The autobiography of Malcolm X (41 page)

The white liberal may be a little taken aback to know that from all-Negro audiences I never have had one challenge, never one question that defended the white man. That has been true even when a lot of those “black bourgeoisie” and “integration”-mad Negroes were among the blacks. All Negroes, among themselves, admit the white man's criminal record. They may not know as many details as I do, but they know the general picture.

But, let me tell you something significant: This very same bourgeois Negro who, among Negroes, would never make a fool of himself in trying to defend the white man-watch that same Negro in a mixed black and white audience, knowing he's overheard by his beloved “Mr. Charlie.” Why, you should hear those Negroes attack me, trying to justify, or forgive the white man's crimes! These Negroes are people who bring me nearest to breaking one of my principal rules, which is never to let myself become over-emotional and angry. Why, sometimes I've felt I ought to jump down off that stand and get _physical_ with some of those brainwashed white man's tools, parrots, puppets. At the colleges, I've developed some stock put-downs for them: “You must be a law student, aren't you?” They have to say either yes, or no. And I say, “I thought you were. You defend this criminal white man harder than he defends his guilty self!” One particular university's

“token-integrated” black Ph.D. associate professor I never will forget; he got me so mad I couldn't see straight. As badly as our 22 millions of educationally deprived black people need the help of any brains he has, there he was looking like some fly in the buttermilk among white “colleagues”-and he was trying to _eat me up_! He was ranting about what a “divisive demagogue” and what a “reverse racist” I was. I was racking my head, to spear that fool; finally I held up my hand, and he stopped. “Do you know what white racists call black Ph.D's?” He said something like, “I believe that I happen not to be aware of that”-you know, one of these ultra- proper-talking Negroes. And I laid the word down on him, loud: “Nigger!”

*** Speaking in these colleges and universities was good for the Nation of Islam, I would report to Mr. Muhammad, because the devilish white man's best minds were developed and influenced in the colleges and universities. But for some reason that I could never understand until much later, Mr. Muhammad never really wanted me to speak at these colleges and universities.

I was to learn later, from Mr. Muhammad's own sons, that he was envious because he felt unequipped to speak at colleges himself. But nevertheless, in Mr. Muhammad's behalf at this time, I was finding these highly intelligent audiences amazingly open-minded and objective in their receptions of the raw, naked truths that I would tell them:

"Time and time again, the black, the brown, the red, and the yellow races have witnessed and suffered the white man's small ability to understand the simple notes of the spirit. The white man seems tone deaf to the total orchestration of humanity. Every day, his newspapers' front pages show us the world that he has created.

"God's wrathful judgment is close upon this white man stumbling and groping blindly in wickedness and evil and spiritual darkness.

"Look-remaining today are only two giant white nations, America and Russia, each of them with mistrustful, nervous satellites. America is propping up most of the remaining white world. The French, the Belgians, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish and other white nations have weakened steadily as non-white Asians and Africans have recovered their lands.

"America is subsidizing what is left of the prestige and strength of the once mighty Britain. The sun has set forever on that monocled, pith-helmeted resident colonialist, sipping tea with his delicate lady in the non-white coloniesbeing systematically robbed of every valuable resource. Britain's superfluous royalty and nobility now exist by charging tourists to inspect the once baronial castles, and by selling memoirs, perfumes, autographs, titles, and even themselves.

"The whole world knows that the white man cannot survive another war. If either of the two giant white nations pushes the button, white civilization will die!

"And we see again that not ideologies, but race, and color, is what binds human beings. Is it accidental that as Red Chinese visit African and Asian countries, Russia and America draw steadily closer to each other?

“The collective white man's history has left the non-white peoples no alternative, either, but to draw closer to each other. Characteristically, as always, the devilish white man lacks the moral strength and courage to cast off his arrogance. He wants, today, to 'buy' friends among the non- whites. He tries, characteristically, to cover up his past record. He does not possess the humility to admit his guilt, to try and atone for his crimes. The white man has perverted the simple message of love that the Prophet Jesus lived and taught when He walked upon this earth.”

Audiences seemed surprised when I spoke about Jesus. I would explain that we Muslims believe in the Prophet Jesus. He was one of the three most important Prophets of the religion of Islam, the others being Muhammad and Moses. In Jerusalem there are Muslim shrines built to the

Prophet Jesus. I would explain that it was our belief that Christianity did not perform what Christ taught. I never failed to cite that even Billy Graham, challenged in Africa, had himself made the distinction, “I believe in Christ, not Christianity.”

I never will forget one little blonde co-ed after I had spoken at her New England college. She must have caught the next plane behind that one I took to New York. She found the Muslim restaurant in Harlem. I just happened to be there when she came in. Her clothes, her carriage, her accent, all showed Deep South white breeding and money. At that college, I told how the antebellum white slavemaster even devilishly manipulated his own woman. He convinced her that she was “too pure” for his base “animal instincts.” With this “noble” ruse, he conned his own wife to look away from his obvious preference for the “animal” black woman. So the “delicate mistress” sat and watched the plantation's little mongrel-complexioned children, sired obviously by her father, her husband, her brothers, her sons. I said at that college that the guilt of American whites included their knowledge that in hating Negroes, they were hating, they were rejecting, they were denying, their own blood.

Anyway, I'd never seen anyone I ever spoke before more affected than this little white college girl. She demanded, right up in my face, “Don't you believe there are any _good_ white people?” I didn't want to hurt her feelings. I told her, “People's _deeds_ I believe in, Miss-not their words.”

“What can I _do_?” she exclaimed. I told her, “Nothing.” She burst out crying, and ran out and up Lenox Avenue and caught a taxi.

***

Mr. Muhammad-each time I'd go to see him in Chicago, or in Phoenix-would warm me with his expressions of his approval and confidence in me.

He left me in charge of the Nation of Islam's affairs when he made an Omra pilgrimage to the Holy City Mecca.

I believed so strongly in Mr. Muhammad that I would have hurled myself between him and an assassin. A chance event brought crashing home to me that there was something-one thing-greater than my reverence for Mr. Muhammad.

It was the awesomeness of my reason to revere him.

I was the invited speaker at the Harvard Law School Forum. I happened to glance through a window. Abruptly, I realized that I was looking in the direction of the apartment house that was my old burglary gang's hideout.

It rocked me like a tidal wave. Scenes from my once depraved life lashed through my mind. _Living_ like an animal; _thinking_ like an animal!

Awareness came surging up in me-how deeply the religion of Islam had reached down into the mud to lift me up, to save me from being what I inevitably would have been: a dead criminal in a grave, or, if still alive, a flint-hard, bitter, thirty-seven-year-old convict in some penitentiary, or insane asylum. Or, at best, I would have been an old, fading Detroit Red, hustling, stealing enough for food and narcotics, and myself being stalked as prey by cruelly ambitious younger hustlers such as Detroit Red had been.

But Allah had blessed me to learn about the religion of Islam, which had enabled me to lift myself up from the muck and the mire of this rotting world.

And there I stood, the invited speaker, at Harvard.

A story that I had read in prison when I was reading a lot of Greek mythology flicked into my head.

The boy Icarus. Do you remember the story? Icarus' father made some wings that he fastened with wax. "Never fly but so high with these

wings," the father said. But soaring around, this way, that way, Icarus' flying pleased him so that he began thinking he was flying on his own merit. Higher, he flew-higher-until the heat of the sun melted the wax holding those wings. And down came Icarus-tumbling.

Standing there by that Harvard window, I silently vowed to Allah that I never would forget that any wings I wore had been put on by the religion of Islam. That fact I never have forgotten . . . not for one second.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN OUT

In nineteen sixty-one, Mr. Muhammad's condition grew suddenly worse.

As he talked with me when I visited him, when he talked with anyone, he would unpredictably begin coughing harder, and harder, until his body was wracked and jerking in agonies that were painful to watch, and Mr. Muhammad would have to take to his bed.

We among Mr. Muhammad's officials, and his family, kept the situation to ourselves, while we could. Few other Muslims became aware of Mr. Muhammad's condition until there were last- minute cancellations of long-advertised personal appearances at some big Muslim rallies. Muslims knew that only something really serious would ever have stopped the Messenger from keeping his promise to be with them at their rallies. Their questions had to be answered, and the news of our leader's illness swiftly spread through the Nation of Islam.

Anyone not a Muslim could not conceive what the possible loss of Mr.Muhammad would have meant among his followers. To us, the Nation of Islam was Mr. Muhammad. What bonded us into the best organization black Americans ever had was every Muslim's devout regard for Mr. Muhammad as black America's moral, mental, and spiritual reformer.

Stated another way, we Muslims regarded ourselves as moral and mental and spiritual examples for other black Americans, because we followed the personal example of Mr. Muhammad. Black communities discussed with respect how Muslims were suspended if they lied, gambled, cheated, or smoked. For moral crimes, such as fornication or adultery, Mr. Muhammad personally would mete out sentences of from one to five years of “isolation,” if not complete expulsion from the Nation. And Mr. Muhammad would punish his officials more readily than the newest convert in a mosque. He said that any defecting official betrayed both himself and his position as a leader and example for other Muslims. For every Muslim, in his rejection of immoral temptation, the beacon was Mr. Muhammad. All Muslims felt as one that without his light, we would all be in darkness.

As I have related, doctors recommended a dry climate to ease Mr. Muhammad's condition. Quickly we found up for sale in Phoenix the home of the saxophone player, Louis Jordan. The Nation's treasury purchased the home, and Mr. Muhammad soon moved there.

Only by being two people could I have worked harder in the service of the Nation of Islam. I had every gratification that I wanted. I had helped bring about the progress and national impact such that none could call us liars when we called Mr. Muhammad the most powerful black man in America. I had helped Mr. Muhammad and his other ministers to revolutionize the American black man's thinking, opening his eyes until he would never again look in the same fearful, worshipful

way at the white man. I had participated in spreading the truths that had done so much to help the American black man rid himself ofthe mirage that the white race was made up of “superior” beings. I had been a part of the tapping of something in the black secret soul.

If I harbored any personal disappointment whatsoever, it was that privately I was convinced that our Nation of Islam could be an even greater force in the American black man's overall struggle-if we engaged in more _action_. By that, I mean I thought privately that we should have amended, or relaxed, our general non-engagement policy. I felt that, wherever black people committed themselves, in the Little Rocks and the Birminghams and other places, militantly disciplined Muslims should also be there-for all the world to see, and respect, and discuss.

It could be heard increasingly in the Negro communities: “Those Muslims _talk_ tough, but they never _do_ anything, unless somebody bothers Muslims.” I moved around among outsiders more than most other Muslim officials. I felt the very real potentiality that, considering the mercurial moods of the black masses, this labeling of Muslims as “talk only” could see us, powerful as we were, one day suddenly separated from the Negroes' front-line struggle.

But beyond that single personal concern, I couldn't have asked Allah to bless my efforts any more than he had. Islam in New York City was growing faster than anywhere in America. From the one tiny mosque to which Mr. Muhammad had originally sent me, I had now built three of the Nation's most powerful and aggressive mosques-Harlem's Seven-A in Manhattan, Corona's Seven-B in Queens, and Mosque Seven-C in Brooklyn. And on a national basis, I had either directly established, or I had helped to establish, most of the one hundred or more mosques in the fifty states. I was crisscrossing North America sometimes as often as four times a week. Often, what sleep I got was caught in the jet planes. I was maintaining a marathon schedule of press, radio, television, and public-speaking commitments. The only way that I could keep up with my job for Mr. Muhammad was by flying with the wings that he had given me.

***

As far back as 1961, when Mr. Muhammad's illness took that turn for the worse, I had heard chance negative remarks concerning me. I had heard veiled implications. I had noticed other little evidences of the envy and of the jealousy which Mr. Muhammad had prophesied. For example, it was being said that “Minister Malcolm is trying to take over the Nation,” it was being said that I was “taking credit” for Mr. Muhammad's teaching, it was being said that I was trying to “build an empire” for myself. It was being said that I loved playing “coast-to-coast Mr. Big Shot.”

When I heard these things, actually, they didn't anger me. They helped me to re-steel my inner resolve that such lies would never become true of me. I would always remember that Mr. Muhammad had prophesied this envy and jealousy. This would help me to ignore it, because I knew that _he_ would understand if _he_ ever should hear such talk.

A frequent rumor among non-Muslims was “Malcolm X is making a pile of money.” All Muslims at least knew better than that. _Me_ making money? The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. and the

I.R.S. all combined can't turn up a thing I got, beyond a car to drive and a seven-room house to live in. (And by now the Nation of Islam is jealously and greedily trying to take away even that house.) I had _access_ to money. Yes! Elijah Muhammad would authorize for me any amount that I asked for. But he knew, as every Muslim official knew, that every nickel and dime I ever got was used to promote the Nation of Islam.

My attitude toward money generated the only domestic quarrel that I have ever had with my beloved wife Betty. As our children increased in number, so didBetty's hints to me that I should put away _something_ for our family. But I refused, and finally we had this argument. I put my foot down. I knew I had in Betty a wife who would sacrifice her life for me if such an occasion ever presented itself to her, but still I told her that too many organizations had been destroyed by leaders who tried to benefit personally, often goaded into it by their wives. We nearly broke up

over this argument. I finally convinced Betty that if anything ever happened to me, the Nation of Islam would take care of her for the rest of her life, and of our children until they were grown. I could never have been a bigger fool!

In every radio or television appearance, in every newspaper interview, I always made it crystal clear that I was Mr. Muhammad's _representative_. Anyone who ever heard me make a public speech during this time knows that at least once a minute I said, “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches-” I would refuse to talk with any person who ever tried any so-called “joke” about my constant reference to Mr. Muhammad. Whenever anyone said, or wrote, “Malcolm X, the number two Black Muslim-” I would recoil. I have called up reporters and radio and television newscasters long-distance and asked them never to use that phrasing again, explaining to them: “_All_ Muslims are number two-after Mr. Muhammad.”

My briefcase was stocked with Mr. Muhammad's photographs. I gave them to photographers who snapped my picture. I would telephone editors asking them, “Please use Mr. Muhammad's picture instead of mine.” When, to my joy, Mr. Muhammad agreed to grant interviews to white writers, I rarely spoke to a white writer, or a black one either, whom I didn't urge to visit Mr. Muhammad in person in Chicago-“Get the truth from the Messenger in person”-and a number of them did go there and meet and interview him.

Both white people and Negroes-even including Muslims-would make me uncomfortable, always giving me so much credit for the steady progress that theNation of Islam was making. “All praise is due to Allah,” I told everybody. “Anything creditable that I do is due to Mr. Elijah Muhammad.”

I believe that no man in the Nation of Islam could have gained the international prominence I gained with the wings Mr. Muhammad had put on me-plus having the freedom that he granted me to take liberties and do things on my own-and still have remained as faithful and as selfless a servant to him as I was.

I would say that it was in 1962 when I began to notice that less and less about me appeared in our Nation's _Muhammad Speaks_. I learned that Mr. Muhammad's son, Herbert, now the paper's publisher, had instructed that as little as possible be printed about me. In fact, there was more in the Muslim paper about integrationist Negro “leaders” than there was about me. I could read more about myself in the European, Asian, and African press.

I am not griping about publicity for myself. I already had received more publicity than many world personages. But I resented the fact that the Muslims' own newspaper denied them news of important things being done in their behalf, simply because it happened that I had done the things. I was conducting rallies, trying to propagate Mr. Muhammad's teachings, and because of jealousy and narrow-mindedness finally I got no coverage at all-for by now an order had been given to completely black me out of the newspaper. For instance, I spoke to eight thousand students at the University of California, and the press there gave big coverage to what I said of the power and program of Mr. Muhammad. But when I got to Chicago, expecting at least a favorable response and some coverage, I met only a chilly reaction. The same thing happened when, in Harlem, I staged a rally that drew seven thousand people. At that time, Chicago headquarters was even discouraging me from staging large rallies. But the next week, I held another Harlem rally that was even bigger and more successfulthan the first one-and obviously this only increased the envy of the Chicago headquarters.

But I would put these things out of my mind, as they occurred.

At least, as much as I humanly could, I put them out of my mind. I am not trying to make myself seem right and noble. I am telling the truth. I _loved_ the Nation, and Mr. Muhammad. I _lived for_ the Nation, and for Mr. Muhammad.

It made other Muslim officials jealous because my picture was often in the daily press. They

wouldn't remember that my picture was there because of my fervor in championing Mr. Muhammad. They wouldn't simply reason that as vulnerable as the Nation of Islam was to distorted rumors and outright lies, we needed nothing so little as to have our public spokesman constantly denying the rumors. Common sense would have told any official that certainly Mr. Muhammad couldn't be running all over the country as his own spokesman. And whoever he appointed as his spokesman couldn't avoid a lot of press focus.

Whenever I caught any resentful feelings hanging on in my mind, I would be ashamed of myself, considering it a sign of weakness in myself. I knew that at least Mr. Muhammad knew that my life was totally dedicated to representing him.

But during 1963,I couldn't help being very hypersensitive to my critics in high posts within our Nation. I quit selecting certain of my New York brothers and giving them money to go and lay groundwork for new mosques in other cities-because slighting remarks were being made about “Malcolm's ministers.” In a time in America when it was of arch importance for a militant black voice to reach mass audiences, _Life_ magazine wanted to do a personal story of me, and I refused. I refused again when a cover story was offered by _Newsweek_. I refused again when I could have been a guest on the top-rated “Meet thePress” television program. Each refusal was a general loss for the black man, and, for the Nation of Islam, each refusal was a specific loss-and each refusal was made because of Chicago's attitude. There was jealousy because I had been requested to make these featured appearances.

When a high-powered-rifle slug tore through the back of the N.A.A.C.P. Field Secretary Medgar Evers in Mississippi, I wanted to say the blunt truths that needed to be said. When a bomb was exploded in a Negro Christian church in Birmingham, Alabama, snuffing out the lives of those four beautiful little black girls, I made comments-but not what should have been said about the climate of hate that the American white man was generating and nourishing. The more hate was permitted to lash out when there were ways it could have been checked, the more bold the hate became-until at last it was flaring out at even the white man's own kind, including his own leaders. In Dallas, Texas, for instance, the then Vice President and Mrs. Johnson were vulgarly insulted. And the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, was spat upon and hit on the head by a white woman picket.

Mr. Muhammad made me the Nation's first National Minister. At a late 1963 rally in Philadelphia, Mr. Muhammad, embracing me, said to that audience before us, “This is my most faithful, hard- working minister. He will follow me until he dies.”

He had never paid such a compliment to any Muslim. No praise from any other earthly person could have meant more to me.

But this would be Mr. Muhammad's and my last public appearance together.