The autobiography of Malcolm X (37 page)

"I say _'so-called'_ because you are _not_ a _'Negro.'_ There is no such thing as a race of _'Negroes.'_ You are members of the Asiatic nation, from the tribe of _Shabazz_! 'Negro' is a false label

forced on you by your slavemaster! He has been pushing things onto you and me and our kind ever since he brought the first slave shipload of us black people here-"

When Mr. Muhammad paused, the Muslims before him cried out, “Little Lamb!” . . .“All praise is due to Allah!” . . .“_Teach_, Messenger!” He would continue.

"The _ignorance_ we of the black race here in America have, and the _self-hatred_ we have, they are fine examples of what the white slavemaster has seen fit to teach to us. Do we show the plain common sense, like every other people on this planet Earth, to unite among ourselves? No! We are humbling ourselves, sitting-in, and begging-in, trying to _unite_ with the slavemaster! I don't seem able to imagine any more ridiculous sight. A thousand ways every day, the white man is telling you 'You can't live here, you can't enter here, you can't eat here, drink here, walk here, work here, you can't ride here, you can't play here,you can't study here.' Haven't we yet seen enough to see that he has no plan to _unite_ with you?

"You have tilled his fields! Cooked his food! Washed his clothes! You have cared for his wife and children when he was away. In many cases, you have even suckled him at your _breast_! You

have been far and away better Christians than this slave-master who _taught_ you his Christianity!

"You have sweated blood to help him build a country so rich that he can today afford to give away millions-even to his _enemies_! And when those enemies have gotten enough from him to then be able to attack him, you have been his brave soldiers, dying for him. And you have been always his most faithful servant during the so-called 'peaceful' times-

“And, _still_, this Christian American white man has not got it in him to find the human _decency_, and enough sense of _justice_, to recognize us, and accept us, the black people who have done so much for him, as fellow human beings!”

“YAH, Man!” . . .“_Um-huh_!” “_Teach_, Messenger!” . . .“_Yah_!” . . .“_Tell 'em_!” . . .“You _right_!” . . .“Take your _time_ up there, little Messenger!” . . .“Oh, _yes_!”

Others besides the Muslims would be shouting now. We Muslims were less extroverted than Christian Negroes. It would sound now like an old-fashioned camp meeting.

“So let us, the black people, _separate_ ourselves from this white man slavemaster, who despises us so much! You are out here begging him for some so-called '_integration_!' But what is this slavemaster white, _rapist_, going about saying! He is saying _he_ won't integrate because black blood will_mongrelize_ his race! _He_ says that-and look at _us_! Turn around in your seats and look at each other! This slavemaster white man already has '_integrated_' us until you can hardly find among us today any more than a very few who are the black color of our foreparents!”

“God-a-mighty, the man's right!” . . .“_'Teach_, Messenger-” “_Hear_ him! _Hear_ him!”

“He has left such a little black in us,” Mr. Muhammad would go on, “that now he despises us so bad-meaning he despises _himself_, for what he has _done_ to us-that he tells us that _legally_ if we have got _one drop_ of black blood in us, that means you are all-black as far as his laws are concerned! Well, if that's all we've got left, we want to _reclaim_ that one drop!”

Mr. Muhammad's frail strength could be seen to be waning. But he would teach on:

"So let us _separate_ from this white man, and for the same reason _he_ says-in time to save ourselves from any more '_integration_! '

“Why _shouldn't_ this white man who likes to think and call himself so good, and so generous, this white man who finances even his enemies-why _shouldn't_ he subsidize a separate state, a separate territory, for we black people who have been such faithful slaves and servants? A separate territory on which we can lift _ourselves_ out of these white man's _slums_ for us, and his _breadlines_ for us. And even for _those_ he is complaining that we cost him too much! We can do something for _ourselves_! We never have done what we _could_-because we have been brainwashed so well by the slavemaster white man that we must come to him, begging him, for everything we want, and need-”

After perhaps ninety minutes, behind Mr. Muhammad, every minister would have to restrain himself from bolting up to his side, to urge him that it was enough. He would be pressing his hands tightly against the edges of the speaker's stand, to support himself.

"We black people don't _know_ what we can do. You never can know what _anything_ can do- until it is set _free_, to act by itself! If you have a cat in your house that you pamper and pet, you have to free that cat, set it on its _own_, in the woods, before you can see that the cat had it in him to shelter and feed itself!

"We, the black people here in America, we never have been _free_ to find _out_ what we really

can _do_! We have knowledge and experience to pool to do for ourselves! All of our lives we have farmed-we can grow our own food. We can set up factories to manufacture our own necessities! We can build other kinds of businesses, to establish trade, and commerce-and become independent, as other civilized people are-

"We can _throw off_ our brainwashing, and our self-hate, and live as _brothers_ together . . .

“. . . some land of our _own_! . . . Something for _ourselves_! . . . leave this white slavemaster to _himself_. . . .”

Mr. Muhammad always stopped abruptly when he was unable to speak any longer. The standing ovation, a solid wall of sound, would go on unabating.

Standing up there, flailing my arms, finally I could quiet the audiences as Fruit of Islam ushers began to pass along the seating rows the large, waxed paperbuckets we used to take up the collection. I would speak.

"You _know_, from what you have just heard, that no white money finances The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his program-to 'advise' him and 'contain' him! Mr. Muhammad's program, and his followers, are not 'integrated.' Mr. Muhammad's program and organization are _all_-black!

"We are the _only_ black organization that _only_ black people support! These so-called 'Negro progress' organizations-Why, they insult your intelligence, claiming they are fighting in your behalf, to get you the equal rights you are asking for . . . claiming they are _fighting_ the white man who refuses to give you your rights. Why, the white man _supports_ those organizations! If you belong, you pay your two, or three, or five dollars a year-but _who_ gives those organizations those two, and three, and five _thousand_ dollar donations? The _white_ man! He _feeds_ those organizations! So he controls those organizations! He _advises_ them-so he _contains_ them! Use your common sense-aren't you going to advise and control and contain anyone that you support, like your child?

“The white man would love to support Mr. Elijah Muhammad. Because if Mr. Muhammad had to rely on his support, he could _advise_ Mr. Muhammad. My black brothers and sisters, it is _only_ because _your_ money, _black_ money, supports Mr. Muhammad, that he can hold these all- black meetings from city to city, telling us black men the _truth_! That's why we are asking for your all-black _support_!”

Nearly all bills-and far from all one-dollar bills, either, filled the waxed buckets. The buckets were swiftly emptied, then refilled, as the Fruit of Islam ushers covered the entire audience.

The audience atmosphere was almost as if the people had gone limp. The collections always covered the rally expenses, and anything beyond that helped to continue building the Nation of Islam.

After several big rallies, Mr. Muhammad directed that we would admit the white press. Fruit of Islam men thoroughly searched them, as everyone else was searched-their notebooks, their cameras, camera cases, and whatever else they carried. Later, Mr. Muhammad said that _any_ whites who wanted to hear the truth could attend our public rallies, until a small separate section for whites was filled.

Most whites who came were students and scholars. I would watch their congealed and reddened faces staring up at Mr. Muhammad. “The white man _knows_ that his acts have been those of a devil!” I would watch also the faces of the professional black men, the so-called intellectuals who attacked us. They possessed the academic know-how, they possessed the technical and the scientific skills that could help to lead their mass of poor, black brothers out of our condition. But

all these intellectual and professional black men could seem to think of was humbling themselves, and begging, trying to “integrate” with the so-called “liberal” white man who was telling them, “In time . . . everything's going to work out one day . . . just wait and have patience.” These intellectual and professional Negroes couldn't use what they knew for the benefit of their own black kind simply because even among themselves they were disunited. United among themselves, united with their own kind, they could have benefited black people all over the world!

I would watch the faces of those intellectual and professional Negroes growing grave, and set-as the truth hit home to them. We were watched. Our telephones were tapped. Still right today, on my home telephone, if I said, “I'm going to bomb the Empire State Building,” I guarantee you in five minutes it would be surrounded. When I was speaking publicly sometimes I'd guess which were F.B.I. faces in the audience, or other types of agents. Both thepolice and the F.B.I. intently and persistently visited and questioned us. “I do not fear them,” Mr. Muhammad said. “I have all that I need-the truth.”

Many a night, I drifted off to sleep, filled with wonder at how the two-edged-sword teachings so hurt, confused, concerned, and upset the government full of men trained highly in all of the modern sciences. I felt that it never could have been unless The Most Learned One, Allah Himself, had given the little fourth-grade-trained Messenger something.

***

Black agents were sent to infiltrate us. But the white man's “secret” spy often proved, first of all, a black man. I can't say _all_ of them, of course, there's no way to know-but some of them, after joining us, and hearing, seeing and _feeling_ the truth for every black man, revealed their roles to us. Some resigned from the white man's agencies and came to work in the Nation of Islam. A few kept their jobs to counterspy, telling us the white man's statements and plans about our Nation. This was how we learned that after wanting to know what happened within our Temples, the white law agencies' second major concern was the thing that I believe still ranks today as a big worry among America's penologists: the steadily increasing rate at which black convicts embrace Islam.

Generally, while still in prison, our convict-converts preconditioned themselves to meet our Nation's moral laws. As it had happened with me, when they left prison, they entered a Temple fully qualified to become registered Muslims. In fact, convict-converts usually were better prepared than were numerous prospective Muslims who never had been inside a prison.

We were not nearly so easy to enter as a Christian church. One did not merely declare himself a follower of Mr. Muhammad, then continue leading the same old, sinful, immoral life. The Muslim first had to change his physical and moralself to meet our strict rules. To remain a Muslim he had to maintain those rules.

Few temple meetings were held, for instance, without the minister looking down upon some freshly shaved bald domes of new Muslim brothers in the audience. They had just banished from their lives forever that phony, lye-conked, metallic-looking hair, or “the process,” as some call it these days. It grieves me that I don't care where you go, you see this symbol of ignorance and self-hate on so many Negroes' heads. I know it's bound to hurt the feelings of some of my good conked non-Muslim friends-but if you study closely any conked or “processed” Negro, you usually find he is an ignorant Negro. Whatever “show” or “front” he affects, his hair lye-cooked to be “white-looking” fairly shouts to everyone who looks at his head, “I'm ashamed to be a Negro.” He will discover, just as I did, that he will be much-improved mentally whenever he discovers enough black self-pride to have that mess clipped off, and then wear the natural hair that God gives black men to wear.

No Muslim smokes-that was another of our rules. Some prospective Muslims found it more difficult to quit tobacco than others found quitting the dope habit. But black men and women quit more easily when we got them to consider seriously how the white man's government cared less

about the public's health than about continuing the tobacco industry's _billions_ in tax revenue. “What does a serviceman pay for a carton of cigarettes?” a prospective Muslim convert would be asked. It helped him to see that every regularly priced carton he bought meant that the white man's government took around two dollars of a black man's hard-earned money for taxes, not for tobacco.

You may have read somewhere-a lot has been written concerning it-about the Nation of Islam's phenomenal record of dope-addiction cures of longtime junkies. In fact, the _New York Times_ carried a story about how some of the social agencies have asked representatives of the Muslim program for clinical suggestions.

The Muslim program began with recognizing that color and addiction have a distinct connection. It is no accident that in the entire Western Hemisphere, the greatest localized concentration of addicts is in _Harlem_.