Negroes-Afro-Americans-showed no inclination to rush to the United Nations anddemand justice for themselves here in America. I really had known in advance that they wouldn't. TheAmerican white man has so thoroughly brainwashed the black man to see himself as only a domestic"civil rights" problem that it will probably take longer than I live before the Negro sees that thestruggle of the American black man is international.
And I had known, too, that Negroes would not rush to follow me into the orthodox Islam which hadgiven me the insight and perspective to see that the black men and white men truly could be brothers.
America's Negroes-especially older Negroes-are too indelibly soaked in Christianity's double standardof oppression.
So, in the "public invited" meetings which I began holding each Sunday afternoon or evening inHarlem's well-known Audubon Ballroom, as I addressed predominantly non-Muslim Negroaudiences, I did not immediately attempt to press the Islamic religion, but instead to embrace all whosat before me:
"-not Muslim, nor Christian, Catholic, nor Protestant . . . Baptist nor Methodist, Democrat norRepublican, Mason nor Elk! I mean the black people of America-and the black people all over thisearth! Because it is as this collective mass of black people that we have been deprived not only of ourcivil rights, but even of our human rights, the right to human dignity. . . ."On the streets, after my speeches, in the faces and the voices of the people I met-even those whowould pump my hands and want my autograph-I would feel the wait-and-see attitude. I would feel-and I understood-their uncertainty about where I stood. Since the Civil War's "freedom," the blackman has gone down so many fruitless paths. His leaders, very largely, had failed him. The religion ofChristianity had failed him. The black man was scarred, he was cautious, he was apprehensive.
I understood it better now than I had before. In the Holy World, away from America's race problem,was the first time I ever had been able to think clearly about the basic divisions of white people inAmerica, and how their attitudes and their motives related to, and affected Negroes. In my thirty-nineyears on this earth, the Holy City of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the Creatorof All and felt like a complete human being.
In that peace of the Holy World-in fact, the very night I have mentioned when I lay awake surroundedby snoring brother pilgrims-my mind took me back to personal memories I would have thought weregone forever . . . as far back, even, as when I was just a little boy, eight or nine years old. Out behindour house, out in the country from Lansing, Michigan, there was an old, grassy "Hector's Hill," wecalled it-which may still be there. I remembered there in the Holy World how I used to lie on the topof Hector's Hill, and look up at the sky, at the clouds moving over me, and daydream, all kinds ofthings. And then, in a funny contrast of recollections, I remembered how years later, when I was inprison, I used to lie on my cell bunk-this would be especially when I was in solitary: what we convicts called "The Hole"-and I would picture myself talking to large crowds. I don't have any idea why suchprevisions came to me. But they did. To tell that to anyone then would have sounded crazy. Even Ididn't have, myself, the slightest inkling. . . .
In Mecca, too, I had played back for myself the twelve years I had spent with Elijah Muhammad as if itwere a motion picture. I guess it would be impossible for anyone ever to realize fully how completewas my belief in Elijah Muhammad. I believed in him not only as a leader in the ordinary _human_sense, but also I believed in him as a _divine_ leader. I believed he had no human weaknesses orfaults, and that, therefore, he could make no mistakes and that he could do no wrong. There on a HolyWorld hilltop, I realized how very dangerous it is for people to hold any human being in such esteem,especially to consider anyone some sort of "divinely guided" and "protected" person.
My thinking had been opened up wide in Mecca. In the long letters I wrote to friends, I tried to conveyto them my new insights into the American black man's struggle and his problems, as well as thedepths of my search for truth and justice.
"I've had enough of someone else's propaganda," I had written to these friends. "I'm for truth, nomatter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first andforemost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity _as a whole_."Largely, the American white man's press refused to convey that I was now attempting to teachNegroes a new direction. With the 1964 "long, hot summer" steadily producing new incidents, I wasconstantly accused of "stirring up Negroes." Every time I had another radio or television microphoneat my mouth, when I was asked about "stirring up Negroes" or "inciting violence," I'd get hot.
"It takes no one to stir up the sociological dynamite that stems from the unemployment, bad housing,and inferior education already in the ghettoes. This explosively criminal condition has existed for solong, it needs no fuse; it fuses itself; it spontaneously combusts from within itself. . . ."They called me "the angriest Negro in America." I wouldn't deny that charge. I spoke exactly as I felt.
"I _believe_ in anger. The Bible says there is a _time_ for anger." They called me "a teacher, a fomenterof violence." I would say point blank,' That is a lie. I'm not for wanton violence, I'm for justice. I feelthat if white people were attacked by Negroes-if the forces of law prove unable, or inadequate, orreluctant to protect those whites from those Negroes-then those white people should protect anddefend themselves from those Negroes, using arms if necessary. And I feel that when the law fails toprotect Negroes from whites' attack, then those Negroes should use arms, if necessary, to defendthemselves.""Malcolm X Advocates Armed Negroes!"What was wrong with that? I'll tell you what was wrong. I was a black man talking about physicaldefense against the white man. The white man can lynch and burn and bomb and beat Negroes-that's all right: "Have patience" . . ."The customs are entrenched" . . ."Things are gettingbetter."Well, I believe it's a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutalitywithout doing something to defend himself. If that's how "Christian" philosophy is interpreted, ifthat's what Gandhian philosophy teaches, well, then, I will call them criminal philosophies.
I tried in every speech I made to clarify my new position regarding white people-"I don't speak againstthe sincere, well-meaning, good white people. I have learned that there _are_ some. I have learned thatnot all white people are racists. I am speaking against and my fight is against the white _racists_. Ifirmly believe that Negroes have the right to fight against these racists, by any means that arenecessary."But the white reporters kept wanting me linked with that word "violence." I doubt if I had oneinterview without having to deal with that accusation.
"I _am_ for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American blackman's problem-just to _avoid_ violence. I don't go for non-violence if it also means a delayed solution.
To me a delayed solution is a non-solution. Or I'll say it another way. If it must take violence to get theblack man his human rights in this country, I'm _for_ violence exactly as you know the Irish, the Poles,or Jews would be if they were flagrantly discriminated against. I am just as they would be in that case,and they would be for violence-no matter what the consequences, no matter who was hurt by theviolence."White society _hates_ to hear anybody, especially a black man, talk about the crime the white man hasperpetrated on the black man. I have always understood that's why I have been so frequently called "arevolutionist." It sounds as if _I_ have done some crime! Well, it may be the American black man doesneed to become involved in a _real_ revolution. The word for "revolution" in German is_Umwalzung_. What it means is a complete overturn-a complete change. The overthrow of KingFarouk in Egypt and the succession of President Nasser is an example of a true revolution. It meansthe destroying of an old system, and its replacement with a new system. Another example is theAlgerian revolution, led by Ben Bella; they threw out the French who had been there over 100 years.
So how does anybody sound talking about the Negro in America waging some "revolution"? Yes, he iscondemning a system-but he's not trying to overturn the system, or to destroy it. The Negro's so-called"revolt" is merely an asking to be _accepted_ into the existing system! A _true_ Negro revolt mightentail, for instance, fighting for separate black states within this country-which several groups andindividuals have advocated, long before Elijah Muhammad came along.
When the white man came into this country, he certainly wasn't demonstrating any "non-violence." Infact, the very man whose name symbolizes non-violence here today has stated:
"Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, theIndian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, bloodflowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter ofnational policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experienceinto a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorsefor this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our childrenare still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into afew fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.""Peaceful coexistence!" That's another one the white man has always been quick to cry. Fine! But whathave been the deeds of the white man? During his entire advance through history, he has been wavingthe banner of Christianity . . . and carrying in his other hand the sword and the flintlock.
You can go right back to the very beginning of Christianity. Catholicism, the genesis of Christianity aswe know it to be presently constituted, with its hierarchy, was conceived in Africa-by those whom theChristian church calls "The Desert Fathers." The Christian church became infected with racism when itentered white Europe. The Christian church returned to Africa under the banner of the Cross-conquering, killing, exploiting, pillaging, raping, bullying, beating-and teaching white supremacy.
This is how the white man thrust himself into the position of leadership of the world-through the useof naked physical power. And he was totally inadequate spiritually. Mankind's history has provedfrom one era to another that the true criterion of leadership is spiritual. Men are attracted by spirit. Bypower, men are _forced_. Love is engendered by spirit. By power, anxieties are created.
I am in agreement one hundred per cent with those racists who say that no government laws ever cam_force_ brotherhood. The only true world solution today is governments guided by true religion-of thespirit. Here in race-torn America, I am convinced that the Islam religion is desperately needed,particularly by the American black man. The black man needs to reflect that he has been America'smost fervent Christian-and where has it gotten him? In fact, in the white man's hands, in the whiteman's interpretation . . . where has Christianity brought this _world_?
It has brought the non-white two-thirds of the human population to rebellion. Two-thirds of thehuman population today is telling the one-third minority white man, "Get out!" And the white man isleaving. And as he leaves, we see the non-white peoples returning in a rush to their original religions,which had been labeled "pagan" by the conquering white man. Only one religion-Islam-had the powerto stand and fight the white man's Christianity for a _thousand years_! Only Islam could keep whiteChristianity at bay.
The Africans are returning to Islam and other indigenous religions. The Asians are returning to beingHindus, Buddhists and Muslims.
As the Christian Crusade once went East, now the Islamic Crusade is going West. With the East-Asiaclosed to Christianity, with Africa rapidly being converted to Islam, with Europe rapidly becomingun-Christian, generally today it is accepted that the "Christian" civilization of America-which ispropping up the white race around the world-is Christianity's remaining strongest bastion.
Well, if _this_ is so-if the so-called "Christianity" now being practiced in America displays the best thatworld Christianity has left to offer-no one in his right mind should need any much greater proof thatvery close at hand is the _end_ of Christianity.
Are you aware that some Protestant theologians, in their writings, are using the phrase "post-Christianera"-and they mean _now_?
And what is the greatest single reason for this Christian church's failure? It is its failure to combatracism. It is the old "You sow, you reap" story. The Christian church sowed racism-blasphemously;now it reaps racism.
Sunday mornings in this year of grace 1965, imagine the "Christian conscience" of congregationsguarded by deacons barring the door to black would-be worshipers, telling them "You can't enter_this_ House of God!"Tell me, if you can, a sadder irony than that St. Augustine, Florida-a city named for the black Africansaint who saved Catholicism from heresy-was recently the scene of bloody race riots.
I believe that God now is giving the world's so-called "Christian" white society its last opportunity torepent and atone for the crimes of exploiting and enslaving the world's non-white peoples. It is exactlyas when God gave Pharaoh a chance to repent. But Pharaoh persisted in his refusal to give justice tothose whom he oppressed. And, we know, God finally destroyed Pharaoh.
Is white America really sorry for her crimes against the black people? Does white America have thecapacity to repent-and to atone? Does the capacity to repent, to atone, exist in a majority, in one-half,in even one-third of American white society?
Many black men, the victims-hi fact most black men-would like to be able to forgive, to forget, thecrimes.
But most American white people seem not to have it in them to make any serious atonement-to dojustice to the black man.
Indeed, how _can_ white society atone for enslaving, for raping, for unmanning, for otherwisebrutalizing _millions_ of human beings, for centuries? What atonement would the God of Justicedemand for the robbery of the black people's labor, their lives, their true identities, their culture, theirhistory-and even their human dignity?
A desegregated cup of coffee, a theater, public toilets-the whole range of hypocritical "integration"these are not atonement.
After a while in America, I returned abroad-and this time, I spent eighteen weeks in the Middle East and Africa.
The world leaders with whom I had private audiences this time included President Gamal AbdelNasser, of Egypt; President Julius K. Nyerere, of Tanzania; President Nnamoi Aziki-we, of Nigeria;Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, of Ghana; President Sekou Toure, of Guinea; President JomoKenyatta, of Kenya; and Prime Minister Dr. Milton Obote, of Uganda.
I also met with religious leaders-African, Arab, Asian, Muslim, and non-Muslim. And in all of thesecountries, I talked with Afro-Americans and whites of many professions and backgrounds.
An American white ambassador in one African country was Africa's most respected Americanambassador: I'm glad to say that this was told to me by one ranking African leader. We talked for anentire afternoon. Based on what I had heard of him, I had to believe him when he told me that as longas he was on the African continent, he never thought in terms of race, that he dealt with humanbeings, never noticing their color. He said he was more aware of language differences than of colordifferences. He said that only when he returned to America would he become aware of colordifferences.
I told him, "What you are telling me is that it isn't the American white _man_ who is a racist, but it'sthe American political, economic, and social _atmosphere_ that automatically nourishes a racistpsychology in the white man." He agreed.
We both agreed that American society makes it next to impossible for humans to meet in America andnot be conscious of their color differences. And we both agreed that if racism could be removed,America could offer a society where rich and poor could truly live like human beings.
That discussion with the ambassador gave me a new insight-one which I like: that the white man is_not_ inherently evil, but America's racist society influences him to act evilly. The society hasproduced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings.
I had a totally different kind of talk with another white man I met in Africa-who, to me, personifiedexactly what the ambassador and I had discussed. Throughout my trip, I was of course aware that Iwas under constant surveillance. The agent was a particularly obvious and obnoxious one; I am notsure for what agency, as he never identified it, or I would say it. Anyway, this one finally got undermy skin when I found I couldn't seem to eat a meal in the hotel without seeing him somewherearound watching me. You would have thought I was John Dil-linger or somebody.
I just got up from my breakfast one morning and walked over to where he was and I told him I knewhe was following me, and if he wanted to know anything, why didn't he ask me. He started to give meone of those too-lofty-to-descend-to-you attitudes. I told him then right to his face he was a fool, thathe didn't know me, or what I stood for, so that made him one of those people who let somebody elsedo their thinking; and that no matter what job a man had, at least he ought to be able to think forhimself. That stung him; he let me have it.
I was, to hear him tell it, anti-American, un-American, seditious, subversive, and probablyCommunist. I told him that what he said only proved how little he understood about me. I told himthat the only thing the F.B.I. the C.I.A., or anybody else could ever find me guilty of, was being open-minded. I said I was seeking for the truth, and I was trying to weigh-objectively-everything on its ownmerit. I said what I was against was strait-jacketed thinking, and strait-jacketed societies. I said Irespected every man's right to believe whatever his intelligence tells him is intellectually sound, and Iexpect everyone else to respect my right to believe likewise.
This super-sleuth then got off on my "Black Muslim" religious beliefs. I asked him hadn't hisheadquarters bothered to brief him-that my attitudes and beliefs were changed? I told him that theIslam I believed in now was the Islam which was taught in Mecca-that there was no God but Allah,and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah who lived in the Holy City of Mecca fourteen hundred years agowas the Last Messenger of Allah.
Almost from the first I had been guessing about something; and I took a chance-and I really shook upthat "super-sleuth." From the consistent subjectivity in just about everything he asked and said, I haddeduced something, and I told him, "You know, I think you're a Jew with an Anglicized name." Hisinvoluntary expression told me I'd hit the button. He asked me how I knew. I told him I'd had somuch experience with how Jews would attack me that I usually could identify them. I told him all Iheld against the Jew was that so many Jews actually were hypocrites in their claim to be friends of theAmerican black man, and it burned me up to be so often called "anti-Semitic" when I spoke things Iknew to be the absolute truth about Jews. I told him that, yes, I gave the Jew credit for being among allother whites the most active, and the most vocal, financier, "leader" and "liberal" in the Negro civilrights movement. But I said at the same time I knew that the Jew played these roles for a very carefulstrategic reason: the more prejudice in America could be focused upon the Negro, then the more thewhite Gentiles' prejudice would keep diverted off the Jew. I said that to me, one proof that all the civilrights posturing of so many Jews wasn't sincere was that so often in the North the quickestsegregationists were Jews themselves. Look at practically everything the black man is trying to"integrate" into for instance; if Jews are not the actual owners, or are not in controlling positions, thenthey have major stockholdings or they are otherwise in powerful leverage positions-and do they reallysincerely exert these influences? No!
And an even clearer proof for me of how Jews truly regard Negroes, I said, was what invariablyhappened wherever a Negro moved into any white residential neighborhood that was thickly Jewish.
Who would always lead the whites' exodus? The Jews! Generally in these situations, some whites stayput-you just notice who they are: they're Irish Catholics, they're Italians; they're rarely ever any Jews.
And, ironically, the Jews themselves often still have trouble being "accepted."Saying this, I know I'll hear "anti-Semitic" from every direction again. Oh, yes! But truth is truth.
Politics dominated the American scene while I was traveling abroad this time. In Cairo and again inAccra, the American press wire services reached me with trans-Atlantic calls, asking whom did I favor, Johnson-or Goldwater?
I said I felt that as far as the American black man was concerned they were both just about the same. Ifelt that it was for the black man only a question of Johnson, the fox, or Goldwater, the wolf.
"Conservatism" in America's politics means "Let's keep the niggers in their place." And "liberalism"means "Let's keep the _knee_-grows in their place-but tell them we'll treat them a little better; let's foolthem more, with more promises." With these choices, I felt that the American black man only neededto choose which one to be eaten by, the "liberal" fox or the "conservative" wolf-because both of themwould eat him.
I didn't go for Goldwater any more than for Johnson-except that in a wolf's den, I'd always knownexactly where I stood; I'd watch the dangerous wolf closer than I would the smooth, sly fox. The wolf'svery growling would keep me alert and fighting him to survive, whereas I _might_ be lulled andfooled by the tricky fox. I'll give you an illustration of the fox. When the assassination in Dallas madeJohnson President, who was the first person he called for? It was for his best friend, "Dicky"-RichardRussell of Georgia. Civil rights was "a moral issue," Johnson was declaring to everybody-while his bestfriend was the Southern racist who _led_ the civil rights opposition. How would some sheriff sound,declaring himself so against bank robbery-and Jesse James his best friend?
Goldwater as a man, I respected for speaking out his true convictions-something rarely done inpolitics today. He wasn't whispering to racists and smiling at integrationists. I felt Gold-waterwouldn't have risked his unpopular stand without conviction. He flatly told black men he wasn't forthem-and there is this to consider: always, the black people have advanced further when they haveseen they had to rise up against a system that they clearly saw was outright against them. Under thesteady lullabies sung by foxy liberals, the Northern Negro became a beggar. But the Southern Negro,facing the honestly snarling white man, rose up to battle that white man for his freedom-long before ithappened in the North.
Anyway, I didn't feel that Goldwater was any better for black men than Johnson, or vice-versa. Iwasn't in the United States at election time, but if I had been, I wouldn't have put myself in theposition of voting for either candidate for the Presidency, or of recommending to any black man to doso. It has turned out that it's Johnson in the White House-and black votes were a major factor in hiswinning as decisively as he wanted to. If it had been Goldwater, all I am saying is that the blackpeople would at least have known they were dealing with an honestly growling wolf, rather than a foxwho could have them half-digested before they even knew what was happening.
I kept having all kinds of troubles trying to develop the kind of Black Nationalist organization Iwanted to build for the American Negro. Why Black Nationalism? Well, in the competitive Americansociety, how can there ever be any white-black solidarity before there is first some black solidarity? Ifyou will remember, in my childhood I had been exposed to the Black Nationalist teachings of MarcusGarvey-which, in fact, I had been told had led to my father's murder. Even when I was a follower of Elijah Muhammad, I had been strongly aware of how the Black Nationalist political, economic andsocial philosophies had the ability to instill within black men the racial dignity, the incentive, and theconfidence that the black race needs today to get up off its knees, and to get on its feet, and get rid ofits scars, and to take a stand for itself.
One of the major troubles that I was having in building the organization that I wanted-an all-blackorganization whose ultimate objective was to help create a society in which there could exist honestwhite-black brotherhood-was that my earlier public image, my old so-called "Black Muslim" image,kept blocking me. I was trying to gradually reshape that image. I was trying to turn a corner, into anew regard by the public, especially Negroes; I was no less angry than I had been, but at the sametime the true brotherhood I had seen in the Holy World had influenced me to recognize that anger canblind human vision.
Every free moment I could find, I did a lot of talking to key people whom I knew around Harlem, andI made a lot of speeches, saying: "True Islam taught me that it takes _all_ of the religious, political,economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and theHuman Society complete.
"Since I learned the _truth_ in Mecca, my dearest friends have come to include _all_ kinds-someChristians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, and even atheists! I have friends who are calledcapitalists, Socialists, and Communists! Some of my friends are moderates, conservatives, extremists-some are even Uncle Toms! My friends today are black, brown, red, yellow, and _white_!"I said to Harlem street audiences that only when mankind would submit to the One God who createdall-only then would mankind even approach the "peace" of which so much _talk_ could be heard . . .
but toward which so little _action_ was seen.
I said that on the American racial level, we had to approach the black man's struggle against the whiteman's racism as a human problem, that we had to forget hypocritical politics and propaganda. I saidthat both races, as human beings, had the obligation, the responsibility, of helping to correct America'shuman problem. The well-meaning white people, I said, had to combat, actively and directly, theracism in other white people. And the black people had to build within themselves much greaterawareness that along with equal rights there had to be the bearing of equal responsibilities.
I knew, better than most Negroes, how many white people truly wanted to see American racialproblems solved. I knew that many whites were as frustrated as Negroes. I'll bet I got fifty letters somedays from white people. The white people in meeting audiences would throng around me, asking me,after I had addressed them somewhere, "What _can_ a sincere white person do?"When I say that here now, it makes me think about that little co-ed I told you about, the one who flewfrom her New England college down to New York and came up to me in the Nation of Islam'srestaurant in Harlem, and I told her that there was "nothing" she could do. I regret that I told her that.
I wish that now I knew her name, or where I could telephone her, or write to her, and tell her what I tell white people now when they present themselves as being sincere, and ask me, one way or another,the same thing that she asked.
The first thing I tell them is that at least where my own particular Black Nationalist organization, theOrganization of Afro-American Unity, is concerned, they can't _join_ us. I have these very deepfeelings that white people who want to join black organizations are really just taking the escapist wayto salve their consciences. By visibly hovering near us, they are "proving" that they are "with us." Butthe hard truth is this _isn't_ helping to solve America's racist problem. The Negroes aren't the racists.
Where the really sincere white people have got to do their "proving" of themselves is not among theblack _victims_, but out on the battle lines of where America's racism really _is_-and that's in theirown home communities; America's racism is among their own fellow whites. That's where the sincerewhites who really mean to accomplish something have got to work.
Aside from that, I mean nothing against any sincere whites when I say that as members of blackorganizations, generally whites' very presence subtly renders the black organization automatically lesseffective. Even the best white members will slow down the Negroes' discovery of what they need todo, and particularly of what they can do-for themselves, working by themselves, among their ownkind, in their own communities.
I sure don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but in fact I'll even go so far as to say that I never reallytrust the kind of white people who are always so anxious to hang around Negroes, or to hang aroundin Negro communities. I don't trust the kind of whites who love having Negroes always hangingaround them. I don't know-this feeling may be a throwback to the years when I was hustling inHarlem and all of those red-faced, drunk whites in the afterhours clubs were always grabbing hold ofsome Negroes and talking about "I just want you to know you're just as good as I am-" And then theygot back in their taxicabs and black limousines and went back downtown to the places where theylived and worked, where no blacks except servants had better get caught. But, anyway, I know thatevery time that whites join a black organization, you watch, pretty soon the blacks will be leaning onthe whites to support it, and before you know it a black may be up front with a title, but the whites,because of their money, are the real controllers.
I tell sincere white people, "Work in conjunction with us-each of us working among our own kind."Let sincere white individuals find all other white people they can who feel as they do-and let themform their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking andacting so racist. Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people!
We will completely respect our white co-workers. They will deserve every credit. We will give themevery credit. We will meanwhile be working among our own kind, in our own black communities-showing and teaching black men in ways that only other black men can-that the black man has got tohelp himself. Working separately, the sincere white people and sincere black people actually will beworking together.
In our mutual sincerity we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America's very soul. It can only be salvaged if human rights and dignity, in full, are extended to black men. Only such real,meaningful actions as those which are sincerely motivated from a deep sense of humanism and moralresponsibility can get at the basic causes that produce the racial explosions in America today.
Otherwise, the racial explosions are only going to grow worse. Certainly nothing is ever going to besolved by throwing upon me and other so-called black "extremists" and "demagogues" the blame forthe racism that is in America.
Sometimes, I have dared to dream to, myself that one day, history may even say that my voice-whichdisturbed the white man's smugness, and his arrogance, and his complacency-that my voice helped tosave America from a grave, possibly even a fatal catastrophe.
The goal has always been the same, with the approaches to it as different as mine and Dr. MartinLuther King's non-violent marching, that dramatizes the brutality and the evil of the white managainst defenseless blacks. And in the racial climate of this country today, it is anybody's guess whichof the "extremes" in approach to the black man's problems might _personally_ meet a fatal catastrophefirst-"non-violent" Dr. King, or so-called "violent" me.
Anything I do today, I regard as urgent. No man is given but so much time to accomplish whatever ishis life's work. My life in particular never has stayed fixed in one position for very long. You have seenhow throughout my life, I have often known unexpected drastic changes.
I am only facing the facts when I know that any moment of any day, or any night, could bring medeath. This is particularly true since the last trip that I made abroad. I have seen the nature of thingsthat are happening, and I have heard things from sources which are reliable.
To speculate about dying doesn't disturb me as it might some people. I never have felt that I wouldlive to become an old man. Even before I was a Muslim-when I was a hustler in the ghetto jungle, andthen a criminal in prison, it always stayed on my mind that I would die a violent death. In fact, it runsin my family. My father and most of his brothers died by violence-my father because of what hebelieved in. To come right down to it, if I take the kind of things in which I believe, then add to thatthe kind of temperament that I have, plus the one hundred per cent dedication I have to whatever Ibelieve in-these are ingredients which make it just about impossible for me to die of old age.
I have given to this book so much of whatever time I have because I feel, and I hope, that if I honestlyand fully tell my life's account, read objectively it might prove to be a testimony of some social value.
I think that an objective reader may see how in the society to which I was exposed as a black youthhere in America, for me to wind up in a prison was really just about inevitable. It happens to so manythousands of black youth.
I think that an objective reader may see how when I heard "The white man is the devil," when I playedback what had been my own experiences, it was inevitable that I would respond positively; then thenext twelve years of my life were devoted and dedicated to propagating that phrase among the blackpeople.
I think, I hope, that the objective reader, in following my life-the life of only one ghetto-created Negro-may gain a better picture and understanding than he has previously had of the black ghettoes whichare shaping the lives and the thinking of almost all of the 22 million Negroes who live in America.
Thicker each year in these ghettoes is the kind of teen-ager that I was-with the wrong kinds of heroes,and the wrong kinds of influences. I am not saying that all of them become the kind of parasite that Iwas. Fortunately, by far most do not. But still, the small fraction who do add up to an annual total ofmore and more costly, dangerous youthful criminals. The F.B.I. not long ago released a report of ashocking rise in crime each successive year since the end of World War II-ten to twelve per cent eachyear. The report did not say so in so many words, but I am saying that the majority of that crimeincrease is annually spawned in the black ghettoes which the American racist society permits to exist.
In the 1964 "long, hot summer" riots in major cities across the United States, the socially disinheritedblack ghetto youth were always at the forefront.
In this year, 1965, I am certain that more-and worse-riots are going to erupt, in yet more cities, in spiteof the conscience-salving Civil Rights Bill. The reason is that the _cause_ of these riots, the racistmalignancy in America, has been too long unattended.
I believe that it would be almost impossible to find anywhere in America a black man who has livedfurther down in the mud of human society than I have; or a black man who has been any moreignorant than I have been; or a black man who has suffered more anguish during his life than I have.
But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery andprison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.
For the freedom of my 22 million black brothers and sisters here in America, I do believe that I havefought the best that I knew how, and the best that I could, with the shortcomings that I have had. Iknow that my shortcomings are many.
My greatest lack has been, I believe, that I don't have the kind of academic education I wish I had beenable to get-to have been a lawyer, perhaps. I do believe that I might have made a good lawyer. I havealways loved verbal battle, and challenge. You can believe me that if I had the time right now, I wouldnot be one bit ashamed to go back into any New York City public school and start where I left off atthe ninth grade, and go on through a degree. Because I don't begin to be academically equipped for somany of the interests that I have. For instance, I love languages. I wish I were an accomplishedlinguist. I don't know anything more frustrating than to be around people talking something you can'tunderstand. Especially when they are people who look just like you. In Africa, I heard original mothertongues, such as Hausa, and Swahili, being spoken, and there I was standing like some little boy, waiting for someone to tell me what had been said; I never will forget how ignorant I felt.
Aside from the basic African dialects, I would try to learn Chinese, because it looks as if Chinese willbe the most powerful political language of the future. And already I have begun studying Arabic,which I think is going to be the most powerful spiritual language of the future.
I would just like to _study_. I mean ranging study, because I have a wide-open mind. I'm interested inalmost any subject you can mention. I know this is the reason I have come to really like, as individuals,some of the hosts of radio or television panel programs I have been on, and to respect their minds-because even if they have been almost steadily in disagreement with me on the race issue, they stillhave kept their minds open and objective about the truths of things happening in this world. IrvKupcinet in Chicago, and Barry Farber, Barry Gray and Mike Wallace hi New York-people like them.
They also let me see that they respected my mind-in a way I know they never realized. The way Iknew was that often they would invite my opinion on subjects off the race issue. Sometimes, after theprograms, we would sit around and talk about all kinds of things, current events and other things, foran hour or more. You see, most whites, even when they credit a Negro with some intelligence, willstill feel that all he can talk about is the race issue; most whites never feel that Negroes can contributeanything to other areas of thought, and ideas. You just notice how rarely you will ever hear whitesasking any Negroes what they think about the problem of world health, or the space race to land menon the moon.
Every morning when I wake up, now, I regard it as having another borrowed day. In any city,wherever I go, making speeches, holding meetings of my organization, or attending to other business,black men are watching every move I make, awaiting their chance to kill me. I have said publiclymany times that I know that they have their orders. Anyone who chooses not to believe what I amsaying doesn't know the Muslims in the Nation of Islam.
But I am also blessed with faithful followers who are, I believe, as dedicated to me as I once was to Mr.
Elijah Muhammad. Those who would hunt a man need to remember that a jungle also contains thosewho hunt the hunters.
I know, too, that I could suddenly die at the hands of some white racists. Or I could die at the hands ofsome Negro hired by the white man. Or it could be some brainwashed Negro acting on his own ideathat by eliminating me he would be helping out the white man, because I talk about the white man theway I do.
Anyway, now, each day I live as if I am already dead, and I tell you what I would like for you to do.
When I _am_ dead-I say it that way because from the things I _know_, I do not expect to live longenough to read this book in its finished form-I want you to just watch and see if I'm not right in what Isay: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with "hate." He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol of "hatred"-andthat will help him to escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect,to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race.
You watch. I will be labeled as, at best, an "irresponsible" black man. I have always felt about thisaccusation that the black "leader" whom white men consider to be "responsible" is invariably the black"leader" who never gets any results. You only get action as a black man if you are regarded by thewhite man as "irresponsible." In fact, this much I had learned when I was just a little boy. And since Ihave been some kind of a "leader" of black people here in the racist society of America, I have beenmore reassured each time the white man resisted me, or attacked me harder-because each time mademe more certain that I was on the right track in the American black man's best interests. The racistwhite man's opposition automatically made me know that I did offer the black man somethingworthwhile.
Yes, I have cherished my "demagogue" role. I know that societies often have killed the people whohave helped to change those societies. And if I can die having brought any light, having exposed anymeaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America-then, all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.
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