I quit the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln-Mercury Division. It had become clear to me that Mr.
Muhammad needed ministers to spread his teachings, to establish more temples among the twenty-two million black brothers who were brainwashed and sleeping in the cities of North America.
My decision came relatively quickly. I have always been an activist, and my personal chemistryperhaps made me reach more quickly than most ministers in the Nation of Islam that stage ofdedication. But every minister in the Nation, in his own time, in his own way, in the privacy of hisown soul, came to the conviction that it was written that all of his "before" life had been onlyconditioning and preparation to become a disciple of Mr. Muhammad's.
Everything that happens-Islam teaches-is written.
Mr. Muhammad invited me to visit his home in Chicago, as often as possible, while he trained me, formonths.
Never in prison had I studied and absorbed so intensely as I did now under Mr. Muhammad'sguidance. I was immersed in the worship rituals; in what he taught us were the true natures of menand women; the organizational and administrative procedures; the real meanings, and the interrelated meanings, and uses, of the Bible and the Quran.
I went to bed every night ever more awed. If not Allah, who else could have put such wisdom intothat little humble lamb of a man from the Georgia fourth grade and sawmills and cotton patches. The"lamb of a man" analogy I drew for myself from the prophecy in the Book of Revelations of a symboliclamb with a two-edged sword in its mouth. Mr. Muhammad's two-edged sword was his teachings,which cut back and forth to free the black man's mind from the white man.
My adoration of Mr. Muhammad grew, in the sense of the Latin root word _adorare_. It means muchmore than our "adoration" or "adore." It means that my worship of him was so awesome that he wasthe first man whom I had ever feared-not fear such as of a man with a gun, but the fear such as onehas of the power of the sun.
Mr. Muhammad, when he felt me able, permitted me to go to Boston. Brother Lloyd X lived there. Heinvited people whom he had gotten interested in Islam to hear me in his living room.
I quote what I said when I was just starting out, and then later on in other places, as I can bestremember the general pattern that I used, in successive phases, in those days. I know that then Ialways liked to start off with my favorite analogy of Mr. Muhammad.
"God has given Mr. Muhammad some sharp truth," I told them. "It is like a two-edged sword. It cutsinto you. It causes you great pain, but if you can take the truth, it will cure you and save you fromwhat otherwise would be certain death."Then I wouldn't waste any time to start opening their eyes about the devil white man. "I know youdon't realize the enormity, the horrors, of the so-called _Christian_ white man's crime. . . .
"Not even in the _Bible_ is there such a crime! God in His wrath struck down with _fire_ theperpetrators of _lesser_ crimes! _One hundred million_ of us black people! Your grandparents! Mine!
_Murdered_ by this white man. To get fifteen million of us here to make us his slaves, on the way hemurdered one hundred million! I wish it was possible for me to show you the sea bottom in thosedays-the black bodies, the blood, the bones broken by boots and clubs! The pregnant black womenwho were thrown overboard if they got too sick! Thrown overboard to the sharks that had learnedthat following these slave ships was the way to grow fat!
"Why, the white man's raping of the black race's woman began right on those slave ships! The blue-eyed devil could not even wait until he got them here! Why, brothers and sisters, civilized mankindhas never known such an orgy of greed and lust and murder. . . ."The dramatization of slavery never failed intensely to arouse Negroes hearing its horrors spelled outfor the first time. It's unbelievable how many black men and women have let the white man fool theminto holding an almost romantic idea of what slave days were like. And once I had them fired up withslavery, I would shift the scene to themselves.
"I want you, when you leave this room, to start to _see_ all this whenever you see this devil whiteman. Oh, yes, he's a devil! I just want you to start watching him, in his places where he doesn't wantyou around; watch him reveling in his precious-ness, and his exclusiveness, and his vanity, while hecontinues to subjugate you and me.
"Every time you see a white man, think about the devil you're seeing! Think of how it was on _your_slave foreparents' bloody, sweaty backs that he _built_ this empire that's today the richest of allnations-where his evil and his greed cause him to be hated around the world!"Every meeting, the people who had been there before returned, bringing friends. None of them everhad heard the wraps taken off the white man. I can't remember any black man ever in those living-room audiences in Brother Lloyd X's home at 5 Wellington Street who didn't stand up immediatelywhen I asked after each lecture, "Will all stand who believe what you have heard?" And each Sundaynight, some of them stood, while I could see others not quite ready, when I asked, "How many of youwant to _follow_ The Honorable Elijah Muhammad?"Enough had stood up after about three months that we were able to open a little temple. I rememberwith what pleasure we rented some folding chairs. I was beside myself with joy when I could report toMr. Muhammad a new temple address.
It was when we got this little mosque that my sister Ella first began to come to hear me. She sat,staring, as though she couldn't believe it was me. Ella never moved, even when I had only asked allwho believed what they had heard to stand up. She contributed when our collection was held. Itdidn't bother or challenge me at all about Ella. I never even thought about converting her, astoughminded and cautious about joining anything as I personally knew her to be. I wouldn't haveexpected anyone short of Allah Himself to have been able to convert Ella.
I would close the meeting as Mr. Muhammad had taught me: "In the name of Allah, the beneficent, themerciful, all praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds, the beneficent, merciful master of theday of judgment in which we now live -Thee alone do we serve, and Thee alone do we beseech forThine aid. Guide us on the right path, the path of those upon whom Thou has bestowed favors -not ofthose upon whom Thy wrath is brought down, nor the path of those who go astray after they haveheard Thy teaching. I bear witness that there is no God but Thee and The Honorable ElijahMuhammad is Thy Servant and Apostle. "I believed he had been divinely sent to our people by AllahHimself.
I would raise my hand, for them to be dismissed: "Do nothing unto anyone that you would not like tohave done unto yourself. Seek peace, and never be the aggressor-but if anyone attacks you, we do notteach you to turn the other cheek. May Allah bless you to be successful and victorious in all that youdo."Except for that one day when I had stayed with Ella on the way to Detroit after prison, I had not been in the old Roxbury streets for seven years. I went to have a reunion with Shorty.
Shorty, when I found him, acted uncertain. The wire had told him I was in town, and on some"religious kick." He didn't know if I was serious, or if I was another of the hustling preacher-pimps tobe found in every black ghetto, the ones with some little storefront churches of mostly hardworking,older women, who kept their "pretty boy" young preacher dressed in "sharp" clothes and driving afancy car. I quickly let Shorty know how serious I was with Islam, but then, talking the old street talk,I quickly put him at his ease, and we had a great reunion. We laughed until we cried at Shorty'sdramatization of his reactions when he heard that judge keep saying "Count one, ten years . . . counttwo, ten years -" We talked about how having those white girls with us had gotten as tea years wherewe had seen in prison plenty of worse offenders with far less time to serve.
Shorty still had a little band, and he was doing fairly well. He was rightfully very proud that in prisonhe had studied music. I told him enough about Islam to see from his reactions that he didn't reallywant to hear it. In prison, he had misheard about our religion. He got me off the subject by making ajoke. He said that he hadn't had enough pork chops and white women. I don't know if he has yet, ornot. I know that he's married to a white woman now. . . and he's fat as a hog from eating hog.
I also saw John Hughes, the gambling-house owner, and some others I had known who were stillaround Roxbury. The wire about me had made them all uncomfortable, but my "What you know,Daddy?" approach at least enabled us to have some conversations. I never mentioned Islam to most ofthem. I knew, from what I had been when I was with them, how brainwashed they were.
As Temple Eleven's minister, I served only briefly, because as soon as I got it organized, by March1954, I left it in charge of Minister Ulysses X, and the Messenger moved me on to Philadelphia.
The City of Brotherly Love black people reacted even faster to the truth about the white man than theBostonians had. And Philadelphia's Temple Twelve was established by the end of May. It had taken alittle under three months.
The next month, because of those Boston and Philadelphia successes, Mr. Muhammad appointed meto be the minister of Temple Seven-in vital New York City.
I can't start to describe for you my welter of emotions. For Mr. Muhammad's teachings really toresurrect American black people, Islam obviously had to grow, to grow very big. And nowhere inAmerica was such a single temple potential available as in New York's five boroughs.
They contained over a million black people.
It was nine years since West Indian Archie and I had been stalking the streets, momentarily expectingto try and shoot each other down like dogs.
"_Red!_" . . ."My man!" . . ."Red, this _can't_ be you-With my natural kinky red hair now close-cropped, in place of the old long-haired, lye-cooked conk they had always known on my head, I knowI looked much different.
"Gim'me some _skin_, man! A drink here, bartender-what? You _quit!_ Aw, man, come off it!"It was so good seeing so many whom I had known so well. You can understand how that was. But itwas West Indian Archie and Sammy the Pimp for whom I was primarily looking. And the first nastyshock came quickly, about Sammy. He had quit pimping, he had gotten pretty high up in the numbersbusiness, and was doing well. Sammy even had married. Some fast young girl. But then shortly afterhis wedding one morning he was found lying dead across his bed-they said with twenty-fivethousand dollars in his pockets. (People don't want to believe the sums that even the minorunderworld handles. Why, listen: in March 1964, a Chicago nickel-and-dime bets Wheel of Fortuneman, Lawrence Wakefield, died, and over $760, 000 in cash was in his apartment, in sacks and bags . . .
all taken from poor Negroes . . . and we wonder why we stay so poor. )Sick about Sammy, I queried from bar to bar among old-timers for West Indian Archie. The wirehadn't reported him dead, or living somewhere else, but none seemed to know where he was. I heardthe usual hustler fates of so many others. Bullets, knives, prison, dope, diseases, insanity, alcoholism. Iimagine it was about in that order. And so many of the survivors whom I knew as tough hyenas andwolves of the streets in the old days now were so pitiful. They had known all the angles, but beneaththat surface they were poor, ignorant, untrained black men; life had eased up on them and hypedthem. I ran across close to twenty-five of these old-timers I had known pretty well, who in the space ofnine years had been reduced to the ghetto's minor, scavenger hustles to scratch up room rent and foodmoney. Some now worked downtown, messengers, janitors, things like that. I was thankful to Allahthat I had become a Muslim and escaped their fate.
There was Cadillac Drake. He was a big jolly, cigar-smoking, fat, black, gaudy-dressing pimp, aregular afternoon character when I was waiting on tables in Small's Paradise. Well, I recognized himshuffling toward me on the street. He had gotten hooked on heroin; I'd heard that. He was the dirtiest,sloppiest bum you ever laid eyes on. I hurried past because we would both have been embarrassed ifhe recognized me, the kid he used to toss a dollar tip.
The wire worked to locate West Indian Archie for me. The wire of the streets, when it wants to, issomething like Western Union with the F.B.I. for messengers. At one of my early services at TempleSeven, an old scavenger hustler, to whom I gave a few dollars, came up when services were dismissed.
He told me that West Indian Archie was sick, living up in a rented room in the Bronx.
I took a taxi to the address. West Indian Archie opened the door. He stood there in rumpled pajamasand barefooted, squinting at me.
Have you ever seen someone who seemed a ghost of the person you remembered? It took him a few seconds to fix me in his memory. He claimed, hoarsely, "Red! I'm so glad to see you!"I all but hugged the old man. He was sick in that weak way. I helped him back. He sat down on theedge of his bed. I sat in his one chair, and I told him how his forcing me out of Harlem had saved mylife by turning me in the direction of Islam.
He said, "I always liked you, Red," and he said that he had never really wanted to kill me. I told him ithad made me shudder many times to think how close we had come to killing each other. I told him Ihad sincerely thought I had hit that combinated six-way number for the three hundred dollars he hadpaid me. Archie said that he had later wondered if he had made some mistake, since I was so ready todie about it. And then we agreed that it wasn't worth even talking about, it didn't mean anythinganymore. He kept saying, over and over, in between other things, that he was so glad to see me.
I went into a little of Mr. Muhammad's teaching with Archie. I told him how I had found out that all ofus who had been in the streets were victims of the white man's society I told Archie what I hadthought in prison about him; that his brain, which could tape-record hundreds of numbercombinations a day, should have been put at the sendee of mathematics or science. "Red, that sure issomething to think about," I can remember him saying.
But neither of us would say that it was not too late. I have the feeling that he knew, as I could see, thatthe end was closing in on Archie. I became too moved about what he had been and what he had nowbecome to be able to stay much longer. I didn't have much money, and he didn't want to accept whatlittle I was able to press on him. But I made him take it.
I keep having to remind myself that then, in June 1954, Temple Seven in New York City was a littlestorefront. Why, it's almost unbelievable that one bus couldn't have been filled with the Muslims inNew York City! Even among our own black people in the Harlem ghetto, you could have said"Muslim" to a thousand, and maybe only one would not have asked you "What's that?" As for whitepeople, except for that relative handful privy to certain police or prison files, not five hundred whitepeople in all of America knew we existed.
I began firing Mr. Muhammad's teaching at the New York members and the few friends theymanaged to bring in. And with each meeting, my discomfort grew that in Harlem, choked with poor,ignorant black men suffering all of the evils that Islam could cure, every time I lectured my heart outand then asked those who wanted to follow Mr. Muhammad to stand, only two or three would. And, Ihave to admit, sometimes not that many.
I think I was all the angrier with my own ineffectiveness because I knew the streets. I had to get myselftogether and think out the problem. And the big trouble, obviously, was that we were only one amongthe many voices of black discontent on every busy Harlem corner. The different Nationalist groups,the "Buy Black!" forces, and others like that; dozens of their step-ladder orators were trying to increase their followings. I had nothing against anyone trying to promote independence and unity amongblack men, but they still were making it tough for Mr. Muhammad's voice to be heard.
In my first effort to get over this hurdle, I had some little leaflets printed. There wasn't a much-traveled Harlem street corner that five or six good Muslim brothers and I missed. We would step upright in front of a walking black man or woman so that they had to accept our leaflet, and if theyhesitated one second, they had to hear us saying some catch thing such as "Hear how the white mankidnapped and robbed and raped our black race-"Next, we went to work "fishing" on those Harlem corners-on the fringes of the Nationalist meetings.
The method today has many refinements, but then it consisted of working the always shifting edges ofthe audiences that others had managed to draw. At a Nationalist meeting, everyone who was listeningwas interested in the revolution of the black race. We began to get visible results almost immediatelyafter we began thrusting handbills in people's hands, "Come to hear us, too, brother.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us how to cure the black man's spiritual, mental, moral,economic, and political sicknesses-"I saw the new faces of our Temple Seven meetings. And then we discovered the best "fishing"audience of all, by far the best-conditioned audience for Mr. Muhammad's teachings: the Christianchurches.
Our Sunday services were held at two P. M. All over Harlem during the hour or so before that,Christian church services were dismissing. We by-passed the larger churches with their higher ratio ofso-called "middle-class" Negroes who were so full of pretense and "status" that they wouldn't becaught in our little storefront.
We went "fishing" fast and furiously when those little evangelical storefront churches each let out theirthirty to fifty people on the sidewalk. "Come to hear us, brother, sister-" "You haven't heard anythinguntil you have heard the teachings of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad-" These Congregations wereusually Southern migrant people, usually older, who would go anywhere to hear what they called"good preaching." These were the church congregations who were always putting out little signsannouncing that inside they were selling fried chicken and chitlin dinners to raise some money. Andthree or four nights a week, they were in their storefront rehearsing for the next Sunday, I guess,shaking and rattling and rolling the gospels with their guitars and tambourines.
I don't know if you know it, but there's a whole circuit of commercial gospel entertainers who havecome out of these little churches in the city ghettoes or from down South. People such as Sister RosettaTharpe, The Clara Ward Singers are examples, and there must be five hundred lesser lights of thesame general order. Mahalia Jackson, the greatest of them all-she was a preacher's daughter inLouisiana. She came up there to Chicago where she worked cooking and scrubbing for white peopleand then in a factory while she sang in the Negro churches the gospel style that, when it caught on,made her the first Negro that Negroes ever made famous. She was selling hundreds of thousands of records among Negroes before white people ever knew who Mahalia Jackson was. Anyway, I knowthat somewhere I once read that Mahalia said that every time she can, she will slip unannounced intosome little ghetto storefront church and sing with her people. She calls that "my filling station."The black Christians we "fished" to our Temple were conditioned, I found, by the very shock I couldgive them about what had been happening to them while they worshiped a blond, blue-eyed God. Iknew the temple that I could build if I could really get to those Christians. I tailored the teachings forthem. I would start to speak and sometimes be so emotionally charged I had to explain myself:
"You see my tears, brothers and sisters . . . . Tears haven't been in my eyes since I was a young boy. ButI cannot help this when I feel the responsibility I have to help you comprehend for the first time whatthis white man's religion that we call Christianity has _done_ to us . . . .
"Brothers and sisters here for the first time, please don't let that shock you. I know you didn't expectthis. Because almost none of us black people have thought that maybe we were making a mistake notwondering if there wasn't a special religion somewhere for us-a special religion for the black man.
"Well, there is such a religion. It's called Islam. Let me spell it for you, I-s-I-a-m! _Islam!_ But I'm goingto tell you about Islam a little later. First, we need to understand some things about this Christianitybefore we can understand why the _answer_ for us is Islam.
"Brothers and sisters, the white man has brainwashed us black people to fasten our gaze upon a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus! We're worshiping a Jesus that doesn't even _look_ like us! Oh, yes! Now justbear with me, listen to the teachings of the Messenger of Allah, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Now, just think of this. The blond-haired, blue-eyed white man has taught you and me to worship a_white_ Jesus, and to shout and sing and pray to this God that's _his_ God, the white man's God. Thewhite man has taught us to shout and sing and pray until we _die_, to wait until _death_, for somedreamy heaven-in-the-hereafter, when we're _dead_, while this white man has his milk and honey inthe streets paved with golden dollars right here on _this_ earth!
"You don't want to believe what I am telling you, brothers and sisters? Well, I'll tell you what you do.
You go out of here, you just take a good look around where you live. Look at not only how _you_ live,but look at how anybody that you _know_ lives-that way, you'll be sure that you're not just a bad-luckaccident. And when you get through looking at where _you_ live, then you take you a walk downacross Central Park, and start to look at what this white God had brought to the white man. I mean,take yourself a look down there at how the white man is living!
"And don't stop there. In fact, you won't be able to stop for long-his doormen are going to tell you'Move on!' But catch a subway and keep on downtown. Anywhere you may want to get off, _look_ atthe white man's apartments, businesses! Go right on down to the tip of Manhattan Island that thisdevilish white man stole from the trusting Indians for twenty-four dollars! Look at his City Hall, downthere; look at his Wall Street! Look at yourself! Look at _his_ God!" I had learned early one important thing, and that was to always teach in terms that the people couldunderstand. Also, where the Nationalists whom we had "fished" were almost all men, among thestorefront Christians, a heavy preponderance were women, and I had the sense to offer somethingspecial for them. "_Beautiful_ black woman! The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that theblack man is going around saying he wants respect; well, the black man never will get anybody'srespect until he first learns to respect his own women! The black man needs _today_ to stand up andthrow off the weaknesses imposed upon him by the slavemaster white man! The black man needs tostart today to shelter and protect and _respect_ his black women!"One hundred percent would stand up without hesitation when I said, "How many _believe_ whatthey have heard?" But still never more than an agonizing few would stand up when I invited, "Willthose stand who want to _follow_ The Honorable Elijah Muhammad?"I knew that our strict moral code and discipline was what repelled them most. I fired at this point, atthe reason for our code. "The white man _wants_ black men to stay immoral, unclean and ignorant. Aslong as we stay in these conditions we will keep on begging him and he will control us. We never canwin freedom and justice and equality until we are doing something for ourselves!"The code, of course, had to be explained to any who were tentatively interested in becoming Muslims.
And the word got around in their little storefronts quickly, which is why they would come to hear me,yet wouldn't join Mr. Muhammad. Any fornication was absolutely forbidden in the Nation of Islam.
Any eating of the filthy pork, or other injurious or unhealthful foods; any use of tobacco, alcohol, ornarcotics. No Muslim who followed Elijah Muhammad could dance, gamble, date, attend movies, orsports, or take long vacations from work. Muslims slept no more than health required. Any domesticquarreling, any discourtesy, especially to women, was not allowed. No lying or stealing, and noinsubordination to civil authority, except on the grounds of religious obligation.
Our moral laws were policed by our Fruit of Islam-able, dedicated, and trained Muslim men.
Infractions resulted in suspension by Mr. Muhammad, or isolation for various periods, or evenexpulsion for the worst offenses "from the only group that really cares about you." Temple Seven grew somewhat with each meeting. It just grew too slowly to suit me. During theweekdays, I traveled by bus and train. I taught each Wednesday at Philadelphia's Temple Twelve. Iwent to Springfield, Massachusetts, to try to start a new temple. A temple which Mr. Muhammadnumbered Thirteen was established there with the help of Brother Osborne, who had first heard ofIslam from me in prison. A lady visiting a Springfield meeting asked if I'd come to Hartford, whereshe lived; she specified the next Thursday and said she would assemble some friends. And I was rightthere.
Thursday is traditionally domestic servants' day off. This sister had in her housing project apartment about fifteen of the maids, cooks, chauffeurs and house men who worked for the Hartford-area whitepeople. You've heard that saying, "No man is a hero to his valet." Well, those Negroes who waited onwealthy whites hand and foot opened their eyes quicker than most Negroes. And when they went"fishing" enough among more servants, and other black people in and around Hartford, Mr.
Muhammad before long was able to assign a Hartford temple the number Fourteen. And everyThursday I scheduled my teaching there.
Mr. Muhammad, when I went to see him in Chicago, had to chastise me on some point during nearlyevery visit. I just couldn't keep from showing in some manner that with his ministers equipped withthe power of his message, I felt the Nation should go much faster. His patience and his wisdom inchastising me would always humble me from head to foot. He said, one time, that no true leaderburdened his followers with a greater load than they could carry, and no true leader sets too fast apace for his followers to keep up.
"Most people seeing a man in an old touring car going real slow think the man doesn't want to gofast," Mr. Muhammad said, "but the man knows that to drive any faster would destroy the old car.
When he gets a fast car, then he will drive at a fast speed." And I remember him telling me anothertime, when I complained about an inefficient minister at one of his mosques, "I would rather have amule I can depend upon than a race horse that I can't depend upon."I knew that Mr. Muhammad _wanted_ that fast car to drive. And I don't think you could pick thesame number of faithful brothers and sisters from the Nation of Islam today and find "fishing" teamsto beat the efforts of those who helped to bring growth to the Boston, Philadelphia, Springfield,Hartford, and New York temples. I'm, of course, just mentioning those that I knew most about becauseI was directly involved. This was through 1955. And 1955 was the year I made my first trip of anydistance. It was to help open the temple that today is Number Fifteen-in Atlanta, Georgia.
Any Muslim who ever moved for personal reasons from one city to another was of course exhorted toplant seeds for Mr. Muhammad. Brother James X, one of our top Temple Twelve brothers, hadinterested enough black people in Atlanta so that when Mr. Muhammad was advised, he told me togo to Atlanta and hold a first meeting. I think I have had a hand in most of Mr. Muhammad's temples,but I'll never forget that opening in Atlanta.
A funeral parlor was the only place large enough that Brother James X could afford to rent. Everythingthat the Nation of Islam did in those days, from Mr. Muhammad on down, was strictly on ashoestring. When we all arrived, though, a Christian Negro's funeral was just dismissing, so we had towait awhile, and we watched the mourners out.
"You saw them all crying over their physical dead," I told our group when we got inside. "But theNation of Islam is rejoicing over you, our mentally dead. That may shock you, but, oh, yes, you justdon't realize how our whole black race in America is mentally dead. We are here today with Mr. ElijahMuhammad's teachings which resurrect the black man from the dead . . . ." And, speaking of funerals, I should mention that we never failed to get some new Muslims when non-Muslims, family and friends of a Muslim deceased, attended our short, moving ceremony thatillustrated Mr. Muhammad's teaching, "Christians have their funerals for the living, ours are for ourdeparted."As the minister of several temples, conducting the Muslim ceremony had occasionally fallen to my lot.
As Mr. Muhammad had taught me, I would start by reading over the casket of the departed brother orsister a prayer to Allah. Next I read a simple obituary record of his or her life. Then I usually read fromJob; two passages, in the seventh and fourteenth chapters, where Job speaks of no life after death.
Then another passage where David, when his son died, spoke also of no life after death.
To the audience before me, I explained why no tears were to be shed, and why we had no flowers, orsinging, or organ-playing. "We shed tears for our brother, and gave him our music and our tears whilehe was alive. If he wasn't wept for and given our music and flowers then, well, now there is no need,because he is no longer aware. We now will give his family any money we might have spent."Appointed Muslim Sisters quickly passed small trays from which everyone took a thin, round patty ofpeppermint candy. At my signal, the candy was put into mouths. "We will file by now for a last lookat our brother. We won't cry-just as we don't cry over candy. Just as this sweet candy will dissolve, sowill our brother's sweetness that we have enjoyed when he lived now dissolve into a sweetness in ourmemories."I have had probably a couple of hundred Muslims tell me that it was attending one of our funerals fora departed brother or sister that first turned them toward Allah. But I was to learn later that Mr.
Muhammad's teaching about death and the Muslim funeral service was in drastic contradiction towhat Islam taught in the East.
We had grown, by 1956-well, sizable. Every temple had "fished" with enough success that there werefar more Muslims, especially in the major cities of Detroit, Chicago, and New York than anyone wouldhave guessed from the outside. In fact, as you know, in the really big cities, you can have a very bigorganization and, if it makes no public show, or noise, no one will necessarily be aware that it isaround.
But more than just increasing in numbers, Mr. Muhammad's version of Islam now had been getting insome other types of black people. We began now getting those with some education, both academic,and vocations and trades, and even some with "positions" in the white world, and all of this wasstarting to bring us closer to the desired fast car for Mr. Muhammad to drive. We had, for instance,some civil servants, some nurses, clerical workers, salesmen from the department stores. And one ofthe best things was that some brothers of this type were developing into smart, fine, aggressive youngministers for Mr. Muhammad.
I went without a lot of sleep trying to merit his increasing evidences of trust and confidence in myefforts to help build our Nation of Islam. It was in 1956 that Mr. Muhammad was able to authorize Temple Seven to buy and assign for my use a new Chevrolet. (The car was the Nation's, not mine. Ihad nothing that was mine but my clothes, wrist watch, and suitcase. As in the case of all of theNation's ministers, my living expenses were paid and I had some pocket money. Where once youcouldn't have named anything I wouldn't have done for money, now money was the last thing to crossmy mind.) Anyway, in letting me know about the car, Mr. Muhammad told me he knew how I lovedto roam, planting seeds for new Muslims, or more temples, so he didn't want me to be tied down.
In five months, I put about 30, 000 miles of "fishing" on that car before I had an accident. Late onenight a brother and I were coming through Weathersfield, Connecticut, when I stopped for a red lightand a car smashed into me from behind. I was just shook up, not hurt. That excited devil had a womanwith him, hiding her face, so I knew she wasn't his wife. We were exchanging our identification (helived in Meriden, Connecticut) when the police arrived, and their actions told me he was somebodyimportant. I later found out he was one of Connecticut's most prominent politicians; I won't call hisname. Anyway, Temple Seven settled on a lawyer's advice, and that money went down on anOldsmobile, the make of car I've been driving ever since.
I had always been very careful to stay completely clear of any personal closeness with any of theMuslim sisters. My total commitment to Islam demanded having no other interests, especially, I felt,no women. In almost every temple at least one single sister had let out some broad hint that shethought I needed a wife. So I always made it clear that marriage had no interest for me whatsoever; Iwas too busy.
Every month, when I went to Chicago, I would find that some sister had written complaining to Mr.
Muhammad that I talked so hard against women when I taught our special classes about the differentnatures of the two sexes. Now, Islam has very strict laws and teachings about women, the core of thembeing that the true nature of a man is to be strong, and a woman's true nature is to be weak, and whilea man must at all times respect his woman, at the same time he needs to understand that he mustcontrol her if he expects to get her respect.
But in those days I had my own personal reasons. I wouldn't have considered it possible for me to loveany woman. I'd had too much experience that women were only tricky, deceitful, untrustworthy flesh.
I had seen too many men ruined, or at least tied down, or in some other way messed up by women.
Women talked too much. To tell a woman not to talk too much was like telling Jesse James not to carrya gun, or telling a hen not to cackle. Can you imagine Jesse James without a gun, or a hen that didn'tcackle? And for anyone in any kind of a leadership position, such as I was, the worst thing in theworld that he could have was the wrong woman. Even Samson, the world's strongest man, wasdestroyed by the woman who slept in his arms. She was the one whose words hurt him.
I mean, I'd had so much experience. I had talked to too many prostitutes and mistresses. They knewmore about a whole lot of husbands than the wives of those husbands did. The wives always filledtheir husbands' ears so full of wife complaints that it wasn't the wives, it was the prostitutes and mistresses who heard the husbands' innermost problems and secrets. They thought of him, andcomforted him, and that included listening to him, and so he would tell them everything.
Anyway, it had been ten years since I thought anything about any mistress, I guess, and as a ministernow, I was thinking even less about getting any wife. And Mr. Muhammad himself encouraged me tostay single.
Temple Seven sisters used to tell brothers, "You're just staying single because Brother MinisterMalcolm never looks at anybody." No, I didn't make it any secret to any of those sisters, how I felt.
And, yes, I did tell the brothers to be very, very careful.
This sister-well, in 1956, she joined Temple Seven. I just noticed her, not with the slightest interest, youunderstand. For about the next year, I just noticed her. You know, she never would have dreamed Iwas even thinking about her. In fact, probably you couldn't have convinced her I even knew her name.
It was Sister Betty X. She was tall, brown-skinned-darker than I was. And she had brown eyes.
I knew she was a native of Detroit, and that she had been a student at Tuskegee Institute down inAlabama-an education major. She was in New York at one of the big hospitals' school of nursing. Shelectured to the Muslim girls' and women's classes on hygiene and medical facts.
I ought to explain that each week night a different Muslim class, or event, is scheduled. Monday night,every temple's Fruit of Islam trains. People think this is just military drill, judo, karate, things like that-which _is_ part of the F.O.I. training, but only one part. The F.O.I. spends a lot more time in lecturesand discussions on men learning to be men. They deal with the responsibilities of a husband andfather; what to expect of women; the rights of women which are not to be abrogated by the husband;the importance of the father-male image in the strong household; current events; why honesty, andchastity, are vital in a person, a home, a community, a nation, and a civilization; why one should batheat least once each twenty-four hours; business principles; and things of that nature.
Then, Tuesday night in every Muslim temple is Unity Night, where the brothers and sisters enjoy eachother's conversational company and refreshments, such as cookies and sweet and sour fruit punches.
Wednesday nights, at eight P. M., is what is calledStudent Enrollment, where Islam's basic issues are discussed; it is about the equivalent of catechismclass in the Catholic religion.
Thursday nights there are the M.G.T. (Muslim Girls' Training) and the G.C.C. (General CivilizationClass), where the women and girls of Islam are taught how to keep homes, how to rear children, howto care for husbands, how to cook, sew, how to act at home and abroad, and other things that areimportant to being a good Muslim sister and mother and wife.
Fridays are devoted to Civilization Night, when classes are held for brothers and sisters in the area ofthe domestic relations, emphasizing how both husbands and wives must understand and respect each other's true natures. Then Saturday night is for all Muslims a free night, when, usually, they visit ateach other's homes. And, of course, on Sundays, every Muslim temple holds its services.
On the Thursday M.G.T. and G.C.C. nights, sometimes I would drop in on the classes, and maybe atSister Betty X's classes-just as on other nights I might drop in on the different brothers' classes. At firstI would just ask her things like how were the sisters learning-things like that, and she would say "Fine,Brother Minister." I'd say, "Thank you, Sister." Like that. And that would be all there was to it. Andafter a while, I would have very short conversations with her, just to be friendly.
One day I thought it would help the women's classes if I took her-just because she happened to be aninstructor, to the Museum of Natural History. I wanted to show her some Museum displays having todo with the tree of evolution, that would help her in her lectures. I could show her proofs of Mr.
Muhammad's teachings of such things as that the filthy pig is only a large rodent. The pig is a graftbetween a rat, a cat and a dog, Mr. Muhammad taught us. When I mentioned my idea to Sister BettyX, I made it very clear that it was just to help her lectures to the sisters. I had even convinced myselfthat this was the only reason.
Then by the time of the afternoon I said we would go, well, I telephoned her; I told her I had to cancelthe trip, that something important had come up. She said, "Well, you sure waited long enough to tellme, Brother Minister, I was just ready to walk out of the door." So I told her, well, all right, come onthen, I'd make it somehow. But I wasn't going to have much time.
While we were down there, offhandedly I asked her all kinds of things. I just wanted some idea of herthinking; you understand, I mean _how_ she thought. I was halfway impressed by her intelligenceand also her education. In those days she was one of the few whom we had attracted who hadattended college.
Then, right after that, one of the older sisters confided to me a personal problem that Sister Betty Xwas having. I was really surprised that when she had had the chance, Sister Betty X had notmentioned anything to me about it. Every Muslim minister is always hearing the problems of youngpeople whose parents have ostracized them for becoming Muslims. Well, when Sister Betty X told herfoster parents, who were financing her education, that she was a Muslim, they gave her a choice: leavethe Muslims, or they'd cut off her nursing school.
It was right near the end of her term-but she was hanging on to Islam. She began taking baby-sittingjobs for some of the doctors who lived on the grounds of the hospital where she was training.
In my position, I would never have made any move without thinking how it would affect the Nationof Islam organization as a whole.
I got to turning it over in my mind. What would happen if I just _should_ happen, sometime, to thinkabout getting married to somebody? For instance Sister Betty X-although it could be any sister in anytemple, but Sister Betty X, for instance, would just happen to be the right height for somebody my height, and also the right age.
Mr. Elijah Muhammad taught us that a tall man married to a too-short woman, or vice-versa, theylooked odd, not matched. And he taught that a wife's ideal age was half the man's age, plus seven. Hetaught that women are physiologically ahead of men. Mr. Muhammad taught that no marriage couldsucceed where the woman did not look up with respect to the man. And that the man had to havesomething above and beyond the wife in order for her to be able to look to him for psychologicalsecurity.
I was so shocked at myself, when I realized _what_ I was thinking, I quit going anywhere near SisterBetty X, or any where I knew she would be. If she came into our restaurant and I was there, I went outsomewhere. I was glad I knew that she had no idea what I had been thinking about. My not talking toher wouldn't give her any reason to think anything, since there had never been one _personal_ wordspoken between us-even if she had _thought_ anything.
I studied about if I just _should_ happen to say something to her-what would her position be? Becauseshe wasn't going to get any chance to embarrass me. I had heard too many women bragging, "I toldthat chump 'Get lost!'" I'd had too much experience of the kind to make a man very cautious.
I knew one good thing; she had few relatives. My feeling about in-laws was that they were outlaws.
Right among the Temple Seven Muslims, I had seen more marriages destroyed by in-laws, usuallyanti-Muslim, than any other single thing I knew of.
I wasn't about to say any of that romance stuff that Hollywood and television had filled women'sheads with. If I was going to do something, I was going to do it directly. And anything I was going todo, I was going to do _my_ way. And because _I_ wanted to do it. Not because I saw somebody do it.
Or read about it in a book. Or saw it in a moving picture somewhere.
I told Mr. Muhammad, when I visited him in Chicago that month, that I was thinking about a veryserious step. He smiled when he heard what it was.
I told him I was just thinking about it, that was all. Mr. Muhammad said that he'd like to meet thissister.
The Nation by this time was financially able to bear the expenses so that instructor sisters fromdifferent temples could be sent to Chicago to attend the Headquarters Temple Two women's classes,and, while there, to meet The Honorable Elijah Muhammad in person. Sister Betty X, of course, knewall about this, so there was no reason for her to think anything of it when it was arranged for her to goto Chicago. And like all visiting instructor sisters, she was the house guest of the Messenger and SisterClara Muhammad.
Mr. Muhammad told me that he thought that Sister Betty X was a fine sister.
If you are thinking about doing a thing, you ought to make up your mind if you are going to do it, ornot do it. One Sunday night, after the Temple Seven meeting, I drove my car out on the Garden StateParkway. I was on my way to visit my brother Wilfred, in Detroit. Wilfred, the year before, in 1957,had been made the minister of Detroit's Temple One. I hadn't seen him, or any of my family, in a goodwhile.
It was about ten in the morning when I got inside Detroit. Getting gas at a filling station, I just went totheir pay phone on a wall; I telephoned Sister Betty X. I had to get Information to get the number ofthe nurses' residence at this hospital. Most numbers I memorized, but I had always made it some pointnever to memorize her number. Somebody got her to the phone finally. She said, "Oh, hello, BrotherMinister-" I just said it to her direct: "Look, do you want to get married?"Naturally, she acted all surprised and shocked.
The more I have thought about it, to this day I believe she was only putting on an act. Because womenknow. They know.
She said, just like I knew she would, "Yes." Then I said, well, I didn't have a whole lot of time, she'dbetter catch a plane to Detroit.
So she grabbed a plane. I met her foster parents who lived in Detroit. They had made up by this time.
They were very friendly, and happily surprised. At least, they acted that way.
Then I introduced Sister Betty X at my oldest brother Wilfred's house. I had already asked him wherepeople could get married without a whole lot of mess and waiting. He told me in Indiana.
Early the next morning, I picked up Betty at her parents' home. We drove to the first town in Indiana.
We found out that only a few days before, the state law had been changed, and now Indiana had along waiting period.
This was the fourteenth of January, 1958; a Tuesday. We weren't far from Lansing, where my brotherPhilbert lived. I drove there. Philbert was at work when we stopped at his house and I introducedBetty X. She and Philbert's wife were talking when I found out on the phone that we could get marriedin one day, if we rushed.
We got the necessary blood tests, then the license. Where the certificate said "Religion," I wrote"Muslim." Then we went to the Justice of the Peace.
An old hunchbacked white man performed the wedding. And all of the witnesses were white. Whereyou are supposed to say all those "I do' s," we did. They were all standing there, smiling and watchingevery move. The old devil said, "I pronounce you man and wife," and then, "Kiss your bride."I got her out of there. All of that Hollywood stuff! Like these women wanting men to pick them up and carry them across thresholds and some of them weigh more than you do. I don't know how manymarriage breakups are caused by these movie-and television-addicted women expecting somebouquets and kissing and hugging and being swept out like Cinderella for dinner and dancing-thengetting mad when a poor, scraggly husband comes in tired and sweaty from working like a dog allday, looking for some food.
We had dinner there at Philbert's home in Lansing. "I've got a surprise for you," I told him when wecame in. "You haven't got any surprise for me," he said. When he got home from work and heard I'dbeen there introducing a Muslim sister, he knew I was either married, or on the way to get married.
Betty's nursing school schedule called for her to fly right back to New York, and she could return infour days. She claims she didn't tell anybody in Temple Seven that we had married.
That Sunday, Mr. Muhammad was going to teach at Detroit's Temple One. I had an Assistant Ministerin New York now; I telephoned him to take over for me. Saturday, Betty came back. The Messenger,after his teaching on Sunday, made the announcement. Even in Michigan, my steering clear of allsisters was so well known, they just couldn't believe it.
We drove right back to New York together. The news really shook everybody in Temple Seven. Someyoung brothers looked at me as though I had betrayed them. But everybody else was grinning likeCheshire cats. The sisters just about ate up Betty. I never will forget hearing one exclaim, "You gothim!" That's like I was telling you, the _nature_ of women. She'd _got_ me. That's part of why I neverhave been able to shake it out of my mind that she knew something-all the time. Maybe she did getme!
Anyway, we lived for the next two and a half years in Queens, sharing a house of two smallapartments with Brother John AH and his wife of that time. He's now the National Secretary inChicago.
Attallah, our oldest daughter, was born in November 1958.
She's named for Attilah the Hun (he sacked Rome). Shortly after Attallah came, we moved to ourpresent seven-room house in an all-black section of Queens, Long Island.
Another girl, Qubilah (named after Qubilah Khan) was born on Christmas Day of 1960. Then, yasah("Ilyas" is Arabic for "Elijah") was born in July 1962. And in 1964 our fourth daughter, Amilah, arrived.
I guess by now I will say I love Betty. She's the only woman I ever even thought about loving. Andshe's one of the very few-four women-whom I have ever trusted. The thing is, Betty's a good Muslimwoman and wife. You see, Islam is the only religion that gives both husband and wife a trueunderstanding of what love is. The Western "love" concept, you take it apart, it really is lust. But lovetranscends just the physical. Love is disposition, behavior, attitude, thoughts, likes, dislikes-thesethings make a beautiful woman, a beautiful wife. This is the beauty that never fades. You find in your Western civilization that when a man's wife's physical beauty fails, she loses her attraction. But Islamteaches us to look into the woman, and teaches her to look into us.
Betty does this, so she understands me. I would even say I don't imagine many other women mightput up with the way I am. Awakening this brainwashed black man and telling this arrogant, devilishwhite man the truth about himself, Betty understands, is a full-time job. If I have work to do when Iam home, the little time I am at home, she lets me have the quiet I need to work in. I'm rarely at homemore than half of any week; I have been away as much as five months. I never get much chance to takeher anywhere, and I know she likes to be with her husband. She is used to my calling her fromairports anywhere from Boston to San Francisco, or Miami to Seattle, or, here lately, cabling her fromCairo, Accra, or the Holy City of Mecca. Once on the long-distance telephone, Betty told me inbeautiful phrasing the way she thinks. She said, "You are present when you are away."Later that year, after Betty and I were married, I exhausted myself trying to be everywhere at once,trying to help the Nation to keep growing. Guest-teaching at the Temple in Boston, I ended, as always,"Who among you wish to _follow_ The Honorable Elijah Muhammad?" And then I saw, in utterastonishment, that among those who were standing was my sister-_Ella!_ We have a saying that thosewho are the hardest to convince make the best Muslims. And for Ella it had taken five years.
I mentioned, you will remember, how in a big city, a sizable organization can remain practicallyunknown, unless something happens that brings it to the general public's attention. Well, certainly noone in the Nation of Islam had any anticipation of the kind of thing that would happen in Harlem onenight.
Two white policemen, breaking up a street scuffle between some Negroes, ordered other Negropassers-by to "Move on!" Of these bystanders, two happened to be Muslim brother Johnson Hintonand another brother of Temple Seven. They didn't scatter and run the way the white cops wanted.
Brother Hinton was attacked with nightsticks. His scalp was split open, and a police car came and hewas taken to a nearby precinct.
The second brother telephoned our restaurant. And with some telephone calls, in less than half anhour about fifty of Temple Seven's men of the Fruit of Islam were standing in ranks-formation outsidethe police precinct house.
Other Negroes, curious, came running, and gathered in excitement behind the Muslims. The police,coming to the station house front door, and looking out of the windows, couldn't believe what theysaw. I went in, as the minister of Temple Seven, and demanded to see our brother. The police first saidhe wasn't there. Then they admitted he was, but said I couldn't see him. I said that until he was seen,and we were sure he received proper medical attention, the Muslims would remain where they were.
They were nervous and scared of the gathering crowd outside. When I saw our Brother Hinton, it wasall I could do to contain myself. He was only semi-conscious. Blood had bathed his head and face andshoulders. I hope I never again have to withstand seeing another case of sheer police brutality like that.
I told the lieutenant in charge, "That man belongs in the hospital." They called an ambulance. When itcame and Brother Hinton was taken to Harlem Hospital, we Muslims followed, in loose formations,for about fifteen blocks along Lenox Avenue, probably the busiest thoroughfare in Harlem. Negroeswho never had seen anything like this were coming out of stores and restaurants and bars andenlarging the crowd following us.
The crowd was big, and angry, behind the Muslims in front of Harlem Hospital. Harlem's blackpeople were long since sick and tired of police brutality. And they never had seen any organization ofblack men take a firm stand as we were.
A high police official came up to me, saying "Get those people out of there." I told him that ourbrothers were standing peacefully, disciplined perfectly, and harming no one. He told me thoseothers, behind them, weren't disciplined. I politely told him those others were his problem.
When doctors assured us that Brother Hinton was receiving the best of care, I gave the order and theMuslims slipped away. The other Negroes' mood was ugly, but they dispersed also, when we left. Wewouldn't learn until later that a steel plate would have to be put into Brother Hinton's skull. (After thatoperation, the Nation of Islam helped him to sue; a jury awarded him over $70, 000, the largest policebrutality judgment that New York City has ever paid. )For New York City's millions of readers of the downtown papers, it was, at that time, another one ofthe periodic "Racial Unrest in Harlem" stories. It was not played up, because of what had happened.
But the police department, to be sure, pulled out and carefully studied the files on the Nation of Islam,and appraised us with new eyes. Most important, in Harlem, the world's most heavily populatedblack ghetto, the _Amsterdam News_ made the whole story headline news, and for the first time theblack man, woman, and child in the streets were discussing "those Muslims."
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