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 begincoughing harder, and harder, until his body was wracked and jerking in agonies that were painful towatch, 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-minutecancellations of long-advertised personal appearances at some big Muslim rallies. Muslims knew thatonly something really serious would ever have stopped the Messenger from keeping his promise to bewith them at their rallies. Their questions had to be answered, and the news of our leader's illnessswiftly spread through the Nation of Islam.
Anyone not a Muslim could not conceive what the possible loss of Mr. Muhammad would have meantamong his followers. To us, the Nation of Islam was Mr. Muhammad. What bonded us into the bestorganization black Americans ever had was every Muslim's devout regard for Mr. Muhammad asblack America's moral, mental, and spiritual reformer.
Stated another way, we Muslims regarded ourselves as moral and mental and spiritual examples forother black Americans, because we followed the personal example of Mr. Muhammad. Blackcommunities discussed with respect how Muslims were suspended if they lied, gambled, cheated, orsmoked. For moral crimes, such as fornication or adultery, Mr. Muhammad personally would meteout sentences of from one to five years of "isolation," if not complete expulsion from the Nation. AndMr. Muhammad would punish his officials more readily than the newest convert in a mosque. He saidthat any defecting official betrayed both himself and his position as a leader and example for otherMuslims. 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. Quicklywe found up for sale in Phoenix the home of the saxophone player, Louis Jordan. The Nation'streasury 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 hadevery gratification that I wanted. I had helped bring about the progress and national impact such thatnone could call us liars when we called Mr. Muhammad the most powerful black man in America. Ihad helped Mr. Muhammad and his other ministers to revolutionize the American black man'sthinking, opening his eyes until he would never again look in the same fearful, worshipful way at thewhite man. I had participated in spreading the truths that had done so much to help the Americanblack man rid himself of the mirage that the white race was made up of "superior" beings. I had been apart 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 ourNation of Islam could be an even greater force in the American black man's overall struggle-if weengaged in more _action_. By that, I mean I thought privately that we should have amended, orrelaxed, 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 alsobe 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 mostother Muslim officials. I felt the very real potentiality that, considering the mercurial moods of theblack masses, this labeling of Muslims as "talk only" could see us, powerful as we were, one daysuddenly 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 thanhe had. Islam in New York City was growing faster than anywhere in America. From the one tinymosque to which Mr. Muhammad had originally sent me, I had now built three of the Nation's mostpowerful and aggressive mosques-Harlem's Seven-A in Manhattan, Corona's Seven-B in Queens, andMosque Seven-C in Brooklyn. And on a national basis, I had either directly established, or I hadhelped to establish, most of the one hundred or more mosques in the fifty states. I was crisscrossingNorth America sometimes as often as four times a week. Often, what sleep I got was caught in the jetplanes. I was maintaining a marathon schedule of press, radio, television, and public-speakingcommitments. The only way that I could keep up with my job for Mr. Muhammad was by flying withthe 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 chancenegative remarks concerning me. I had heard veiled implications. I had noticed other little evidencesof 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. Itwas 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 resolvethat such lies would never become true of me. I would always remember that Mr. Muhammad hadprophesied this envy and jealousy. This would help me to ignore it, because I knew that _he_ wouldunderstand if _he_ ever should hear such talk.
A frequent rumor among non-Muslims was "Malcolm X is making a pile of money." All Muslims atleast knew better than that. _Me_ making money? The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. and theI.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. Buthe knew, as every Muslim official knew, that every nickel and dime I ever got was used to promotethe Nation of Islam.
My attitude toward money generated the only domestic quarrel that I have ever had with my belovedwife Betty. As our children increased in number, so did Betty'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. Iknew I had in Betty a wife who would sacrifice her life for me if such an occasion ever presented itselfto her, but still I told her that too many organizations had been destroyed by leaders who tried tobenefit personally, often goaded into it by their wives. We nearly broke up over this argument. Ifinally convinced Betty that if anything ever happened to me, the Nation of Islam would take care ofher for the rest of her life, and of our children until they were grown. I could never have been a biggerfool!
In every radio or television appearance, in every newspaper interview, I always made it crystal clearthat I was Mr. Muhammad's _representative_. Anyone who ever heard me make a public speechduring 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 referenceto Mr. Muhammad. Whenever anyone said, or wrote, "Malcolm X, the number two Black Muslim-" Iwould recoil. I have called up reporters and radio and television newscasters long-distance and askedthem 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 whosnapped my picture. I would telephone editors asking them, "Please use Mr. Muhammad's pictureinstead of mine." When, to my joy, Mr. Muhammad agreed to grant interviews to white writers, Irarely spoke to a white writer, or a black one either, whom I didn't urge to visit Mr. Muhammad inperson in Chicago-"Get the truth from the Messenger in person"-and a number of them did go thereand meet and interview him.
Both white people and Negroes-even including Muslims-would make me uncomfortable, alwaysgiving me so much credit for the steady progress that the Nation of Islam was making. "All praise isdue 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 gainedwith the wings Mr. Muhammad had put on me-plus having the freedom that he granted me to takeliberties and do things on my own-and still have remained as faithful and as selfless a servant to himas I was.
I would say that it was in 1962 when I began to notice that less and less about me appeared in ourNation's _Muhammad Speaks_. I learned that Mr. Muhammad's son, Herbert, now the paper'spublisher, had instructed that as little as possible be printed about me. In fact, there was more in theMuslim paper about integrationist Negro "leaders" than there was about me. I could read more aboutmyself in the European, Asian, and African press.
I am not griping about publicity for myself. I already had received more publicity than many worldpersonages. But I resented the fact that the Muslims' own newspaper denied them news of importantthings being done in their behalf, simply because it happened that I had done the things. I wasconducting rallies, trying to propagate Mr. Muhammad's teachings, and because of jealousy andnarrow-mindedness finally I got no coverage at all-for by now an order had been given to completelyblack me out of the newspaper. For instance, I spoke to eight thousand students at the University ofCalifornia, 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, Imet only a chilly reaction. The same thing happened when, in Harlem, I staged a rally that drew seventhousand people. At that time, Chicago headquarters was even discouraging me from staging largerallies. But the next week, I held another Harlem rally that was even bigger and more successful thanthe 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 seemright and noble. I am telling the truth. I _loved_ the Nation, and Mr. Muhammad. I _lived for_ theNation, and for Mr. Muhammad.
It made other Muslim officials jealous because my picture was often in the daily press. They wouldn'tremember that my picture was there because of my fervor in championing Mr. Muhammad. Theywouldn't simply reason that as vulnerable as the Nation of Islam was to distorted rumors and outrightlies, 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 allover the country as his own spokesman. And whoever he appointed as his spokesman couldn't avoida 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 wastotally dedicated to representing him.
But during 1963,I couldn't help being very hypersensitive to my critics in high posts within ourNation. I quit selecting certain of my New York brothers and giving them money to go and laygroundwork 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 voiceto reach mass audiences, _Life_ magazine wanted to do a personal story of me, and I refused. I refusedagain when a cover story was offered by _Newsweek_. I refused again when I could have been a gueston the top-rated "Meet the Press" television program. Each refusal was a general loss for the blackman, and, for the Nation of Islam, each refusal was a specific loss-and each refusal was made becauseof Chicago's attitude. There was jealousy because I had been requested to make these featuredappearances.
When a high-powered-rifle slug tore through the back of the N.A.A.C.P. Field Secretary Medgar Eversin Mississippi, I wanted to say the blunt truths that needed to be said. When a bomb was exploded ina Negro Christian church in Birmingham, Alabama, snuffing out the lives of those four beautiful littleblack girls, I made comments-but not what should have been said about the climate of hate that theAmerican white man was generating and nourishing. The more hate was permitted to lash out whenthere were ways it could have been checked, the more bold the hate became-until at last it was flaringout at even the white man's own kind, including his own leaders. In Dallas, Texas, for instance, thethen Vice President and Mrs. Johnson were vulgarly insulted. And the U.S. Ambassador to the UnitedNations, 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-workingminister. He will follow me until he dies."He had never paid such a compliment to any Muslim. No praise from any other earthly person couldhave meant more to me.
But this would be Mr. Muhammad's and my last public appearance together.
Not long before, I had been on the Jerry Williams radio program in Boston, when someone handed mean item hot off the Associated Press machine. I read that a chapter of the Louisiana Citizens Councilhad just offered a $10,000 reward for my death.
But the threat of death was much closer to me than somewhere in Louisiana.
What I am telling you is the truth. When I discovered who else wanted me dead, I am telling you-itnearly sent me to Bellevue.
In my twelve years as a Muslim minister, I had always taught so strongly on the moral issues thatmany Muslims accused me of being "and-woman." The very keel of my teaching, and my most bone-deep personal belief, was that Elijah Muhammad in every aspect of his existence was a symbol ofmoral, mental, and spiritual reform among the American black people. For twelve years, I had taughtthat within the entire Nation of Islam; my own transformation was the best example I knew of Mr.
Muhammad's power to reform black men's lives. From the time I entered prison until I married, abouttwelve years later, because of Mr. Muhammad's influence upon me, I had never touched a woman.
But around 1963, if anyone had noticed, I spoke less and less of religion. I taught social doctrine toMuslims, and current events, and politics. I stayed wholly off the subject of morality.
And the reason for this was that my faith had been shaken in a way that I can never fully describe. ForI had discovered Muslims had been betrayed by Elijah Muhammad himself.
I want to make this as brief as I can, only enough so that my position and my reactions will beunderstood. As to whether or not I should reveal this, there's no longer any need for any question inmy mind-for now the public knows. To make it concise, I will quote from one wire service story as itappeared in newspapers, and was reported over radio and television, across the United States:
"Los Angeles, July 3 (UPI)-Elijah Muhammad, 67-year-old leader of the Black Muslim movement,today faced paternity suits from two former secretaries who charged he fathered their four children. . .
. Both women are in their twenties. . . .Miss Rosary and Miss Williams charged they had intimacieswith Elijah Muhammad from 1957 until this year. Miss Rosary alleged he fathered her two childrenand said she was expecting a third child by him . . . the other plaintiff said he was the father of herdaughter. . . ."As far back as 1955, I had heard hints. But believe me when I tell you this: for me even to considerbelieving anything as insane-sounding as any slightest implication of any immoral behavior of Mr.
Muhammad-why, the very idea made me shake with fear.
And so my mind simply refused to accept anything so grotesque as adultery mentioned in the samebreath with Mr. Muhammad's name.
_Adultery_! Why, any Muslim guilty of adultery was summarily ousted in disgrace. One of theNation's most closely kept scandals was that a succession of the personal secretaries of Mr.
Muhammad had become pregnant. They were brought before Muslim courts and charged withadultery and they confessed. Humiliated before the general body, they received sentences of from oneto five years of "isolation." That meant they were to have no contact whatsoever with any otherMuslims.
I don't think I could say anything which better testifies to my depth of faith in Mr. Muhammad thanthat I totally and absolutely rejected my own intelligence. I simply refused to believe.
I didn't want Allah to "burn my brain" as I felt the brain of my brother Reginald had been burned forharboring evil thoughts about Mr. Elijah Muhammad. The last time I had seen Reginald, one day hewalked into the Mosque Seven restaurant. I saw him coming in the door. I went and met him. I lookedinto my own brother's eyes; I told him he wasn't welcome among Muslims, and he turned around andleft, and I haven't seen him since. I did that to my own blood brother because, years before, Mr.
Muhammad had sentenced Reginald to "isolation" from all other Muslims-and I considered that I wasa Muslim before I was Reginald's brother.
No one in the world could have convinced me that Mr. Muhammad would betray the reverencebestowed upon him by all of the mosques full of poor, trusting Muslims nickeling and diming up tofaithfully support the Nation of Islam-when many of these faithful were scarcely able to pay their ownrents.
But by late 1962, I learned reliably that numerous Muslims were leaving Mosque Two in Chicago. Theugly rumor was spreading swiftly-even among non-Muslim Negroes. When I thought how the pressconstantly sought ways to discredit the Nation of Islam, I trembled to think of such a thing reachingthe ears of some newspaper reporter, either black or white.
I actually began to have nightmares . . . I saw _headlines_.
I was burdened with a leaden fear as I kept speaking engagements all over America. Any time areporter came anywhere near me, I could _hear_ him ask, "Is it true, Mr. Malcolm X, this report wehear, that . . ." And what was I going to say?
There was never any specific moment when I admitted the situation to myself. In the way that thehuman mind can do, somehow I slid over admitting to myself the ugly fact, even as I began dealingwith it.
Both in New York and Chicago, non-Muslims whom I knew began to tell me indirectly they hadheard-or they would ask me if I had heard. I would act as if I had no idea whatever of what they weretalking about-and I was grateful when they chose not to spell out what they knew. I went aroundknowing that I looked to them like a total fool. I felt like a total fool, out there every day preaching,and apparently not knowing what was going on right under my nose, in my own organization,involving the very man I was praising so. To look like a fool unearthed emotions I hadn't felt since myHarlem hustler days. The worst thing in the hustler's world was to be a dupe.
I will give you an example. Backstage at the Apollo Theater in Harlem one day, the comedian DickGregory looked at me. "Man," he said, "Muhammad's nothing but a . . ."-I can't say the word he used.
_Bam_! Just like that. My Muslim instincts said to attack Dick-but, instead, I felt weak and hollow. Ithink Dick sensed how upset I was and he let me get him off the subject. I knew Dick, a Chicagoan, was wise in the ways of the streets, and blunt-spoken. I wanted to plead with him not to say to anyoneelse what he had said to me-but I couldn't; it would have been my own admission.
I can't describe the torments I went through.
Always before, in any extremity, I had caught the first plane to Mr. Elijah Muhammad. He hadvirtually raised me from the dead. Everything I was that was creditable, he had made me. I felt that nomatter what, I could not let him down.
There was no one I could turn to with this problem, except Mr. Muhammad himself. Ultimately thathad to be the case. But first I went to Chicago to see Mr. Muhammad's second youngest son, WallaceMuhammad. I felt that Wallace was Mr. Muhammad's most strongly spiritual son, the son with themost objective outlook. Always, Wallace and I had shared an exceptional closeness and trust.
And Wallace knew, when he saw me, why I had come to see him. "I know," he said. I said I thoughtwe should rally to help his father. Wallace said he didn't feel that his father would welcome anyefforts to help him. I told myself that Wallace must be crazy.
Next, I broke the rule that no Muslim is supposed to have any contact with another Muslim in the"isolated" state. I looked up, and I talked with three of the former secretaries to Mr. Muhammad. Fromtheir own mouths, I heard their stories of who had fathered their children. And from their ownmouths I heard that Elijah Muhammad had told them I was the best, the greatest minister he ever had,but that someday I would leave him, turn against him-so I was "dangerous." I learned from theseformer secretaries of Mr. Muhammad that while he was praising me to my face, he was tearing meapart behind my back.
That deeply hurt me.
Every day, I was meeting the microphones, cameras, press reporters, and other commitments,including the Muslims of my own Mosque Seven. I felt almost out of my mind.
Finally, the thing crystallized for me. As long as I did nothing, I felt it was the same as being disloyal. Ifelt that as long as I sat down, I was not helping Mr. Muhammad-when somebody needed to bestanding up.
So one night I wrote to Mr. Muhammad about the poison being spread about him. He telephoned mein New York. He said that when he saw me he would discuss it.
I desperately wanted to find some way-some kind of a bridge-over which I was certain the Nation ofIslam could be saved from self-destruction. I had faith in the Nation: we weren't some group ofChristian Negroes, jumping and shouting and full of sins.
I thought of one bridge that could be used if and when the shattering disclosure should becomepublic. Loyal Muslims could be taught that a man's accomplishments in his life outweigh his personal,human weaknesses. Wallace Muhammad helped me to review the Quran and the Bible fordocumentation. David's adultery with Bathsheba weighed less on history's scales, for instance, thanthe positive fact of David's killing Goliath. Thinking of Lot, we think not of incest, but of his saving thepeople from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Or, our image of Noah isn't of his gettingdrunk-but of his building the ark and teaching people to save themselves from the flood. We think ofMoses leading the Hebrews from bondage, not of Moses' adultery with the Ethiopian women. In all ofthe cases I reviewed, the positive outweighed the negative.
I began teaching in New York Mosque Seven that a man's accomplishments in his life outweighed hispersonal, human weaknesses. I taught that a person's good deeds outweigh his bad deeds. I nevermentioned the previously familiar subjects of adultery and fornication, and I never mentionedimmoral evils.
By some miracle, the adultery talk which was so widespread in Chicago seemed to only leak a little inBoston, Detroit, and New York. Apparently, it hadn't reached other mosques around the country atall. In Chicago, increasing numbers of Muslims were leaving Mosque Two, I heard, and many non-Muslims who had been sympathetic to the Nation were now outspokenly anti-Muslim. In February1963,I officiated at the University of Islam graduation exercises; when I introduced various membersof the Muhammad family, I could feel the cold chill toward them from the Muslims in the audience.
Elijah Muhammad had me fly to Phoenix to see him in April, 1963.
We embraced, as always-and almost immediately he took me outside, where we began to walk by hisswimming pool.
He was The Messenger of Allah. When I was a foul, vicious convict, so evil that other convicts hadcalled me Satan, this man had rescued me. He was the man who had trained me, who had treated meas if I were his own flesh and blood. He was the man who had given me wings-to go places, to dothings I otherwise never would have dreamed of. We walked, with me caught up in a whirlwind ofemotions.
"Well, son," Mr. Muhammad said, "what is on your mind?"Plainly, frankly, pulling no punches, I told Mr. Muhammad what was being said. And withoutwaiting for any response from him, I said that with his son Wallace's help I had found in the Quranand the Bible that which might be taught to Muslims-if it became necessary-as the fulfillment ofprophecy.
"Son, I'm not surprised," Elijah Muhammad said. "You always have had such a good understanding ofprophecy, and of spiritual things. You recognize that's what all of this is-prophecy. You have the kindof understanding that only an old man has.
"I'm David," he said. "When you read about how David took another man's wife, I'm that David. Youread about Noah, who got drunk-that's me. You read about Lot, who went and laid up with his owndaughters. I have to fulfill all of those things." I remembered that when an epidemic is about to hit somewhere, that community's people areinoculated against exposure with some of the same germs that are anticipated-and this prepares themto resist the oncoming virus.
I decided I had better prepare six other East Coast Muslim officials whom I selected.
I told them. And then I told them why I had told them-that I felt they should not be caught by surpriseand shock if it became their job to teach the Muslims in their mosques the "fulfillment of prophecy." Ifound then that some had already heard it; one of them, Minister Louis X of Boston, as much as sevenmonths before. They had been living with the dilemma themselves.
I never dreamed that the Chicago Muslim officials were going to make it appear that I was throwinggasoline on the fire instead of water. I never dreamed that they were going to try to make it appearthat instead of inoculating against an epidemic, I had started it.
The stage in Chicago even then was being set for Muslims to shift their focus off the epidemic-andonto me.
Hating me was going to become the cause for people of shattered faith to rally around.
Non-Muslim Negroes who knew me well, and even some of the white reporters with whom I hadsome regular contact, were telling me, almost wherever I went, "Malcolm X, you're looking tired. Youneed a rest."They didn't know a fraction of it. Since I had been a Muslim, this was the first time any white peoplereally got to me in a personal way. I could tell that some of them were really honest and sincere. Oneof these, whose name I won't call-he might lose his job-said, "Malcolm X, the whites need your voiceworse than the Negroes." I remember so well his saying this because it prefaced the first time since Ibecame a Muslim that I had ever talked with any white man at any length about anything except theNation of Islam and the American black man's struggle today.
I can't remember how, or why, he somehow happened to mention the Dead Sea Scrolls. I came backwith something like, "Yes, those scrolls are going to take Jesus off the stained-glass windows and thefrescoes where he has been lily-white, and put Him back into the true mainstream of history whereJesus actually was non-white." The reporter was surprised, and I went on that the Dead Sea Scrollswere going to reaffirm that Jesus was a member of that brotherhood of Egyptian seers called the Essene-a fact already known from Philo, the famous Egyptian historian of Jesus' time. And thereporter and I got off on about two good hours of talking in the areas of archaeology, history, andreligion. It was so pleasant. I almost forgot the heavy worries on my mind-for that brief respite. Iremember we wound up agreeing that by the year 2000, every schoolchild will be taught the true colorof great men of antiquity.
I've said that I expected headlines momentarily. I hadn't expected the kind which came.
No one needs to be reminded of who got assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
Within hours after the assassination-I am telling nothing but the truth-every Muslim minister receivedfrom Mr. Elijah Muhammad a directive-in fact, _two_ directives. Every minister was ordered to makeno remarks at all concerning the assassination. Mr. Muhammad instructed that if pressed forcomment, we should say: "No comment."During that three-day period where there was no other news to be heard except relating to themurdered President, Mr. Muhammad had a previously scheduled speaking engagement in New Yorkat the Manhattan Center. He cancelled his coming to speak, and as we were unable to get back themoney already paid for the rental of the center, Mr. Muhammad told me to speak in his stead. And soI spoke.
Many times since then, I've looked at the speech notes I used that day, which had been prepared atleast a week before the assassination. The tide of my speech was "God's Judgment of White America."It was on the theme, familiar to me, of "as you sow, so shall you reap," or how the hypocriticalAmerican white man was reaping what he had sowed.
The question-and-answer period opened, I suppose inevitably, with someone asking me, "What doyou think about President Kennedy's assassination? What is your opinion?"Without a second thought, I said what I honestly felt-that it was, as I saw it, a case of "the chickenscoming home to roost." I said that the hate in white men had not stopped with the killing ofdefenseless black people, but that hate, allowed to spread unchecked, finally had struck down thiscountry's Chief of State. I said it was the same thing as had happened with Medgar Evers, with PatriceLumumba, with Madame Nhu's husband.
The headlines and the news broadcasts promptly had it: "_Black Muslims' Malcolm X: 'Chickens ComeHome to Roost._'"It makes me feel weary to think of it all now. All over America, all over the world, some of the world'smost important personages were saying in various ways, and in far stronger ways than I did, that America's climate of hate had been responsible for the President's death. But when Malcolm X said thesame thing, it was ominous.
My regular monthly visit to Mr. Muhammad was due the next day. Somehow, on the plane, I expectedsomething. I've always had this strong intuition.
Mr. Muhammad and I embraced each other in greeting. I sensed some ingredient missing from hisusual amiability. And I was suddenly tense-to me also very significant. For years, I had prided myselfthat Mr. Muhammad and I were so close that I knew how he felt by how I felt. If he was nervous, Iwas nervous. If I was relaxed, then I knew he was relaxed. Now, I felt the tension. . . .
First we talked of other things, sitting in his living room. Then he asked me, "Did you see the papersthis morning?"I said, "Yes, sir, I did.""That was a very bad statement," he said. "The country loved this man. The whole country is inmourning. That was very ill-timed. A statement like that can make it hard on Muslims in general."And then, as if Mr. Muhammad's voice came from afar, I heard his words: "I'll have to silence you forthe next ninety days-so that the Muslims everywhere can be disassociated from the blunder."I was numb.
But I was a follower of Mr. Muhammad. Many times I had said to my own assistants that anyone in aposition to discipline others must be able to take disciplining himself.
I told Mr. Muhammad, "Sir, I agree with you, and I submit, one hundred per cent."I flew back to New York psychologically preparing myself to tell my Mosque Seven assistants that Ihad been suspended-or "silenced."But to my astonishment, upon arrival I learned that my assistants already had been informed.
What astonished me even more-a telegram had been sent to every New York City newspaper andradio and television station. It was the most quick and thorough publicity job that I had ever seen theChicago officials initiate.
Every telephone where I could possibly be reached was ringing. London. Paris. A.P., U.P.I. Everytelevision and radio network, and all of the newspapers were calling. I told them all, "I disobeyed Mr.
Muhammad. I submit completely to his wisdom. Yes, I expect to be speaking again after ninety days.""_Malcolm X Silenced_!" It was headlines.
My first worry was that if a scandal broke for the Nation of Islam within the next ninety days, I wouldbe gagged when I could be the most experienced Muslim in dealing with the news media that wouldmake the most of any scandal within the Nation.
I learned next that my "silencing" was even more thorough than I had thought. I was not onlyforbidden to talk with the press, I was not even to teach in my own Mosque Seven.
Next, an announcement was made throughout the Nation of Islam that I would be reinstated withinninety days, "_if he submits_."This made me suspicious-for the first time. I had completely submitted. But, deliberately, Muslimswere being given the impression that I had rebelled.
I hadn't hustled in the streets for years for nothing. I knew when I was being set up.
Three days later, the first word came to me that a Mosque Seven official who had been one of my mostimmediate assistants was telling certain Mosque Seven brothers: "If you knew what the Minister did,you'd go out and kill him yourself."And then I knew. As any official in the Nation of Islam would instantly have known, any death-talkfor me could have been approved of-if not actually initiated-by only one man.
My head felt like it was bleeding inside. I felt like my brain was damaged. I went to see Dr. Leona A.
Turner, who has been my family doctor for years, who practices in East Elmhurst, Long Island. I askedher to give me a brain examination.
She did examine me. She said I was under great strain-and I needed rest.
Cassius Clay and I are not together today. But always I must be grateful to him that at just this time,when he was in Miami training to fight Sonny Liston, Cassius invited me, Betty, and the children tocome there as his guests-as a sixth wedding anniversary present to Betty and me.
I had met Cassius Clay in Detroit in 1962. He and his brother Rudolph came into the Student'sLuncheonette next door to the Detroit Mosque where Elijah Muhammad was about to speak at a bigrally. Every Muslim present was impressed by the bearing and the obvious genuineness of thestriking, handsome pair of prizefighter brothers. Cassius came up and pumped my hand, introducinghimself as he later presented himself to the world, "I'm Cassius Clay." He acted as if I was supposed toknow who he was. So I acted as though I did. Up to that moment, though, I had never even heard ofhim. Ours were two entirely different worlds. In fact, Elijah Muhammad instructed us Muslimsagainst all forms of sports.
As Elijah Muhammad spoke, the two Clay brothers practically led the applause, further impressingeveryone with their sincerity-since a Muslim rally was about the world's last place to seek fight fans.
Thereafter, now and then I heard how Cassius showed up in Muslim mosques and restaurants invarious cities. And if I happened to be speaking anywhere within reasonable distance of whereverCassius was, he would be present. I liked him. Some contagious quality about him made him one ofthe very few people I ever invited to my home. Betty liked him. Our children were crazy about him.
Cassius was simply a likeable, friendly, clean-cut, down-to-earth youngster. I noticed how alert he waseven in little details. I suspected that there was a plan in his public clowning. I suspected, and heconfirmed to me, that he was doing everything possible to con and "psyche" Sonny Liston into cominginto the ring angry, poorly trained, and overconfident, expecting another of his vaunted one-roundknockouts. Not only was Cassius receptive to advice, he solicited it. Primarily, I impressed upon himto what a great extent a public figure's success depends upon how alert and knowledgeable he is tothe true natures and to the true motives of all of the people who flock around him. I warned him aboutthe "foxes," his expression for the aggressive, cute young females who flocked after him; I told Cassiusthat instead of "foxes," they really were wolves.
This was Betty's first vacation since we had married. And our three girls romped and played with theheavyweight contender.
I don't know what I might have done if I had stayed in New York during that crucial time-besieged byinsistently ringing telephones, and by the press, and by all of the other people so anxious to gloat, tospeculate and to "commiserate."I was in a state of emotional shock. I was like someone who for twelve years had had an inseparable,beautiful marriage-and then suddenly one morning at breakfast the marriage partner had thrustacross the table some divorce papers.
I felt as though something in _nature_ had failed, like the sun, or the stars. It was that incredible aphenomenon to me-something too stupendous to conceive. I am not sparing myself. Around CassiusClay's fight camp, around the Hampton House Motel where my family was staying, I talked with myown wife, and with other people, and actually I was only mouthing words that really meant nothingto me. Whatever I was saying at any time was being handled by a small corner of my mind. The rest ofmy mind was filled with a parade of a thousand and one different scenes from the past twelve years . .
. scenes in the Muslim mosques . . . scenes with Mr. Muhammad . . . scenes with Mr. Muhammad'sfamily . . . scenes with Muslims, individually, as my audiences, and at our social gatherings . . . andscenes with the white man in audiences, and the press.
I walked, I talked, I functioned. At the Cassius Clay fight camp, I told the various sportswritersrepeatedly what I gradually had come to know within myself was a lie-that I would be reinstatedwithin ninety days. But I could not yet let myself psychologically face what I knew: that already theNation of Islam and I were physically divorced. Do you understand what I mean? A judge's signature on a piece of paper can grant to a couple a physical divorce-but for either of them, or maybe for bothof them, if they have been a very close marriage team, to actually become _psychologically_ divorcedfrom each other might take years.
But in the physical divorce, I could not evade the obvious strategy and plotting coming out of Chicagoto eliminate me from the Nation of Islam . . . if not from this world. And I felt that I perceived theanatomy of the plotting.
Any Muslim would have known that my "chickens coming home to roost" statement had been only anexcuse to put into action the plan for getting me out. And step one had been already taken: theMuslims were given the impression that I had rebelled against Mr. Muhammad. I could nowanticipate step two: I would remain "suspended" (and later I would be "isolated") indefinitely. Stepthree would be either to provoke some Muslim ignorant of the truth to take it upon himself to kill meas a "religious duty"-or to "isolate" me so that I would gradually disappear from the public scene.
The only person who knew was my wife. I never would have dreamed that I would ever depend somuch upon any woman for strength as I now leaned upon Betty. There was no exchange between us;Betty said nothing, being the caliber of wife that she is, with the depth of understanding that she has-but I could feel the envelopment of her comfort. I knew that she was as faithful a servant of Allah as Iwas, and I knew that whatever happened, she was with me.
The death talk was not my fear. Every second of my twelve years with Mr. Muhammad, I had beenready to lay down my life for him. The thing to me worse than death was the betrayal. I couldconceive death. I couldn't conceive betrayal-not of the loyalty which I had given to the Nation ofIslam, and to Mr. Muhammad. During the previous twelve years, if Mr. Muhammad had committedany civil crime punishable by death, I would have said and tried to prove that I did it-to save him-andI would have gone to the electric chair, as Mr. Muhammad's servant.
There as Cassius Clay's guest in Miami, I tried desperately to push my mind off my troubles and ontothe Nation's troubles. I still struggled to persuade myself that Mr. Muhammad had been fulfillingprophecy. Because I actually had believed that if Mr. Muhammad was not God, then he surely stoodnext to God.
What began to break my faith was that, try as I might, I couldn't hide, I couldn't evade, that Mr.
Muhammad, instead of facing what he had done before his followers, as a human weakness or asfulfillment of prophecy-which I sincerely believe that Muslims would have understood, or at leastthey would have accepted-Mr. Muhammad had, instead, been willing to hide, to cover up what hehad done.
That was my major blow.
That was how I first began to realize that I had believed in Mr. Muhammad more than he believed inhimself.
And that was how, after twelve years of never thinking for as much as five minutes about myself, Ibecame able finally to muster the nerve, and the strength, to start facing the facts, to think for myself.
Briefly I left Florida to return Betty and the children to our Long Island home. I learned that theChicago Muslim officials were further displeased with me because of the newspaper reports of me inthe Cassius Clay camp. They felt that Cassius hadn't a prayer of a chance to win. They felt the Nationwould be embarrassed through my linking the Muslim image with him. (I don't know if the championtoday cares to remember that most newspapers in America were represented at the pre-fight camp-except _Muhammad Speaks_. Even though Cassius was a Muslim brother, the Muslim newspaperdidn't consider his fight worth covering.)I flew back to Miami feeling that it was Allah's intent for me to help Cassius prove Islam's superioritybefore the world-through proving that mind can win over brawn. I don't have to remind you of howpeople everywhere scoffed at Cassius Clay's chances of beating Listen.
This time, I brought from New York with me some photographs of Floyd Patterson and Sonny Listenin their fight camps, with white priests as their "spiritual advisors." Cassius Clay, being a Muslim,didn't need to be told how white Christianity had dealt with the American black man. ' "This fight isthe truth," I told Cassius. "It's the Cross and the Crescent fighting in a prize ring-for the first time. It's amodern Crusades-a Christian and a Muslim facing each other with television to beam it off Telstar forthe whole world to see what happens!" I told Cassius, "Do you think Allah has brought about all thisintending for you to leave the ring as anything but the champion?" (You may remember that at theweighing-in, Cassius was yelling such things as "It is prophesied for me to be successful! I cannot bebeaten!")Sonny Liston's handlers and advisors had him fighting harder to "integrate" than he was training tomeet Cassius. Liston finally had managed to rent a big, fine house over in a rich, wall-to-wall whitesection. To give you an idea, the owner of the neighboring house was the New York Yankees baseballclub owner, Dan Topping. In the early evenings, when Cassius and I would sometimes walk wherethe black people lived, those Negroes' mouths would hang open in surprise that he was among theminstead of whites as most black champions preferred. Again and again, Cassius startled those Negroes,telling them, "You're my own kind. I get my strength from being around my own black people."What Sonny Listen was about to meet, in fact, was one of the most awesome frights that ever canconfront any person-one who worships Allah, and who is completely without fear.
Among over eight thousand other seat holders in Miami's big Convention Hall, I received SeatNumber Seven. Seven has always been my favorite number. It has followed me throughout my life. Itook this to be Allah's message confirming to me that Cassius Clay was going to win. Along withCassius, I really was more worried about how his brother Rudolph was going to do, fighting his firstpro fight in the preliminaries.
While Rudolph was winning a four-round decision over a Florida Negro named "Chip" Johnson,Cassius stood at the rear of the auditorium watching calmly, dressed in a black tuxedo. After all of hismonths of antics, after the weighing-in act that Cassius had put on, this calmness should have tippedoff some of the sportswriters who were predicting Clay's slaughter.
Then Cassius disappeared, dressing to meet Listen. As we had agreed, I joined him in a silent prayerfor Allah's blessings. Finally, he and Listen were in their corners in the ring. I folded my arms andtried to appear the coolest man in the place, because a television camera can show you looking like afool yelling at a prizefight.
Except for whatever chemical it was that got into Cassius' eyes and blinded him temporarily in thefourth and fifth rounds, the fight went according to his plan. He evaded Liston's powerful punches.
The third round automatically began the tiring of the aging Listen, who was overconfidently trainedto go only two rounds. Then, desperate, Listen lost. The secret of one of fight history's greatest upsetswas that months before that night, Clay had out-thought Listen.
There probably never has been as quiet a new-champion party. The boyish king of the ring came overto my motel. He ate ice cream, drank milk, talked with football star Jimmy Brown and other friends,and some reporters. Sleepy, Cassius took a quick nap on my bed, then he went back home.
We had breakfast together the next morning, just before the press conference when Cassius calmlymade the announcement which burst into international headlines that he was a "Black Muslim."But let me tell you something about that. Cassius never announced himself a member of any "BlackMuslims." The press reporters made that out of what he told them, which was this: "I believe in thereligion of Islam, which means I believe there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Apostle.
This is the same religion that is believed in by over seven hundred million dark-skinned peoplesthroughout Africa and Asia."Nothing in all of the furor which followed was more ridiculous than Floyd Patterson announcing thatas a Catholic, he wanted to fight Cassius Clay-to save the heavyweight crown from being held by aMuslim. It was such a sad case of a brainwashed black Christian ready to do battle for the white man-who wants no part of him. Not three weeks later, the newspapers reported that in Yonkers, New York,Patterson was offering to sell his $140,000 house for a $20,000 loss. He had "integrated" into aneighborhood of whites who had made his life miserable. None were friendly. Their children calledhis children "niggers." One neighbor trained his dog to deface Patterson's property. Another erected afence to hide the Negroes from sight. "I tried, it just didn't work," Patterson told the press.
The first direct order for my death was issued through a Mosque Seven official who previously hadbeen a close assistant. Another previously close assistant of mine was assigned to do the job. He was abrother with a knowledge of demolition; he was asked to wire my car to explode when I turned the ignition key. But this brother, it happened, had seen too much of my total loyalty to the Nation tocarry out his order. Instead, he came to me. I thanked him for my life. I told him what was really goingon in Chicago. He was stunned almost beyond belief.
This brother was close to others in the Mosque Seven circle who might subsequently be called upon toeliminate me. He said he would take it upon himself to enlighten each of them enough so that theywouldn't allow themselves to be used.
This first direct death-order was how, finally, I began to arrive at my psychological divorce from theNation of Islam.
I began to see, wherever I went-on the streets, in business places, on elevators, sidewalks, in passingcars-the faces of Muslims whom I knew, and I knew that any of them might be waiting theopportunity to try and put a bullet into me.
I was racking my brain. What was I going to do? My life was inseparably committed to the Americanblack man's struggle. I was generally regarded as a "leader." For years, I had attacked so many so-called "black leaders" for their shortcomings. Now, I had to honestly ask myself what I could offer,how I was genuinely qualified to help the black people win their struggle for human rights. I hadenough experience to know that in order to be a good organizer of anything which you expect tosucceed-including yourself-you must almost mathematically analyze cold facts.
I had, as one asset, I knew, an international image. No amount of money could have bought that. Iknew that if I said something newsworthy, people would read or hear of it, maybe even around theworld, depending upon what it was. More immediately, in New York City, where I would naturallybase any operation, I had a large, direct personal following of non-Muslims. This had been buildingup steadily ever since I had led Muslims in the dramatic protest to the police when our brother Hintonwas beaten up. Hundreds of Harlem Negroes had seen, and hundreds of thousands of them had laterheard how we had shown that almost anything could be accomplished by black men who would facethe white man without fear. All of Harlem had seen how from then on, the police gave Muslimsrespect. (This was during the time that the Deputy Chief Inspector at the 28th Precinct had said of me,"No one man should have that much power.")Over the ensuing years, I'd had various kinds of evidence that a high percentage of New York City'sblack people responded to what I said, including a great many who would not publicly say so. Forinstance, time and again when I spoke at street rallies, I would draw ten and twelve times as manypeople as most other so-called "Negro leaders." I knew that in any society, a true leader is one whoearns and deserves the following he enjoys. True followers are bestowed by themselves, out of theirown volition and emotions. I knew that the great lack of most of the big-named "Negro leaders" wastheir lack of any true rapport with the ghetto Negroes. How could they have rapport when they spentmost of their time "integrating" with white people? I knew that the ghetto people knew that I never leftthe ghetto in spirit, and I never left it physically any more than I had to. I had a ghetto instinct; forinstance, I could feel if tension was beyond normal in a ghetto audience. And I could speak and understand the ghetto's language. There was an example of this that always flew to my mind everytime I heard some of the "big name" Negro "leaders" declaring they "spoke for" the ghetto blackpeople.
After a Harlem street rally, one of these downtown "leaders" and I were talking when we wereapproached by a Harlem hustler. To my knowledge I'd never seen this hustler before; he said to me,approximately: "Hey, baby! I dig you holding this all-originals scene at the track . . . I'm going to lay avine under the Jew's balls for a dime-got to give you a play . . . Got the shorts out here trying to scuffleup on some bread . . . Well, my man, I'll get on, got to go peck a little, and cop me some z's-" And thehustler went on up Seventh Avenue.
I would never have given it another thought, except that this downtown "leader" was standing, staringafter that hustler, looking as if he'd just heard Sanskrit. He asked me what had been said, and I toldhim. The hustler had said he was aware that the Muslims were holding an all-black bazaar atRockland Palace, which is primarily a dancehall. The hustler intended to pawn a suit for ten dollars toattend and patronize the bazaar. He had very little money but he was trying hard to make some. Hewas going to eat, then he would get some sleep.
The point I am making is that, as a "leader," I could talk over the ABC, CBS, or NBC microphones, atHarvard or at Tuskegee; I could talk with the so-called "middle class" Negro and with the ghettoblacks (whom all the other leaders just talked _about_). And because I had been a hustler, I knewbetter than all whites knew, and better than nearly all of the black "leaders" knew, that actually themost dangerous black man in America was the ghetto hustler.
Why do I say this? The hustler, out there in the ghetto jungles, has less respect for the white powerstructure than any other Negro in North America. The ghetto hustler is internally restrained bynothing. He has no religion, no concept of morality, no civic responsibility, no fear-nothing. Tosurvive, he is out there constantly preying upon others, probing for any human weakness like a ferret.
The ghetto hustler is forever frustrated, restless, and anxious for some "action." Whatever heundertakes, he commits himself to it fully, absolutely.
What makes the ghetto hustler yet more dangerous is his "glamor" image to the school-dropout youthin the ghetto. These ghetto teen-agers see the hell caught by their parents struggling to get somewhere,or see that they have given up struggling in the prejudiced, intolerant white man's world. The ghettoteenagers make up their own minds they would rather be like the hustlers whom they see dressed"sharp" and flashing money and displaying no respect for anybody or anything. So the ghetto youthbecome attracted to the hustler worlds of dope, thievery, prostitution, and general crime andimmorality.
It scared me the first time I really saw the danger of these ghetto teen-agers if they are ever sparked toviolence. One sweltering summer afternoon, I attended a Harlem street rally which contained a lot ofthese teen-agers in the crowd. I had been invited by some "responsible" Negro leaders who normallynever spoke to me; I knew they had just used my name to help them draw a crowd. The more I thought about it on the way there, the hotter I got. And when I got on the stand, I just told that crowdin the street that I wasn't really wanted up there, that my name had been used-and I walked off thespeaker's stand.
Well, what did I want to do that for? Why, those young, teenage Negroes got upset, and startedmilling around and yelling, upsetting the older Negroes in the crowd. The first thing you know trafficwas blocked in four directions by a crowd whose mood quickly grew so ugly that I really gotapprehensive. I got up on top of a car and began waving my arms and yelling at them to quiet down.
They did quiet, and then I asked them to disperse-and they did.
This was when it began being said that I was America's only Negro who "could stop a race riot-or startone." I don't know if I could do either one. But I know one thing: it had taught me in a very fewminutes to have a whole lot of respect for the human combustion that is packed among the hustlersand their young admirers who live in the ghettoes where the Northern white man has sealed-off theNegro-away from whites-for a hundred years.
The "long hot summer" of 1964 in Harlem, in Rochester, and in other cities, has given an idea of whatcould happen-and that's all, only an idea. For all of those riots were kept contained within where theNegroes lived. You let any of these bitter, seething ghettoes all over America receive the right ignitingincident, and become really inflamed, and explode, and burst out of their boundaries into wherewhites live! In New York City, you let enraged blacks pour out of Harlem across Central Park and fandown the tunnels of Madison and Fifth and Lexington and Park Avenues. Or, take Chicago's SouthSide, an older, even worse slum-you let those Negroes swarm downtown. You let Washington, D.C.'sfestering blacks head down Pennsylvania Avenue. Detroit has already seen a peaceful massing ofmore than a _hundred thousand_ blacks-think about that. You name the city. Black social dynamite isin Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles . . . the black man's anger is there, fermenting.
I've strayed off onto some of the incidents and situations which have taught me to respect the dangerin the ghettoes. I had been trying to explain how I honestly evaluated my own qualifications to beworthy of presenting myself as an independent "leader" among black men.
In the end, I reasoned that the decision already had been made for me. The ghetto masses already hadentrusted me with an image of leadership among them. I knew the ghetto instinctively extends thattrust only to one who had demonstrated that he would never sell them out to the white man. I notonly had no such intention-to sell out was not even in my nature.
I felt a challenge to plan, and build, an organization that could help to cure the black man in NorthAmerica of the sickness which has kept him under the white man's heel.
The black man in North America was mentally sick in his cooperative, sheeplike acceptance of thewhite man's culture.
The black man in North America was spiritually sick because for centuries he had accepted the whiteman's Christianity-which asked the black so-called Christian to expect no true Brotherhood of Man,but to endure the cruelties of the white so-called Christians. Christianity had made black men fuzzy,nebulous, confused in their thinking. It had taught the black man to think if he had no shoes, and washungry, "we gonna get shoes and milk and honey and fish fries in Heaven."The black man in North America was economically sick and that was evident in one simple fact: as aconsumer, he got less than his share, and as a producer gave _least_. The black American today showsus the perfect parasite image-the black tick under the delusion that he is progressing because he rideson the udder of the fat, three-stomached cow that is white America. For instance, annually, the blackman spends over $3 billion for automobiles, but America contains hardly any franchised blackautomobile dealers. For instance, forty per cent of the expensive imported Scotch whisky consumed inAmerica goes down the throats of the status-sick black man; but the only black-owned distilleries arein bathtubs, or in the woods somewhere. Or for instance-a scandalous shame-in New York City, withover a million Negroes, there aren't twenty black-owned businesses employing over ten people. It'sbecause black men don't own and control their own community's retail establishments that they can'tstabilize their own community.
The black man in North America was sickest of all politically. He let the white man divide him intosuch foolishness as considering himself a black "Democrat," a black "Republican," a black"Conservative," or a black "Liberal" . . . when a ten-million black vote bloc could be the decidingbalance of power in American politics, because the white man's vote is almost always evenly divided.
The polls are one place where every black man could fight the black man's cause with dignity, andwith the power and the tools that the white man understands, and respects, and fears, and cooperateswith. Listen, let me tell you something! If a black bloc committee told Washington's worst "niggerhater," "We represent ten million votes," why, that "nigger-hater" would leap up: "Well, how _are_you? Come on _in_ here!" Why, if the Mississippi black man voted in a bloc, Eastland would pretendto be more liberal than Jacob Javits-or Eastland would not survive in his office. Why else is it thatracist politicians fight to keep black men from the polls?
Whenever any group can vote in a bloc, and decide the outcome of elections, and it _fails_ to do this,then that group is politically sick. Immigrants once made Tammany Hall the most powerful singleforce in American politics. In 1880, New York City's first Irish Catholic Mayor was elected and by 1960America had its first Irish Catholic President. America's black man, voting as a bloc, could wield aneven more powerful force.
U.S. politics is ruled by special-interest blocs and lobbies. What group has a more urgent specialinterest, what group needs a bloc, a lobby, more than the black man? Labor owns one of Washington'slargest non-government buildings-situated where they can literally watch the White House-and nopolitical move is made that doesn't involve how Labor feels about it. A lobby got Big Oil its depletionallowance. The farmer, through his lobby, is the most government-subsidized special-interest group in America today, because a million farmers vote, not as Democrats, or Republicans, liberals,conservatives, but as farmers.
Doctors have the best lobby in Washington. Their special-interest influence successfully fights theMedicare program that's wanted, and needed, by millions of other people. Why, there's a BeetGrowers' Lobby! A Wheat Lobby! A Cattle Lobby! A China Lobby! Little countries no one ever heardof have their Washington lobbies, representing their special interests.
The government has departments to deal with the special-interest groups that make themselves heardand felt. A Department of Agriculture cares for the fanners' needs. There is a Department of Health,Education and Welfare. There is a Department of the Interior-in which the Indians are included. Is thefarmer, the doctor, the Indian, the greatest problem in America today? No-it is the black man! Thereought to be a Pentagon-sized Washington department dealing with every segment of the black man'sproblems.
Twenty-two million black men! They have given America four hundred years of toil; they have bledand died in every battle since the Revolution; they were in America before the Pilgrims, and longbefore the mass immigrations-and they are still today at the bottom of everything!
Why, twenty-two million black people should tomorrow give a dollar apiece to build a skyscraperlobby building in Washington, D.C. Every morning, every legislator should receive a communicationabout what the black man in America expects and wants and needs. The demanding voice of the blacklobby should be in the ears of every legislator who votes on any issue.
The cornerstones of this country's operation are economic and political strength and power. The blackman doesn't have the economic strength-and it will take time for him to build it. But right now theAmerican black man has the political strength and power to change his destiny overnight.
It was a big order-the organization I was creating in my mind, one which would help to challenge theAmerican black man to gain his human rights, and to cure his mental, spiritual, economic, andpolitical sicknesses. But if you ever intend to do anything worthwhile, you have to start with aworthwhile p
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