During nineteen fifty-nine, when the public was becoming aware of the Muslims after the New Yorktelecast "The Hate That Hate Produced," I was in San Francisco, about to retire after twenty years inthe U.S. Coast Guard. A friend returned from a visit to her Detroit home and told me of a startling"black man's" religion, "The Nation of Islam," to which, to her surprise, her entire family wasconverted. I listened with incredulity to how a "mad scientist Mr. Yacub" had genetically "grafted" thewhite race from an original black people. The organization's leader was described as "The HonorableElijah Muhammad" and a "Minister Malcolm X" was apparently chief of staff.
When I entered a civilian writing career in New York City, I collected, around Harlem, a good deal ofprovocative material and then proposed an article about the cult to the _Reader's Digest_. Visiting theMuslim restaurant in Harlem, I asked how I could meet Minister Malcolm X, who was pointed outtalking in a telephone booth right behind me. Soon he came out, a gangling, tall, reddishbrownskinned fellow, at that time thirty-five years old; when my purpose was made known, hebristled, his eyes skewering me from behind the horn-rimmed glasses. "You're another one of thewhite man's tools sent to spy!" he accused me sharply. I said I had a legitimate writing assignment andshowed him my letter from the magazine stating that an objective article was wanted, one that wouldbalance what the Muslims said of themselves and what their attackers said about them. Malcolm Xsnorted that no white man's promise was worth the paper it was on; he would need time to decide ifhe would cooperate or not. Meanwhile, he suggested that I could attend some of the Harlem Temple Number 7 meetings ("temples" have since been renamed "mosques") which were open to non-MuslimNegroes.
Around the Muslim's restaurant, I met some of the converts, all of them neatly dressed and almostembarrassingly polite. Their manners and miens reflected the Spartan personal discipline theorganization demanded, and none of them would utter anything but Nation of Islam clich 俿. Evenexcellent weather was viewed as a blessing from Allah, with corollary credit due to "The HonorableElijah Muhammad."Finally, Minister Malcolm X told me that he would not take personal responsibility. He said that Ishould talk about an article with Mr. Muhammad personally. I expressed willingness, an appointmentwas made, and I flew to Chicago. The slightly built, shy-acting, soft-voiced Mr. Muhammad invitedme to dinner with his immediate family in his mansion. I was aware that I was being carefully sizedup while he talked primarily of F.B.I. and Internal Revenue Service close surveillance of hisorganization, and of a rumored forthcoming Congressional probe. "But I have no fear of any of them; Ihave all that I need-the truth," Mr. Muhammad said. The subject of my writing an article somehownever got raised, but Malcolm X proved far more cooperative when I returned.
He would sit with me at a white-topped table in the Muslim restaurant and answer guardedly anyquestions I asked between constant interruptions by calls from the New York press in the telephonebooth. When I asked if I could see Muslim activities in some other cities, he arranged with otherministers for me to attend meetings at temples in Detroit, Washington, and Philadelphia.
My article entitled "Mr. Muhammad Speaks" appeared in early 1960, and it was the first featuredmagazine notice of the phenomenon. A letter quickly came from Mr. Muhammad appreciating thatthe article kept my promise to be objective, and Malcolm X telephoned similar compliments. Aboutthis time, Dr. C. Eric Lincoln's book _The Black Muslims in America_ was published and the BlackMuslims became a subject of growing interest. During 1961 and 1962, the _Saturday Evening Post_teamed me with a white writer, Al Balk, to do an article; next I did a personal interview of Malcolm Xfor _Playboy_ magazine, which had promised to print verbatim whatever response he made to myquestions. During that interview of several days' duration, Malcolm X repeatedly exclaimed, afterparticularly blistering anti-Christian or anti-white statements: "You know that devil's not going toprint that!" He was very much taken aback when _Playboy_ kept its word.
Malcolm X began to warm up to me somewhat. He was most aware of the national periodicals' power,and he had come to regard me, if still suspiciously, as one avenue of access. Occasionally now hebegan to telephone me advising me of some radio, television, or personal speaking appearance he wasabout to make, or he would invite me to attend some Black Muslim bazaar or other public affair.
I was in this stage of relationship with the Malcolm X who often described himself on the air as "theangriest black man in America" when in early 1963 my agent brought me together with a publisherwhom the _Playboy_ interview had given the idea of the autobiography of Malcolm X. I was asked if Ifelt I could get the now nationally known firebrand to consent to telling the intimate details of his entire life. I said I didn't know, but I would ask him. The editor asked me if I could sketch the likelyhighlights of such a book, and as I commenced talking, I realized how little I knew about the manpersonally, despite all my interviews. I said that the question had made me aware of how carefulMalcolm X had always been to play himself down and to play up his leader Elijah Muhammad.
All that I knew, really, I said, was that I had heard Malcolm X refer in passing to his life of crime andprison before he became a Black Muslim; that several times he had told me: "You wouldn't believe mypast," and that I had heard others say that at one time he had peddled dope and women andcommitted armed robberies.
I knew that Malcolm X had an almost fanatical obsession about time. "I have less patience withsomeone who doesn't wear a watch than with anyone else, for this type is not time-conscious," he hadonce told me. "In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure." Iknew how the Black Muslim membership was said to increase wherever Malcolm X lectured, and Iknew his pride that Negro prisoners in most prisons were discovering the Muslim religion as he hadwhen he was a convict. I knew he professed to eat only what a Black Muslim (preferably his wifeBetty) had cooked and he drank innumerable cups of coffee which he lightened with cream,commenting wryly, "Coffee is the only thing I like integrated." Over our luncheon table, I told theeditor and my agent how Malcolm X could unsettle non-Muslims-as, for instance, once when heoffered to drive me to a subway, I began to light a cigarette and he drily [sic] observed, "That wouldmake you the first person ever to smoke in this automobile." Malcolm X gave me a startled look when I asked him if he would tell his life story for publication. Itwas one of the few times I have ever seen him uncertain. "I will have to give a book a lot of thought,"he finally said. Two days later, he telephoned me to meet him again at the Black Muslim restaurant.
He said, "I'll agree. I think my life story may help people to appreciate better how Mr. Muhammadsalvages black people. But I don't want my motives for this misinterpreted by anybody-the Nation ofIslam must get every penny that might come to me." Of course, Mr. Muhammad's agreement wouldbe necessary, and I would have to ask Mr. Muhammad myself.
So I flew again to see Mr. Muhammad, but this time to Phoenix, Arizona, where the Nation of Islamhad bought him the house in the hot, dry climate that relieved his severe bronchial condition. He and Italked alone this time. He told me how his organization had come far with largely uneducatedMuslims and that truly giant strides for the black man could be made if his organization were aidedby some of the talents which were available in the black race. He said, "And one of our worst needs iswriters"-but he did not press me to answer. He suddenly began coughing, and rapidly grew worseand worse until I rose from my seat and went to him, alarmed, but he waved me away, gasping thathe would be all right. Between gasps, he told me he felt that "Allah approves" the book. He said,"Malcolm is one of my most outstanding ministers." After arranging for his chauffeur to return me tothe Phoenix airport, Mr. Muhammad quickly bade me good-bye and rushed from the room coughing.
Back East, Malcolm X carefully read and then signed the publication contract, and he withdrew fromhis wallet a piece of paper filled with his sprawling longhand. "This is this book's dedication," he said.
I read: "This book I dedicate to The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who found me here in America inthe muck and mire of the filthiest civilization and society on this earth, and pulled me out, cleaned meup, and stood me on my feet, and made me the man that I am today."The contract provided that all monies accruing to Malcolm X "shall be made payable by the agent to'Muhammad's Mosque No. 2,'" but Malcolm X felt this was insufficient. He dictated to me a letter totype for his signature, which I did: "Any and all monies representing my contracted share of thefinancial returns should be made payable by the literary agent to Muhammad's Mosque No. 2. Thesepayments should be mailed to the following address: Mr. Raymond Sharrieff, 4847 WoodlawnAvenue, Chicago 15, Illinois."Another letter was dictated, this one an agreement between him and me: "Nothing can be in thisbook's manuscript that I didn't say, and nothing can be left out that I want in it."In turn, I asked Malcolm X to sign for me a personal pledge that however busy he was, he would giveme a priority quota of his time for the planned 100,000-word "as told to" book which would detail hisentire life. And months later, in a time of strain between us, I asked for-and he gave-his permissionthat at the end of the book I could write comments of my own about him which would not be subjectto his review.
Malcolm X promptly did begin to pay me two-and three-hour visits, parking his blue Oldsmobileoutside the working studio I then had in Greenwich Village. He always arrived around nine or ten atnight carrying his flat tan leather briefcase which along with his scholarly look gave him aresemblance to a hard-working lawyer. Inevitably, he was tired after his long busy day, andsometimes he was clearly exhausted.
We got off to a very poor start. To use a word he liked, I think both of us were a bit "spooky." Sittingright there and staring at me was the fiery Malcolm X who could be as acid toward Negroes whoangered him as he was against whites in general. On television, in press conferences, and at Muslimrallies, I had heard him bitterly attack other Negro writers as "Uncle Toms," "yard Negroes," "blackmen in white clothes." And there I sat staring at him, proposing to spend a year plumbing hisinnermost secrets when he had developed a near phobia for secrecy during his years of crime and hisyears in the Muslim hierarchy. My twenty years in military service and my Christian religiouspersuasion didn't help, either; he often jeered publicly at these affiliations for Negroes. And althoughhe now would indirectly urge me to write for national magazines about the Muslims, he had told meseveral times, in various ways, that "you blacks with professional abilities of any kind will one of thesedays wake up and find out that you must unite under the leadership of The Honorable ElijahMuhammad for your own salvation." Malcolm X was also convinced that the F.B.I. had "bugged" mystudio; he probably suspected that it may even have been done with my cooperation. For the firstseveral weeks, he never entered the room where we worked without exclaiming, "Testing, testing-one,two, three. . . ." Tense incidents occurred. One night a white friend was in the studio when Malcolm X arrived a littleearlier than anticipated, and they passed each other in the corridor. Malcolm X's manner during all ofthat session suggested that his worst doubts had been confirmed. Another time when Malcolm X satharanguing me about the glories of the Muslim organization, he was gesturing with his passport in hishand; he saw that I was trying to read its perforated number and suddenly he thrust the passporttoward me, his neck flushed reddish: "Get the number straight, but it won't be anything the whitedevil doesn't already know. He issued me the passport."For perhaps a month I was afraid we weren't going to get any book. Malcolm X was still stifflyaddressing me as "Sir!" and my notebook contained almost nothing but Black Muslim philosophy,praise of Mr. Muhammad, and the "evils" of "the white devil." He would bristle when I tried to urgehim that the proposed book was _his_ life. I was thinking that I might have to advise the publisherthat I simply couldn't seem to get through to my subject when the first note of hope occurred. I hadnoticed that while Malcolm X was talking, he often simultaneously scribbled with his red-ink ballpoint pen on any handy paper. Sometimes it was the margin of a newspaper he brought in, sometimesit was on index cards that he carried in the back of a small, red-backed appointment book. I beganleaving two white paper napkins by him every time I served him more coffee, and the ruse workedwhen he sometimes scribbled on the napkins, which I retrieved when he left. Some examples arethese:
"Here lies a YM, killed by a BM, fighting for the WM, who killed all the RM." (Decoding that wasn'tdifficult, knowing Malcolm X. "YM" was for yellow man, "BM" for black man, "WM" for white man,and "RM" was for red man.)"Nothing ever happened without cause. Cause BM condition WM won't face. WM obsessed withhiding his guilt.""If Christianity had asserted itself in Germany, six million Jews would have lived.""WM so quick to tell BM 'Look what I have done for you!' No! Look what you have done _to_ us!""BM dealing with WM who put our eyes out, now he condemns us because we cannot see.""Only persons really changed history those who changed men's thinking about themselves. Hitler aswell as Jesus, Stalin as well as Buddha . . . Hon. Elijah Muhammad. . . ."It was through a clue from one of the scribblings that finally I cast a bait that Malcolm X took. "Womanwho cries all the time is only because she knows she can get away with it," he had scribbled. Isomehow raised the subject of women. Suddenly, between sips of coffee and further scribbling anddoodling, he vented his criticisms and skepticisms of women. "You never can fully trust any woman,"he said. "I've got the only one I ever met whom I would trust seventy-five per cent. I've told her that,"he said. "I've told her like I tell you I've seen too many men destroyed by their wives, or their women.
"I don't _completely_ trust anyone," he went on, "not even myself. I have seen too many men destroythemselves. Other people I trust from not at all to highly, like The Honorable Elijah Muhammad."Malcolm X looked squarely at me. "You I trust about twenty-five per cent."Trying to keep Malcolm X talking, I mined the woman theme for all it was worth. Triumphantly, heexclaimed, "Do you know why Benedict Arnold turned traitor-a woman!" He said, "Whatever else awoman is, I don't care who the woman is, it starts with her being vain. I'll prove it, something you cando anytime you want, and I know what I'm talking about, I've done it. You think of the hardest-looking, meanest-acting woman you know, one of those women who never smiles. Well, every dayyou see that woman you look her right in the eyes and tell her 'I think you're beautiful,' and you watchwhat happens. The first day she may curse you out, the second day, too-but you watch, you keep on,after a while one day she's going to start smiling just as soon as you come in sight."When Malcolm X left that night, I retrieved napkin scribblings that further documented how he couldbe talking about one thing and thinking of something else:
"Negroes have too much righteousness. WM says, 'I want this piece of land, how do I get those coupleof thousand BM on it off?'""I have wife who understands, or even if she doesn't she at least pretends.""BM struggle never gets open support from abroad it needs unless BM first forms own united front.""Sit down, talk with people with brains I respect, all of us want same thing, do some brainstorming.""Would be shocking to reveal names of the BM leaders who have secretly met with THEM." (Thecapitalized letters stood for The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.)Then one night, Malcolm X arrived nearly out on his feet from fatigue. For two hours, he paced thefloor delivering a tirade against Negro leaders who were attacking Elijah Muhammad and himself. Idon't know what gave me the inspiration to say once when he paused for breath, "I wonder if you'dtell me something about your mother?"Abruptly he quit pacing, and the look he shot at me made me sense that somehow the chance questionhad hit him. When I look back at it now, I believe I must have caught him so physically weak that hisdefenses were vulnerable.
Slowly, Malcolm X began to talk, now walking in a tight circle. "She was always standing over thestove, trying to stretch whatever we had to eat. We stayed so hungry that we were dizzy. I rememberthe color of dresses she used to wear-they were a kind of faded-out gray. . . ." And he kept on talkinguntil dawn, so tired that the big feet would often almost stumble in their pacing. From this stream-ofconsciousness reminiscing I finally got out of him the foundation for this book's beginning chapters, "Nightmare" and "Mascot." After that night, he never again hesitated to tell me even the most intimatedetails of his personal life, over the next two years. His talking about his mother triggered something.
Malcolm X's mood ranged from somber to grim as he recalled his childhood. I remember his making agreat point of how he learned what had been a cardinal awareness of his ever since: "It's the hinge thatsqueaks that gets the grease." When his narration reached his moving to Boston to live with his half-sister Ella, Malcolm X began to laugh about how "square" he had been in the ghetto streets. "Why, I'mtelling you things I haven't thought about since then!" he would exclaim. Then it was during recallingthe early Harlem days that Malcolm X really got carried away. One night, suddenly, wildly, hejumped up from his chair and, incredibly, the fearsome black demagogue was scat-singing andpopping his fingers, "re-bop-de-bop-blap-blam-" and then grabbing a vertical pipe with one hand (asthe girl partner) he went jubilantly lindy-hopping around, his coattail and the long legs and the bigfeet flying as they had in those Harlem days. And then almost as suddenly, Malcolm X caught himselfand sat back down, and for the rest of that session he was decidedly grumpy. Later on in the Harlemnarrative, he grew somber again. "The only thing I considered wrong was what I got caught doingwrong. I had a jungle mind, I was living in a jungle, and everything I did was done by instinct tosurvive." But he stressed that he had no regrets about his crimes, "because it was all a result of whathappens to thousands upon thousands of black men in the white man's Christian world."His enjoyment resumed when the narrative entered his prison days. "Let me tell you how I'd get thosewhite devil convicts and the guards, too, to do anything I wanted. I'd whisper to them, 'If you don't,I'll start a rumor that you're really a light Negro just passing as white.' That shows you what the whitedevil thinks about the black man. He'd rather die than be thought a Negro!" He told me about thereading he had been able to do in prison: "I didn't know what I was doing, but just by instinct I likedthe books with intellectual vitamins." And another time: "In the hectic pace of the world today, there isno time for meditation, or for deep thought. A prisoner has time that he can put to good use. I'd putprison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. If he's_motivated_, in prison he can change his life."Yet another time, Malcolm X reflected, "Once a man has been to prison, he never looks at himself or atother people the same again. The 'squares' out here whose boat has been in smooth waters all the timeturn up their noses at an ex-con. But an ex-con can keep his head up when the 'squares' sink."He scribbled that night (I kept both my notebooks and the paper napkins dated): "This WM createdand dropped A-bomb on non-whites; WM now calls 'Red' and lives in fear of other WM he knowsmay bomb us."Also: "Learn wisdom from the pupil of the eye that looks upon all things and yet to self is blind.
Persian poet."At intervals, Malcolm X would make a great point of stressing to me, "Now, I don't want anything inthis book to make it sound that I think I'm somebody important." I would assure him that I would trynot to, and that in any event he would be checking the manuscript page by page, and ultimately the galley proofs. At other times, he would end an attack upon the white man and, watching me take thenotes, exclaim. "That devil's not going to print that, I don't care what he says!" I would point out thatthe publishers had made a binding contract and had paid a sizable sum in advance. Malcolm X wouldsay, "You trust them, and I don't. You studied what he wanted you to learn about him in schools, Istudied him in the streets and in prison, where you see the truth."Experiences which Malcolm X had had during a day could flavor his interview mood. The mostwistful, tender anecdotes generally were told on days when some incident had touched him. Once, forinstance, he told me that he had learned that a Harlem couple, not Black Muslims, had named theirnewborn son "Malcolm" after him. "What do you know about _that_?" he kept exclaiming. And thatwas the night he went back to his own boyhood again and this time recalled how he used to lie on hisback on Hector's Hill and think. That night, too: "I'll never forget the day they elected me the classpresident. A girl named Audrey Slaugh, whose father owned a car repair shop, nominated me. And aboy named James Cotton seconded the nomination. The teacher asked me to leave the room while theclass voted. When I returned I was the class president. I couldn't believe it."Any interesting book which Malcolm X had read could get him going about his love of books. "Peopledon't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by _one_ book." He came back again and again tothe books that he had studied when in prison. "Did you ever read _The Loom of Language_?" he askedme and I said I hadn't. "You should. Philology, it's a tough science-all about how words can berecognized, no matter where you find them. Now, you take 'Caesar,' it's Latin, in Latin it's pronouncedlike 'Kaiser,' with a hard C. But we anglicize it by pronouncing a soft C. The Russians say 'Czar' andmean the same thing. Another Russian dialect says 'Tsar.' Jakob Grimm was one of the foremostphilologists, I studied his 'Grimm's Law' in prison-all about consonants. Philology is related to thescience of etymology, dealing in root words. I dabbled in both of them."When I turn that page in my notebook, the next bears a note that Malcolm X had telephoned mesaying "I'm going to be out of town for a few days." I assumed that as had frequently been the casebefore, he had speaking engagements or other Muslim business to attend somewhere and I was gladfor the respite in which to get my notes separated under the chapter headings they would fit. Butwhen Malcolm X returned this time, he reported triumphantly, "I have something to tell you that willsurprise you. Ever since we discussed my mother, I've been thinking about her. I realized that I hadblocked her out of my mind-it was just unpleasant to think about her having been twenty-some yearsin that mental hospital." He said, "I don't want to take the credit. It was really my sister Yvonne whothought it might be possible to get her out. Yvonne got my brothers Wilfred, Wesley and Philberttogether, and I went out there, too. It was Philbert who really handled it.
"It made me face something about myself," Malcolm X said. "My mind had closed about our mother. Isimply didn't feel the problem could be solved, so I had shut it out. I had built up subconsciousdefenses. The white man does this. He shuts out of his mind, and he builds up subconscious defensesagainst anything he doesn't want to face up to. I've just become aware how closed my mind was nowthat I've opened it up again.
That's one of the characteristics I don't like about myself. If I meet a problem I feel I can't solve, I shutit out. I make believe that it doesn't exist. But it exists."It was my turn to be deeply touched. Not long afterward, he was again away for a few days. When hereturned this time, he said that at his brother Philbert's home, "we had dinner with our mother for thefirst time in all those years!" He said, "She's sixty-six, and her memory is better than mine and shelooks young and healthy. She has more of her teeth than those who were instrumental in sending herto the institution." When something had angered Malcolm X during the day, his face would be flushed redder when hevisited me, and he generally would spend much of the session lashing out bitterly. When someMuslims were shot by Los Angeles policemen, one of them being killed, Malcolm X, upon his returnfrom a trip he made there, was fairly apoplectic for a week. It had been in this mood that he had made,in Los Angeles, the statement which caused him to be heavily censured by members of both races.
"I've just heard some good news!"-referring to a plane crash at Orly Field in Paris in which thirty-oddwhite Americans, mostly from Atlanta, Georgia, had been killed instantly. (Malcolm X never publiclyrecanted this statement, to my knowledge, but much later he said to me simply, "That's one of thethings I wish I had never said.")Anytime the name of the present Federal Judge Thurgood Marshall was raised, Malcolm X stillpractically spat fire in memory of what the judge had said years before when he was the N.A.A.C.P.
chief attorney: "The Muslims are run by a bunch of thugs organized from prisons and jails andfinanced, I am sure, by some Arab group." The only time that I have ever heard Malcolm X use whatmight be construed as a curse word, it was a "hell" used in response to a statement that Dr. MartinLuther King made that Malcolm X's talk brought "misery upon Negroes." Malcolm X exploded to me,"How in the hell can my talk do this? It's always a Negro responsible, not what the white man does!"The "extremist" or "demagogue" accusation invariably would burn Malcolm X. "Yes, I'm an extremist.
The black race here in North America is in extremely bad condition. You show me a black man whoisn't an extremist and I'll show you one who needs psychiatric attention!"Once when he said, "Aristotle shocked people. Charles Darwin outraged people. Aldous Huxleyscandalized millions!" Malcolm X immediately followed the statement with "Don't print that, peoplewould think I'm trying to link myself with them." Another time, when something provoked him toexclaim, "These Uncle Toms make me think about how the Prophet Jesus was criticized in his owncountry!" Malcolm X promptly got up and silently took my notebook, tore out that page and crumpledit and put it into his pocket, and he was considerably subdued during the remainder of that session.
I remember one time we talked and he showed me a newspaper clipping reporting where a Negrobaby had been bitten by a rat. Malcolm X said, "Now, just read that, just think of that a minute!
Suppose it was _your_ child! Where's that slumlord-on some beach in Miami!" He continued fumingthroughout our interview. I did not go with him when later that day he addressed a Negro audience in Harlem and an incident occurred which Helen Dudar reported in the _New York Post_.
"Malcolm speaking in Harlem stared down at one of the white reporters present, the only whitesadmitted to the meeting, and went on, 'Now, there's a reporter who hasn't taken a note in half an hour,but as soon as I start talking about the Jews, he's busy taking notes to prove that I'm anti-Semitic.'
"Behind the reporter, a male voice spoke up, 'Kill the bastard, kill them all.' The young man, in hisunease, smiled nervously and Malcolm jeered, 'Look at him laugh. He's really not laughing, he's justlaughing with his teeth.' An ugly tension curled the edges of the atmosphere. Then Malcolm went on:
'The white man doesn't know how to laugh. He just shows his teeth. But _we_ know how to laugh. Welaugh deep down, from the bottom up.' The audience laughed, deep down, from the bottom up and,as suddenly as Malcolm had stirred it, so, skillfully and swiftly, he deflected it. It had been at once amasterful and shabby performance."I later heard somewhere, or read, that Malcolm X telephoned an apology to the reporter. But this wasthe kind of evidence which caused many close observers of the Malcolm X phenomenon to declare inabsolute seriousness that he was the onlyNegro in America who could either start a race riot-or stop one. When I once quoted this to him,tacitly inviting his comment, he told me tartly, "I don't know if I could start one. I don't know if I'dwant to stop one." It was the kind of statement he relished making.
Over the months, I had gradually come to establish something of a telephone acquaintance withMalcolm X's wife, whom I addressed as "Sister Betty," as I had heard the Muslims do. I admired howshe ran a home, with, then, three small daughters, and still managed to take all of the calls which camefor Malcolm X, surely as many calls as would provide a job for an average switchboard operator.
Sometimes when he was with me, he would telephone home and spend as much as five minutesrapidly jotting on a pad the various messages which had been left for him.
Sister Betty, generally friendly enough on the phone with me, sometimes would exclaim inspontaneous indignation, "The man never gets any _sleep_!" Malcolm X rarely put in less than an 18hour workday. Often when he had left my studio at four A.M. and a 40-minute drive lay between himand home in East Elmhurst, Long Island, he had asked me to telephone him there at nine A.M.
Usually this would be when he wanted me to accompany him somewhere, and he was going to tellme, after reviewing his commitments, when and where he wanted me to meet him. (There were timeswhen I didn't get an awful lot of sleep, myself.) He was always accompanied, either by some of hisMuslim colleagues like James 67X (the 67th man named "James" who had joined Harlem's MosqueNumber 7), or Charles 37X, or by me, but he never asked me to be with him when they were. I wentwith him to college and university lectures, to radio and television stations for his broadcasts, and topublic appearances in a variety of situations and locations.
If we were driving somewhere, motorists along the highway would wave to Malcolm X, the faces ofboth whites and Negroes spontaneously aglow with the wonderment that I had seen evoked by other"celebrities." No few airline hostesses had come to know him, because he flew so much; they smiledprettily at him, he was in turn the essence of courtly gentlemanliness, and inevitably the word spreadand soon an unusual flow of bathroom traffic would develop, passing where he sat. Whenever wearrived at our destination, it became familiar to hear "There's Malcolm X!" "_Where_?" "The tall one."Passers-by of both races stared at him. A few of both races, more Negroes than whites, would speak ornod to him in greeting. A high percentage of white people were visibly uncomfortable in his presence,especially within the confines of small areas, such as in elevators. "I'm the only black man they've everbeen close to who they know speaks the _truth_ to them," Malcolm X once explained to me. "It's theirguilt that upsets them, not me." He said another time, "The white man is afraid of truth. The truthtakes the white man's breath and drains his strength-you just watch his face get red anytime you tellhim a little truth."There was something about this man when he was in a room with people. He commanded the room,whoever else was present. Even out of doors; once I remember in Harlem he sat on a speaker's standbetween Congressman Adam Clayton Powell and the former Manhattan Borough President HulanJack, and when the street rally was over the crowd focus was chiefly on Malcolm X. I rememberanother time that we had gone by railway from New York City to Philadelphia where he appeared inthe Philadelphia Convention Hall on the radio station WCAU program of Ed Harvey. "You are theman who has said 'All Negroes are angry and I am the angriest of all'; is that correct?" asked Harvey,on the air, introducing Malcolm X, and as Malcolm X said crisply, "That quote is correct!" thegathering crowd of bystanders stared at him, riveted.
We had ridden to Philadelphia in reserved parlor car seats. "I can't get caught on a coach, I could getinto trouble on a coach," Malcolm X had said. Walking to board the parlor car, we had passed a diningcar toward which he jerked his head, "I used to work on that thing." Riding to our destination, heconversationally told me that the F.B.I. had tried to bribe him for information about ElijahMuhammad; that he wanted me to be sure and read a new book, _Crisis in Black and White_ byCharles Silberman-"one of the very few white writers I know with the courage to tell his kind thetruth"; and he asked me to make a note to please telephone the _New York Post's_ feature writerHelen Dudar and tell her he thought very highly of her recent series-he did not want to commend herdirectly.
After the Ed Harvey Show was concluded, we took the train to return to New York City. The parlorcar, packed with businessmen behind their newspapers, commuting homeward after their workdays,was electric with Malcolm X's presence. After the white-jacketed Negro porter had made several tripsup and down the aisle, he was in the middle of another trip when Malcolm X _sotto-voced_ in my ear,"He used to work with me, I forget his name, we worked right on this very train together. He knowsit's me. He's trying to make up his mind what to do." The porter went on past us, poker-faced. Butwhen he came through again, Malcolm X suddenly leaned forward from his seat, smiling at the porter.
"Why, sure, I know who you are!" the porter suddenly said, loudly. "You washed dishes right on thistrain! I was just telling some of the fellows you were in my car here. We all follow you!" The tension on the car could have been cut with a knife. Then, soon, the porter returned to Malcolm X,his voice expansive. "One of our guests would like to meet you." Now a young, clean-cut white manrose and came up, his hand extended, and Malcolm X rose and shook the proffered hand firmly.
Newspapers dropped just below eye-level the length of the car. The young white man explaineddistinctly, loudly, that he had been in the Orient for a while, and now was studying at Columbia. "Idon't agree with everything you say," he told Malcolm X, "but I have to admire your presentation."Malcolm's voice in reply was cordiality itself. "I don't think you could search America, sir, and findtwo men who agree on everything." Subsequently, to another white man, an older businessman, whocame up and shook hands, he said evenly, "Sir, I know how you feel. It's a hard thing to speak outagainst me when you are agreeing with so much that I say." And we rode on into New York under,now, a general open gazing.
In Washington, D.C., Malcolm X slashed at the government's reluctance to take positive steps in theNegro's behalf. I gather that even the White House took notice, for not long afterward I left offinterviewing Malcolm X for a few days and went to the White House to do a _Playboy_ interview ofthe then White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, who grimaced spontaneously when I said I waswriting the life story of Malcolm X. Another time I left Malcolm X to interview the U.S.
Nazi Party Commander George Lincoln Rockwell, who frankly stated that he admired the courage ofMalcolm X, and he felt that the two of them should speak together across the United States, and theycould thus begin a real solution to the race problem-one of voluntary separation of the white and blackraces, with Negroes returning to Africa. I reported this to Malcolm X, who snorted, "He must think I'mnuts! What am _I_ going to look like going speaking with a _devil_!" Yet another time, I went off toAtlanta and interviewed for _Playboy_ Dr. Martin Luther King. He was privately intrigued to hearlittle-known things about Malcolm X that I told him; for publication, he discussed him with reserve,and he did say that he would sometime like to have an opportunity to talk with him. Hearing this,Malcolm X said drily, "You think I ought to send him a telegram with my telephone number?" (Butfrom other things that Malcolm X said to me at various times, I deduced that he actually had areluctant admiration for Dr. King.)Malcolm X and I reached the point, ultimately, where we shared a mutual camaraderie that, althoughit was never verbally expressed, was a warm one. He was for me unquestionably one of the mostengaging personalities I had ever met, and for his part, I gathered, I was someone he had learned hecould express himself to, with candor, without the likelihood of hearing it repeated, and like anyperson who lived amid tension, he enjoyed being around someone, another man, with whom he couldpsychically relax. When I made trips now, he always asked me to telephone him when I would bereturning to New York, and generally, if he could squeeze it into his schedule, he met me at theairport. I would see him coming along with his long, gangling strides, and wearing the wide, toothy,good-natured grin, and as he drove me into New York City he would bring me up to date on things ofinterest that had happened since I left. I remember one incident within the airport that showed mehow Malcolm X never lost his racial perspective. Waiting for my baggage, we witnessed a touching family reunion scene as part of which several cherubic little children romped and played, exclaimingin another language. "By tomorrow night, they'll know how to say their first English word-_nigger_,"observed Malcolm X.
When Malcolm X made long trips, such as to San Francisco or Los Angeles, I did not go along, butfrequently, usually very late at night, he would telephone me, and ask how the book was comingalong, and he might set up the time for our next interview upon his return. One call that I never willforget came at close to four A.M., waking me; he must have just gotten up in Los Angeles. His voicesaid, "Alex Haley?" I said, sleepily, "Yes? Oh, _hey_, Malcolm!" His voice said, "I trust you seventy percent"-and then he hung up. I lay a short time thinking about him and I went back to sleep feelingwarmed by that call, as I still am warmed to remember it. Neither of us ever mentioned it.
Malcolm X's growing respect for individual whites seemed to be reserved for those who ignored on apersonal basis the things he said about whites and who jousted with him as a _man_. He, moreover,was convinced that he could tell a lot about any person by listening. "There's an art to listening well,"he told me. "I listen closely to the sound of a man's voice when he's speaking. I can hear sincerity." Thenewspaper person whom he ultimately came to admire probably more than any other was the _NewYork Times_' M. S. Handler. (I was very happy when I learned that Handler had agreed to write thisbook's Introduction; I know that Malcolm X would have liked that.) The first time I ever heardMalcolm X speak of Handler, whom he had recently met, he began, "I was talking with this devil-" andabruptly he cut himself off in obvious embarrassment. "It's a reporter named Handler, from the_Times_-" he resumed. Malcolm X's respect for the man steadily increased, and Handler, for his part,was an influence upon the inner Malcolm X. "He's the most genuinely unprejudiced white man I evermet," Malcolm X said to me, speaking of Handler months later. "I have asked him things and testedhim. I have listened to him talk, closely."I saw Malcolm X too many times exhilarated in after-lecture give-and-take with predominantly whitestudent bodies at colleges and universities to ever believe that he nurtured at his core any blanketwhite-hatred. "The young whites, and blacks, too, are the only hope that America has," he said to meonce. "The rest of us have always been living in a lie."Several Negroes come to mind now who I know, in one way or another, had vastly impressedMalcolm X. (Some others come to mind whom I know he has vastly abhorred, but these I will notmention.) Particularly high in his esteem, I know, was the great photographer, usually associated with_Life_ magazine, Gordon Parks. It was Malcolm X's direct influence with Elijah Muhammad which gotParks permitted to enter and photograph for publication in _Life_ the highly secret self-defensetraining program of the Black Muslim Fruit of Islam, making Parks, as far as I know, the only non-Muslim who ever has witnessed this, except for policemen and other agency representatives who hadfeigned "joining" the Black Muslims to infiltrate them. "His success among the white man never hasmade him lose touch with black reality," Malcolm X said of Parks once.
Another person toward whom Malcolm X felt similarly was the actor Ossie Davis. Once in the middleof one of our interviews, when we had been talking about something else, Malcolm X suddenly asked me, "Do you know Ossie Davis?" I said I didn't. He said, "I ought to introduce you sometime, that'sone of the finest black men." In Malcolm X's long dealings with the staff of the Harlem weeklynewspaper _Amsterdam News_, he had come to admire Executive Editor James Hicks and the starfeature writer James Booker. He said that Hicks had "an open mind, and he never panics for the whiteman." He thought that Booker was an outstanding reporter; he also was highly impressed with Mrs.
Booker when he met her.
It was he who introduced me to two of my friends today, Dr. C. Eric Lincoln who was at the timewriting the book _The Black Muslims in America_, and Louis Lomax who was then writing variousarticles about the Muslims. Malcolm X deeply respected the care and depth which Dr. Lincoln wasputting into his research. Lomax, he admired for his ferreting ear and eye for hot news. "If I see thatrascal Lomax running somewhere, I'll grab my hat and get behind him," Malcolm X said once,"because I know he's onto something." Author James Baldwin Malcolm X also admired. "He's sobrilliant he confuses the white man with words on paper." And another time, "He's upset the whiteman more than anybody except The Honorable Elijah Muhammad."Malcolm X had very little good to say of Negro ministers, very possibly because most of them hadattacked the Black Muslims. Excepting reluctant admiration of Dr. Martin LutherKing, I heard him speak well of only one other, The Reverend Eugene L. Callender of Harlem's largePresbyterian Church of the Master. "He's a preacher, but he's a fighter for the black man," saidMalcolm X. I later learned that somewhere the direct, forthright Reverend Callender had privatelycornered Malcolm X and had read him the riot act about his general attacks upon the Negro clergy.
Malcolm X also admired The Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, in his Congressman political role: "I'dthink about retiring if the black man had ten like him in Washington." He had similar feelings aboutthe N.A.A.C.P. lawyer, now a New York State Assemblyman, Percy Sutton, and later Sutton wasretained as his personal attorney. Among Negro educators, of whom Malcolm X met many in hiscollege and university lecturing, I never heard him speak well of any but one, Dr. Kenneth B. Clark.
"There's a black man with brains gone to bed," Malcolm X told me once, briefly lapsing into his oldvernacular. He had very distinct reservations about Negro professional intelligentsia as a category.
They were the source from which most of the Black Muslims' attackers came. It was for this reasonthat some of his most bristling counter-attacks against "these so-called educated Uncle Thomases,Ph.D." were flung out at his audiences at Negro institutions of higher learning.
Where I witnessed the Malcolm X who was happiest and most at ease among members of our ownrace was when sometimes I chanced to accompany him on what he liked to call "my little dailyrounds" around the streets of Harlem, among the Negroes that he said the "so-called black leaders"spoke of "as black masses statistics." On these tours, Malcolm X generally avoided the arterial 125thStreet in Harlem; he plied the side streets, especially in those areas which were thickest with what hedescribed as "the black man down in the gutter where I came from," the poverty-ridden with a highincidence of dope addicts and winos.
Malcolm X here indeed was a hero. Striding along the sidewalks, he bathed all whom he met in the boyish grin, and his conversation with any who came up was quiet and pleasant. "It's just what thewhite devil wants you to do, brother," he might tell a wino, "he wants you to get drunk so he will havean excuse to put a club up beside your head." Or I remember once he halted at a stoop to greet severalolder women: "Sisters, let me ask you something," he said conversationally, "have you ever known_one_ white man who either didn't do something to you, or take something from you?" One amongthat audience exclaimed after a moment, "I sure _ain't_!" whereupon all of them joined in laughter andwe walked on with Malcolm X waving back to cries of "He's _right_!"I remember that once in the early evening we rounded a corner to hear a man, shabbily dressed,haranguing a small crowd around his speaking platform of an upturned oblong wooden box with anAmerican flag alongside. "I don't respect or believe in this damn flag, it's there because I can't hold apublic meeting without it unless I want the white man to put me in jail. And that's what I'm up here totalk about-these crackers getting rich off the blood and bones of your and my people!" Said MalcolmX, grinning, "He's _working_!"Malcolm X rarely exchanged any words with those Negro men with shiny, "processed" hair withoutgiving them a nudge. Very genially: "Ahhhh, brother, the white devil has taught you to hate yourselfso much that you put hot lye in your hair to make it look more like his hair."I remember another stoopful of women alongside the door of a small grocery store where I had gonefor something, leaving Malcolm X talking across the street. As I came out of the store, one woman wasexcitedly describing for the rest a Malcolm X lecture she had heard in Mosque Number 7 one Sunday.
"Oooooh, he _burnt_ that white man, burnt him _up_, chile . . . chile, he told us we descendin' fromblack kings an' queens-Lawd, I didn't know it!" Another woman asked, "You believe that?" and thefirst vehemently responded, "Yes, I _do_!"And I remember a lone, almost ragged guitarist huddled on a side street playing and singing just forhimself when he glanced up and instantly recognized the oncoming, striding figure. "Huh-_ho_!" theguitarist exclaimed, and jumping up, he snapped into a mock salute. "My _man_!"Malcolm X loved it. And they loved him. There was no question about it: whether he was standing tallbeside a street lamp chatting with winos, or whether he was firing his radio and television broadsidesto unseen millions of people, or whether he was titillating small audiences of sophisticated whiteswith his small-talk such as, "My hobby is stirring up Negroes, that's spelled _knee_-grows the wayyou liberals pronounce it"-the man had charisma, and he had _power_. And I was not the only onewho at various tunes marveled at how he could continue to receive such an awesome amount ofinternational personal publicity and still season liberally practically everything he said, both in publicand privately, with credit and hosannas to "The Honorable Elijah Muhammad." Often I made sidenotes to myself about this. I kept, in effect, a double-entry set of notebooks. Once, noting me switchingfrom one to the other, Malcolm X curiously asked me what for? I told him some reason, but not thatone notebook was things he said for his book and the other was for my various personal observationsabout him; very likely he would have become self-conscious. "You must have written a million wordsby now," said Malcolm X. "Probably," I said. "This white man's crazy," he mused. "I'll prove it to you.
Do you think I'd publicize somebody knocking me like I do him?" "Look, tell me the truth," Malcolm X said to me one evening, "you travel around. Have you heardanything?"Truthfully, I told him I didn't know what he had reference to. He dropped it and talked of somethingelse.
From Malcolm X himself, I had seen, or heard, a few unusual things which had caused me some littleprivate wonder and speculation, and then, with nothing to hang them onto, I had dismissed them.
One day in his car, we had stopped for the red light at an intersection; another car with a white mandriving had stopped alongside, and when this white man saw Malcolm X, he instantly called across tohim, "I don't blame your people for turning to you. If I were a Negro I'd follow you, too. Keep up thefight!" Malcolm X said to the man very sincerely, "I wish I could have a white chapter of the people Imeet like you." The light changed, and as both cars drove on, Malcolm X quickly said to me, firmly,"Not only don't write that, never repeat it. Mr. Muhammad would have a fit." The significant thingabout the incident, I later reflected, was that it was the first time I had ever heard him speak of ElijahMuhammad with anything less than reverence.
About the same time, one of the scribblings of Malcolm X's that I had retrieved had read,enigmatically, "My life has always been one of changes." Another time, this was in September,1963, Malcolm X had been highly upset about something during an entire session, and when I read the_Amsterdam News_ for that week, I guessed that he had been upset about an item in Jimmy Booker'scolumn that Booker had heard that Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X were feuding. (Booker was laterto reveal that after his column was written, he had gone on vacation, and on his return he learned thatMalcolm X "stormed into the _Amsterdam News_ with three followers . . . 'I want to see JimmyBooker. I don't like what he wrote. There is no fight between me and Elijah Muhammad. I believe inMr. Muhammad and will lay down my life for him.' ")Also, now and then, when I chanced to meet a few other key Muslims, mainly when I was withMalcolm X, but when he was not immediately present, I thought I detected either in subtle phrasing,or in manner, something less than total admiration of their famous colleague-and then I would tellmyself I had misinterpreted. And during these days, Dr. C. Eric Lincoln and I would talk on the phonefairly often. We rarely would fail to mention how it seemed almost certain that seeds of trouble lay inthe fact that however much Malcolm X praised Elijah Muhammad, it was upon dramatic, articulateMalcolm X that the communications media and hence the general public focused the great bulk oftheir attention. I never dreamed, though, what Malcolm X was actually going through. He neverbreathed a word, at least not to me, until the actual rift became public.
When Malcolm X left me at around two A.M. on that occasion, he asked me to call him at nine A.M.
The telephone in the home in East Elmhurst rang considerably longer than usual, and Sister Betty,when she answered, sounded strained, choked up. When Malcolm X came on, he, too, soundeddifferent. He asked me, "Have you heard the radio or seen the newspapers?" I said I hadn't. He said,"Well, do!" and that he would call me later.
I went and got the papers. I read with astonishment that Malcolm X had been suspended by ElijahMuhammad-the stated reason being the "chickens coming home to roost" remark that Malcolm Xrecently had made as a comment upon the assassination of President Kennedy.
Malcolm X did telephone, after about an hour, and I met him at the Black Muslims' newspaper officein Harlem, a couple of blocks further up Lenox Avenue from their mosque and restaurant. He wasseated behind his light-brown metal desk and his brown hat lay before him on the green blotter. Hewore a dark suit with a vest, a white shirt, the inevitable leaping-sailfish clip held his narrow tie, andthe big feet in the shined black shoes pushed the swivel chair pendulously back and forth as he talkedinto the telephone.
"I'm always hurt over any act of disobedience on my part concerning Mr. Muhammad. . . . Yes, sir-anything The Honorable Elijah Muhammad does is all right with me. I believe absolutely in hiswisdom and authority." The telephone would ring again instantly every time he put it down. "Mr.
Peter Goldman! I haven't heard your voice in a good while! Well, sir, I just should have kept my bigmouth shut." To the _New York Times_: "Sir? Yes-he suspended me from making public appearancesfor the tune being, which I fully understand. I say the same thing to you that I have told others, I'm incomplete submission to Mr. Muhammad's judgment, because I have always found his judgment to bebased on sound thinking." To C.B.S.: "I think that anybody who is in a position to discipline othersshould first learn to accept discipline himself."He brought it off, the image of contriteness, the best be could-throughout the harshly trying nextseveral weeks. But the back of his neck was reddish every time I saw him. He did not yet put intowords his obvious fury at the public humiliation. We did very little interviewing now, he was so busyon telephones elsewhere; but it did not matter too much because by now I had the bulk of the neededlife story material in hand. When he did find some time to visit me, he was very preoccupied, and Icould _feel_ him rankling with anger and with inactivity, but he tried hard to hide it.
He scribbled one night, "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. John ViscountMorley." And the same night, almost illegibly, "I was going downhill until he picked me up, but themore I think of it, we picked each other up."When I did not see him for several days, a letter came. "I have cancelled all public appearances andspeaking engagements for a number of weeks. So within that period it should be possible to finish thisbook. With the fast pace of newly developing incidents today, it is easy for something that is done orsaid tomorrow to be outdated even by sunset on the same day. Malcolm X."I pressed to get the first chapter, "Nightmare," into a shape that he could review. When it was ready in a readable rough draft, I telephoned him. He came as quickly as he could drive from his home-whichmade me see how grinding an ordeal it was to him to just be sitting at home, inactive, and knowinghis temperament, my sympathies went out to Sister Betty.
He pored over the manuscript pages, raptly the first time, then drawing out his red-ink ball-point penhe read through the chapter again, with the pen occasionally stabbing at something. "You can't blessAllah!" he exclaimed, changing "bless" to "praise." In a place that referred to himself and his brothersand sisters, he scratched red through "we kids." "Kids are goats!" he exclaimed sharply.
Soon, Malcolm X and his family flew to Miami. Cassius Clay had extended the invitation as a sixthwedding anniversary present to Malcolm X and Sister Betty, and they had accepted most gratefully. Itwas Sister Betty's first vacation in the six years of the taut regimen as a Black Muslim wife, and it wasfor Malcolm X both a saving of face and something to _do_.
Very soon after his arrival, he telegraphed me his phone number at a motel. I called him and he toldme, "I just want to tell you something. I'm not a betting man anymore, but if you are, you bet onCassius to beat Listen, and you will win." I laughed and said he was prejudiced. He said, "Rememberwhat I told you when the fight's over." I received later a picture postcard, the picture in vivid colorsbeing of a chimpanzee at the Monkey Jungle in Miami. Malcolm X had written on the reverse side,"One hundred years after the Civil War, and these _chimpanzees_ get more recognition, respect andfreedom in America than our people do. Bro. Malcolm X." Another time, an envelope came, and insideit was a clipping of an Irv Kupcinet column in the Chicago _Sun-Times_. Malcolm X's red pen hadencircled an item which read, "Insiders are predicting a split in the Black Muslims. Malcolm X, oustedas No. 2 man in the organization, may form a splinter group to oppose Elijah Muhammad." Alongsidethe item, Malcolm X had scribbled "Imagine this!!!"The night of the phenomenal upset, when Clay _did_ beat Liston, Malcolm X telephoned me, andsounds of excitement were in the background. The victory party was in his motel suite, Malcolm Xtold me. He described what was happening, mentioned some of those who were present, and that thenew heavyweight king was "in the next room, my bedroom here" taking a nap. After reminding me ofthe fight prediction he had made, Malcolm X said that I should look forward now to Clay's "quickdevelopment into a major world figure. I don't know if you really realize the world significance thatthis is the first _Muslim_ champion."It was the following morning when Cassius Clay gave the press interview which resulted in nationalheadlines that he was actually a "Black Muslim," and soon after, the newspapers were carryingpictures of Malcolm X introducing the heavyweight champion to various African diplomats in thelobbies of the United Nations headquarters in New York City. Malcolm X toured Clay about inHarlem, and in other places, functioning, he said, as Clay's "friend and religious advisor."I had now moved upstate to finish my work on the book, and we talked on the telephone every threeor four days. He said things suggesting that he might never be returned to his former Black Muslimpost, and he now began to say things quietly critical of Elijah Muhammad. _Playboy_ magazine asked me to do an interview for them with the new champion Cassius Clay, and when I confidently askedMalcolm X to arrange for me the needed introduction to Clay, Malcolm X hesitantly said, "I think youhad better ask somebody else to do that." I was highly surprised at the reply, but I had learned neverto press him for information. And then, very soon after, I received a letter. "Dear Alex Haley: A quicknote. Would you prepare a properly worded letter that would enable me to change the reading of thecontract so that all remaining proceeds now would go to the Muslim Mosque, Inc., or in the case of mydeath then to go directly to my wife, Mrs. Betty X Little? The sooner this letter or contract is changed,the more easily I will rest." Under the signature of Malcolm X, there was a P.S.: "How is it possible towrite one's autobiography in a world so fast-changing as this?"Soon I read in the various newspapers that rumors were being heard of threats on Malcolm X's life.
Then there was an article in the _Amsterdam News_: The caption was "Malcolm X Tells Of DeathThreat," and the story reported that he had said that former close associates of his in the New Yorkmosque had sent out "a special squad" to "try to kill me in cold blood. Thanks to Allah, I learned of theplot from the very same brothers who had been sent out to murder me. These brothers had heard merepresent and defend Mr. Muhammad for too long for them to swallow the lies about me without firstasking me some questions for their own clarification."I telephoned Malcolm X, and expressed my personal concern for him. His voice sounded weary. Hesaid that his "uppermost interest" was that any money which might come due him in the future wouldgo directly to his new organization, or to his wife, as the letter he had signed and mailed hadspecified. He told me, "I know I've got to get a will made for myself, I never did because I never havehad anything to will to anybody, but if I don't have one and something happened to me, there couldbe a mess." I expressed concern for him, and he told me that he had a loaded rifle in his home, and "Ican take care of myself."The "Muslim Mosque, Inc." to which Malcolm X had referred was a new organization which he hadformed, which at that time consisted of perhaps forty or fifty Muslims who had left the leadership ofElijah Muhammad.
Through a close associate of Cassius Clay, whom Malcolm X had finally suggested to me, myinterview appointment was arranged with the heavyweight champion, and I flew down to New YorkCity to do the interview for _Playboy_. Malcolm X was "away briefly," Sister Betty said on the phone-and she spoke brusquely. I talked with one Black Muslim lady whom I had known before she hadjoined, and who had been an admirer of Malcolm X. She had elected to remain in the original fold,"but I'll tell you, brother, what a lot in the mosque are saying, you know, it's like if you divorced yourhusband, you'd still like to see him once in a while." During my interviews with Cassius Clay in histhree-room suite at Harlem's Theresa Hotel, inevitably the questions got around to Clay's Muslimmembership, then to a query about what had happened to his formerly very close relationship withMalcolm X. Evenly, Clay said, "You just don't buck Mr. Muhammad and get away with it. I don't wantto talk about him no more."Elijah Muhammad at his headquarters in Chicago grew "emotionally affected" whenever the name of Malcolm X had to be raised in his presence, one of the Muslims in Clay's entourage told me. Mr.
Muhammad reportedly had said, "Brother Malcolm got to be a _big_ man. I made him big. I was aboutto make him a _great_ man." The faithful Black Muslims predicted that soon Malcolm X would beturned upon by the defectors from Mosque Number 7 who had joined him: "They will feel betrayed."Said others, "A great chastisement of Allah will fall upon a hypocrite." Mr. Muhammad reportedly hadsaid at another time, "Malcolm is destroying himself," and that he had no wish whatever to seeMalcolm X die, that he "would rather see him live and suffer his treachery."The general feeling among Harlemites, non-Muslims, with whom I talked was that Malcolm X hadbeen powerful and influential enough a minister that eventually he would split the mosquemembership into two hostile camps, and that in New York City at least, Elijah Muhammad'sunquestioned rule would be ended.
Malcolm X returned. He said that he had been in Boston and Philadelphia. He spent ample time withme, now during the day, in Room 1936 in the Hotel Americana. His old total ease was no longer withhim. As if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, at sudden intervals he would stride to thedoor; pulling it open, he would look up and down the corridor, then shut the door again. "If I'm alivewhen this book comes out, it will be a miracle," he said by way of explanation. "I'm not saying itdistressingly-" He leaned forward and touched the buff gold bedspread. "I'm saying it like I say that'sa bedspread."For the first time he talked with me in some detail about what had happened. He said that hisstatement about President Kennedy's assassination was not why he had been ousted from theMuslims. "It wasn't the reason at all. Nobody said anything when I made stronger statements before."The real reason, he said, was "jealousy in Chicago, and I had objected to the immorality of the manwho professed to be more moral than anybody."Malcolm X said that he had increased the Nation of Islam membership from about 400 when he hadjoined to around 40,000. "I don't think there were more than 400 in the country when I joined, I reallydon't. They were mostly older people, and many of them couldn't even pronounce Mr. Muhammad'sname, and he stayed mostly in the background."Malcolm X worked hard not to show it, but he was upset. "There is nothing more frightful thanignorance in action. Goethe," he scribbled one day. He hinted about Cassius Clay a couple of times,and when I responded only with anecdotes about my interview with Clay, he finally asked what Clayhad said of him. I dug out the index card on which the question was typed in advan
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