Malcolm X (70 page)

Betty felt particularly vulnerable as an unhappy wife in a strained marriage. She had been left behind by Malcolm under the guard of Charles 37X Kenyatta, who held a position of some significance within the MMI. During Malcolm’s absence the relationship between protector and protected grew more complicated, and more intimate, than Malcolm could have imagined. Kenyatta, still one of Malcolm’s favorites thanks to his silky charm and easy nature, had never ingratiated himself with James 67X or some of the other former Nation stalwarts who had come over in the split. In the new era of the MMI their suspicion of him had not abated. Yet Malcolm had designated Kenyatta to be the sole bodyguard of his wife and children while he was out of the country, giving him the authority to control access to the Shabazz residence.

Kenyatta found himself presiding over a household on the verge of a breakdown as Betty struggled to shoulder the burden of Malcolm’s absence. She had given birth to their fourth child, Gamilah Lumumba, three days after the OAAU's founding, and it was just eight days later that Malcolm, with his old habit of disappearing whenever a new baby appeared, departed for Africa. Raising four children alone would have been hard enough, given the household’s meager income, at this point coming only from Malcolm’s book advances, lecture honoraria, and small donations from dedicated MMI members. Now, however, she had become the most accessible target of the Nation’s intimidation campaign. The telephoned death threats that Malcolm had left behind continued to ring with unbearable frequency in his home, wearing down his wife, who could not avoid them. Captain Joseph had devised a harassment strategy to instill further fear in the household. Fruit of Islam members were instructed to ring Malcolm’s home once every five minutes. If anyone picked up, the FOI member might say something threatening—or say nothing at all—and after a long silence would simply hang up. “You’ll never see your husband again,” one caller promised Betty. “We got him. We cut his throat.” The constant stream of such calls sapped Betty of her strength and patience during Malcolm’s long absence.

Although Kenyatta had been assigned to protect her, Betty must have felt utterly abandoned. With four children age five and under, without adequate finances, and caring for a newborn infant by herself, she could hardly have believed that her husband’s political responsibilities should take precedence over her personal needs. She came to dislike most of his key lieutenants, including James and Benjamin, for taking her husband away from her. Yet she soon grew closer to Kenyatta in ways that attracted the notice of the FBI and caused great consternation among Malcolm’s loyal lieutenants.

James 67X had seen troubling omens in what he considered Betty’s inappropriate behavior at her home when Malcolm was away. She seemed coquettish, almost inviting male guests to make sexual advances toward her. On one occasion, James experienced her amorous overtures himself. “This woman took my glasses off,” he recalled, “and put them behind her back and told me, ‘Come and get them.’ That’s why I would never go to that house again.” He soon found that Kenyatta was also giving him cause to be suspicious.

Malcolm frequently sent his instructions from abroad to his home address, and James discovered that Kenyatta had been withholding vital communications from him for days or even weeks. It marked the beginning of a power play: Kenyatta believed James to be his most important rival for Malcolm’s attention, and so he severely restricted his access to Betty.

In September 1964, the FBI observed that Kenyatta had been frequently traveling by car outside the city in the company of a woman who was identified as “Malcolm X's [redacted].” This was indeed Betty Shabazz, who enjoyed going out on the town with the handsome man. Within weeks rumors were rife within the OAAU, MMI, and Mosque No. 7 that Betty and Kenyatta were sexually involved, and even planned to marry. The actual extent of their relationship is difficult to discern, but it set off alarms with James 67X and other leaders who heard about their liaisons. By the standards of orthodox Islam—and even by Nation of Islam standards—the relationship was highly inappropriate and threatened to bring shame upon everyone involved. Moreover, both parties were being extraordinarily conspicuous, given that both of them should have known that they were under FBI surveillance.

Yet Malcolm, clueless about what was transpiring in his absence, came to depend increasingly on Betty while he was away. For months, he corresponded with her through telegrams, letters, and phone calls. One letter, dated July 26, affirmed that he missed Betty and the children “much and I do pray that you are well and secure.” Much of his early correspondence described his activities in Cairo and at the OAU conference. “I realize many there in the States may think I’m shirking my duties as a leader . . . by being way over here,” he confessed. “But what I am doing here will be more helpful to the
whole
[Malcolm’s emphasis] in the long run.”

In another letter, dated August 4, he wrote, “It looks like another month at least may pass before I see you,” placing his return at that point in mid to late September. He also described his conversations with Akbar Muhammad, telling Betty that Akbar “says he knows his father is wrong and doesn’t go along with his father's claim of being a divine messenger. But I’m still watching him.” He continued, “I’ve learned to trust no one.”

Even during the period when Betty grew close to Kenyatta, she was sending letters and magazines to Malcolm, carrying out political tasks on his behalf, and trying to keep him at least partially informed. Late in his trip, she traveled to Philadelphia to attend a meeting of Wallace Muhammad’s followers, but was disappointed by what she heard. While Wallace had broken with his father and the Nation of Islam, he did not call for a merger with Malcolm‘s groups, instead characterizing Malcolm as having a “violent image.” Betty reported back that Wallace was “just like his father” and she believed that “everyone” was trying to use Malcolm “as a stepping stone.”

It was also during this time that Betty became directly involved in the schisms inside both the OAAU and MMI. Along with the group that met at her home and schemed to take over the OAAU, she also met secretly with MMI security head Reuben X Francis, who was planning to start a new youth group. The FBI picked up a phone call between Francis and Betty during which he explained that the group, the Organization of Afro-American Cadets, would function separately from the MMI because, he said, “I don’t want the officials to know too much about it.” MMI leaders were “corrupt,” and this new group had to be kept at arm’s length from them “to avoid contamination.” Perhaps playing to Betty’s favor, Francis also defended Charles 37X Kenyatta, claiming that MMI leaders “are trying to set him up to make him look bad in our eyes”; she agreed to meet him later that week. The fact that a dissident MMI member had the confidence to confide in her probably indicates that she was perceived as an influential political force in her own right. It also implies that her displeasure with James, and with how the MMI was run, was public knowledge.

In the fall of 1964, probably because of his relationship with Betty, Charles Kenyatta felt bold enough to publicly challenge James 67X's leadership. The basic criticisms leveled against James were that he was secretive, dictatorial, and a closet communist—a Marxist who dishonestly presented himself as a black nationalist. Because of his administrative responsibilities, he had alienated many members; his unambiguous dislike of Shifflett and the OAAU guaranteed that he would have few allies in that organization. By contrast, Kenyatta maintained cordial relations with OAAU members and attended some of their events. As the power struggle between the two men became public, MMI members were divided. But old habits die hard. The NOI tradition of allowing the minister, or supreme leader, to make important decisions led the majority of MMI members to defer any judgments about the leadership until Malcolm’s return. Still, the long summer of disunity had left members of both groups with frazzled nerves and little sense of direction. Adding to their anxiety were the continuing conflicts with the Nation of Islam. Malcolm’s departure from the United States had done little to reduce the Nation’s vitriolic campaign against him and his defenders. Everyone craved Malcolm’s return, but feared that it would trigger a new escalation of violence.

By the beginning of November 1964, Malcolm had been away from the United States for four months. He was aware of the dissension and near collapse of his fledgling organizations. Undoubtedly, he missed his wife and children. Yet he had successfully fashioned a new image, another reinvention, on the African continent. No other private citizen from America, devoid of title or official status, had been welcomed and honored as Malcolm had been. Instead of being projected as a racist zealot, as was still too often the case in the American press, he was identified by African media as a freedom fighter and Pan-Africanist. But it was not the flattery that affected Malcolm; it was the romance with Africa itself, its beauty, diversity, and complexity. It was the African people who had embraced Malcolm as their own long-lost son. It must have been difficult to leave all of this behind, by returning to the United States and facing the death threats and escalating violence he knew was sure to come.

The final leg of his African tour brought him back to Ghana, and to the expat community for whom he had only grown in stature in the months since his last visit. Maya Angelou, Julian Mayfield, and others met him at the Accra airport on November 2, and soon various expats were once again competing with one another for his time and attention. The next day Malcolm enjoyed seeing Angelou, spending the morning together and dining at the home of the intellectual Nana Nketsia with about half a dozen artists and writers. He also spent several hours with Shirley Du Bois, by then the executive director of Ghanaian television, and together they toured Ghana’s national television and radio stations. Perhaps his looming return to the United States had made him restless, because during this time he found himself unable to sleep through the night, turning to sleeping pills for relief. Yet he was also exhausted, worn down from weeks of grinding international travel. He had loosened his rules about alcohol despite the Muslim restrictions against it; after a newspaper interview, he had grown tired, and noted in his diary that he’d had a rum and Coke in an attempt to wake up. He would have more to keep his thoughts filled soon enough, when news reached him that Lyndon Johnson had buried Goldwater in a landslide victory in the U.S. presidential election, capturing 96 percent of the black vote.

Shirley Du Bois, Julian Mayfield, and Malcolm sat down for a quick lunch with the Chinese ambassador before meeting with President Nkrumah in the early afternoon on November 5. Their talk once again went unrecorded, but its content might be gleaned from Malcolm’s speeches about the United Nations during the rest of his trip. Part of Malcolm’s agenda for returning to Accra was to promote the development of the OAAU on the African continent, and in the expat community his ideas, especially that of bringing U.S. race issues before the UN, were met with great excitement. “The idea was so stimulating to the community of African-American residents,” recalled Angelou, “that I persuaded myself I should return to the States to help establish the organization.” Maya’s decision to return home to help Malcolm won her immediate status among the expatriates. “My friends,” Maya remembered, “began to treat me as if I had suddenly became special. . . . My stature had definitely increased.”

On Friday, November 6, a delegation of admirers, including Shirley Du Bois, Nana Nketsia, Maya Angelou, and others, bid Malcolm a bon voyage. As his plane departed for Liberia, the reality of leaving Ghana sank in and he grew sad as he reflected on how much he had come to cherish the community there. As he watched Maya and another African-American female expatriate “waving ‘sadly’ from the rail,” he characterized Maya and her friend as “two very lonely women.” Arriving in Monrovia, Liberia, at about noon, Malcolm attended a dance held at city hall, then went out to a country club. After some sightseeing and a cocktail party the next day, Malcolm spent several hours being wined and dined—and being challenged in vigorous debate with expatriates and others about the role of Israel in Africa. Members of the Liberian elite made the case that African-American “technicians and of other skills” needed to migrate to Liberia, yet, like any other ruling class, they were candid about their determination to hold on to power. Black Americans would be welcomed to Liberia, “but we don’t want them to interfere with our internal political structure. Our fear is that they may get into politics.”

On the morning of November 9 Malcolm visited the Liberian executive mansion, where he was introduced to members of the cabinet; however, President William Tubman was “too busy” to meet him. Malcolm then headed to the airport to depart—after three packed days he was off to Conakry, Guinea. Arriving in the early evening, he was driven much to his amazement to President Sékou Touré’s “private home, where I will reside while in Conakory [
sic
].
I’m speechless!
All praise is due Allah!” He was allocated three personal servants, a driver, and one army officer.