfamiliar black men approach his car on foot. He quickly accelerated, driving around the block and waiting before going home. Malcolm complained to the police and an officer was eventually placed in front of the residence, but only for twenty-four hours.

Despite this intimidation, Malcolm was not about to become a political fugitive in his own city. The next evening, the OAAU sponsored its second public rally, again at the Audubon. Although most MMI members did not belong to the OAAU, Benjamin 2X Goodman was handed the assignment of introducing Malcolm to the audience. Malcolm informed his audience, “Right now, things are pretty hot for me, you know. Oh, yes, I may sound like I’m cracking, but I’m facting.”

On July 8 Malcolm appeared again on the
Barry Gray Show
in New York. On July 9 he carried on correspondence with Hassan Sharrieff, the dissident son of Ethel and Raymond Sharrieff, who had recently broken with and denounced the Nation. Malcolm wrote to him saying he was unable to send Sharrieff funds, but pledged he would assist him in organizing “the believers” in Philadelphia, Chicago, and other cities “behind Brother Wallace” Muhammad.

Malcolm had reached a point where his own physical safety was secondary to the realization of his political objectives. Chief among them were, first, forging a Pan-Africanist alliance between the newly independent African states and black America; and, next, consolidating the MMI's relationships with officials in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the entire Muslim world—both goals requiring him to head overseas. This second trip abroad that year would also remove him from the Nation’s direct line of fire. Perhaps, he figured, the vicious jihad the Nation had waged against him might abate after a long absence outside the United States.

On the evening of July 9, traveling as Malik el-Shabazz, Malcolm boarded TWA Flight 700 for London. Arriving the next morning, Malcolm held an impromptu press conference in which he charged that the U.S. government “is violating the UN charter by violating our basic human rights.” He also predicted that in the summer of 1964 America “will see a bloodbath.”

Malcolm deeply believed in the power of prophecy, and only days after his departure from New York, the violence he had long warned of in his speeches finally erupted on the streets of Harlem. On July 18 the police shooting of a black fifteen-year-old sparked an angry march that ended with the crowd surrounding the 123rd Street NYPD station, the same station where Malcolm had led the Johnson Hinton protest in 1957. Only this time, when the police started making arrests, the people fought back; others ran through Harlem’s business district, smashing windows and stealing everything they could carry.

In London, though, ready for a momentous trip, he could not have imagined such particulars. After renting a hotel room for the night, Malcolm rang one of his contacts, who provided him with telephone numbers and other contact information for some African leaders. In his hotel lobby, Malcolm managed to attract three British journalists to do a twenty-minute interview. The next day, July 11, he was off to Cairo.

Malcolm’s great strength was his ability to speak on behalf of those to whom society and state had denied a voice due to racial prejudice. He understood their yearnings and anticipated their actions. He could now see the possibility of a future without racism for his people, but what he could not anticipate were the terrible dangers closest to him, in the forms of both betrayal and death. Just days prior to Malcolm’s return to Africa, Max Stanford recalled forty-five years later, Malcolm had introduced Max to Charles 37X Kenyatta, a member of his inner circle, at a private reception. Stanford quickly explained that Charles “had been in the penitentiary, and in the Nation, and that he trusted Charles more than any man in the world.” Malcolm assured both men “that the three of us would meet when he came back from Africa,” Stanford remembered. “And the last thing he said to Charles was ‘Take care of Betty for me.’ ”

CHAPTER 13

“In the Struggle for Dignity”

July 11-November 24, 1964

 

 

 

M
alcolm’s return to Cairo marked the beginning of a nineteen-week sojourn to the Middle East and Africa. In departing New York, he left behind two fledgling organizations whose success depended almost entirely on his personal involvement, and the toll his absence took on both the MMI and OAAU was considerable. Yet several important factors conspired to keep him away. For as much as he wished to lay a foundation for his ideas, he continued during this time to undergo dramatic life changes, completing a transformation that had begun with his departure from the Nation of Islam and accelerated with his recent trip to the Middle East. Now, charged with bringing to Africa his plan to put the U.S. government before the United Nations over human rights violations, he experienced for the first time the fullness and profundity of his own African heritage. If the hajj had brought Malcolm to full realization of his Muslim life, the second trip to Africa immersed him in a broad-based Pan-Africanism that cast into relief his role as a black citizen of the world.

In a whirlwind nearly five months, he would become an honored guest of several heads of state and a beloved figure among ordinary Africans of many countries. Though not every moment of the trip was easy, it presented a stark contrast to the difficult slog of building the OAAU amid constant threats of violence from the Nation of Islam. Indeed, another reason why Malcolm ultimately stayed in Africa so long was safety: he was convinced that the Nation would try to kill him as soon as he returned home.

He had planned his visit to Egypt to coincide with an OAU conference (July 17-21) in Cairo, but eventually stayed in the city longer than originally planned, believing that the friendships he was forming would yield dividends in the long run. During the first two months, he threw himself into a detailed course of study prepared by Muslim clerics, associated with the Cairo-based Supreme Council on Islamic Affairs (SCIA). According to Dr. Mahmoud Shawarbi, the SCIA was also largely responsible for subsidizing Malcolm’s expenses in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe during his second tour. He was also in frequent communication with the Mecca-based Muslim World League (Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami) founded in Saudi Arabia in 1962 to promulgate religion and oppose the threats represented by communism. By seeking recognition from such organizations, he hoped to destroy the NOI's access to the orthodox Muslim world, as well as elevate his own position as the most prominent Muslim leader in the United States.

Most important of all to Malcolm, this was also a journey of self-discovery. As an NOI minister, he had preached a theology grounded in hatred. Only now, as his separation from the Nation of Islam grew wider, did he feel the urgent need to reexamine his life. If he packed away the starched white shirts, bow ties, and dark suits, how would he now convey his identity?

Malcolm arrived in Cairo after midnight on July 12, and stayed initially at the Semiramis Hotel. In the days that followed, as he waited for his clearance to attend the OAU conference as an observer, he occupied his time by getting settled in and making contact with key leaders. The evening after his arrival he contacted Dr. Shawarbi, who was so eager to engage him in political conversation that he and a small entourage of mostly African Americans drove over to his hotel lobby, where they talked together until three in the morning. Malcolm also met with a number of dignitaries, including the Kenyan political leader Tom Mboya as well as Hassan Sabn al-Kholy, director of Nasser's Bureau of General Affairs, and he dined with Shirley Graham Du Bois, whom he had previously met in Ghana. He visited Cairo University, the pyramids, and other sites (with an ABC cameraman in tow), and he gave interviews to the London
Observer
and UPI.

Once at the conference, he immediately began to circulate a memorandum, calling upon newly independent African nations to condemn the United States for its violations of black human rights. “Racism in America is the same that it is in South Africa,” he argued. He urged African leaders to embrace Pan-Africanist politics by endorsing the struggles of African Americans. “We pray that our African brothers” have not escaped the domination of Europe, Malcolm observed, only to fall victim to “American dollarism.”

In the end, Malcolm failed to persuade, though not for any great flaw in his argument or ebbing of his passion; his rhetoric simply could not overcome the cold logic of international politics. In the bipolar political world of the 1960s, backing a formal resolution that sharply condemned the United States for its domestic human rights violations would have been seen by the American government as an act of partnership with the Soviet Union or the communist Chinese. The OAU did pass a tepid resolution applauding the passage of civil rights legislation, but criticizing the lack of racial progress. By late July, media analysis of the meeting had filtered back to the United States, where Malcolm was generally described as having failed. A sympathetic
New York Times
analysis by M. S. Handler did, however, appear; after examining Malcolm’s eight-page memorandum, U.S. government officials said that had Malcolm “succeeded in convincing just one African Government to bring up the charge at the United Nations, the United States Government would be faced with a touchy problem.” The United States could be held in the same category as South Africa as a violator of human rights.