Contentsattallah Shabazz:Foreword
    M. S. HANDLER: INTRODUCTIONCHAPTER ONE: NIGHTMARECHAPTER TWO: MASCOTCHAPTER THREE: "HOMEBOY"CHAPTER FOUR: LAURACHAPTER FIVE: HARLEMITECHAPTER SIX: DETROIT REDCHAPTER SEVEN: HUSTLERCHAPTER EIGHT: TRAPPEDCHAPTER NINE: CAUGHTCHAPTER TEN: SATANCHAPTER ELEVEN: SAVEDCHAPTER TWELVE: SAVIORCHAPTER THIRTEEN: MINISTER MALCOLM XCHAPTER FOURTEEN: BLACK MUSLIMSCHAPTER FIFTEEN: ICARUSCHAPTER SIXTEEN: OUTCHAPTER SEVENTEEN: MECCACHAPTER EIGHTEEN: EL-HAJJ MALIK EL-SHABAZZCHAPTER NINETEEN: 1965ALEX HALEY: EPILOGUEOSSIE DAVIS: ON MALCOM [sic]
　　ATTALLAH SHABAZZFOREWORDBehold, America. Just when our country's cultural evolution appears to have stagnated and we'vegrown insensitive to justice, the U.S. Postal Service has issued a commemorative stamp to honor oneof our country's most outspoken revolutionaries-my father, Malcolm X Shabazz. This nationalcommemoration, three decades after his lifetime, pays tribute to his immeasurable contributions onbehalf of one's innate right to self-preservation and human dignity.
　　Although Malcolm X is no longer with us physically, tens of millions have gotten to know himthrough this timeless volume that you now hold in your hands. _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_has served as an everlasting testament to my father's life and legacy. In light of the cultural andpolitical climate of the 1960s, when the book was first published, both my father and my godfather,Alex Haley, would feel great peace in knowing that Time magazine's "Best of the Century" issuenamed _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ one of the top ten works of nonfiction of this century. Myfather's life story stands alongside such monumental works as _The Diary of Anne Frank_ and others.
　　A lover of language, my father believed very much in the power of words to influence and transformlives.
    His own life stands as an affirmation of that power. Our literature and our history are filled withstories of men and women whose will and inner strength nourished their rise from impoverishment towealth, whether material, spiritual, or educational. My father's life and its stages of personalmetamorphosis and enlightenment documented in this text stand as a confirmation of how one can,through witness and transformation, ultimately claim one's own divine path. At this point in my life,and significantly as his daughter, it is quite meaningful for me to contribute my prose to this livingrecord.
　　My godfather, Alex Haley, bequeathed me the opportunity to write this foreword to my father'sautobiography. He had set the process in motion almost a year before the offer was formally broughtto my attention in the fall of 1992. It was, indeed, a spiritual gift of timing. Eight months earlier, inFebruary 1992, the man who was the author of the internationally acclaimed _Roots_ passed awaysuddenly in the middle of the night. Alex Haley and I had discussed the possibility of my writing hisautobiography to acknowledge our literary circle, our family of writers-my father to him and him tome.
　　Six years have passed since I received this initial request to prepare a new foreword for my father's lifestory. My godfather's wish was that I commemorate my father's life by writing about some of thesignificant events that have served as a postscript for his extraordinary life story, but to do this it isessential to begin with the legacy that my father himself was heir to from the beginning.
　　In 1919, my paternal grandparents, Earl and Louisa Little, married and began their large family ofeight children. At the same time they both worked steadfastly as crusaders for Marcus Garvey'sUniversal Negro Improvement Association, acting as chapter president and writer/translator for morethan a decade. Their children were deeply involved and inspired by their parents' mission toencourage self-reliance and uphold a sense of empowerment for people of the African Diaspora.
　　Given the turbulence, fear, and despair of the depression era, with its economic droughts and racialand social inequities, my grandparents could never have imagined that one of their own childrenwould have his likeness on a United States postal stamp before the century's end.
　　Eighty years later, on January 20,1999, pride filled Harlem's historic Apollo Theatre as six of Earl andLouisa Little's granddaughters sat encircled by a body of fifteen hundred, as family, friends, esteemedguests, and well-wishers gathered to celebrate a momentous occasion-the unveiling of the UnitedStates Postal Service's newest release in its Black Heritage Stamp Series.
　　The issuance of the stamp with the image of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz-known to the world as MalcolmX and fondly loved by myself and my five sisters as Daddy-will provide a source of eternal pride tohis children. While this was indeed a glorious moment, it does not cancel the pain of the loss of bothour parents, or even kiss away the ache of their absence. What it certainly does is add to the blessingsof our dowry.
　　The stamp also serves as a reminder of the stock from which we were born and confirms significantlythat how one lives his or her life today stands as a testament to one's forever after.
　　In his genuine humility and pure dedication to service, my father had no idea of the potency of hisdeeds, of the impact his life would have on others, or of the legacy that was to unfold. As he and mygodfather, Alex Haley, worked diligently to complete this classic work-in person, from airporttelephones, via ship to shore, or over foreign wire services-he could never have imagined byAmerica's tone in his final days that his words, philosophy, and wisdom would be so appreciated andhonored around the world, or that it would still offer inspiration and guidance to so many.
　　In my father's absence, my mother nurtured and protected the significance and value of her husband'sendless devotion to human rights. She was thrilled by the opening discussions about her husband'simage appearing on a U.S. postal stamp. From her perspective, it was not as inconceivable as othershave found it. To my mother, it was his due.
　　As the house lights dimmed in the Apollo Theatre, the flickering images of black-and-whitephotographs and film clips on the screen chronicled my father's life. Bittersweet, his youthful face andbroad smile caressed my heart. As the documentary film moved forward, the voice-over of our dearfamily friend and loving "uncle" actor Ossie Davis delivered the eulogy from my father's funeral in1965. This became the backdrop for the montage of nostalgic childhood memories that played in mymind. Life with both parents and my little sisters. Life joyous and uninterrupted.
　　When people ask how my mother managed to keep my father's memory alive, all I can say is-for mymother, he never left. He never left her. He never left us. My father's spiritual presence is whatsustained my mother. And we, their children, were the beneficiaries of their timeless love for oneanother.
　　Born and raised in a family that was culturally varied, I innately gravitated to the rhythms of theworld. Mommie was our constant, as many mothers are. Daddy was the jubilant energy in our world.
　　He was not at all like the descriptions I grew up hearing. In addition to being determined, focused,honest, he was also greatly humorous, delightful, and boy-like, while at the same time a strong, firmmale presence in a house filled with little women. His women. My sisters, me, and our mother. Acollaboration of qualities that enchants me even now.
　　". . . If you knew him you would know why we must honor him," Uncle Ossie's voice continued.
　　"Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood. . . . and, in honoring him, we honor the bestin ourselves. . . ."A spotlight on the Apollo podium brought me back to the present as the announcer introduced RubyDee and Ossie Davis, the first of an intimate selection of my father's esteemed comrades andappreciators from the "front line" to speak and share their remembrances.
　　Aunt Ruby opened, "What a privilege to witness the radical gone respectable in our times. . . ." UncleOssie continued, "We in this community look upon this commemorative stamp finally as America'sstamp of approval. . . ."When I had mentioned the issuance of the stamp to others, the news simply stopped folks in theirtracks. Touched. Teary-eyed. They could hardly believe it. They had to catch their breath, or ask me torepeat myself. "How can this be?" they wondered. "A stamp with Brother Malcolm's face on it?" "Whatdoes it mean?" "Is America really ready for a Malcolm X stamp, even if it is thirty-four years after hisassassination?"I reflected on the message of Congressman Chaka Fattah, the ranking Democrat on the Postalsubcommittee, who commented, "There is no more appropriate honor than this stamp becauseMalcolm X sent all of us a message through his life and his life's work.
　　"Stamps are affixed to envelopes that contain messages, and when we receive an envelope with thisparticular stamp on it hopefully it is a message that will speak again to the conscience of this nation.
　　Hopefully not just to those of African descent in America but to those who want to speak and be heardon the question of human rights throughout the world. To this day Malcolm X stands as a leader. Histhoughts, his ideas, his conviction, and his courage provide an inspiration even now to newgenerations that come."I've asked myself, What change in our society today permits the reevaluation of my father'sconvictions or his stance on the human injustices that plagued the international landscape? For years,he's been the subject of a patchwork of commentaries, numerous judgments, and endless characterassessments from a spectrum of self-appointed experts. But, in spite of the psychoanalysis, Malcolmwill always be exactly who he is, whether or not we as a society ever succeed in figuring him out.
　　Truth does not change, only our awareness of it.
　　Not everyone agreed with my father's philosophy or methodology; he was considered complicated,intricate, and complex. Nevertheless, he was always a focused man with a commitment and aprogram. His plan of action, regardless of the stages of his life, his agenda, and his perspective werealways poignantly clear.
　　Malcolm X never advocated violence. He was an advocate of cultural and social reconstruction-until abalance of equality was shared, "by any means necessary." Generally, this phrase of his was misused,even by those who were his supporters. But the statement was intended to encourage a paralyzedconstituent of American culture to consider the range of options to which they were entitled-the"means." "By any means necessary" meant examine the obstacles, determine the vision, find theresolve, and explore the alternatives toward dissolving the obstacles. Anyone truly familiar with myfather's ideology, autobiography, and speeches sincerely understands the significance of the now-famous phrase.
　　My father affected Americans-black and white-in untold measure and not always in ways as definitiveas census charts and polls have dictated. We've misrepresented the silent majority on both sides. There were black folks who carried as much disdain for my father as some white folks did, and then therewere some white folks for whom his life's lessons were as valuable a blueprint for personal andspiritual development as they have been for many black folks. Nevertheless, within the range of theboisterous and the silent there are still folks brown, red, and yellow on this continent and elsewherewho honor and respect the true message of Malcolm X Shabazz.
　　Fortunately, as a child, my surroundings were filled with my father's partners for social change. Thiswarm, devoted circle of people was always on the front lines of the struggle, working to ensure therightful equilibrium of human rights-not just domestically, but globally-"by any means necessary."Whether they were persons of note or simply hardworking citizens, these individuals in my early lifewere missionaries of justice, each committed to doing his or her part.
　　As the dedication ceremony continued at the Apollo, the master of ceremonies, activist-entertainerHarry Belafonte-yet another childhood "uncle"-framed the importance of this historic moment for theaudience assembled.
　　"Each year the Postal Service receives more than forty thousand requests recommending subjects forU.S. stamps. Only thirty or so are chosen. Short of a national monument in Washington-and that's nota bad idea-a stamp is among the highest honors that our country can pay to any of its citizens."The El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz/Malcolm X stamp is the twenty-second in the Black Heritage Series,which was inaugurated in 1978. It joins such luminaries as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, A.
　　Philip Randolph, Mary McLeod Bethune, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others. I am hopeful that theinitial printing of 100 million stamps will be some inspiration to those who collect them or pass themon as gifts to represent or encourage one's personal enlightenment and triumph.
　　What my father aspired to be and what Allah had destined for him was nurtured chiefly by the fertiletutelage of his parents while his family was still together and thriving as a unit. This was before hisfather's murder by the Klan, his mother's emotional breakdown, and the subsequent scattering of hissiblings and himself into an inadequate and inattentive foster care system.
　　My grandmother had a direct hand in the cultural, social, and intellectual education of her children.
　　The attitude of people of color during the '20s and '30s festered with racial tension that producedvarying degrees of misguided social and personal paralysis. Knowing this and being globallyeducated members of the Garvey movement cognizant of the true origins of the African in theWestern Hemisphere, both my grandmother and her husband were intent on equipping their childrenwith a clear awareness of the seed of their origins and its ancestral power. They knew that this wouldprovide a base of strength for their children. My grandmother knew that in spite of America's socialclimate, her children would be able to discern for themselves when an act was generated by pureracism, or simply by ignorance.
　　For example, there are many who know the story about when my father, while on the honor roll andthe eighth-grade class president, was told by his white teacher that his dream to be a lawyer was unrealistic for a "colored boy." Maybe he should consider carpentry. . . . He shared this story with usdirectly. The teacher actually admired my father greatly and didn't want to encourage him to enter afield of study that he believed wouldn't allow my father to excel. Misguided, yet well intended. Ateacher crippled by a country that offered little promise or future for its indigenous and coloredinhabitants.
　　Without the strong support of life with his parents and siblings under one roof and chafing underfoster parents and teachers imposing limited state policies, Malcolm simply dropped out.
　　This is usually where the recounting of my father's life begins. In the street. Hustling, numbersrunning, stealing . . . Indeed these accounts were factual and he was always the first to tell them. But ifhis first fourteen years hadn't been rooted in a healthy diet of education and the richness of hisheritage, Malcolm wouldn't have found himself gravitating to the prison libraries after he wasincarcerated. The movie _Malcolm X_, which was originally contracted as _X: The Movie_, shows himlearning how to read the dictionary as if he didn't already know how. The truth is, it had been a whilesince he'd read anything. But after being reacquainted with books, he proceeded to out-read thelibrary stock. I've seen letters that my father wrote from prison in his early twenties, eagerly lookingfor the third volume of a text, or wanting help to track down out-of-print books, or even suggestingbooks to his friends and family on the outside.
　　The honor roll student reappeared as the layers of street life faded. He read so much that he had tobegin to wear glasses.
　　With the encouragement of his brothers, he began studying the tenets of the Nation of Islam. Whilethe Little brothers didn't adhere to all of the teachings personally, they did believe it was the onlycurrent American-based ideology that had the potential to unify black people and teach self-pride theway their childhood affiliation with the Garvey movement had done. Also, the brothers believed thatthrough the Nation of Islam they could finally become part of a larger family that could reunite themonce again.
　　It was as a result of the documentary he was producing on the Nation of Islam that Mike Wallace, anuncompromising, truth-seeking pioneer of broadcast journalism and now the senior correspondent of_60 Minutes_, first met my father on an assignment. He recalled those early meetings in his remarks atthe stamp's unveiling:
　　"It was forty years ago, back in 1959, that I first heard about a man who called himself Malcolm X. Weat Channel 13 had set out to produce a documentary that we had intended to call 'The Hate That HateProduced.' It was a report about a group and a man just beginning to get some attention in the whiteworld. The group was the Black Muslims and their leader was Elijah Muhammad. [When] we finallybroadcast the documentary, America at large finally learned about the Nation and their desire toseparate from the white man. Their hatred of the white man for that effectively was their credo backthen: The white man hates us, so we should hate the white man back. Not long after the broadcast,which caused a considerable stir, Louis Lomax invited me to sit down for breakfast for my first meeting with Malcolm, and strangely and rather swiftly after that morning a curious friendship beganto develop, and slowly a trust. And on my part a growing understanding and eventually anadmiration for a man with a daring mind and heart. And gradually it became apparent to me that herewas a genuine, compassionate, and far-seeing leader in the making. A man utterly devoted to hispeople, but at the same time he was bent on reconciliation between the races in America.
　　"And that, of course, that was heresy to the Nation of Islam at the time.
　　"Malcolm was still evolving, still finding his way, still finding his constituency back then when he wasstruck down-to him not unexpectedly-struck down by forces who feared that his way, his leadership,might be a serious threat to their power. I have treasured the memory of the Malcolm that I knew. Iknow he trusted me as a reporter, but in the few years that I had the chance to know him, he sent meon my own voyage of reportorial discovery and understanding.
　　"[The] stamp that honors him today is the kind of recognition he deserves as a courageous Americanhero."In time my father's growth and independence would be his undoing. The Nation reprimanded him,stripped him of all powers of attorney, silenced him, and then exiled him. At first his expulsion lefthim feeling like a man without a home, much the way it had been in his childhood. Ultimately,however, it gave him the freedom he needed.
　　He finally began accepting long-standing invitations he'd received to travel abroad. There were manyforeign heads of state and prime ministers who had long taken note of this charismatic champion ofthe people.
　　With my mother's blessings for his journey, my father set out to visit Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana,Nasser of Egypt, Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and more. The warm welcomes and instant paternalrelationships became an essential component of his cleansing and rebirth as he traveled throughoutEurope, Africa, and the Middle East, culminating in his great pilgrimage to Mecca.
　　As my father's philosophy expanded, he began to empower, enlighten, and embrace an untoldpopulace extending far beyond the limits of governmental control. However, as long as Dr. MartinLuther King, Jr., remained in the South, and my father in the North, neither was too difficult tomonitor. But when my father and Dr. King became colleagues and decided to bridge their twophilosophies and unite the American commonwealth toward a greater goal, they both becametremendous threats to the status quo. Sadly, this fear was shared by some of their own constituentsand supporters who believed that the union of both would weaken or detract from the strength ofeach movement.
　　One man whose brethrenship never wavered was the Honorable Percy Sutton, my father's attorneyand a perpetual drum for our family, who approached the podium at the Apollo. He pausedreflectively and warmly paid tribute to my father, while placing my father's life in its proper perspective:
　　"It is a miracle, really, if you think about it!" The audience burst into applause. ". . . The journey ofMalcolm X was long and hard. . . . I can remember a Minister Malcolm that nobody wanted to be near;lawyers, accountants, persons of consequence to the black community . . . were afraid to be identifiedwith him, afraid to be seen with him"We would invite them to come because we needed lawyers, we needed doctors, we needed personsof ability, but they were frightened, they were frightened by other people's attitudes toward MinisterMalcolm. . . .
　　"Let me for a moment tell you who Malcolm X was. Malcolm was not a spiteful man. Malcolm X was arevolutionary. But he was not a mean-spirited revolutionary, he was a gentle man. A kind man, aconcerned man.
　　"It was so bad, ladies and gentleman, that even at Malcolm's death there were people who were afraidto come to the funeral. . . . There was not a major black church in the entire city of New York that waswilling to let us bury him from their edifices. It was a small church up on Amsterdam Avenue [theFaith Temple Church of God] that permitted us to come."Looking into Mr. Sutton's face and seeing him diplomatically balance all that he knew of my parents'
　　challenges brought back an old sadness, one that had not healed since the loss of his "little sister," mymother, Betty. Feeling Mr. Sutton's steadfast devotion, I found myself massaging the ache from myown heart as I reflected on America's treatment of my parents during my childhood. Despite myyouthful joys and sense of safety, the trials my parents faced were unrelenting. As well, the way myfather was regarded during his lifetime robbed him of any peace in knowing that his life andcontributions mattered, and that his family would live without jeopardy or repercussion.
　　Now, perhaps sanctioned by a karmic wave of "in due time," America is acknowledging Malcolm yetagain.
　　The Honorable S. David Fineman, member of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service,commented on the appropriateness of this acknowledgment during his introduction to the stamp'sofficial unveiling, "Today we honor not only a great African American but a great American. MalcolmX was one of the most charismatic and pivotal figures of our time. He was a passionate and persuasivevoice for change, and his controversial ideas helped bring race relations to a national stage.
　　"[Malcolm] X poured his energy and anger into speaking the truth about the plight of AfricanAmericans. He spoke with a rare passion and eloquence. He became a worldwide hero. A symbol ofstrength and defiance. He wasn't shy about telling us where society was going wrong.
　　["Although] it has been thirty-four years since we lost Malcolm X, his words, his voice, his vision, hisstory of transformation lives on. They have become part of us in a journey to wholeness.
　　 "We must never forget the challenge Malcolm X issued to us. 'Let us learn to live together injustice andlove.'" I had long known of the individual and cultural values that others placed on my father's life. But Iwould learn of another measurement and display of that value in the marketplace.
　　On October 2, 1992, I was on location in southern Africa producing a segment for a documentary film.
　　During a break in the day, I returned to my hotel room for my afternoon siesta.
　　This particular afternoon, I turned on my television and searched until I found a CNN broadcast.
　　Global news commentaries now became the backdrop in my room. I then pulled down the top sheetand blanket on my bed so I could rest. No sooner had my head touched the pillow, I began to fade,exchanging conscious sounds of the television for those of my inner thoughts. But in a matter ofmoments I was interrupted by the broadcaster stating, "Earlier today the Alex Haley estate auctionedoff his items. . . ." I instantly sat up and listened in disbelief. The newscast continued, "Among theitems sold was the original manuscript of _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_, with actualhandwritten notes by Malcolm X himself."I cannot possibly recapture in words how I felt at that instant. It seemed inconceivable that such apersonal and historic document could be bartered away so carelessly.
　　It was yet another loss to contend with. I was still brokenhearted about my godfather being gone, andgreatly disappointed by the decision to diminish the value of his life's contributions by way of theauction block, a symbol that he fought so hard to dismantle in the telling of _Roots_. Doubly painfulwas the fact that this bidding war included a part of me and my family with neither our permissionnor participation. Had anyone thought to offer my father's wife and children first right of refusal?
　　I jotted down as much data as possible during the news coverage and then called the legal firmhandling my godfather's estate auction in Tennessee. Although I did reach a representative, littleInformation was given over the telephone so I scheduled a subsequent call following my return to theStates.
　　During my long hours of travel across the Atlantic, I worried about how this gross display may havebeen tugging at my mother. How was she feeling about it all? As it was, she'd become increasinglybusy due to the explosion of interest about her husband, and the preparations for the release of X: TheMovie.
　　Malcolm X had been reborn during this period. It was approximately six weeks prior to the worldpremiere and my mother and I were about to embark on a press junket that was to exceed a hundred interviews-print, electronic, video-to promote the film and discuss the resurgence of Malcolm.
　　The vibrant, pop-culture marketing of the film gave people permission to claim and learn aboutMalcolm in a forum that was not threatening. For people who didn't know anything about his life,America now provided a healthier, safer atmosphere to do so. It also gave the public the freedom andopportunity to talk about Malcolm out loud, as opposed to in the murmured huddles that reflected theclimate of the previous generation.
　　So much of the public and the media were under the impression that the making of _X: The Movie_was a new venture. That its director had to battle alone, tooth and nail, on behalf of 35 million blackAmericans. Things aren't always as they seem. The components in the making of this film were verysignificant and intertwined like the main branches on a family tree. They were not to be forgotten.
　　Shortly after my father's assassination in 1965 and the publication of _The Autobiography of MalcolmX_, Marvin Worth, a friend of my father's from their teenage years, approached Alex and my motherabout making a film about my father's life. Once both agreed, Marvin brought James Baldwin onboard to write the script and Arnold Perl to modify the screenplay. During what was to take twenty-five years to realization, Marvin Worth produced the Warner Bros, documentary _El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz_. This was the first definitive film stock collection of the life of Malcolm X and it traveledextensively throughout the nation's university circuit as well as to civil rights and Afro-Americannationalist events. In the meantime, this fraternity of men worked diligently against all setbacks andodds to create a film respectfully representative of their brother, now gone-the man who, in their eyes,America had betrayed.
　　But old attitudes and distorted stubborn impressions of my father outlived Arnold Perl and JamesBaldwin. Marvin Worth was the lone torchbearer, a thorn in Hollywood's side, holding true to theinitial dream for almost twenty-five years, despite the taboo image of my father. Single-handedly,while keeping my mother abreast of all updates, he continued to commission writers again and again.
　　Marvin's tenacity was astonishing, to the dismay of many. His dedication and faithfulness were due tohis own personal loyalty to my parents and his passion for displaying onscreen the integrity andpower of my father's message.
　　In the late '70s, Marvin began to include me informally in the process of the film development. Thisbecame very cathartic for me. I accompanied him to meetings with prospective directors and writers.
　　Shortly thereafter, I began reading through different drafts submitted, and I recall him telling me,"Some of them are overwriting. They are trying to 'create' Malcolm as the hero. I just told them to startfrom scratch; if you write honestly, the hero will emerge."Those who knew Malcolm X Shabazz personally wanted to be sure that the negative myth around hismemory would be erased by portraying the truths of his mission, and the depth of his heart.
　　Finally, it was the right time. In 1991, without any further delays, the deal to make the film of my father's life came through. A long-awaited dream was to be realized. But before it made it to thescreen, we lost Alex.
　　My father, James Baldwin, Arnold Perl, and my godfather, Alex Haley, were all with us in spirit as mymother, her daughters, and Marvin Worth journeyed forth toward the final realization of this history-making film, which not only made it come to life, it ignited a cultural phenomenon.
　　During this period, total sales of _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ reached record numbers. Nearly3 million copies have been sold worldwide. At least twenty new literary works that used my father'slife as a subject appeared on bookshelves. Young males, newly born, were being named Malcolm,Malik, and Omowale after my father. His philosophy, speeches, and life transitions were now beingadopted by a whole new generation of youngsters, internationally.
　　Adult appreciators were coming out of the closet, waving their Malcolm banners boldly. BothAmerican and foreign students utilized him as their prototype for human development, spiritualdedication, and equality.
　　Parents of the '90s were not as apprehensive as the parents of the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Instead, as theirmany letters and comments informed me, they were relieved that at a stage when their children'sdiscipline and social mores were being challenged, their son or daughter had claimed characteristicsand habits associated with Malcolm's.
　　Psychologists, professors, journalists, and critics rediscovered Malcolm X for review and generalanalysis. New documentaries unfolded, revealing film footage long existing yet previously editedfrom cultural consumption.
　　The sensations, passions, and sincerities of this black American crusader, plus his new crossover andinternational marketability, now challenged all the preceding assessments of twentieth-centuryhistorians, social experts, the media, and most pointedly our government.
　　The resurrection of Malcolm X also precipitated a new wave of unauthorized exploitation of hisimage. In the early days-the '60s, '70s, and '80s, before my father's likeness had become a licensedcommodity-my mother didn't mind the bootlegged T-shirts, cassette tapes, and framed photos beingsold at various events around the country during his birthday, Black History Month, and the like. Inthose years she felt it was one of the pulses that kept Malcolm alive on campuses, in communitycenters, and on cultural occasions. As a mother and educator, she was comforted by the thought thatsuch remembrances would enable young people to have an opportunity to be exposed to her husband,ask questions, learn, and achieve. Pass it on!
　　When people commented on the exploitation, she'd generously reply, "It's love that's making them dothis for my husband."On the other hand, if the intentions of the merchant were not honorable, you'd better believe that she'd be heading in their direction to inform them of their malfeasance and impropriety. It was imperativeto my mother that the memory of her husband be respected with the honor she knew he deserved. Itwas not okay to mistreat her husband. _Not okay_. In his absence, for more than thirty years, shetirelessly guarded his legacy and fought to ensure that his ideology was clear. For her, it was essentialthat if she was going to lose her lifemate to the struggle, then those for whom he had struggled mustbe educated. They must be made aware of the conviction, dedication, and sacrifices he made on behalfof his faith in humanity and his mission to unite us as one community, certain of our inherent right toour own destiny. My mother took note of anyone who maligned any characteristic of her husband oranything associated with him.
　　To my mother, Malcolm X Shabazz was reserved for herself, her children, and the many persons,young and mature, who have been fortified, caressed, and inspired to employ aspects of my father'slife lessons and personal discoveries as a bridge to their own inner strength and as a foundation fortheir "personhood.""Personhood" is a word I first heard as I listened to the eloquence of Brother Randall Robinson,president of the TransAfrica Forum, during his remarks at the Apollo commemoration. While he is ageneration younger than my father, both he and his elder brother Max always symbolized a genuineand authentic continuity throughout the struggle. They are men of their word, like Haki Madhubuti,Kweisi Mfume, and Danny Glover-the few in their generation who say it, mean it, and live it. ThankGod for them as they continue to make certain that my father's beat goes on.
　　"I grew up in the Old South in Richmond, Virginia," said Brother Randall Robinson.
　　"I am one of the unfortunate millions who never knew or met Malcolm X.
　　"So perhaps I can presume to speak for those millions like me, then and now, when I say that MalcolmX was a shining model for a new, whole, and proud black personhood.
　　"_Before_ we in the South could see through the mean veil of Southern segregation-there was MalcolmX.
　　"_Before_ we could function beyond the humiliation of Southern bigotry-there was Malcolm X.
　　"_Before_ we could come to know Africa's glorious past-there was Malcolm X.
　　"_Before_ we could find our self-esteem and self-respect-there was Malcolm X.
　　"And we owe him so dearly in ways our young must never be allowed to forget.
　　"Where we have now the very possibility of courage-we _owe_ Malcolm X.
　　"Where we have the wisdom to search for our history before the Atlantic slave trade-we _owe_ Malcolm X.
　　"Where we have the political integrity to simply stand for something because it is right-we _owe_Malcolm X.
　　"It is not often that an American government institution honors those who embody a whole anduncompromised truth. But today is one such rare occasion. And I will keep it in my heart for the restof my life." At that moment, Brother Robinson spoke for all of us, and I will forever carry in my heart thesincerities of that ceremony. In particular, I will remember that as my five younger sisters and Igathered onstage for Harry Belafonte's closing remarks, I remained full. As I listened to the final notessung by the Boys Choir of Harlem their song's message still lingered in my heart: "All black boys areborn of heroes."I thought of my father and his parents, my mother and her parents, each family's respective lineageand history of participation in social movements-Garvey on one side and Booker T. Washington on theother. I thought of my sisters and I standing there, parentless, yet in constant celebration of ourparents' lives. We are blessed every day by the union and the victorious sojourns that Malcolm XShabazz and his beloved Betty Saunders Shabazz shared on this earth.
　　When I first realized that my mother wouldn't be here to witness her husband's likeness beingunveiled on a United States postal stamp, after participating in the initial discussions, a lonely tearbegan to slip down my cheek. But then it dawned on me that she wasn't missing the occasion. In fact,she had the best seat in the house. She is now where she longed to be. Beside her husband. Andtogether they are toasting our healthy continuance and productive lives.
　　As their eldest, I have pledged time and again to care for their daughters, my younger sisters, in theirmemory, in their honor, and with their celestial guidance.
　　When the curtain descends on this current wave of attention and the thematic celebrations cool down,my sisters and I will remain proud. Proud of a man and his wife, proud of a cause and a heartbeat thatwas a metronome for us long before the crossover audience considered them worthy of praise. We, theShabazz daughters and our children, will forever be nurtured by our legacy.
　　My inherent idealism yearns for the issuance of the commemorative stamp and the living document of_The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ to continue to bridge ignorance with insight, and despondencywith hope. It is essential for people to trust-even through long periods when dreams may appear tohave been deferred, delayed, and overshadowed-that there comes a time when an unwavering will, astrong belief, and endless prayers bring great visions to realization.
　　 _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ is evidence of one man's will and belief in prayer and purpose. Asyou read my father's autobiography, whether for the first time or after a long absence, it is my hopethat you will come to know him foremost as a man. A man who lived to serve-initially a specificpeople, then a nation, and eventually all people of the world. Some have said that my father wasahead of his time, but the truth is he was on time and perhaps we were late. I trust that through hiswords we may come to honor and respect all members of the human family as he did. In closing, Ioffer you my father's own words: "One day, may we all meet together in the light of understanding."M. S. HANDLER
Introduction
    The Sunday before he was to officially announce his rupture with Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X cameto my home to discuss his plans and give me some necessary documentation.
　　Mrs. Handler had never met Malcolm before this fateful visit. She served us coffee and cakes whileMalcolm spoke in the courteous, gentle manner that was his in private. It was obvious to me that Mrs.
　　Handler was impressed by Malcolm. His personality filled our living room.
　　Malcolm's attitude was that of a man who had reached a crossroads in his life and was making achoice under an inner compulsion. A wistful smile illuminated his countenance from time to time-asmile that said many things. I felt uneasy because Malcolm was evidently trying to say somethingwhich his pride and dignity prevented him from expressing. I sensed that Malcolm was not confidenthe would succeed in escaping from the shadowy world which had held him in thrall.
　　Mrs. Handler was quiet and thoughtful after Malcolm's departure. Looking up suddenly, she said:
　　"You know, it was like having tea with a black panther."The description startled me. The black panther is an aristocrat in the animal kingdom. He is beautiful.
　　He is dangerous. As a man, Malcolm X had the physical bearing and the inner self-confidence of aborn aristocrat. And he was potentially dangerous. No man in our time aroused fear and hatred in thewhite man as did Malcolm, because in him the white man sensed an implacable foe who could not behad for any price-a man unreservedly committed to the cause of liberating the black man in Americansociety rather than integrating the black man into that society.
　　My first meeting with Malcolm X took place in March 1963 in the Muslim restaurant of TempleNumber Seven on Lenox Avenue. I had been assigned by _The New York Times_ to investigate thegrowing pressures within the Negro community. Thirty years of experience as a reporter in Westernand Eastern Europe had taught me that the forces in a developing social struggle are frequently buriedbeneath the visible surface and make themselves felt in many ways long before they burst out into the open. These generative forces make themselves felt through the power of an idea long before theirorganizational forms can openly challenge the establishment. It is the merit of European politicalscientists and sociologists to give a high priority to the power of ideas in a social struggle. In theUnited States, it is our weakness to confuse the numerical strength of an organization and thepublicity attached to leaders with the germinating forces that sow the seeds of social upheaval in ourcommunity.
　　In studying the growing pressures within the Negro community, I had not only to seek the opinions ofthe established leaders of the civil rights organizations but the opinions of those working in thepenumbra of the movement-"underground," so to speak. This is why I sought out Malcolm X, whoseideas had reached me through the medium of Negro integrationists. Their thinking was alreadyreflecting a high degree of nascent Negro nationalism.
　　I did not know what to expect as I waited for Malcolm. I was the only white person in the restaurant,an immaculate establishment tended by somber, handsome, uncommunicative Negroes. Signs reading"Smoking Forbidden" were pasted on the highly polished mirrors. I was served coffee but becameuneasy in this aseptic, silent atmosphere as time passed. Malcolm finally arrived. He was very tall,handsome, of impressive bearing. His skin had a bronze hue.
　　I rose to greet him and extended my hand. Malcolm's hand came up slowly. I had the impression itwas difficult for him to take my hand, but, _noblesse oblige_, he did. Malcolm then did a curious thingwhich he always repeated whenever we met in public in a restaurant in New York or Washington. Heasked whether I would mind if he took a seat facing the door. I had had similar requests put to me inEastern European capitals. Malcolm was on the alert; he wished to see every person who entered therestaurant. I quickly realized that Malcolm constantly walked in danger.
　　We spoke for more than three hours at this first encounter. His views about the white man weredevastating, but at no time did he transgress against my own personality and make me feel that I, asan individual, shared in the guilt. He attributed the degradation of the Negro people to the white man.
　　He denounced integration as a fraud. He contended that if the leaders of the established civil rightsorganizations persisted, the social struggle would end in bloodshed because he was certain the whiteman would never concede full integration. He argued the Muslim case for separation as the onlysolution in which the Negro could achieve his own identity, develop his own culture, and lay thefoundations for a self-respecting productive community. He was vague about where the Negro statecould be established.
　　Malcolm refused to see the impossibility of the white man conceding secession from the United States;at this stage in his * career he contended it was the only solution. He defended Islam as a religion thatdid not recognize color bars. He denounced Christianity as a religion designed for slaves and theNegro clergy as the curse of the black man, exploiting him for their own purposes instead of seekingto liberate him, and acting as handmaidens of the white community in its determination to keep theNegroes in a subservient position.
　　 During this first encounter Malcolm also sought to enlighten me about the Negro mentality. Herepeatedly cautioned me to beware of Negro affirmations of good will toward the white man. He saidthat the Negro had been trained to dissemble and conceal his real thoughts, as a matter of survival. Heargued that the Negro only tells the white man what he believes the white man wishes to hear, andthat the art of dissembling reached a point where even Negroes cannot truthfully say they understandwhat their fellow Negroes believe. The art of deception practiced by the Negro was based on athorough understanding of the white man's mores, he said; at the same time the Negro has remained aclosed book to the white man, who has never displayed any interest in understanding the Negro.
　　Malcolm's exposition of his social ideas was clear and thoughtful, if somewhat shocking to the whiteinitiate, but most disconcerting in our talk was Malcolm's belief in Elijah Muhammad's history of theorigins of man, and in a genetic theory devised to prove the superiority of black over white-a theorystunning to me in its sheer absurdity.
　　After this first encounter, I realized that there were two Malcolms-the private and the public person.
　　His public performances on television and at meeting halls produced an almost terrifying effect. Hisimplacable marshaling of facts and his logic had something of a new dialectic, diabolic in its force. Hefrightened white television audiences, demolished his Negro opponents, but elicited a remarkableresponse from Negro audiences. Many Negro opponents in the end refused to make any publicappearances on the same platform with him. The troubled white audiences were confused, disturbed,felt themselves threatened. Some began to consider Malcolm evil incarnate.
　　Malcolm appealed to the two most disparate elements in the Negro community-the depressed mass,and the galaxy of o Negro writers and artists who have burst on the American scene in the pastdecade. The Negro middle class-the Negro "establishment"-abhorred and feared Malcolm as much ashe despised it.
　　The impoverished Negroes respected Malcolm in the way that wayward children respect thegrandfather image. It was always a strange and moving experience to walk with Malcolm in Harlem.
　　He was known to all. People glanced at him shyly. Sometimes Negro youngsters would ask for hisautograph. It always seemed to me that their affection for Malcolm was inspired by the fact thatalthough he had become a national figure, he was still a man of the people who, they felt, would neverbetray them. The Negroes have suffered too long from betrayals and in Malcolm they sensed a man ofmission. They knew his origins, with which they could identify. They knew his criminal and prisonrecord, which he had never concealed. They looked upon Malcolm with a certain wonderment. Herewas a man who had come from the lower depths which they still inhabited, who had triumphed overhis own criminality and his own ignorance to become a forceful leader and spokesman, anuncompromising champion of his people.
　　Although many could not share his Muslim religious beliefs, they found in Malcolm's puritanism astanding reproach to their own lives. Malcolm had purged himself of all the ills that afflict thedepressed Negro mass: drugs, alcohol, tobacco, not to speak of criminal pursuits. His personal life wasimpeccable-of a puritanism unattainable for the mass. Human redemption-Malcolm had achieved it in his own lifetime, and this was known to the Negro community.
　　In his television appearances and at public meetings Malcolm articulated the woes and the aspirationsof the depressed Negro mass in a way it was unable to do for itself. When he attacked the white man,Malcolm did for the Negroes what they couldn't do for themselves-he attacked with a violence andanger that spoke for the ages of misery. It was not an academic exercise of just giving hell to "Mr.
　　Charlie."Many of the Negro writers and artists who are national figures today revered Malcolm for what theyconsidered his ruthless honesty in stating the Negro case, his refusal to compromise, and his search fora group identity that had been destroyed by the white man when he brought the Negroes in chainsfrom Africa. The Negro writers and artists regarded Malcolm as the great catalyst, the man whoinspired self-respect and devotion in the downtrodden millions.
　　A group of these artists gathered one Sunday in my home, and we talked about Malcolm. Theirdevotion to him as a man was moving. One said: "Malcolm will never betray us. We have suffered toomuch from betrayals in the past."Malcolm's attitude toward the white man underwent a marked change in 1964-a change thatcontributed to his break with Elijah Muhammad and his racist doctrines. Malcolm's meteoric eruptionon the national scene brought him into wider contact with white men who were not the "devils" hehad thought they were. He was much in demand as a speaker at student forums in Easternuniversities and had appeared at many by the end of his short career as a national figure. He alwaysspoke respectfully and with a certain surprise of the positive response of white students to hislectures.
　　A second factor that contributed to his conversion to wider horizons was a growing doubt about theauthenticity of Elijah Muhammad's version of the Muslim religion-a doubt that grew into a certaintywith more knowledge and more experience. Certain secular practices at the Chicago headquarters ofElijah Muhammad had come to Malcolm's notice and he was profoundly shocked.
　　Finally, he embarked on a number of prolonged trips to Mecca and the newly independent Africanstates through the good offices of the representatives of the Arab League in the United States. It wason his first trip to Mecca that he came to the conclusion that he had yet to discover Islam.
　　Assassins' bullets ended Malcolm's career before he was able to develop this new approach, which inessence recognized the Negroes as an integral part of the American community-a far cry from ElijahMuhammad's doctrine of separation. Malcolm had reached the midpoint in redefining his attitude tothis country and the white-black relationship. He no longer inveighed against the United States butagainst a segment of the United States represented by overt white supremacists in the South andcovert white supremacists in the North.
　　It was Malcolm's intention to raise Negro militancy to a new high point with the main thrust aimed at both the Southern and Northern white supremacists. The Negro problem, which he had always saidshould be renamed "the white man's problem," was beginning to assume new dimensions for him inthe last months of his life.
　　To the very end, Malcolm sought to refashion the broken strands between the American Negroes andAfrican culture. He saw in this the road to a new sense of group identity, a self-conscious role inhistory, and above all a sense of man's own worth which he claimed the white man had destroyed inthe Negro.
　　American autobiographical literature is filled with numerous accounts of remarkable men who pulledthemselves to the summit by their bootstraps. Few are as poignant as Malcolm's memoirs. Astestimony to the power of redemption and the force of human personality, the autobiography ofMalcolm X is a revelation.
　　New York, June 1965
Chapter 1 Nightmare
When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan ridersgalloped up to our home in Omaha, Nebraska, one night. Surrounding the house, brandishing theirshotguns and rifles, they shouted for my father to come out. My mother went to the front door andopened it. Standing where they could see her pregnant condition, she told them that she was alonewith her three small children, and that my father was away, preaching, in Milwaukee. The Klansmenshouted threats and warnings at her that we had better get out of town because "the good Christianwhite people"' were not going to stand for my father's "spreading trouble" among the "good" Negroesof Omaha with the "back to Africa" preachings of Marcus Garvey.
　　My father, the Reverend Earl Little, was a Baptist minister, a dedicated organizer for Marcus AureliusGarvey's U.N.I.A. (Universal Negro Improvement Association). With the help of such disciples as myfather, Garvey, from his headquarters in New York City's Harlem, was raising the banner of black-racepurity and exhorting the Negro masses to return to their ancestral African homeland-a cause whichhad made Garvey the most controversial black man on earth.
　　Still shouting threats, the Klansmen finally spurred their horses and galloped around the house,shattering every window pane with their gun butts. Then they rode off into the night, their torchesflaring, as suddenly as they had come.
　　My father was enraged when he returned. He decided to wait until I was born-which would be soon-and then the family would move. I am not sure why he made this decision, for he was not a frightened Negro, as most then were, and many still are today. My father was a big, six-foot-four, very blackman. He had only one eye. How he had lost the other one I have never known. He was from Reynolds,Georgia, where he had left school after the third or maybe fourth grade. He believed, as did MarcusGarvey, that freedom, independence and self-respect could never be achieved by the Negro inAmerica, and that therefore the Negro should leave America to the white man and return to hisAfrican land of origin. Among the reasons my father had decided to risk and dedicate his life to helpdisseminate this philosophy among his people was that he had seen four of his six brothers die byviolence, three of them killed by white men, including one by lynching. What my father could notknow then was that of the remaining three, including himself, only one, my Uncle Jim, would die inbed, of natural causes. Northern white police were later to shoot my Uncle Oscar. And my father wasfinally himself to die by the white man's hands.
　　It has always been my belief that I, too, will die by violence. I have done all that I can to be prepared.
　　I was my father's seventh child. He had three children by a previous marriage-Ella, Earl, and Mary,who lived in Boston. He had met and married my mother in Philadelphia, where their first child, myoldest full brother; Wilfred, was born. They moved from Philadelphia to Omaha, where Hilda andthen Philbert were born.
　　I was next in line. My mother was twenty-eight when I was born on May 19, 1925, in an Omahahospital. Then we moved to Milwaukee, where Reginald was born. From infancy, he had some kind ofhernia condition which was to handicap him physically for the rest of his life.
　　Louise Little, my mother, who was born in Grenada, in the British West Indies, looked like a whitewoman. Her father was white. She had straight black hair, and her accent did not sound like aNegro's. Of this white father of hers, I know nothing except her shame about it. I remember hearingher say she was glad that she had never seen him. It was, of course, because of him that I got myreddish-brown "mariny" color of skin, and my hair of the same color. I was the lightest child in ourfamily. (Out in the world later on, in Boston and New York, I was among the millions of Negroes whowere insane enough to feel that it was some kind of status symbol to be light complexioned-that onewas actually fortunate to be born thus. But, still later, I learned to hate every drop of that white rapist'sblood that is in me.)Our family stayed only briefly in Milwaukee, for my father wanted to find a place where he couldraise our own food and perhaps build a business. The teaching of Marcus Garvey stressed becomingindependent of the white man. We went next, for some reason, to Lansing, Michigan. My fatherbought a house and soon, as had been his pattern, he was doing free-lance Christian preaching in localNegro Baptist churches, and during the week he was roaming about spreading word of MarcusGarvey.
　　He had begun to lay away savings for the store he had always wanted to own when, as always, somestupid local Uncle Tom Negroes began to funnel stories about his revolutionary beliefs to the localwhite people. This time, the get-out-of-town threats came from a local hate society called The Black Legion. They wore black robes instead of white. Soon, nearly everywhere my father went, BlackLegionnaires were reviling him as an "uppity nigger" for wanting to own a store, for living outside theLansing Negro district, for spreading unrest and dissent ion among "the good niggers."As in Omaha, my mother was pregnant again, this time with my youngest sister. Shortly after Yvonnewas born came the nightmare night in 1929, my earliest vivid memory. I remember being suddenlysnatched awake into a frightening confusion of pistol shots and shouting and smoke and flames. Myfather had shouted and shot at the two white men who had set the fire and were running away. Ourhome was burning down around us. We were lunging and bumping and tumbling all over each othertrying to escape. My mother, with the baby in her arms, just made it into the yard before the housecrashed in, showering sparks. I remember we were outside in me night in our underwear, crying andyelling our heads off. The white police and firemen came and stood around watching as the houseburned down to the ground.
　　My father prevailed on some friends to clothe and house us temporarily; then he moved us intoanother house on the outskirts of East Lansing. In those days Negroes weren't allowed after dark inEast Lansing proper. There's where Michigan State University is located; I related all of this to anaudience of students when I spoke there in January, 1963 (and had the first reunion in a long whilewith my younger brother, Robert, who was there doing postgraduate studies in psychology). I toldthem how East Lansing harassed us so much that we had to move again, this time two miles out oftown, into the country. This was where my father built for us with his own hands a four-room house.
　　This is where I really begin to remember things-this home where I started to grow up.
　　After the fire, I remember that my father was called in and questioned about a permit for the pistolwith which he had shot at the white men who set the fire. I remember that the police were alwaysdropping by our house, shoving things around, "just checking" or "looking for a gun." The pistol theywere looking for-which they never found, and for which they wouldn't issue a permit-was sewed upinside a pillow. My father's .22 rifle and his shotgun, though, were right out in the open; everyone hadthem for hunting birds and rabbits and other game.
　　 After that, my memories are of the friction between my father and mother. They seemed to be nearlyalways at odds. Sometimes my father would beat her. It might have had something to do with the factthat my mother had a pretty good education. Where she got it I don't know. But an educated woman, Isuppose, can't resist the temptation to correct an uneducated man. Every now and then, when she putthose smooth words on him, he would grab her.
　　My father was also belligerent toward all of the children, except me. The older ones he would beatalmost savagely if they broke any of his rules-and he had so many rules it was hard to know them all.
　　Nearly all my whippings came from my mother. I've thought a lot about why. I actually believe that asanti-white as my father was, he was subconsciously so afflicted with the white man's brainwashing of Negroes that he inclined to favor the light ones, and I was his lightest child. Most Negro parents inthose days would almost instinctively treat any lighter children better than they did the darker ones. Itcame directly from the slavery tradition that the "mulatto," because he was visibly nearer to white, wastherefore "better."My two other images of my father are both outside the home. One was his role as a Baptist preacher.
　　He never pastored in any regular church of his own; he was always a "visiting preacher." I rememberespecially his favorite sermon: "That little _black_ train is a-comin' . . . an' you better get all yourbusiness right!" I guess this also fit his association with the back-to-Africa movement, with MarcusGarvey's "Black Train Homeward." My brother Philbert, the one just older than me, loved church, butit confused and amazed me. I would sit goggle-eyed at my father jumping and shouting as hepreached, with the congregation jumping and shouting behind him, their souls and bodies devoted tosinging and praying. Even at that young age, I just couldn't believe in the Christian concept of Jesus assomeone divine. And no religious person, until I was a man in my twenties-and then in prison-couldtell me anything. I had very little respect for most people who represented religion.
　　It was in his role as a preacher that my father had most contact with the Negroes of Lansing. Believeme when I tell you that those Negroes were in bad shape then. They are still in bad shape-though in adifferent way. By that I mean that I don't know a town with a higher percentage of complacent andmisguided so-called "middle-class" Negroes-the typical status-symbol-oriented, integration-seekingtype of Negroes. Just recently, I was standing in a lobby at the United Nations talking with an Africanambassador and his wife, when a Negro came up to me and said, "You know me?" I was a littleembarrassed because I thought he was someone I should remember. It turned out that he was one ofthose bragging, self-satisfied, "middle-class" Lansing Negroes. I wasn't ingratiated. He was the typewho would never have been associated with Africa, until the fad of having African friends became astatus-symbol for "middle-class" Negroes.
　　Back when I was growing up, the "successful" Lansing Negroes were such as waiters and bootblacks.
　　To be a janitor at some downtown store was to be highly respected. The real "elite," the "big shots," the"voices of the race," were the waiters at the Lansing Country Club and the shoeshine boys at the statecapitol. The only Negroes who really had any money were the ones in the numbers racket, or who ranthe gambling houses, or who in some other way lived parasitically off the poorest ones, who were themasses. No Negroes were hired then by Lansing's big Oldsmobile plant, or the Reo plant. (Do youremember the Reo? It was manufactured in Lansing, and R. E. Olds, the man after whom it wasnamed, also lived in Lansing. When the war came along, they hired some Negro janitors.) The bulk ofthe Negroes were either on Welfare, or W.P.A., or they starved.
　　The day was to come when our family was so poor that we would eat the hole out of a doughnut; butat that time we were much better off than most town Negroes. The reason was that we raised much ofour own food out there in the country where we were. We were much better off than the townNegroes who would shout, as my father preached, for the pie-in-the-sky and their heaven in thehereafter while the white man had his here on earth.
　　 I knew that the collections my father got for his preaching were mainly what fed and clothed us, andhe also did other odd jobs, but still the image of him that made me proudest was his crusading andmilitant campaigning with the words of Marcus Garvey. As young as I was then, I knew from what Ioverheard that my father was saying something that made him a "tough" man. I remember an oldlady, grinning and saying to my father, "You're scaring these white folks to death!"One of the reasons I've always felt that my father favored me was that to the best of my remembrance,it was only me that he sometimes took with him to the Garvey U.N.I.A. meetings which he heldquietly in different people's homes. There were never more than a few people at any one time-twentyat most. But that was a lot, packed into someone's living room. I noticed how differently they all acted,although sometimes they were the same people who jumped and shouted in church. But in thesemeetings both they and my father were more intense, more intelligent and down to earth. It made mefeel the same way.
　　I can remember hearing of "Adam driven out of the garden into the caves of Europe," "Africa for theAfricans," "Ethiopians, Awake!" And my father would talk about how it would not be much longerbefore Africa would be completely run by Negroes-"by black men," was the phrase he always used.
　　"No one knows when the hour of Africa's redemption cometh. It is in the wind. It is coming. One day,like a storm, it will be here."I remember seeing the big, shiny photographs of Marcus Garvey that were passed from hand to hand.
　　My father had a big envelope of them that he always took to these meetings. The pictures showedwhat seemed to me millions of Negroes thronged in parade behind Garvey riding in a fine car, a bigblack man dressed in a dazzling uniform with gold braid on it, and he was wearing a thrilling hat withtall plumes. I remember hearing that he had black followers not only hi the United States but allaround the world, and I remember how the meetings always closed with my father saying, severaltimes, and the people chanting after him, "Up, you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will!"I have never understood why, after hearing as much as I did of these kinds of things, I somehow neverthought, then, of the black people in Africa. My image of Africa, at that time, was of naked savages,cannibals, monkeys and tigers and steaming jungles.
　　My father would drive in his old black touring car, sometimes taking me, to meeting places all aroundthe Lansing area. I remember one daytime meeting (most were at night) in the town of Owosso, fortymiles from Lansing, which the Negroes called "White City." (Owosso's greatest claim to fame is that itis the home town of Thomas E. Dewey.) As in East Lansing, no Negroes were allowed on the streetsthere after dark-hence the daytime meeting. In point of fact, in those days lots of Michigan towns werelike that. Every town had a few "home" Negroes who lived there. Sometimes it would be just onefamily, as in the nearby county seat, Mason, which had a single Negro family named Lyons. Mr.
　　Lyons had been a famous football star at Mason High School, was highly thought of in Mason, andconsequently he now worked around that town in menial jobs.
　　 My mother at this tune seemed to be always working-cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning, and fussingover us eight children. And she was usually either arguing with or not speaking to my father. Onecause of friction was that she had strong ideas about what she wouldn't eat-and didn't want _us_ toeat-including pork and rabbit, both of which my father loved dearly.
　　He was a real Georgia Negro, and he believed in eating plenty of what we in Harlem today call "soulfood."I've said that my mother was the one who whipped me-at least she did whenever she wasn't ashamedto let the neighbors think she was killing me. For if she even acted as though she was about to raiseher hand to me, I would open my mouth and let the world know about it. If anybody was passing byout on the road, she would either change her mind or just give me a few licks.
　　Thinking about it now, I feel definitely that just as my father favored me for being lighter than theother children, my mother gave me more hell for the same reason. She was very light herself but shefavored the ones who were darker. Wilfred, I know, was particularly her angel. I remember that shewould tell me to get out of the house and "Let the sun shine on you so you can get some color." Shewent out of her way never to let me become afflicted with a sense of color-superiority. I am sure thatshe treated me this way partly because of how she came to be light herself.
　　I learned early that crying out in protest could accomplish things. My older brothers and sister hadstarted to school when, sometimes, they would come in and ask for a buttered biscuit or somethingand my mother, impatiently, would tell them no. But I would cry out and make a fuss until I got whatI wanted. I remember well how my mother asked me why I couldn't be a nice boy like Wilfred; but Iwould think to myself that Wilfred, for being so nice and quiet, often stayed hungry. So early in life, Ihad learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.
　　Not only did we have our big garden, but we raised chickens. My father would buy some baby chicksand my mother would raise them. We all loved chicken. That was one dish there was no argumentwith my father about. One thing in particular that I remember made me feel grateful toward mymother was that one day I went and asked her for my own garden, and she did let me have my ownlittle plot. I loved it and took care of it well. I loved especially to grow peas. I was proud when we hadthem on our table. I would pull out the grass in my garden by hand when the first little blades cameup. I would patrol the rows on my hands and knees for any worms and bugs, and I would kill andbury them. And sometimes when I had everything straight and clean for my things to grow, I wouldlie down on my back between two rows, and I would gaze up in the blue sky at the clouds movingand think all kinds of things.
　　At five, I, too, began to go to school, leaving home in the morning along with Wilfred, Hilda, andPhilbert. It was the Pleasant Grove School that went from kindergarten through the eighth grade. Itwas two miles outside the city limits, and I guess there was no problem about our attending becausewe were the only Negroes in the area. In those days white people in the North usually would "adopt" just a few Negroes; they didn't see them as any threat. The white kids didn't make any great thingabout us, either. They called us "nigger" and "darkie" and "Rastus" so much that we thought thosewere our natural names. But they didn't think of it as an insult; it was just the way they thought aboutus.
　　 One afternoon in 1931 when Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, and I came home, my mother and father werehaving one of their arguments. There had lately been a lot of tension around the house because ofBlack Legion threats. Anyway, my father had taken one of the rabbits which we were raising, andordered my mother to cook it. We raised rabbits, but sold them to whites. My father had taken a rabbitfrom the rabbit pen. He had pulled off the rabbit's head. He was so strong, he needed no knife tobehead chickens or rabbits. With one twist of his big black hands he simply twisted off the head andthrew the bleeding-necked thing back at my mother's feet.
　　My mother was crying. She started to skin the rabbit, preparatory to cooking it. But my father was soangry he slammed on out of the front door and started walking up the road toward town.
　　It was then that my mother had this vision. She had always been a strange woman in this sense, andhad always had a strong intuition of things about to happen. And most of her children are the sameway, I think. When something is about to happen, I can feel something, sense something. I never haveknown something to happen that has caught me completely off guard-except once. And that waswhen, years later, I discovered facts I couldn't believe about a man who, up until that discovery, Iwould gladly have given my life for.
　　My father was well up the road when my mother ran screaming out onto the porch. _"Early! Early!"_She screamed his name. She clutched up her apron in one hand, and ran down across the yard andinto the road. My father turned around. He saw her. For some reason, considering how angry he hadbeen when he left, he waved at her. But he kept on going.
　　She told me later, my mother did, that she had a vision of my father's end. All the rest of the afternoon,she was not herself, crying and nervous and upset. She finished cooking the rabbit and put the wholething in the warmer part of the black stove. When my father was not back home by our bedtime, mymother hugged and clutched us, and we felt strange, not knowing what to do, because she had neveracted like that.
　　I remember waking up to the sound of my mother's screaming again. When I scrambled out, I saw thepolice in the Irving room; they were trying to calm her down. She had snatched on her clothes to gowith them. And all of us children who were staring knew without anyone having to say it thatsomething terrible had happened to our father.
　　My mother was taken by the police to the hospital, and to a room where a sheet was over my father in a bed, and she wouldn't look, she was afraid to look. Probably it was wise that she didn't. My father'sskull, on one side, was crushed in, I was told later. Negroes in Lansing have always whispered that hewas attacked, and then laid across some tracks for a streetcar to run over him. His body was cutalmost in half.
　　He lived two and a half hours in that condition. Negroes then were stronger than they are now,especially Georgia Negroes. Negroes born in Georgia had to be strong simply to survive.
　　It was morning when we children at home got the word that he was dead. I was six. I can remember avague commotion, the house filled up with people crying, saying bitterly that the white Black Legionhad finally gotten him. My mother was hysterical. In the bedroom, women were holding smellingsalts under her nose. She was still hysterical at the funeral.
　　I don't have a very clear memory of the funeral, either. Oddly, the main thing I remember is that itwasn't in a church, and that surprised me, since my father was a preacher, and I had been where hepreached people's funerals in churches. But his was in a funeral home.
　　And I remember that during the service a big black fly came down and landed on my father's face,and Wilfred sprang up from his chair and he shooed the fly away, and he came groping back to hischair-there were folding chairs for us to sit on-and the tears were streaming down his face. When wewent by the casket, I remember that I thought that it looked as if my father's strong black face hadbeen dusted with flour, and I wished they hadn't put on such a lot of it.
　　Back in the big four-room house, there were many visitors for another week or so. They were goodfriends of the family, such as the Lyons from Mason, twelve miles away, and the Walkers, McGuires,Liscoes, the Greens, Randolphs, and the Turners, and others from Lansing, and a lot of people fromother towns, whom I had seen at the Garvey meetings.
　　We children adjusted more easily than our mother did. We couldn't see, as clearly as she did, the trialsthat lay ahead. As the visitors tapered off, she became very concerned about collecting the twoinsurance policies that my father had always been proud he carried. He had always said that familiesshould be protected in case of death. One policy apparently paid off without any problem-the smallerone. I don't know the amount of it. I would imagine it was not more than a thousand dollars, andmaybe half of that.
　　But after that money came, and my mother had paid out a lot of it for the funeral and expenses, shebegan going into town and returning very upset. The company that had issued the bigger policy wasbalking at paying off. They were claiming that my father had committed suicide. Visitors came again,and there was bitter talk about white people: how could my father bash himself in the head, then getdown across the streetcar tracks to be run over?
　　So there we were. My mother was thirty-four years old now, with no husband, no provider orprotector to take care of her eight children. But some kind of a family routine got going again. And for as long as the first insurance money lasted, we did all right.
　　Wilfred, who was a pretty stable fellow, began to act older than his age. I think he had the sense to see,when the rest of us didn't, what was in the wind for us. He quietly quit school and went to town insearch of work. He took any kind of job he could find and he would come home, dog-tired, in theevenings, and give whatever he had made to my mother.
　　Hilda, who always had been quiet, too, attended to the babies. Philbert and I didn't contributeanything. We just fought all the time-each other at home, and then at school we would team up andfight white kids. Sometimes the fights would be racial in nature, but they might be about anything.
　　Reginald came under my wing. Since he had grown out of the toddling stage, he and I had becomevery close. I suppose I enjoyed the fact that he was the little one, under me, who looked up to me.
　　My mother began to buy on credit. My father had always been very strongly against credit. "Credit isthe first step into debt and back into slavery," he had always said. And then she went to work herself.
　　She would go into Lansing and find different jobs-in housework, or sewing-for white people. Theydidn't realize, usually, that she was a Negro. A lot of white people around there didn't want Negroesin their houses.
　　She would do fine until in some way or other it got to people who she was, whose widow she was.
　　And then she would be let go. I remember how she used to come home crying, but trying to hide it,because she had lost a job that she needed so much.
　　Once when one of us-I cannot remember which-had to go for something to where she was working,and the people saw us, and realized she was actually a Negro, she was fired on the spot, and she camehome crying, this time not hiding it.
　　When the state Welfare people began coming to our house, we would come from school sometimesand find them talking with our mother, asking a thousand questions. They acted and looked at her,and at us, and around in our house, in a way that had about it the feeling-at least for me-that we werenot people. In their eyesight we were just _things_, that was all.
　　My mother began to receive two checks-a Welfare check and, I believe, widow's pension. The checkshelped. But they weren't enough, as many of us as there were. When they came, about the first of themonth, one always was already owed in full, if not more, to the man at the grocery store. And, afterthat, the other one didn't last long.
　　We began to go swiftly downhill. The physical downhill wasn't as quick as the psychological. Mymother was, above everything else, a proud woman, and it took its toll on her that she was acceptingcharity. And her feelings were communicated to us.
　　 She would speak sharply to the man at the grocery store for padding the bill, telling him that shewasn't ignorant, and he didn't like that. She would talk back sharply to the state Welfare people,telling them that she was a grown woman, able to raise her children, that it wasn't necessary for themto keep coming around so much, meddling in our lives. And they didn't like that.
　　But the monthly Welfare check was their pass. They acted as if they owned us, as if we were theirprivate property. As much as my mother would have liked to, she couldn't keep them out. She wouldget particularly incensed when they began insisting upon drawing us older children aside, one at atime, out on the porch or somewhere, and asking us questions, or telling us things-against our motherand against each other.
　　We couldn't understand why, if the state was willing to give us packages of meat, sacks of potatoesand fruit, and cans of all kinds of things, our mother obviously hated to accept. We really couldn'tunderstand. What I later understood was that my mother was making a desperate effort to preserveher pride-and ours.
　　Pride was just about all we had to preserve, for by 1934, we really began to suffer. This was about theworst depression year, and no one we knew had enough to eat or live on. Some old family friendsvisited us now and then. At first they brought food. Though it was charity, my mother took it.
　　Wilfred was working to help. My mother was working, when she could find any kind of job. InLansing, there was a bakery where, for a nickel, a couple of us children would buy a tall flour sack ofday-old bread and cookies, and then walk the two miles back out into the country to our house. Ourmother knew, I guess, dozens of ways to cook things with bread and out of bread. Stewed tomatoeswith bread, maybe that would be a meal. Something like French toast, if we had any eggs. Breadpudding, sometimes with raisins in it. If we got hold of some hamburger, it came to the table morebread than meat. The cookies that were always in the sack with the bread, we just gobbled downstraight.
　　But there were times when there wasn't even a nickel and we would be so hungry we were dizzy. Mymother would boil a big pot of dandelion greens, and we would eat that. I remember that some small-minded neighbor put it out, and children would tease us, that we ate "fried grass." Sometimes, if wewere lucky, we would have oatmeal or cornmeal mush three times a day. Or mush in the morning andcornbread at night.
　　Philbert and I were grown up enough to quit fighting long enough to take the .22 caliber rifle that hadbeen our father's, and shoot rabbits that some white neighbors up or down the road would buy. Iknow now that they just did it to help us, because they, like everyone, shot their own rabbits.
　　Sometimes, I remember, Philbert and I would take little Reginald along with us. He wasn't verystrong, but he was always so proud to be along. We would trap muskrats out in the little creek in backof our house. And we would lie quiet until unsuspecting bullfrogs appeared, and we would spearthem, cut off their legs, and sell them for a nickel a pair to people who lived up and down the road.
　　The whites seemed less restricted in their dietary tastes.
　　 Then, about in late 1934, I would guess, something began to happen. Some kind of psychologicaldeterioration hit our family circle and began to eat away our pride. Perhaps it was the constanttangible evidence that we were destitute. We had known other families who had gone on relief. Wehad known without anyone in our home ever expressing it that we had felt prouder not to be at thedepot where the free food was passed out. And, now, we were among them. At school, the "on relief"finger suddenly was pointed at us, too, and sometimes it was said aloud.
　　It seemed that everything to eat in our house was stamped Not To Be Sold. All Welfare food bore thisstamp to keep the recipients from selling it. It's a wonder we didn't come to think of Not To Be Sold asa brand name.
　　Sometimes, instead of going home from school, I walked the two miles up the road into Lansing. Ibegan drifting from store to store, hanging around outside where things like apples were displayed inboxes and barrels and baskets, and I would watch my chance and steal me a treat. You know what atreat was to me? Anything!
　　Or I began to drop in about dinnertime at the home of some family that we knew. I knew that theyknew exactly why I was there, but they never embarrassed me by letting on. They would invite me tostay for supper, and I would stuff myself.
　　Especially, I liked to drop in and visit at the Gohannases' home. They were nice, older people, andgreat churchgoers. I had watched them lead the jumping and shouting when my father preached.
　　They had, living with them-they were raising him-a nephew whom everyone called "Big Boy," and heand I got along fine. Also living with the Gohannases was old Mrs. Adcock, who went with them tochurch. She was always trying to help anybody she could, visiting anyone she heard was sick,carrying them something. She was the one who, years later, would tell me something that Iremembered a long time: "Malcolm, there's one thing I like about you. You're no good, but you don'ttry to hide it. You are not a hypocrite."The more I began to stay away from home and visit people and steal from the stores, the moreaggressive I became in my inclinations. I never wanted to wait for anything.
　　I was growing up fast, physically more so than mentally. As I began to be recognized more around thetown, I started to become aware of the peculiar attitude of white people toward me. I sensed that ithad to do with my father. It was an adult version of what several white children had said at school, inhints, or sometimes in the open, which really expressed what their parents had said-that the BlackLegion or the Klan had killed my father, and the insurance company had pulled a fast one in refusingto pay my mother the policy money.
　　When I began to get caught stealing now and then, the state Welfare people began to focus on mewhen they came to our house. I can't remember how I first became aware that they were talking oftaking me away. What I first remember along that line was my mother raising a storm about being able to bring up her own children. She would whip me for stealing, and I would try to alarm theneighborhood with my yelling. One thing I have always been proud of is that I never raised my handagainst my mother.
　　In the summertime, at night, in addition to all the other things we did, some of us boys would slip outdown the road, or across the pastures, and go "cooning" watermelons. White people always associatedwatermelons with Negroes, and they sometimes called Negroes "coons" among all the other names,and so stealing watermelons became "cooning" them. If white boys were doing it, it implied that theywere only acting like Negroes. Whites have always hidden or justified all of the guilts they could byridiculing or blaming Negroes.
　　One Halloween night, I remember that a bunch of us were out tipping over those old countryouthouses, and one old farmer-I guess he had tipped over enough in his day-had set a trap for us.
　　Always, you sneak up from behind the outhouse, then you gang together and push it, to tip it over.
　　This farmer had taken his outhouse off the hole, and set it just in _front_ of the hole. Well, we camesneaking up in single file, in the darkness, and the two white boys in the lead fell down into theouthouse hole neck deep. They smelled so bad it was all we could stand to get them out, and thatfinished us all for that Halloween. I had just missed falling in myself. The whites were so used totaking the lead, this time it had really gotten them in the hole.
　　Thus, in various ways, I learned various things. I picked strawberries, and though I can't recall what Igot per crate for picking, I remember that after working hard all one day, I wound up with about adollar, which was a whole lot of money in those times. I was so hungry, I didn't know what to do. Iwas walking away toward town with visions of buying something good to eat, and this older whiteboy I knew, Richard Dixon, came up and asked me if I wanted to match nickels. He had plenty ofchange for my dollar. In about a half hour, he had all the change back, including my dollar, andinstead of going to town to buy something, I went home with nothing, and I was bitter. But that wasnothing compared to what I felt when I found out later that he had cheated. There is a way that youcan catch and hold the nickel and make it come up the way you want. This was my first lesson aboutgambling: if you see somebody winning all the time, he isn't gambling, he's cheating. Later on in life, ifI were continuously losing in any gambling situation, I would watch very closely. It's like the Negro inAmerica seeing the white man win all the time. He's a professional gambler; he has all the cards andthe odds stacked on his side, and he has always dealt to our people from the bottom of the deck.
　　About this time, my mother began to be visited by some Seventh Day Adventists who had moved intoa house not too far down the road from us. They would talk to her for hours at a time, and leavebooklets and leaflets and magazines for her to read. She read them, and Wilfred, who had started backto school after we had begun to get the relief food supplies, also read a lot. His head was forever insome book.
　　Before long, my mother spent much time with the Adventists. It's my belief that what mostlyinfluenced her was that they had even more diet restrictions than she always had taught and practicedwith us. Like us, they were against eating rabbit and pork; they followed the Mosaic dietary laws.
　　 They ate nothing of the flesh without a split hoof, or that didn't chew a cud. We began to go with mymother to the Adventist meetings that were held further out in the country. For us children, I knowthat the major attraction was the good food they served. But we listened, too. There were a handful ofNegroes, from small towns in the area, but I would say that it was ninety-nine percent white people.
　　The Adventists felt that we were living at the end of time, that the world soon was coming to an end.
　　But they were the friendliest white people I had ever seen. In some ways, though, we children noticed,and, when we were back at home, discussed, that they were different from us-such as the lack ofenough seasoning in their food, and the different way that white people smelled.
　　 Meanwhile, the state Welfare people kept after my mother. By now, she didn't make it any secret thatshe hated them, and didn't want them in her house. But they exerted their right to come, and I havemany, many times reflected upon how, talking to us children, they began to plant the seeds of divisionin our minds. They would ask such things as who was smarter than the other. And they would ask mewhy I was "so different."I think they felt that getting children into foster homes was a legitimate pan of their function, and theresult would be less troublesome, however they went about it.
　　And when my mother fought them, they went after her-first, through me. I was the first target. I stole;that implied that I wasn't being taken care of by my mother.
　　All of us were mischievous at some time or another, I more so than any of the rest. Philbert and I kepta battle going. And this was just one of a dozen things that kept building up the pressure on mymother.
　　I'm not sure just how or when the idea was first dropped by the Welfare workers that our mother waslosing her mind.
　　But I can distinctly remember hearing "crazy" applied to her by them when they learned that theNegro fanner who was in the next house down the road from us had offered to give us somebutchered pork-a whole pig, maybe even two of them-and she had refused. We all heard them call mymother "crazy" to her face for refusing good meat. It meant nothing to them even when she explainedthat we had never eaten pork, that it was against her religion as a Seventh Day Adventist.
　　They were as vicious as vultures. They had no feelings, understanding, compassion, or respect for mymother. They told us, "She's crazy for refusing food." Right then was when our home, our unity, beganto disintegrate. We were having a hard time, and I wasn't helping. But we could have made it, wecould have stayed together. As bad as I was, as much trouble and worry as I caused my mother, Iloved her.
　　 The state people, we found out, had interviewed the Gohannas family, and the Gohannases had saidthat they would take me into their home. My mother threw a fit, though, when she heard that-and thehome wreckers took cover for a while.
　　It was about this time that the large, dark man from Lansing began visiting. I don't remember how orwhere he and my mother met. It may have been through some mutual friends. I don't remember whatthe man's profession was. In 1935, in Lansing, Negroes didn't have anything you could call aprofession. But the man, big and black, looked something like my father. I can remember his name,but there's no need to mention it. He was a single man, and my mother was a widow only thirty-sixyears old. The man was independent; naturally she admired that. She was having a hard timedisciplining us, and a big man's presence alone would help. And if she had a man to provide, it wouldsend the state people away forever.
　　We all understood without ever saying much about it. Or at least we had no objection. We took it instride, even with some amusement among us, that when the man came, our mother would be alldressed up in the best that she had-she still was a good-looking woman-and she would act differently,light-hearted and laughing, as we hadn't seen her act in years.
　　It went on for about a year, I guess. And then, about 1936, or 1937, the man from Lansing jilted mymother suddenly. He just stopped coming to see her. From what I later understood, he finally backedaway from taking on the responsibility of those eight mouths to feed. He was afraid of so many of us.
　　To this day, I can see the trap that Mother was in, saddled with all of us. And I can also understandwhy he would shun taking on such a tremendous responsibility.
　　But it was a terrible shock to her. It was the beginning of the end of reality for my mother. When shebegan to sit around and walk around talking to herself-almost as though she was unaware that wewere there-it became increasingly terrifying.
　　The state people saw her weakening. That was when they began the definite steps to take me awayfrom home. They began to tell me how nice it was going to be at the Gohannases' home, where theGohannases and Big Boy and Mrs. Adcock had all said how much they liked me, and would like tohave me live with them.
　　I liked all of them, too. But I didn't want to leave Wilfred. I looked up to and admired my big brother. Ididn't want to leave Hilda, who was like my second mother. Or Philbert; even in our fighting, therewas a feeling of brotherly union. Or Reginald, especially, who was weak with his hernia condition,and who looked up to me as his big brother who looked out for him, as I looked up to Wilfred. And Ihad nothing, either, against the babies, Yvonne, Wesley, and Robert.
　　As my mother talked to herself more and more, she gradually became less responsive to us. And lessresponsible. The house became less tidy. We began to be more unkempt. And usually, now, Hildacooked.
　　 We children watched our anchor giving way. It was something terrible that you couldn't get yourhands on, yet you couldn't get away from. It was a sensing that something bad was going to happen.
　　We younger ones leaned more and more heavily on the relative strength of Wilfred and Hilda, whowere the oldest.
　　When finally I was sent to the Gohannases' home, at least in a surface way I was glad. I remember thatwhen I left home with the state man, my mother said one thing: "Don't let them feed him any pig."It was better, in a lot of ways, at the Gohannases'. Big Boy and I shared his room together, and we hit itoff nicely. He just wasn't the same as my blood brothers. The Gohannases were very religious people.
　　Big Boy and I attended church with them. They were sanctified Holy Rollers now. The preachers andcongregations jumped even higher and shouted even louder than the Baptists I had known. They sangat the top of their lungs, and swayed back and forth and cried and moaned and beat on tambourinesand chanted. It was spooky, with ghosts and spirituals and "ha'nts" seeming to be in the veryatmosphere when finally we all came out of the church, going back home.
　　The Gohannases and Mrs. Adcock loved to go fishing, and some Saturdays Big Boy and I would goalong. I had changed schools now, to Lansing's West Junior High School. It was right in the heart ofthe Negro community, and a few white kids were there, but Big Boy didn't mix much with any of ourschoolmates, and I didn't either. And when we went fishing, neither he nor I liked the idea of justsitting and waiting for the fish to jerk the cork under the water-or make the tight line quiver, when wefished that way. I figured there should be some smarter way to get the fish-though we neverdiscovered what it might be.
　　Mr. Gohannas was close cronies with some other men who, some Saturdays, would take me and BigBoy with them hunting rabbits. I had my father's .22 caliber rifle; my mother had said it was all rightfor me to take it with me. The old men had a set rabbit-hunting strategy that they had always used.
　　Usually when a dog jumps a rabbit, and the rabbit gets away, that rabbit will always somehowinstinctively run in a circle and return sooner or later past the very spot where he originally wasjumped. Well, the old men would just sit and wait in hiding somewhere for the rabbit to come back,then get their shots at him. I got to thinking about it, and finally I thought of a plan. I would separatefrom them and Big Boy and I would go to a point where I figured that the rabbit, returning, wouldhave to pass me first.
　　It worked like magic. I began to get three and four rabbits before they got one. The astonishing thingwas that none of the old men ever figured out why. They outdid themselves exclaiming what a sureshot I was. I was about twelve, then. All I had done was to improve on their strategy, and it was thebeginning of a very important lesson in life-that anytime you find someone more successful than youare, especially when you're both engaged in the same business-you know they're doing something thatyou aren't.
　　I would return home to visit fairly often. Sometimes Big Boy and one or another, or both, of theGohannases would go with me-sometimes not. I would be glad when some of them did go, because it made the ordeal easier.
　　Soon the state people were making plans to take over all of my mother's children. She talked to herselfnearly all of the time now, and there was a crowd of new white people entering the picture-alwaysasking questions. They would even visit me at the Gohannases'. They would ask me questions out onthe porch, or sitting out in their cars.
　　Eventually my mother suffered a complete breakdown, and the court orders were finally signed. Theytook her to the State Mental Hospital at Kalamazoo.
　　It was seventy-some miles from Lansing, about an hour and a half on the bus. A Judge McClellan inLansing had authority over me and all of my brothers and sisters. We were "state children," courtwards; he had the full say-so over us. A white man in charge of a black man's children! Nothing butlegal, modern slavery-however kindly intentioned.
　　 My mother remained in the same hospital at Kalamazoo for about twenty-six years. Later, when I wasstill growing up in Michigan, I would go to visit her every so often. Nothing that I can imagine couldhave moved me as deeply as seeing her pitiful state. In 1963, we got my mother out of the hospital,and she now lives there in Lansing with Philbert and his family.
　　It was so much worse than if it had been a physical sickness, for which a cause might be known,medicine given, a cure effected. Every time I visited her, when finally they led her-a case, a number-back inside from where we had been sitting together, I felt worse.
　　My last visit, when I knew I would never come to see her again-there-was in 1952. I was twenty-seven.
　　My brother Philbert had told me that on his last visit, she had recognized him somewhat. "In spots," hesaid.
　　But she didn't recognize me at all.
　　She stared at me. She didn't know who I was.
　　Her mind, when I tried to talk, to reach her, was somewhere else. I asked, "Mama, do you know whatday it is?"She said, staring, "All the people have gone."I can't describe how I felt. The woman who had brought me into the world, and nursed me, andadvised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn't know me. It was as if I was trying to walk up theside of a hill of feathers. I looked at her. I listened to her "talk." But there was nothing I could do.
　　 I truly believe that if ever a state social agency destroyed a family, it destroyed ours. We wanted andtried to stay together. Our home didn't have to be destroyed. But the Welfare, the courts, and theirdoctor, gave us the one-two-three punch. And ours was not the only case of this kind.
　　I knew I wouldn't be back to see my mother again because it could make me a very vicious anddangerous person-knowing how they had looked at us as numbers and as a case in their book, not ashuman beings. And knowing that my mother in there was a statistic that didn't have to be, that existedbecause of a society's failure, hypocrisy, greed, and lack of mercy and compassion. Hence I have nomercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not beingable to stand up under the weight.
　　I have rarely talked to anyone about my mother, for I believe that I am capable of killing a person,without hesitation, who happened to make the wrong kind of remark about my mother. So Ipurposely don't make any opening for some fool to step into.
　　Back then when our family was destroyed, in 1937, Wilfred and Hilda were old enough so that thestate let them stay on their own in the big four-room house that my father had built. Philbert wasplaced with another family in Lansing, a Mrs. Hackett, while Reginald and Wesley went to live with afamily called Williams, who were friends of my mother's. And Yvonne and Robert went to live with aWest Indian family named McGuire.
　　Separated though we were, all of us maintained fairly close touch around Lansing-in school and out-whenever we could get together. Despite the artificially created separation and distance between us,we still remained very close in our feelings toward each other.
Chapter 2 Mascot
On June twenty-seventh of that year, nineteen thirty-seven, Joe Louis knocked out James J. Braddockto become the heavyweight champion of the world. And all the Negroes in Lansing, like Negroeseverywhere, went wildly happy with the greatest celebration of race pride our generation had everknown. Every Negro boy old enough to walk wanted to be the next Brown Bomber. My brotherPhilbert, who had already become a pretty good boxer in school, was no exception. (I was trying toplay basketball. I was gangling and tall, but I wasn't very good at it-too awkward.) In the fall of thatyear, Philbert entered the amateur bouts that were held in Lansing's Prudden Auditorium.
　　He did well, surviving the increasingly tough eliminations. I would go down to the gym and watchhim train. It was very exciting. Perhaps without realizing it I became secretly envious; for one thing, Iknow I could not help seeing some of my younger brother Reginald's lifelong admiration for megetting siphoned off to Philbert.
　　 People praised Philbert as a natural boxer. I figured that since we belonged to the same family, maybeI would become one, too. So I put myself in the ring. I think I was thirteen when I signed up for myfirst bout, but my height and rawboned frame let me get away with claiming that I was sixteen, theminimum age-and my weight of about 128 pounds got me classified as a bantamweight.
　　They matched me with a white boy, a novice like myself, named Bill Peterson. I'll never forget him.
　　When our turn in the next amateur bouts came up, all of my brothers and sisters were 24 therewatching, along with just about everyone else I knew in town. They were there not so much because ofme but because of Philbert, who had begun to build up a pretty good following, and they wanted tosee how his brother would do.
　　I walked down the aisle between the people thronging the rows of seats, and climbed in the ring. BillPeterson and I were introduced, and then the referee called us together and mumbled all of that stuffabout fighting fair and breaking clean. Then the bell rang and we came out of our corners. I knew Iwas scared, but I didn't know, as Bill Peterson told me later on, that he was scared of me, too. He wasso scared I was going to hurt him that he knocked me down fifty times if he did once.
　　He did such a job on my reputation in the Negro neighborhood that I practically went into hiding. ANegro just can't be whipped by somebody white and return with his head up to the neighborhood,especially in those days, when sports and, to a lesser extent show business, were the only fields opento Negroes, and when the ring was the only place a Negro could whip a white man and not belynched. When I did show my face again, the Negroes I knew rode me so badly I knew I had to dosomething.
　　But the worst of my humiliations was my younger brother Reginald's attitude: he simply nevermentioned the fight. It was the way he looked at me-and avoided looking at me. So I went back to thegym, and I trained-hard. I beat bags and skipped rope and grunted and sweated all over the place.
　　And finally I signed up to fight Bill Peterson again. This time, the bouts were held in his hometown ofAlma, Michigan.
　　The only thing better about the rematch was that hardly anyone I knew was there to see it; I wasparticularly grateful for Reginald's absence. The moment the bell rang, I saw a fist, then the canvascoming up, and ten seconds later the referee was saying "Ten!" over me. It was probably the shortest"fight" in history. I lay there listening to the full count, but I couldn't move. To tell the truth, I'm notsure I wanted to move.
　　That white boy was the beginning and the end of my fight career. A lot of tunes in these later yearssince I became a Muslim, I've thought back to that fight and reflected that it was Allah's work to stopme: I might have wound up punchy.
　　Not long after this, I came into a classroom with my hat on. I did it deliberately. The teacher, who waswhite, ordered me to keep the hat on, and to walk around and around the room until he told me to stop. "That way," he said, "everyone can see you. Meanwhile, we'll go on with class for those who arehere to learn something."I was still walking around when he got up from his desk and turned to the blackboard to writesomething on it. Everyone in the classroom was looking when, at this moment, I passed behind hisdesk, snatched up a thumbtack and deposited it in his chair. When he turned to sit back down, I wasfar from the scene of the crime, circling around the rear of the room. Then he hit the tack, and I heardhim holler and caught a glimpse of him spraddling up as I disappeared through the door.
　　With my deportment record, I wasn't really shocked when the decision came that I had been expelled.
　　I guess I must have had some vague idea that if I didn't have to go to school, I'd be allowed to stay onwith the Gohannases and wander around town, or maybe get a job if I wanted one for pocket money.
　　But I got rocked on my heels when a state man whom I hadn't seen before came and got me at theGohannases' and took me down to court.
　　They told me I was going to go to a reform school. I was still thirteen years old.
　　But first I was going to the detention home. It was in Mason, Michigan, about twelve miles fromLansing. The detention home was where all the "bad" boys and girls from Ingham County were held,on their way to reform school-waiting for their hearings.
　　The white state man was a Mr. Maynard Allen. He was nicer to me than most of the state Welfarepeople had been. He even had consoling words for the Gohannases and Mrs. Adcock and Big Boy; allof them were crying. But I wasn't. With the few clothes I owned stuffed into a box, we rode in his carto Mason. He talked as he drove along, saying that my school marks showed that if I would juststraighten up, I could make something of myself. He said that reform school had the wrongreputation; he talked about what the word "reform" meant-to change and become better. He said theschool was really a place where boys like me could have time to see their mistakes and start a new lifeand become somebody everyone would be proud of. And he told me that the lady in charge of thedetention home, a Mrs. Swerlin, and her husband were very good people.
　　They were good people. Mrs. Swerlin was bigger than her husband, I remember, a big, buxom, robust,laughing woman, and Mr. Swerlin was thin, with black hair, and a black mustache and a red face,quiet and polite, even to me.
　　They liked me right away, too. Mrs. Swerlin showed me to my room, my own room-the first in mylife. It was in one of those huge dormitory-tike buildings where kids in detention were kept in thosedays-and still are in most places. I discovered next, with surprise, that I was allowed to eat with theSwerlins. It was the first time I'd eaten with white people-at least with grown white people-since theSeventh Day Adventist country meetings. It wasn't my own exclusive privilege, of course. Except forthe very troublesome boys and girls at the detention home, who were kept locked up-those who hadrun away and been caught and brought back, or something like that-all of us ate with the Swerlins sitting at the head of the long tables.
　　They had a white cook-helper, I recall-Lucille Lathrop. (It amazes me how these names come back,from a time I haven't thought about for more than twenty years.) Lucille treated me well, too. Herhusband's name was Duane Lathrop. He worked somewhere else, but he stayed there at the detentionhome on the weekends with Lucille.
　　I noticed again how white people smelled different from us, and how their food tasted different, notseasoned like Negro cooking. I began to sweep and mop and dust around in the Swerlins' house, as Ihad done with Big Boy at the Gohannases'.
　　They all liked my attitude, and it was out of their liking for me that I soon became accepted by them-as a mascot, I know now. They would talk about anything and everything with me standing rightthere hearing them, the same way people would talk freely in front of a pet canary. They would eventalk about me, or about "niggers," as though I wasn't there, as if I wouldn't understand what the wordmeant. A hundred times a day, they used the word "nigger." I suppose that in their own minds, theymeant no harm; in fact they probably meant well. It was the same with the cook, Lucille, and herhusband, Duane. I remember one day when Mr. Swerlin, as nice as he was, came in from Lansing,where he had been through the Negro section, and said to Mrs. Swerlin right in front of me, "I justcan't see how those niggers can be so happy and be so poor." He talked about how they lived inshacks, but had those big, shining cars out front.
　　And Mrs. Swerlin said, me standing right there, "Niggers are just that way. . . ." That scene alwaysstayed with me.
　　It was the same with the other white people, most of them local politicians, when they would comevisiting the Swerlins. One of their favorite parlor topics was "niggers." One of them was the judge whowas in charge of me in Lansing. He was a close friend of the Swerlins. He would ask about me whenhe came, and they would call me in, and he would look me up and down, his expression approving,like he was examining a fine colt, or a pedigreed pup. I knew they must have told him how I acted andhow I worked.
　　What I am trying to say is that it just never dawned upon them that I could understand, that I wasn't apet, but a human being. They didn't give me credit for having the same sensitivity, intellect, andunderstanding that they would have been ready and willing to recognize in a white boy in myposition. But it has historically been the case with white people, in their regard for black people, thateven though we might be _with_ them, we weren't considered of them. Even though they appeared tohave opened the door, it was still closed. Thus they never did really see _me_.
　　This is the sort of kindly condescension which I try to clarify today, to these integration-hungryNegroes, about their "liberal" white friends, these so-called "good white people"-most of them anyway.
　　I don't care how nice one is to you; the thing you must always remember is that almost never does he really see you as he sees himself, as he sees his own kind. He may stand with you through thin, butnot thick; when the chips are down, you'll find that as fixed in him as his bone structure is hissometimes subconscious conviction that he's better than anybody black.
　　But I was no more than vaguely aware of anything like that in my detention-home years. I did mylittle chores around the house, and everything was fine. And each weekend, they didn't mind mycatching a ride over to Lansing for the afternoon or evening. If I wasn't old enough, I sure was bigenough by then, and nobody ever questioned my hanging out, even at night, in the streets of theNegro section.
　　I was growing up to be even bigger than Wilfred and Philbert, who had begun to meet girls at theschool dances, and other places, and introduced me to a few. But the ones who seemed to like me, Ididn't go for-and vice versa. I couldn't dance a lick, anyway, and I couldn't see squandering my fewdimes on girls. So mostly I pleasured myself these Saturday nights by gawking around the Negro barsand restaurants. The jukeboxes were wailing Erskine Hawkins' "Tuxedo Junction," Slim and Slam's"Flatfoot Floogie," things like that. Sometimes, big bands from New York, out touring the one-nightstands in the sticks, would play for big dances in Lansing. Everybody with legs would come out to seeany performer who bore the magic name "New York." Which is how I first heard Lucky Thompsonand Milt Jackson, both of whom I later got to know well in Harlem.
　　Many youngsters from the detention home, when their dates came up, went off to the reform school.
　　But when mine came up-two or three times-it was always ignored. I saw new youngsters arrive andleave. I was glad and grateful. I knew it was Mrs. Swerlin's doing. I didn't want to leave.
　　She finally told me one day that I was going to be entered in Mason Junior High School. It was theonly school in town. No ward of the detention home had ever gone to school there, at least while still award. So I entered their seventh grade. The only other Negroes there were some of the Lyons children,younger than I was, in the lower grades. The Lyonses and I, as it happened, were the town's onlyNegroes. They were, as Negroes, very much respected. Mr. Lyons was a smart, hardworking man, andMrs. Lyons was a very good woman. She and my mother, I had heard my mother say, were two of thefour West Indians in that whole section of Michigan.
　　Some of the white kids at school, I found, were even friendlier than some of those in Lansing hadbeen. Though some, including the teachers, called me "nigger," it was easy to see that they didn't meanany more harm by it than the Swerlins. As the "nigger" of my class, I was in tact extremely popular-Isuppose partly because I was kind of a novelty. I was in demand, I had top priority. But I alsobenefited from the special prestige of having the seal of approval from that Very Important Womanabout the town of Mason, Mrs. Swerlin. Nobody in Mason would have dreamed of getting on thewrong side of her. It became hard for me to get through a school day without someone after me to jointhis or head up that-the debating society, the Junior High basketball team, or some otherextracurricular activity. I never turned them down.
　　And I hadn't been in the school long when Mrs. Swerlin, knowing I could use spending money of my own, got me a job after school washing the dishes in a local restaurant. My boss there was the father ofa white classmate whom I spent a lot of time with. His family lived over the restaurant. It was fineworking there. Every Friday night when I got paid, I'd feel at least ten feet tall. I forget how much Imade, but it seemed like a lot. It was the first time I'd ever had any money to speak of, all my own, inmy whole life. As soon as I could afford it, I bought a green suit and some shoes, and at school I'd buytreats for the others in my class-at least as much as any of them did for me.
　　English and history were the subjects I liked most. My English teacher, I recall-a Mr. Ostrowski-wasalways giving advice about how to become something in life. The one thing I didn't like about historyclass was that the teacher, Mr. Williams, was a great one for "nigger" jokes. One day during my firstweek at school, I walked into the room and he started singing to the class, as a joke, "'Way downyonder in the cotton field, some folks say that a nigger won't steal." Very funny. I liked history, but Inever thereafter had much liking for Mr. Williams. Later, I remember, we came to the textbook sectionon Negro history. It was exactly one paragraph long. Mr. Williams laughed through it practically in asingle breath, reading aloud how the Negroes had been slaves and then were freed, and how theywere usually lazy and dumb and shiftless. He added, I remember, an anthropological footnote on hisown, telling us between laughs how Negroes' feet were "so big that when they walk, they don't leavetracks, they leave a hole in the ground."I'm sorry to say that the subject I most disliked was mathematics. I have thought about it. I think thereason was that mathematics leaves no room for argument. If you made a mistake, that was all therewas to it.
　　Basketball was a big thing in my life, though. I was on the team; we traveled to neighboring townssuch as Howell and Charlotte, and wherever I showed my face, the audiences in the gymnasiums"niggered" and "cooned" me to death. Or called me "Rastus." It didn't bother my teammates or mycoach at all, and to tell the truth, it bothered me only vaguely. Mine was the same psychology thatmakes Negroes even today, though it bothers them down inside, keep letting the white man tell themhow much "progress" they are making. They've heard it so much they've almost gotten brainwashedinto believing it-or at least accepting it.
　　After the basketball games, there would usually be a school dance. Whenever our team walked intoanother school's gym for the dance, with me among them, I could feel the freeze. It would start to easeas they saw that I didn't try to mix, but stuck close to someone on our team, or kept to myself. I think Ideveloped ways to do it without making it obvious. Even at our own school, I could sense it almost asa physical barrier, that despite all the beaming and smiling, the mascot wasn't supposed to dance withany of the white girls.
　　It was some kind of psychic message-not just from them, but also from within myself. I am proud tobe able to say that much for myself, at least. I would just stand around and smile and talk and drinkpunch and eat sandwiches, and then I would make some excuse and get away early.
　　They were typical small-town school dances. Sometimes a little white band from Lansing would be brought in to play. But most often, the music was a phonograph set up on a table, with the volumeturned up high, and the records scratchy, blaring things like Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade"-hisband was riding high then-or the Ink Spots, who were also very popular, singing "If I Didn't Care."I used to spend a lot of time thinking about a peculiar thing. Many of these Mason white boys, like theones at the Lansing school-especially if they knew me well, and if we hung out a lot together-wouldget me off in a corner somewhere and push me to proposition certain white girls, sometimes their ownsisters. They would tell me that they'd already had the girls themselves-including their sisters-or thatthey were trying to and couldn't. Later on, I came to understand what was going on: If they could getthe girls into the position of having broken the terrible taboo by slipping off with me somewhere, theywould have that hammer over the girls' heads, to make them give in to them.
　　It seemed that the white boys felt that I, being a Negro, just naturally knew more about "romance," orsex, than they did-that I instinctively knew more about what to do and say with their own girls. Inever did tell anybody that I really went for some of the white girls, and some of them went for me,too. They let me know in many ways. But anytime we found ourselves in any close conversations orpotentially intimate situations, always there would come up between us some kind of a wall. The girlsI really wanted to have were a couple of Negro girls whom Wilfred or Philbert had introduced me toin Lansing. But with these girls, somehow, I lacked the nerve.
　　From what I heard and saw on the Saturday nights I spent hanging around in the Negro district Iknew that race-mixing went on in Lansing. But strangely enough, this didn't have any kind of effecton me. Every Negro in Lansing, I guess, knew how white men would drive along certain streets in theblack neighborhoods and pick up Negro streetwalkers who patrolled the area. And, on the other hand,there was a bridge that separated the Negro and Polish neighborhoods, where white women woulddrive or walk across and pick up Negro men, who would hang around in certain places close to thebridge, waiting for them. Lansing's white women, even in those days, were famous for chasing Negromen. I didn't yet appreciate how most whites accord to the Negro this reputation for prodigioussexual prowess. There in Lansing, I never heard of any trouble about this mixing, from either side. Iimagine that everyone simply took it for granted, as I did.
　　Anyway, from my experience as a little boy at the Lansing school, I had become fairly adept atavoiding the white-girl issue-at least for a couple of years yet.
　　Then, in the second semester of the seventh grade, I was elected class president. It surprised me evenmore than other people. But I can see now why the class might have done it. My grades were amongthe highest in the school. I was unique in my class, like a pink poodle. And I was proud; I'm not goingto say I wasn't. In fact, by then, I didn't really have much feeling about being a Negro, because I wastrying so hard, in every way I could, to be white. Which is why I am spending much of my life todaytelling the American black man that he's wasting his time straining to "integrate." I know frompersonal experience. I tried hard enough.
　　"Malcolm, we're just so _proud_ of you!" Mrs. Swerlin exclaimed when she heard about my election. It was all over the restaurant where I worked. Even the state man, Maynard Allen, who still dropped byto see me once in a while, had a word of praise. He said he never saw anybody prove better exactlywhat "reform" meant. I really liked him-except for one thing: he now and then would drop somethingthat hinted my mother had let us down somehow.
　　Fairly often, I would go and visit the Lyonses, and they acted as happy as though I was one of theirchildren. And it was the same warm feeling when I went into Lansing to visit my brothers and sisters,and the Gohannases.
　　I remember one thing that marred this time for me: the movie "Gone with the Wind." When it playedin Mason, I was the only Negro in the theater, and when Butterfly McQueen went into her act, I feltlike crawling under the rug.
　　Every Saturday, just about, I would go into Lansing. I was going on fourteen, now. Wilfred and Hildastill lived out by themselves at the old family home. Hilda kept the house very clean. It was easier thanmy mother's plight, with eight of us always underfoot or running around. Wilfred worked whereverhe could, and he still read every book he could get his hands on. Philbert was getting a reputation asone of the better amateur fighters in this part of the state; everyone really expected that he was goingto become a professional.
　　Reginald and I, after my fighting fiasco, had finally gotten back on good terms. It made me feel greatto visit him and Wesley over at Mrs. Williams'. I'd offhandedly give them each a couple of dollars tojust stick in their pockets, to have something to spend. And little Yvonne and Robert were doing okay,too, over at the home of the West Indian lady, Mrs. McGuire. I'd give them about a quarter apiece; itmade me feel good to see how they were coming along.
　　None of us talked much about our mother. And we never mentioned our father. I guess none of usknew what to say. We didn't want anybody else to mention our mother either, I think. From time totime, though, we would all go over to Kalamazoo to visit her. Most often we older ones went singly,for it was something you didn't want to have to experience with anyone else present, even yourbrother or sister.
　　During this period, the visit to my mother that I most remember was toward the end of that seventh-grade year, when our father's grown daughter by his first marriage, Ella, came from Boston to visit us.
　　Wilfred and Hilda had exchanged some letters with Ella, and I, at Hilda's suggestion, had written toher from the Swerlins'. We were all excited and happy when her letter told us that she was coming toLansing.
　　I think the major impact of Ella's arrival, at least upon me, was that she was the first really proud blackwoman I had ever seen in my life. She was plainly proud of her very dark skin. This was unheard ofamong Negroes in those days, especially in Lansing.
　　I hadn't been sure just what day she would come. And then one afternoon I got home from school and there she was. She hugged me, stood me away, looked me up and down. A commanding woman,maybe even bigger than Mrs. Swerlin. Ella wasn't just black, but like our father, she was jet black. Theway she sat, moved, talked, did everything, bespoke somebody who did and got exactly what shewanted. This was the woman my father had boasted of so often for having brought so many of theirfamily out of Georgia to Boston. She owned some property, he would say, and she was "in society."She had come North with nothing, and she had worked and saved and had invested in property thatshe built up in value, and then she started sending money to Georgia for another sister, brother,cousin, niece or nephew to come north to Boston. All that I had heard was reflected in Ella'sappearance and bearing. I had never been so impressed with anybody. She was in her secondmarriage; her first husband had been a doctor.
　　Ella asked all kinds of questions about how I was doing; she had already heard from Wilfred andHilda about my election as class president. She asked especially about my grades, and I ran and gotmy report cards. I was then one of the three highest in the class. Ella praised me. I asked her about herbrother, Earl, and her sister, Mary. She had the exciting news that Earl was a singer with a band inBoston. He was singing under the name of Jimmy Carleton. Mary was also doing well.
　　Ella told me about other relatives from that branch of the family. A number of them I'd never heard of;she had helped them up from Georgia. They, in their turn, had helped up others. "We Littles have tostick together," Ella said. It thrilled me to hear her say that, and even more, the way she said it. I hadbecome a mascot; our branch of the family was split to pieces; I had just about forgotten about being aLittle in any family sense. She said that different members of the family were working in good jobs,and some even had small businesses going. Most of them were homeowners.
　　When Ella suggested that all of us Littles in Lansing accompany her on a visit to our mother, we allwere grateful. We all felt that if anyone could do anything that could help our mother, that might helpher get well and come back, it would be Ella. Anyway, all of us, for the first time together, went withElla to Kalamazoo.
　　Our mother was smiling when they brought her out. She was extremely surprised when she saw Ella.
　　They made a striking contrast, the thin near-white woman and the big black one hugging each other. Idon't remember much about the rest of the visit, except that there was a lot of talking, and Ella hadeverything in hand, and we left with all of us feeling better than we ever had about the circumstances.
　　I know that for the first time, I felt as though I had visited with someone who had some kind ofphysical illness that had just lingered on.
　　A few days later, after visiting the homes where each of us were staying, Ella left Lansing andreturned to Boston. But before leaving, she told me to write to her regularly. And she had suggestedthat I might like to spend my summer holiday visiting her in Boston. I jumped at that chance.
　　 That summer of 1940, in Lansing, I caught the Greyhound bus for Boston with my cardboard suitcase,and wearing my green suit. If someone had hung a sign, "HICK," around my neck, I couldn't havelooked much more obvious. They didn't have the turnpikes then; the bus stopped at what seemedevery comer and cowpatch. From my seat in-you guessed it-the back of the bus, I gawked out of thewindow at white man's America rolling past for what seemed a month, but must have been only a dayand a half.
　　When we finally arrived, Ella met me at the terminal and took me home. The house was onWaumbeck Street in the Sugar Hill section of Roxbury, the Harlem of Boston. I met Ella's secondhusband, Frank, who was now a soldier; and her brother Earl, the singer who called himself JimmyCarleton; and Mary, who was very different from her older sister. It's funny how I seemed to think ofMary as Ella's sister, instead of her being, just as Ella is, my own half-sister. It's probably because Ellaand I always were much closer as basic types; we're dominant people, and Mary has always been mildand quiet, almost shy.
　　Ella was busily involved in dozens of things. She belonged to I don't know how many different clubs;she was a leading light of local so-called "black society." I saw and met a hundred black people therewhose big-city talk and ways left my mouth hanging open.
　　I couldn't have feigned indifference if I had tried to. People talked casually about Chicago, Detroit,New York. I didn't know the world contained as many Negroes as I saw thronging downtownRoxbury at night, especially on Saturdays. Neon lights, nightclubs, poolhalls, bars, the cars they drove!
　　Restaurants made the streets smell-rich, greasy, down-home black cooking! Jukeboxes blared ErskineHawkins, Duke Ellington, Cootie Williams, dozens of others. If somebody had told me then that someday I'd know them all personally, I'd have found it hard to believe. The biggest bands, like these,played at the Roseland State Ballroom, on Boston's Massachusetts Avenue-one night for Negroes, thenext night for whites.
　　I saw for the first time occasional black-white couples strolling around arm in arm. And on Sundays,when Ella, Mary, or somebody took me to church, I saw churches for black people such as I had neverseen. They were many times finer than the white church I had attended back in Mason, Michigan.
　　There, the white people just sat and worshiped with words; but the Boston Negroes, like all otherNegroes I had ever seen at church, threw their souls and bodies wholly into worship.
　　Two or three times, I wrote letters to Wilfred intended for everybody back in Lansing. I said I'd try todescribe it when I got back.
　　But I found I couldn't.
　　My restlessness with Mason-and for the first time in my life a restlessness with being around whitepeople-began as soon as I got back home and entered eighth grade.
　　I continued to think constantly about all that I had seen in Boston, and about the way I had felt there. I know now that it was the sense of being a real part of a mass of my own kind, for the first time.
　　The white people-classmates, the Swerlins, the people at the restaurant where I worked-noticed thechange. They said, "You're acting so strange. You don't seem like yourself, Malcolm. What's thematter?"I kept close to the top of the class, though. The topmost scholastic standing, I remember, kept shiftingbetween me, a girl named Audrey Slaugh, and a boy named Jimmy Cotton.
　　It went on that way, as I became increasingly restless and disturbed through the first semester. Andthen one day, just about when those of us who had passed were about to move up to 8-A, from whichwe would enter high school the next year, something happened which was to become the first majorturning point of my life.
　　Somehow, I happened to be alone in the classroom with Mr. Ostrowski, my English teacher. He was atall, rather reddish white man and he had a thick mustache. I had gotten some of my best marks underhim, and he had always made me feel that he liked me. He was, as I have mentioned, a natural-born"advisor," about what you ought to read, to do, or think-about any and everything. We used to makeunkind jokes about him: why was he teaching in Mason instead of somewhere else, getting for himselfsome of the "success in life" that he kept telling us how to get?
　　I know that he probably meant well in what he happened to advise me that day. I doubt that he meantany harm. It was just in his nature as an American white man. I was one of his top students, one of theschool's top students-but all he could see for me was the kind of future "in your place" that almost allwhite people see for black people.
　　He told me, "Malcolm, you ought to be thinking about a career. Have you been giving it thought?"The truth is, I hadn't. I never have figured out why I told him, "Well, yes, sir, I've been thinking I'd liketo be a lawyer." Lansing certainly had no Negro lawyers-or doctors either-in those days, to hold up animage I might have aspired to. All I really knew for certain was that a lawyer didn't wash dishes, as Iwas doing.
　　Mr. Ostrowski looked surprised, I remember, and leaned back in his chair and clasped his handsbehind his head. He kind of half-smiled and said, "Malcolm, one of life's first needs is for us to berealistic. Don't misunderstand me, now. We all here like you, you know that. But you've got to berealistic about being a nigger. A lawyer-that's no realistic goal for a nigger. You need to think aboutsomething you _can_ be. You're good with your hands-making things. Everybody admires yourcarpentry shop work. Why don't you plan on carpentry? People like you as a person-you'd get allkinds of work."The more I thought afterwards about what he said, the more uneasy it made me. It just kept treadingaround in my mind.
　　 What made it really begin to disturb me was Mr. Ostrowski's advice to others in my class-all of themwhite. Most of them had told him they were planning to become farmers. But those who wanted tostrike out on their own, to try something new, he had encouraged. Some, mostly girls, wanted to beteachers. A few wanted other professions, such as one boy who wanted to become a county agent;another, a veterinarian; and one girl wanted to be a nurse. They all reported that Mr. Ostrowski hadencouraged what they had wanted. Yet nearly none of them had earned marks equal to mine.
　　It was a surprising thing that I had never thought of it that way before, but I realized that whatever Iwasn't, I _was_ smarter than nearly all of those white kids. But apparently I was still not intelligentenough, in their eyes, to become whatever _I_ wanted to be.
　　It was then that I began to change-inside.
　　I drew away from white people. I came to class, and I answered when called upon. It became aphysical strain simply to sit in Mr. Ostrowski's class.
　　Where "nigger" had slipped off my back before, wherever I heard it now, I stopped and looked atwhoever said it. And they looked surprised that I did.
　　I quit hearing so much "nigger" and "What's wrong?"-which was the way I wanted it. Nobody,including the teachers, could decide what had come over me. I knew I was being discussed.
　　In a few more weeks, it was that way, too, at the restaurant where I worked washing dishes, and at theSwerlins'.
　　 One day soon after, Mrs. Swerlin called me into the living room, and there was the state man,Maynard Allen. I knew from their faces that something was about to happen. She told me that none ofthem could understand why-after I had done so well in school, and on my job, and living with them,and after everyone in Mason had come to like me-I had lately begun to make them all feel that I wasn'thappy there anymore.
　　She said she felt there was no need for me to stay at the o detention home any longer, and thatarrangements had been made for me to go and live with the Lyons family, who liked me so much.
　　She stood up and put out her hand. "I guess I've asked you a hundred times, Malcolm-do you want totell me what's wrong?"I shook her hand, and said, "Nothing, Mrs. Swerlin." Then I went and got my things, and came backdown. At the living-room door I saw her wiping her eyes. I felt very bad. I thanked her and went out in front to Mr. Allen, who took me over to the Lyons'.
　　Mr. and Mrs. Lyons, and their children, during the two months I lived with them-while finishingeighth grade-also tried to get me to tell them what was wrong. But somehow I couldn't tell them,either.
　　I went every Saturday to see my brothers and sisters in Lansing, and almost every other day I wrote toElla in Boston. Not saying why, I told Ella that I wanted to come there and live.
　　I don't know how she did it, but she arranged for official custody of me to be transferred fromMichigan to Massachusetts, and the very week I finished the eighth grade, I again boarded theGreyhound bus for Boston.
　　I've thought about that time a lot since then. No physical move in my life has been more pivotal orprofound in its repercussions.
　　If I had stayed on in Michigan, I would probably have married one of those Negro girls I knew andliked in Lansing. I might have become one of those state capitol building shoeshine boys, or a LansingCountry Club waiter, or gotten one of the other menial jobs which, in those days, among LansingNegroes, would have been considered "successful"-or even become a carpenter.
　　Whatever I have done since then, I have driven myself to become a success at it. I've often thought thatif Mr. Ostrowski had encouraged me to become a lawyer, I would today probably be among somecity's professional black bourgeoisie, sipping cocktails and palming myself off as a communityspokesman for and leader of the suffering black masses, while my primary concern would be to grab afew more crumbs from the groaning board of the two-faced whites with whom they're begging to"integrate."All praise is due to Allah that I went to Boston when I did. If I hadn't, I'd probably still be abrainwashed black Christian.
Chapter 3 Homeboy
I looked like Li'l Abner. Mason, Michigan, was written all over me. My kinky, reddish hair was cuthick style, and I didn't even use grease in it. My green suit's coat sleeves stopped above my wrists, thepants legs showed three inches of socks. Just a shade lighter green than the suit was my narrow-collared, three-quarter length Lansing department store topcoat. My appearance was too much foreven Ella. But she told me later she had seen countrified members of the Little family come up fromGeorgia in even worse shape than I was.
　　 Ella had fixed up a nice little upstairs room for me. And she was truly a Georgia Negro woman whenshe got into the kitchen with her pots and pans. She was the kind of cook who would heap up yourplate with such as ham hock, greens, black-eyed peas, fried fish, cabbage, sweet potatoes, grits andgravy, and cornbread. And the more you put away the better she felt. I worked out at Ella's kitchentable like there was no tomorrow.
　　Ella still seemed to be as big, black, outspoken and impressive a woman as she had been in Mason andLansing. Only about two weeks before I arrived, she had split up with her second husband-the soldier,Frank, whom I had met there the previous summer; but she was taking it right in stride. I could see,though I didn't say, how any average man would find it almost impossible to live for very long with awoman whose every instinct was to run everything and everybody she had anything to do with-including me. About my second day there in Roxbury, Ella told me that she didn't want me to starthunting for a job right away, like most newcomer Negroes did. She said that she had told all thoseshe'd brought North to take their time, to walk around, to travel the buses and the subway, and get thefeel of Boston, before they tied themselves down working somewhere, because they would neveragain have the time to really see and get to know anything about the city they were living in. Ella saidshe'd help me find a job when it was time for me to go to work.
　　So I went gawking around the neighborhood-the Waumbeck and Humboldt Avenue Hill section ofRoxbury, which is something like Harlem's Sugar Hill, where I'd later live. I saw those RoxburyNegroes acting and living differently from any black people I'd ever dreamed of in my life. This wasthe snooty-black neighborhood; they called themselves the "Four Hundred," and looked down theirnoses at the Negroes of the black ghetto, or so-called "town" section where Mary, my other half-sister,lived.
　　What I thought I was seeing there in Roxbury were high-class, educated, important Negroes, livingwell, working in big jobs and positions. Their quiet homes sat back in their mowed yards. TheseNegroes walked along the sidewalks looking haughty and dignified, on their way to work, to shop, tovisit, to church. I know now, of course, that what I was really seeing was only a big-city version ofthose "successful" Negro bootblacks and janitors back in Lansing. The only difference was that theones in Boston had been brainwashed even more thoroughly. They prided themselves on beingincomparably more "cultured," "cultivated," "dignified," and better off than their black brethren downin the ghetto, which was no further away than you could throw a rock. Under the pitifulmisapprehension that it would make them "better," these Hill Negroes were breaking their backstrying to imitate white people.
　　Any black family that had been around Boston long enough to own the home they lived in wasconsidered among the Hill elite. It didn't make any difference that they had to rent out rooms to makeends meet. Then the native-born New Englanders among them looked down upon recently migratedSouthern home-owners who lived next door, like Ella. And a big percentage of the Hill dwellers werein Ella's category-Southern strivers and scramblers, and West Indian Negroes, whom both the NewEnglanders and the Southerners called "Black Jews." Usually it was the Southerners and the West Indians who not only managed to own the places wherethey lived, but also at least one other house which they rented as income property. The snooty NewEnglanders usually owned less than they.
　　In those days on the Hill, any who could claim "professional" status-teachers, preachers, practicalnurses-also considered themselves superior. Foreign diplomats could have modeled their conduct onthe way the Negro postmen, Pullman porters, and dining car waiters of Roxbury acted, stridingaround as if they were wearing top hats and cutaways.
　　I'd guess that eight out often of the Hill Negroes of Roxbury, despite the impressive-sounding jobtitles they affected, actually worked as menials and servants. "He's in banking," or "He's in securities."It sounded as though they were discussing a Rockefeller or a Mellon-and not some gray-headed;dignity-posturing bank janitor, or bond-house messenger. "I'm with an old family" was theeuphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks' cooks and maids who talked so affectedlyamong their own kind in Roxbury that you couldn't even understand them. I don't know how manyforty-and fifty-year-old errand boys went down the Hill dressed like ambassadors in black suits andwhite collars, to downtown jobs "in government," "in fir nance," or "in law." It has never ceased toamaze me how so many Negroes, then and now, could stand the indignity of that kind of self-delusion.
　　Soon I ranged out of Roxbury and began to explore Boston proper. Historic buildings everywhere Iturned, and plaques and markers and statues for famous events and men. One statue in the BostonCommons astonished me: a Negro named Crispus Attucks, who had been the first man to fall in theBoston Massacre. I had never known anything like that.
　　I roamed everywhere. In one direction, I walked as far as Boston University. Another day, I took myfirst subway ride. When most of the people got off, I followed. It was Cambridge, and I circled allaround in the Harvard University campus. Somewhere, I had already heard of Harvard-though Ididn't know much more about it. Nobody that day could have told me I would give an address beforethe Harvard Law School Forum some twenty years later.
　　I also did a lot of exploring downtown. Why a city would have two big railroad stations-North Stationand South Station-I couldn't understand. At both of the stations, I stood around and watched peoplearrive and leave. And I did the same thing at the bus station where Ella had met me. My wanderingseven led me down along the piers and docks where I read plaques telling about the old sailing shipsthat used to put into port there.
　　In a letter to Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, and Reginald back in Lansing, I told them about all this, andabout the winding, narrow, cobblestoned streets, and the houses that jammed up against each other.
　　Downtown Boston, I wrote them, had the biggest stores I'd ever seen, and white people's restaurantsand hotels. I made up my mind that I was going to see every movie that came to the fine, air-conditioned theaters.
　　 On Massachusetts Avenue, next door to one of them, the Loew's State Theater, was the huge, excitingRoseland State Ballroom. Big posters out in front advertised the nationally famous bands, white andNegro, that had played there. "COMING NEXT WEEK," when I went by that first time, was GlennMiller. I remember thinking how nearly the whole evening's music at Mason High School dances hadbeen Glenn Miller's records. What wouldn't that crowd have given, I wondered, to be standing whereGlenn Miller's band was actually going to play? I didn't know how familiar with Roseland I was goingto become.
　　Ella began to grow concerned, because even when I had finally had enough sight-seeing, I didn't stickaround very much on the Hill. She kept dropping hints that I ought to mingle with the "nice youngpeople my age" who were to be seen in the Townsend Drugstore two blocks from her house, and acouple of other places. But even before I came to Boston, I had always felt and acted toward anyonemy age as if they were in the "kid" class, like my younger brother Reginald. They had always lookedup to me as if I were considerably older. On weekends back in Lansing where I'd go to get away fromthe white people in Mason, I'd hung around in the Negro part of town with Wilfred's and Philbert'sset. Though all of them were several years older than me, I was bigger, and I actually looked olderthan most of them.
　　I didn't want to disappoint or upset Ella, but despite her advice, I began going down into the townghetto section. That world of grocery stores, walk-up flats, cheap restaurants, poolrooms, bars,storefront churches, and pawnshops seemed to hold a natural lure for me.
　　Not only was this part of Roxbury much more exciting, but I felt more relaxed among Negroes whowere being their natural selves and not putting on airs. Even though I did live on the Hill, my instinctswere never-and still aren't-to feel myself better than any other Negro.
　　I spent the first month in town with my mouth hanging open. The sharp-dressed young "cats" whohung on the comers and in the poolrooms, bars and restaurants, and who obviously didn't workanywhere, completely entranced me. I couldn't get over marveling at how their hair was straight andshiny like white men's hair; Ella told me this was called a "conk." I had never tasted a sip of liquor,never even smoked a cigarette, and here I saw little black children, ten and twelve years old, shootingcraps, playing cards, fighting, getting grown-ups to put a penny or a nickel on their number for them,things like that. And these children threw around swear words I'd never heard before, even, and slangexpressions that were just as new to me, such as "stud" and "cat" and "chick" and "cool" and "hip."Every night as I lay in bed I turned these new words over in my mind. It was shocking to me that intown, especially after dark, you'd occasionally see a white girl and a Negro man strolling arm in armalong the sidewalk, and mixed couples drinking in the neon-lighted bars-not slipping off to some darkcorner, as in Lansing. I wrote Wilfred and Philbert about that, too.
　　I wanted to find a job myself, to surprise Ella. One afternoon, something told me to go inside apoolroom whose window I was looking through. I had looked through that window many times. Iwasn't yearning to play pool; in fact, I had never held a cue stick. But I was drawn by the sight of thecool-looking "cats" standing around inside, bending over the big, green, felt-topped tables, making bets and shooting the bright-colored balls into the holes. As I stared through the window thisparticular afternoon, something made me decide to venture inside and talk to a dark, stubby, conk-headed fellow who racked up balls for the pool-players, whom I'd heard called "Shorty." One day hehad come outside and seen me standing there and said "Hi, Red," so that made me figure he wasfriendly.
　　As inconspicuously as I could, I slipped inside the door and around the side of the poolroom, avoidingpeople, and on to the back, where Shorty was filling an aluminum can with the powder that poolplayers dust on their hands. He looked up at me. Later on, Shorty would enjoy teasing me about howwith that first glance he knew my whole story. "Man, that cat still smelled country!" he'd say,laughing. "Cat's legs was so long and his pants so short his knees showed-an' his head looked like abriar patch!"But that afternoon Shorty didn't let it show in his face how "country" I appeared when I told him I'dappreciate it if he'd tell me how could somebody go about getting a job like his.
　　"If you mean racking up balls," said Shorty, "I don't know of no pool joints around here needinganybody. You mean you just want any slave you can find?" A "slave" meant work, a job.
　　He asked what kind of work I had done. I told him that I'd washed restaurant dishes in Mason,Michigan. He nearly dropped the powder can. "My homeboy! Man, gimme some skin! I'm fromLansing!"I never told Shorty-and he never suspected-that he was about ten years older than I. He took us to beabout the same age. At first I would have been embarrassed to tell him, later I just never bothered.
　　Shorty had dropped out of first-year high school in Lansing, lived awhile with an uncle and aunt inDetroit, and had spent the last six years living with his cousin in Roxbury. But when I mentioned thenames of Lansing people and places, he remembered many, and pretty soon we sounded as if we hadbeen raised in the same block. I could sense Shorty's genuine gladness, and I don't have to say howlucky I felt to find a friend as hip as he obviously was.
　　"Man, this is a swinging town if you dig it," Shorty said. "You're my homeboy-I'm going to school youto the happenings." I stood there and grinned like a fool. "You got to go anywhere now? Well, stickaround until I get off."One thing I liked immediately about Shorty was his frankness. When I told him where I lived, he saidwhat I already knew-that nobody in town could stand the Hill Negroes. But he thought a sister whogave me a "pad," not charging me rent, not even running me out to find "some slave," couldn't be allbad.
　　Shorty's slave in the poolroom, he said, was just to keep ends together while he learned his horn. Acouple of years before, he'd hit the numbers and bought a saxophone. "Got it right in there in thecloset now, for my lesson tonight." Shorty was taking lessons "with some other studs," and he intended one day to organize his own small band. "There's a lot of bread to be made gigging rightaround here in Roxbury," Shorty explained to me. "I don't dig joining some big band, one-nighting allover just to say I played with Count or Duke or somebody." I thought that was smart. I wished I hadstudied a horn; but I never had been exposed to one.
　　All afternoon, between trips up front to rack balls, Shorty talked to me out of the corner of his mouth:
　　which hustlers-standing around, or playing at this or that table-sold "reefers," or had just come out ofprison, or were "second-story men." Shorty told me that he played at least a dollar a day on thenumbers. He said as soon as he hit a number, he would use the winnings to organize his band.
　　I was ashamed to have to admit that I had never played the numbers. "Well, you ain't never hadnothing to play with," he said, excusing me, "but you start when you get a slave, and if you hit, yougot a stake for something."He pointed out some gamblers and some pimps. Some of them had white whores, he whispered. "Iain't going to lie-I dig them two-dollar white chicks," Shorty said. "There's a lot of that action aroundhere, nights: you'll see it." I said I already had seen some. "You ever had one?" he asked.
　　My embarrassment at my inexperience showed. "Hell, man," he said, "don't be ashamed. I had a fewbefore I left Lansing-them Polack chicks that used to come over the bridge. Here, they're mostlyItalians and Irish. But it don't matter what kind, they're something else! Ain't no different nowhere-there's nothing they love better than a black stud."Through the afternoon, Shorty introduced me to players and loungers. "My homeboy," he'd say, "he'slooking for a slave if you hear anything." They all said they'd look out.
　　At seven o'clock, when the night ball-racker came on, Shorty told me he had to hurry to his saxophonelesson. But before he left, he held out to me the six or seven dollars he had collected that day in nickeland dime tips. "You got enough bread, home-boy?"I was okay, I told him-I had two dollars. But Shorty made me take three more. "Little fattening foryour pocket," he said. Before we went out, he opened his saxophone case and showed me the horn. Itwas gleaming brass against the green velvet, an alto sax. He said, "Keep cool, homeboy, and comeback tomorrow. Some of the cats will turn you up a slave." When I got home, Ella said there had been a telephone call from somebody named Shorty. He had lefta message that over at the Roseland State Ballroom, the shoeshine boy was quitting that night, andShorty had told him to hold the job for me.
　　"Malcolm, you haven't had any experience shining shoes," Ella said. Her expression and tone of voice told me she wasn't happy about my taking that job. I didn't particularly care, because I was alreadyspeechless thinking about being somewhere close to the greatest bands in the world. I didn't even waitto eat any dinner.
　　The ballroom was all lighted when I got there. A man at the front door was letting in members ofBenny Goodman's band. I told him I wanted to see the shoeshine boy, Freddie.
　　"You're going to be the new one?" he asked. I said I thought I was, and he laughed, "Well, maybeyou'll hit the numbers and get a Cadillac, too." He told me that I'd find Freddie upstairs in the men'sroom on the second floor.
　　But downstairs before I went up, I stepped over and snatched a glimpse inside the ballroom. I justcouldn't believe the size of that waxed floor! At the far end, under the soft, rose-colored lights, was thebandstand with the Benny Goodman musicians moving around, laughing and talking, arranging theirhorns and stands.
　　A wiry, brown-skinned, conked fellow upstairs in the men's room greeted me. "You Shorty'shomeboy?" I said I was, and he said he was Freddie. "Good old boy," he said. "He called me, he justheard I hit the big number, and he figured right I'd be quitting." I told Freddie what the man at thefront door had said about a Cadillac. He laughed and said, "Bums them white cats up when you getyourself something. Yeah, I told them I was going to get me one-just to bug them."Freddie then said for me to pay close attention, that he was going to be busy and for me to watch butnot get in the way, and he'd try to get me ready to take over at the next dance, a couple of nights later.
　　As Freddie busied himself setting up the shoeshine stand, he told me, "Get here early . . . yourshoeshine rags and brushes by this footstand . . . your polish bottles, paste wax, suede brushes overhere . . . everything in place, you get rushed, you never need to waste motion. . . ."While you shined shoes, I learned, you also kept watch on customers inside, leaving the urinals. Youdarted over and offered a small white hand towel. "A lot of cats who ain't planning to wash theirhands, sometimes you can run up with a towel and shame them. Your towels are really your besthustle in here. Cost you a penny apiece to launder-you always get at least a nickel tip."The shoeshine customers, and any from the inside rest room who took a towel, you whiskbroomed acouple of licks. "A nickel or a dime tip, just give 'em that," Freddie said. "But for two bits, Uncle Tom alittle-white cats especially like that. I've had them to come back two, three times a dance."From down below, the sound of the music had begun floating up. I guess I stood transfixed. "Younever seen a big dance?" asked Freddie. "Run on awhile, and watch."There were a few couples already dancing under the rose-colored lights. But even more exciting to mewas the crowd thronging in. The most glamorous-looking white women I'd ever seen-young ones, old ones, white cats buying tickets at the window, sticking big wads of green bills back into their pockets,checking the women's coats, and taking their arms and squiring them inside.
　　Freddie had some early customers when I got back upstairs. Between the shoeshine stand andthrusting towels to them just as they approached the washbasin, Freddie seemed to be doing fourthings at once. "Here, you can take over the whiskbroom," he said, "just two or three licks-but let 'emfeel it."When things slowed a little, he said, "You ain't seen nothing tonight. You wait until you see a spooks'
　　dance! Man, our people carry _on_!" Whenever he had a moment, he kept schooling me. "Shoelaces,this drawer here. You just starting out, I'm going to make these to you as a present. Buy them for anickel a pair, tell cats they need laces if they do, and charge two bits."Every Benny Goodman record I'd ever heard in my life, it seemed, was filtering faintly into where wewere. During another customer lull, Freddie let me slip back outside again to listen. Peggy Lee was atthe mike singing. Beautiful! She had just joined the band and she was from North Dakota and hadbeen singing with a group in Chicago when Mrs. Benny Goodman discovered her, we had heard somecustomers say. She finished the song and the crowd burst into applause. She was a big hit.
　　"It knocked me out, too, when I first broke in here," Freddie said, grinning, when I went back in there.
　　"But, look, you ever shined any shoes?" He laughed when I said I hadn't, excepting my own. "Well,let's get to work. I never had neither." Freddie got on the stand and went to work on his own shoes.
　　Brush, liquid polish, brush, paste wax, shine rag, lacquer sole dressing . . . step by step, Freddieshowed me what to do.
　　"But you got to get a whole lot faster. You can't waste time!" Freddie showed me how fast on my ownshoes. Then, because business was tapering off, he had time to give me a demonstration of how tomake the shine rag pop like a firecracker. "Dig the action?" he asked. He did it in slow motion. I gotdown and tried it on his shoes. I had the principle of it. "Just got to do it faster," Freddie said. "It's ajive noise, that's all. Cats tip better, they figure you're knocking yourself out!"By the end of the dance, Freddie had let me shine the shoes of three or four stray drunks he talked intohaving shines, and I had practiced picking up my speed on Freddie's shoes until they looked likemirrors. After we had helped the janitors to clean up the ballroom after the dance, throwing out all thepaper and cigarette butts and empty liquor bottles, Freddie was nice enough to drive me all the wayhome to Ella's on the Hill in the secondhand maroon Buick he said he was going to trade in on hisCadillac. He talked to me all the way. "I guess it's all right if I tell you, pick up a couple of dozen packsof rubbers, two-bits apiece. You notice some of those cats that came up to me around the end of thedance? Well, when some have new chicks going right, they'll come asking you for rubbers. Charge adollar, generally you'll get an extra tip."He looked across at me. "Some hustles you're too new for. Cats will ask you for liquor, some will wantreefers. But you don't need to have nothing except rubbers-until you can dig who's a cop." "You can make ten, twelve dollars a dance for yourself if you work everything right," Freddie said,before I got out of me car in front of Ella's. "The main thing you got to remember is that everything inthe world is a hustle. So long, Red."The next time I ran into Freddie I was downtown one night a few weeks later. He was parked in hispearl-gray Cadillac, sharp as a tack, "cooling it.""Man, you sure schooled me!" I said, and he laughed; he knew what I meant. It hadn't taken me longon the job to find out that Freddie had done less shoeshining and towel-hustling than selling liquorand reefers, and putting white "Johns" in touch with Negro whores. I also learned that white girlsalways flocked to the Negro dances-some of them whores whose pimps brought them to mix businessand pleasure, others who came with their black boy friends, and some who came in alone, for a littlefreelance lusting among a plentiful availability of enthusiastic Negro men.
　　At the white dances, of course, nothing black was allowed, and that's where the black whores' pimpssoon showed a new shoeshine boy what he could pick up on the side by slipping a phone number oraddress to the white Johns who came around the end of the dance looking for "black chicks." Most of Roseland's dances were for whites only, and they had white bands only. But the only whiteband ever to play there at a Negro dance, to my recollection, was Charlie Barnet's. The fact is that veryfew white bands could have satisfied the Negro dancers. But I know that Charlie Barnet's "Cherokee"and his "Redskin Rhumba" drove those Negroes wild. They'd jam-pack that ballroom, the black girlsin way-out silk and satin dresses and shoes, their hair done in all kinds of styles, the men sharp intheir zoot suits and crazy conks, and everybody grinning and greased and gassed.
　　Some of the bandsmen would come up to the men's room at about eight o'clock and get shoeshinesbefore they went to work. Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Cootie Williams, JimmieLunceford were just a few of those who sat in my chair. I would really make my shine rag sound likesomeone had set off Chinese firecrackers. Duke's great alto saxman, Johnny Hodges-he was Shorty'sidol-still owes me for a shoe-shine I gave him. He was in the chair one night, having a friendlyargument with the drummer, Sonny Greer, who was standing there, when I tapped the bottom of hisshoes to signal that I was finished. Hodges stepped down, reaching his hand in his pocket to pay me,but then snatched his hand out to gesture, and just forgot me, and walked away. I wouldn't havedared to bother the man who could do what he did with "Daydream" by asking him for fifteen cents.
　　I remember that I struck up a little shoeshine-stand conversation with Count Basie's great blues singer,Jimmie Rushing. (He's the one famous for "Sent For You Yesterday, Here You Come Today" andthings like that.) Rushing's feet, I remember, were big and funny-shaped-not long like most big feet,but they were round and roly-poly like Rushing. Anyhow, he even introduced me to some of the other Basie cats, like Lester Young, Harry Edison, Buddy Tate, Don Byas, Dickie Wells, and Buck Clayton.
　　They'd walk in the rest room later, by themselves. "Hi, Red." They'd be up there in my chair, and myshine rag was popping to the beat of all of their records, spinning in my head. Musicians never havehad, anywhere, a greater shoeshine-boy fan than I was. I would write to Wilfred and Hilda andPhilbert and Reginald back in Lansing, trying to describe it.
　　 I never got any decent tips until the middle of the Negro dances, which is when the dancers startedfeeling good and getting generous. After the white dances, when I helped to clean out the ballroom,we would throw out perhaps a dozen empty liquor bottles. But after the Negro dances, we wouldhave to throw out cartons full of empty fifth bottles-not rotgut, either, but die best brands, andespecially Scotch.
　　During lulls up there in the men's room, sometimes I'd get in five minutes of watching the dancing.
　　The white people danced as though somebody had trained them-left, one, two; right, three, four-thesame steps and patterns over and over, as though somebody had wound them up. But those Negroes-nobody in the world could have choreographed the way they did whatever they felt-just grabbingpartners, even the white chicks who came to the Negro dances. And my black brethren today mayhate me for saying it, but a lot of black girls nearly got run over by some of those Negro malesscrambling to get at those white women; you would have thought God had lowered some of hisangels. Tunes have sure changed; if it happened today, those same black girls would go after thoseNegro men-and the white women, too.
　　Anyway, some couples were so abandoned-flinging high and wide, improvising steps andmovements-that you couldn't believe it. I could feel the beat in my bones, even though I had neverdanced.
　　"_Showtime!_" people would start hollering about the last hour of the dance. Then a couple of dozenreally wild couples would stay on the floor, the girls changing to low white sneakers. The band nowwould really be blasting, and all the other dancers would form a clapping, shouting circle to watchthat wild competition as it began, covering only a quarter or so of the ballroom floor. The band, thespectators and the dancers would be malting the Roseland Ballroom feel like a big, rocking ship. Thespotlight would be turning, pink, yellow, green, and blue, picking up the couples lindy-hopping as ifthey had gone mad. _"Wail, man, wail!"_ people would be shouting at the band; and it would bewailing, until first one and then another couple just ran out of strength and stumbled off toward thecrowd, exhausted and soaked with sweat. Sometimes I would be down mere standing inside the doorjumping up and down in my gray jacket with the whiskbroom in the pocket, and the manager wouldhave to come and shout at me that I had customers upstairs.
　　The first liquor I drank, my first cigarettes, even my first reefers, I can't specifically remember. But Iknow they were all mixed together with my first shooting craps, playing cards, and betting my dollar a day on the numbers, as I started hanging out at night with Shorty and his friends. Shorty's jokesabout how country I had been made us all laugh. I still was country, I know now, but it all felt so greatbecause I was accepted. All of us would be in somebody's place, usually one of the girls', and we'd beturning on, the reefers making everybody's head light, or the whisky aglow in our middles.
　　Everybody understood that my head had to stay lanky awhile longer, to grow long enough for Shortyto conk it for me. One of these nights, I remarked that I had saved about half enough to get a zoot.
　　"_Save?_" Shorty couldn't believe it. "Homeboy, you never heard of credit?" He told me he'd call aneighborhood clothing store the first thing in the morning, and that I should be there early.
　　A salesman, a young Jew, met me when I came in. "You're Shorty's friend?" I said I was; it amazed me-all of Shorty's contacts. The salesman wrote my name on a form, and the Rose-land as where I worked,and Ella's address as where I lived. Shorty's name was put down as recommending me. The salesmansaid, "Shorty's one of our best customers."I was measured, and the young salesman picked off a rack a zoot suit that was just wild: sky-bluepants thirty inches in the knee and angle-narrowed down to twelve inches at the bottom, and a longcoat that pinched my waist and flared out below my knees.
　　As a gift, the salesman said, the store would give me a narrow leather belt with my initial "L" on it.
　　Then he said I ought to also buy a hat, and I did-blue, with a feather in the four-inch brim. Then thestore gave me another present: a long, thick-linked, gold-plated chain that swung down lower thanmy coat hem. I was sold forever on credit.
　　When I modeled the zoot for Ella, she took a long look and said, "Well, I guess it had to happen." Itook three of those twenty-five-cent sepia-toned, while-you-wait pictures of myself, posed the way"hipsters" wearing their zoots would "cool it"-hat dangled, knees drawn close together, feet wideapart, both index fingers jabbed toward the floor. The long coat and swinging chain and the Punjabpants were much more dramatic if you stood that way. One picture, I autographed and airmailed tomy brothers and sisters in Lansing, to let them see how well I was doing. I gave another one to Ella,and the third to Shorty, who was really moved: I could tell by the way he said, "Thanks, homeboy." Itwas part of our "hip" code not to show that kind of affection.
　　Shorty soon decided that my hair was finally long enough to be conked. He had promised to schoolme in how to beat the barbershops' three-and four-dollar price by making up congolene, and thenconking ourselves.
　　I took the little list of ingredients he had printed out for me, and went to a grocery store, where I got acan of Red Devil lye, two eggs, and two medium-sized white potatoes. Then at a drugstore near thepoolroom, I asked for a large jar of Vaseline, a large bar of soap, a large-toothed comb and a fine-toothed comb, one of those rubber hoses with a metal spray-head, a rubber apron and a pair of gloves.
　　 "Going to lay on that first conk?" the drugstore man asked me. I proudly told him, grinning, "Right!"Shorty paid six dollars a week for a room in his cousin's shabby apartment. His cousin wasn't at home.
　　"It's like the pad's mine, he spends so much time with his woman," Shorty said. "Now, you watch me-"He peeled the potatoes and thin-sliced them into a quart-sized Mason fruit jar, then started stirringthem with a wooden spoon as he gradually poured in a little over half the can of lye. "Never use ametal spoon; the lye will turn it black," he told me.
　　A jelly-like, starchy-looking glop resulted from the lye and potatoes, and Shorty broke in the two eggs,stirring real fast-his own conk and dark face bent down close. The congolene turned pale-yellowish.
　　"Feel the jar," Shorty said. I cupped my hand against the outside, and snatched it away. "Damn right,it's hot, that's the lye," he said. "So you know it's going to burn when I comb it in-it burns _bad_. Butthe longer you can stand it, the straighter the hair."He made me sit down, and he tied the string of the new rubber apron tightly around my neck, andcombed up my bush of hair. Then, from the big Vaseline jar, he took a handful and massaged it hardall through my hair and into the scalp. He also thickly Vaselined my neck, ears and forehead. "When Iget to washing out your head, be sure to tell me anywhere you feel any little stinging," Shorty warnedme, washing his hands, then pulling on the rubber gloves, and tying on his own rubber apron. "Youalways got to remember that any congolene left in bums a sore into your head."The congolene just felt warm when Shorty started combing it in. But then my head caught fire.
　　I gritted my teeth and tried to pull the sides of the kitchen table together. The comb felt as if it wasraking my skin off.
　　My eyes watered, my nose was running. I couldn't stand it any longer; I bolted to the washbasin. I wascursing Shorty with every name I could think of when he got the spray going and started soap-lathering my head.
　　He lathered and spray-rinsed, lathered and spray-rinsed, maybe ten or twelve times, each timegradually closing the hot-water faucet, until the rinse was cold, and that helped some.
　　"You feel any stinging spots?""No," I managed to say. My knees were trembling.
　　"Sit back down, then. I think we got it all out okay."The flame came back as Shorty, with a thick towel, started drying my head, rubbing hard. "_Easy,man, easy!_" I kept shouting.
　　 "The first time's always worst. You get used to it better before long. You took it real good, homeboy.
　　You got a good conk."When Shorty let me stand up and see in the minor, my hair hung down in limp, damp strings. Myscalp still flamed, but not as badly; I could bear it. He draped the towel around my shoulders, over myrubber apron, and began again Vaselining my hair.
　　I could feel him combing, straight back, first the big comb, then the fine-tooth one.
　　Then, he was using a razor, very delicately, on the back of my neck. Then, finally, shaping thesideburns.
　　My first view in the mirror blotted out the hurting. I'd seen some pretty conks, but when it's the firsttime, on your own head, the transformation, after the lifetime of kinks, is staggering.
　　The mirror reflected Shorty behind me. We both were grinning and sweating. And on top of my headwas this thick, smooth sheen of shining red hair-real red-as straight as any white man's.
　　How ridiculous I was! Stupid enough to stand there simply lost in admiration of my hair now looking"white," reflected in the mirror in Shorty's room. I vowed that I'd never again be without a conk, and Inever was for many years.
　　This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: when I endured all of that pain, literallyburning my flesh to have it look like a white man's hair. I had joined that multitude of Negro men andwomen in America who are brainwashed into believing that the black people are "inferior"-and whitepeople "superior"-that they will even violate and mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look"pretty" by white standards.
　　Look around today, in every small town and big city, from two-bit catfish and soda-pop joints into the"integrated" lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria, and you'll see conks on black men. And you'll see blackwomen wearing these green and pink and purple and red and platinum-blonde wigs. They're all moreridiculous than a slapstick comedy. It makes you wonder if the Negro has completely lost his sense ofidentity, lost touch with himself.
　　You'll see the conk worn by many, many so-called "upper-class" Negroes, and, as much as I hate to sayit about them, on all too many Negro entertainers. One of the reasons that I've especially admiredsome of them, like Lionel Hampton and Sidney Poiter, among others, is that they have kept theirnatural hair and fought to the top. I admire any Negro man who has never had himself conked, orwho has had the sense to get rid of it-as I finally did.
　　I don't know which kind of self-defacing conk is the greater shame-the one you'll see on the heads ofthe black so-called "middle class" and "upper class," who ought to know better, or the one you'll see on the heads of the poorest, most downtrodden, ignorant black men. I mean the legal-minimum-wageghetto-dwelling kind of Negro, as I was when I got my first one. It's generally among these poor foolsthat you'll see a black kerchief over the man's head, like Aunt Jemima; he's trying to make his conk lastlonger, between trips to the barbershop. Only for special occasions is this kerchief-protected conkexposed-to show off how "sharp" and "hip" its owner is. The ironic thing is that I have never heard anywoman, white or black, express any admiration for a conk. Of course, any white woman with a blackman isn't thinking about his hair. But I don't see how on earth a black woman with any race pridecould walk down the street with any black man wearing a conk-the emblem of his shame that he isblack.
　　To my own shame, when I say all of this I'm talking first of all about myself-because you can't showme any Negro who ever conked more faithfully than I did. I'm speaking from personal experiencewhen I say of any black man who conks today, or any white-wigged black woman, that if they gavethe brains in their heads just half as much attention as they do their hair, they would be a thousandtimes better off.
Chapter 4 Laura
Shorty would take me to groovy, frantic scenes in different chicks' and cats' pads, where with thelights and juke down mellow, everybody blew gage and juiced back and jumped. I met chicks whowere fine as May wine, and cats who were hip to all happenings.
　　That paragraph is deliberate, of course; it's just to display a bit more of the slang that was used byeveryone I respected as "hip" in those days. And in no time at all, I was talking the slang like a lifelonghipster.
　　Like hundreds of thousands of country-bred Negroes who had come to the Northern black ghettobefore me, and have come since, I'd also acquired all the other fashionable ghetto adornments-the zootsuits and conk that I have described, liquor, cigarettes, then reefers-all to erase my embarrassingbackground. But I still harbored one secret humiliation: I couldn't dance.
　　I can't remember when it was that I actually learned how-that is to say, I can't recall the specific nightor nights. But dancing was the chief action at those "pad parties," so I've no doubt about how and whymy initiation into lindy-hopping came about. With alcohol or marijuana lightening my head, and thatwild music wailing away on those portable record players, it didn't take long to loosen up the dancinginstincts in my African heritage. All I remember is that during some party around this time, whennearly everyone but me was up dancing, some girl grabbed me-they often would take the initiativeand grab a partner, for no girl at those parties ever would dream that anyone present couldn't dance-and there I was out on the floor.
　　I was up in the jostling crowd-and suddenly, unexpectedly, I got the idea. It was as though somebody had clicked on a light. My long-suppressed African instincts broke through, and loose.
　　Having spent so much time in Mason's white environment, I had always believed and feared thatdancing involved a certain order or pattern of specific steps-as dancing is done by whites. But hereamong my own less inhibited people, I discovered it was simply letting your feet, hands and bodyspontaneously act out whatever impulses were stirred by the music.
　　From then on, hardly a party took place without me turning up-inviting myself, if I had to-and lindyhopping my head off.
　　I'd always been fast at picking up new things. I made up for lost time now so fast that soon girls wereasking me to dance with them. I worked my partners hard; that's why they liked me so much.
　　When I was at work, up in the Roseland men's room, I just couldn't keep still. My shine rag poppedwith the rhythm of those great bands rocking the ballroom. White customers on the shine stand,especially, would laugh to see my feet suddenly break loose on their own and cut a few steps. Whitesare correct in thinking that black people are natural dancers. Even little kids are-except for thoseNegroes today who are so "integrated," as I had been, that their instincts are inhibited. You knowthose "dancing jibagoo" toys that you wind up? Well, I was like a live one-music just wound me up.
　　By the next dance for the Boston black folk-I remember that Lionel Hampton was coming in to play-Ihad given my notice to the Roseland's manager.
　　When I told Ella why I had quit, she laughed aloud: I told her I couldn't find time to shine shoes anddance, too. She was glad, because she had never liked the idea of my working at that no-prestige job.
　　When I told Shorty, he said he'd known I'd soon outgrow it anyway.
　　Shorty could dance all right himself but, for his own reasons, he never cared about going to the bigdances. He loved just the music-making end of it. He practiced his saxophone and listened to records.
　　It astonished me that Shorty didn't care to go and hear the big bands play. He had his alto sax idol,Johnny Hodges, with Duke Ellington's band, but he said he thought too many young musicians wereonly carbon-copying the big-band names on the same instrument. Anyway, Shorty was really seriousabout nothing except his music, and about working for the day when he could start his own littlegroup to gig around Boston.
　　The morning after I quit Roseland, I was down at the men's clothing store bright and early. Thesalesman checked and found that I'd missed only one weekly payment: I had "A-1" credit. I told himI'd just quit my job, but he said that didn't make any difference; I could miss paying them for a coupleof weeks if I had to; he knew I'd get straight.
　　This time, I studied carefully everything in my size on the racks. And finally I picked out my secondzoot. It was a sharkskin gray, with a big, long coat, and pants ballooning out at the knees and thentapering down to cuffs so narrow that I had to take off my shoes to get them on and off. With the salesman urging me on, I got another shirt, and a hat, and new shoes-the kind that were just cominginto hipster style; dark orange colored, with paper-thin soles and knob style toes. It all added up toseventy or eighty dollars.
　　It was such a red-letter day that I even went and got my first barbershop conk. This time it didn't hurtso much, just as Shorty had predicted.
　　That night, I timed myself to hit Roseland as the thick of the crowd was coming in. In the thronginglobby, I saw some of the real Roxbury hipsters eyeing my zoot, and some fine women were giving methat look. I sauntered up to the men's room for a short drink from the pint in my inside coat-pocket.
　　My replacement was there-a scared, narrow-faced, hungry-looking little brown-skinned fellow just intown from Kansas City. And when he recognized me, he couldn't keep down his admiration andwonder. I told nun to "keep cool," that he'd soon catch on to the happenings. Everything felt rightwhen I went into the ballroom.
　　Hamp's band was working, and that big, waxed floor was packed with people lindy-hopping likecrazy. I grabbed some girl I'd never seen, and the next thing I knew we were out there Undying awayand grinning at each other. It couldn't have been finer.
　　I'd been Undying previously only in cramped little apartment living rooms, and now I had room tomaneuver. Once I really got myself warmed and loosened up, I was snatching partners from amongthe hundreds of unattached, free-lancing girls along the sidelines-almost every one of them couldreally dance-and I just about went wild! Hamp's band wailing. I was whirling girls so fast their skirtswere snapping. Black girls, brownskins, high yellows, even a couple of the white girls there. Boostingthem over my hips, my shoulders, into the air. Though I wasn't quite sixteen then, I was tall andrawboned and looked like twenty-one; I was also pretty strong for my age. Circling, tap-dancing, Iwas underneath them when they landed-doing the "flapping eagle," "the kangaroo" and the "split."After that, I never missed a Roseland lindy-hop as long as I stayed in Boston.
　　 The greatest lindy-dancing partner I had, everything considered, was a girl named Laura. I met her atmy next job. When I quit shoeshining, Ella was so happy that she went around asking about a job forme-one she would approve. Just two blocks from her house, the Townsend Drug Store was about toreplace its soda fountain clerk, a fellow who was leaving to go off to college.
　　When Ella told me, I didn't like it. She knew I couldn't stand those Hill characters. But speaking mymind right then would have made Ella mad. I didn't want that to happen, so I put on the white jacketand started serving up sodas, sundaes, splits, shakes and all the rest of that fountain stuff to thosefancy-acting Negroes.
　　 Every evening when I got off at eight and came home, Ella would keep saying, "1 hope you'll meetsome of these nice young people your age here in Roxbury." But those penny-ante squares who camein there putting on their millionaires' airs, the young ones and the old ones both, only annoyed me.
　　People like the sleep-in maid for Beacon Hill white folks who used to come in with her "ooh, my deah"manners and order corn plasters in the Jew's drugstore for black folks. Or the hospital cafeteria-lineserving woman sitting there on her day off with a cat fur around her neck, telling the proprietor shewas a "dietitian"-both of them knowing she was lying. Even the young ones, my age, whom Ella wasalways talking about. The soda fountain was one of their hang-outs. They soon had me ready to quit,with their accents so phonied up that if you just heard them and didn't see them, you wouldn't evenknow they were Negroes. I couldn't wait for eight o'clock to get home to eat out of those soul-foodpots of Ella's, then get dressed in my zoot and head for some of my friends' places in town, to lindyhop and get high, or something, for relief from those Hill clowns.
　　Before long, I didn't see how I was going to be able to stick it out there eight hours a day; and I nearlydidn't. I remember one night, I nearly quit because I had hit the numbers for ten cents-the first time Ihad ever hit-on one of the sideline bets that I'd made in the drugstore. (Yes, there were several runnerson the Hill; even dignified Negroes played the numbers.) I won sixty dollars, and Shorty and I had aball with it. I wished I had hit for the daily dollar that I played with my town man, paying him by theweek. I would surely have quit the drugstore. I could have bought a car.
　　Anyway, Laura lived in a house that was catercorner across the street from the drugstore. After awhile, as soon as I saw her coming in, I'd start making up a banana split. She was a real bug for them,and she came in late every afternoon-after school. I imagine I'd been shoving that ice cream dish underher nose for five or six weeks before somehow it began to sink in that she wasn't like the rest. She wascertainly the only Hill girl that came in there and acted in any way friendly and natural.
　　She always had some book with her, and poring over it, she would make a thirty-minute job of thatdaily dish of banana split. I began to notice the books she read, They were pretty heavy school stuff-Latin, algebra, things like that. Watching her made me reflect that I hadn't read even a newspapersince leaving Mason.
　　_Laura_. I heard her name called by a few of the others who came in when she was there. But I couldsee they didn't know her too well; they said "hello"-that was about the extent of it. She kept to herself,and she never said more than "Thank you"' to me. Nice voice. Soft. Quiet. Never another word. But noairs like the others, no black Bostonese. She was just herself.
　　I liked that. Before too long, I struck up a conversation. Just what subject I got off on I don't remember,but she readily opened up and began talking, and she was very friendly. I found out that she was ahigh school junior, an honor student. Her parents had split up when she was a baby, and she had beenraised by her grandmother, an old lady on a pension, who was very strict and old-fashioned andreligious, Laura had just one close friend, a girl who lived over in Cambridge, whom she had gone toschool with. They talked on the telephone every day. Her grandmother scarcely ever let her go to themovies, let alone on dates.
　　 But Laura really liked school. She said she wanted to go on to college. She was keen for algebra, andshe planned to major in science. Laura never would have dreamed that she was a year older than Iwas. I gauged that indirectly. She looked up to me as though she felt I had a world of experience morethan she did-which really was the truth. But sometimes, when she had gone, I felt let down, thinkinghow I had turned away from the books I used to like when I was back in Michigan.
　　I got to the point where I looked forward to her coming in every day after school. I stopped letting herpay, and gave her extra ice cream. And she wasn't hiding the fact that she liked me.
　　It wasn't long before she had stopped reading her books when she came in, and would just sit and eatand talk with me. And soon she began trying to get me to talk about myself. I was immediately sorrywhen I dropped that I had once thought about becoming a lawyer. She didn't want to let me rest aboutthat. "Malcolm, there's no reason you can't pick up right where you are and become a lawyer." She hadthe idea that my sister Ella would help me as much as she could. And if Ella had ever thought that shecould help any member of the Little family put up any kind of professional shingle-as a teacher, a foot-doctor, anything-why, you would have had to tie her down to keep her from taking in washing.
　　I never mentioned Laura to Shorty. I just knew she never would have understood him, or that crowd.
　　And they wouldn't have understood her. She had never been touched, I'm certain she hadn't, or evenhad a drink, and she wouldn't even have known what a reefer was.
　　It was a great surprise to me when one afternoon Laura happened to let drop that she "just loved"lindy-hopping. I asked her how had she been able to go out dancing. She said she'd been introducedto lindy-hopping at a party given by the parents of some Negro friend just accepted by Harvard.
　　It was just about time to start closing down the soda fountain, and I said that Count Basie was playingthe Roseland that weekend, and would she like to go?
　　Laura's eyes got wide. I thought I'd have to catch her, she was so excited. She said she'd never beenthere, she'd heard so much about it, she'd imagined what it was like, she'd just give anything-but hergrandma would have a fit.
　　So I said maybe some other time.
　　But the afternoon before the dance, Laura came in full of excitement. She whispered that she'd neverlied to her grandma before, but she had told her she had to attend some school function that evening.
　　If I'd get her home early, she'd meet me-if I'd still take her.
　　I told her we'd have to go by for me to change clothes at the house. She hesitated, but said okay. Beforewe left, I telephoned Ella to say I'd be bringing a girl by on the way to the dance. Though I'd neverbefore done anything like it, Ella covered up her surprise.
　　 I laughed to myself a long time afterward about how Ella's mouth flew open when we showed up atthe front door-me and a well-bred Hill girl. Laura, when I introduced her, was warm and sincere. AndElla, you would have thought she was closing in on her third husband.
　　While they sat and talked downstairs, I dressed upstairs in my room. I remember changing my mindabout the wild sharkskin gray zoot I had planned to wear, and deciding instead to put on the first oneI'd gotten, the blue zoot. I knew I should wear the most conservative thing I had.
　　They were like old friends when I came back down. Ella had even made tea. Ella's hawk-eye just aboutraked my zoot right off my back. But I'm sure she was grateful that I'd at least put on the blue one.
　　Knowing Ella, I knew that she had already extracted Laura's entire life story-and all but had thewedding bells around my neck. I grinned all the way to the Roseland in the taxi, because I hadshowed Ella I could hang out with Hill girls if I wanted to.
　　Laura's eyes were so big. She said almost none of her acquaintances knew her grandmother, whonever went anywhere but to church, so there wasn't much danger of it getting back to her. The onlyperson she had told was her girl friend, who had shared her excitement.
　　Then, suddenly, we were in the Roseland's jostling lobby. And I was getting waves and smiles andgreetings. They shouted "My man!" and "Hey, Red!" and I answered "Daddy-o."She and I never before had danced together, but that certainly was no problem. Any two people whocan lindy at all can lindy together. We just started out there on the floor among a lot of other couples.
　　It was maybe halfway in the number before I became aware of how she danced.
　　 If you've ever lindy-hopped, you'll know what I'm talking about. With most girls, you kind of workopposite them, circling, side-stepping, leading. Whichever arm you lead with is half-bent out there,your hands are giving that little pull, that little push, touching her waist, her shoulders, her arms.
　　She's in, out, turning, whirling, wherever you guide her. With poor partners, you feel their weight.
　　They're slow and heavy. But with really good partners, all you need is just the push-pull suggestion.
　　They guide nearly effortlessly, even off the floor and into the air, and your little solo maneuver is doneon the floor before they land, when they join you, whirling, right in step.
　　I'd danced with plenty of good partners. But what I became suddenly aware of with Laura was that I'dnever before felt so little weight! I'd nearly just _think_ a maneuver, and she'd respond.
　　Anyway, as she danced up, down, under my arm, flinging out, while I felt her out and examined herstyle, I glimpsed her footwork. I can close my eyes right now and see it, like some blurring ballet-beautiful! And her lightness, like a shadow! My perfect partner, if somebody had asked me, wouldhave been one who handled as lightly as Laura and who would have had the strength to last through a long, tough showtime. But I knew that Laura wouldn't begin to be that strong.
　　In Harlem, years later, a friend of mine called "Sammy The Pimp" taught me something I wish I hadknown then to look for in Laura's face. It was what Sammy declared was his infallible clue fordetermining the "unconscious, true personality" of women. Considering all the women he had pickedout of crowds and turned into prostitutes, Sammy qualified as an expert. Anyway, he swore that if awoman, any woman, gets really carried away while dancing, what she truly is-at least potentially-willsurface and show on her face.
　　I'm not suggesting that a lady-of-easy-virtue look danced to the surface in Laura-although life did dealher cruel blows, starting with her meeting me. All I am saying is that it may be that if I had beenequipped with Sammy's ability, I might have spotted in Laura then some of the subsurface potential,destined to become real, that would have shocked her grandma.
　　A third of the way or so through the evening the main vocalizing and instrumental stylings wouldcome-and then showtime, when only the greatest lindy-hoppers would stay on the floor, to try andeliminate each other. All the other dancers would form a big "U" with the band at the open end.
　　The girls who intended to compete would slip over to the sidelines and change from high heels intolow white sneakers. In competition, they never could survive in heels. And always among them werefour or five unattached girls who would run around trying to hook up with some guy they knewcould really lindy.
　　Now Count Basie turned on the showtime blast, and the other dancers moved off the floor, shifting forgood watching positions, and began their hollering for their favorites. "All right now, Red!" theyshouted to me, "Go get 'em, Red." And then a free-lancing lindy-girl I'd danced with before, MamieBevels, a waitress and a wild dancer, ran up to me, with Laura standing right there. I wasn't sure whatto do. But Laura started backing away toward the crowd, still looking at me.
　　The Count's band was wailing. I grabbed Mamie and we started to work. She was a big, rough, stronggal, and she lindied like a bucking horse. I remember the very night that she became known as one ofthe showtime favorites there at the Roseland. A band was screaming when she kicked off her shoesand got barefooted, and shouted, and shook herself as if she were in some African jungle frenzy, andthen she let loose with some dancing, shouting with every step, until the guy that was out there withher nearly had to fight to control her. The crowd loved any way-out lindying style that made acolorful show like that. It was how Mamie had become known.
　　Anyway, I started driving her like a horse, the way she liked. When we came off the floor after the firstnumber, we both were wringing wet with sweat, and people were shouting and pounding our backs.
　　I remember leaving early with Laura, to get her home in time. She was very quiet. And she didn't havemuch to say for the next week or so when she came into the drugstore. Even then, I had learnedenough about women to know not to pressure them when they're thinking something out; they'll tell you when they're ready.
　　Every time I saw Ella, even brushing my teeth in the morning, she turned on the third degree. Whenwas I seeing Laura again? Was I going to bring her by again? "What a nice girl she is!" Ella had pickedher out for me.
　　But in that kind of way, I thought hardly anything about the girl. When it came to personal matters,my mind was strictly on getting "sharp" in my zoot as soon as I left work, and racing downtown tohang out with Shorty and the other guys-and with the girls they knew-a million miles away from thestuck-up Hill.
　　I wasn't even thinking about Laura when she came up to me in the drugstore and asked me to take herto the next Negro dance at the Roseland. Duke Ellington was going to play, and she was beside herselfwith excitement. I had no way to know what was going to happen.
　　She asked me to pick her up at her house this time. I didn't want any contact with the old grandma shehad described, but I went. Grandma answered the door-an old-fashioned, wrinkled black woman,with fuzzy gray hair. She just opened the door enough for me to get in, not even saying as much as"Come in, dog." I've faced armed detectives and gangsters less hostile than she was.
　　I remember the musty living room, full of those old Christ pictures, prayers woven into tapestries,statuettes of the crucifixion, other religious objects on the mantel, shelves, table tops, walls,everywhere.
　　Since the old lady wasn't speaking to me, I didn't speak to her, either. I completely sympathize withher now, of course.
　　What could she have thought of me in my zoot and conk and orange shoes? She'd have done us all afavor if she had run screaming for the police. If something looking as I did then ever came knocking atmy door today, asking to see one of my four daughters, I know I would explode.
　　When Laura rushed into the room, jerking on her coat, I could see that she was upset and angry andembarrassed. And in the taxi, she started crying. She had hated herself for lying before; she haddecided to tell the truth about where she was going, and there had been a screaming battle withgrandma. Laura had told the old lady that she was going to start going out when and where shewanted to, or she would quit school and get a job and move out on her own-and her grandma hadpitched a fit. Laura just walked out.
　　When we got to the Roseland, we danced the early part of the evening with each other and withdifferent partners. And finally the Duke kicked off showtime.
　　I knew, and Laura knew, that she couldn't match the veteran showtime girls, but she told me that shewanted to compete. And the next thing I knew, she was among those girls over on the sidelines changing into sneakers. I shook my head when a couple of the free-lancing girls ran up to me.
　　As always, the crowd clapped and shouted in time with the blasting band. "Go, Red, go!" Partly it wasmy reputation, and partly Laura's ballet style of dancing that helped to turn the spotlight-and thecrowd's attention-to us. They never had seen the feather-lightness that she gave to Undying, acompletely fresh style-and they were connoisseurs of styles. I turned up the steam, Laura's feet wereflying; I had her in the air, down, sideways, around; backwards, up again, down, whirling . . . .
　　The spotlight was working mostly just us. I caught glimpses of the four or five other couples, the girlsjungle-strong, animal-like, bucking and charging. But little Laura inspired me to drive to new heights.
　　Her hair was all over her face, it was running sweat, and I couldn't believe her strength. The crowdwas shouting and stomping. A new favorite was being discovered; there was a wall of noise aroundus. I felt her weakening, she was lindying like a fighter out on her feet, and we stumbled off to thesidelines. The band was still blasting. I had to half-carry her; she was gasping for air. Some of the menin the band applauded.
　　And even Duke Ellington half raised up from his piano stool and bowed.
　　If a showtime crowd liked your performance, when you came off you were mobbed, mauled, grasped,and pummeled like the team that's just taken the series. One bunch of the crowd swarmed Laura; theyhad her clear up off her feet. And I was being pounded on the back. . . when I caught this fine blonde'seyes. . . . This one I'd never seen among the white girls who came to the Roseland black dances. Shewas eyeing me levelly.
　　Now at that time, in Roxbury, in any black ghetto in America, to have a white woman who wasn't aknown, common whore was-for the average black man, at least-a status symbol of the first order. Andthis one, standing there, eyeing me, was almost too fine to believe. Shoulder-length hair, well built,and her clothes had cost somebody plenty.
　　It's shameful to admit, but I had just about forgotten Laura when she got loose from the mob andrushed up, big-eyed-and stopped. I guess she saw what there was to see in that girl's face-and mine-aswe moved out to dance.
　　I'm going to call her Sophia.
　　She didn't dance well, at least not by Negro standards. But who cared? I could feel the staring eyes ofother couples around us. We talked. I told her she was a good dancer, and asked her where she'dlearned. I was trying to find out why she was there. Most white women came to the black dances forreasons I knew, but you seldom saw her kind around there.
　　She had vague answers for everything. But in the space of that dance, we agreed that I would getLaura home early and rush back in a taxicab. And then she asked if I'd like to go for a drive later. I feltvery lucky.
　　 Laura was home and I was back at the Roseland in an hour flat. Sophia was waiting outside.
　　About five blocks down, she had a low convertible. She knew where she was going. Beyond Boston,she pulled off into a side road, and then off that into a deserted lane. And turned off everything butthe radio.
　　 For the next several months, Sophia would pick me up downtown, and I'd take her to dances, and tothe bars around Roxbury. We drove all over. Sometimes it would be nearly daylight when she let meout in front of Ella's.
　　I paraded her. The Negro men loved her. And she just seemed to love all Negroes. Two or three nightsa week, we would go out together. Sophia admitted that she also had dates with white fellows, "justfor the looks of things," she said. She swore that a white man couldn't interest her.
　　I wondered for a long time, but I never did find out why she approached me so boldly that very firstnight. I always thought it was because of some earlier experience with another Negro, but I neverasked, and she never said. Never ask a woman about other men. Either she'll tell you a lie, and youstill won't know, or if she tells you the truth, you might not have wanted to hear it in the first place.
　　Anyway, she seemed entranced with me. I began to see less of Shorty. When I did see him and thegang, he would gibe, "Man, I had to comb the burrs out of my homeboy's head, and now he's got aBeacon Hill chick." But truly, because it was known that Shorty had "schooled" me, my having Sophiagave Shorty status. When I introduced her to him, she hugged him like a sister, and it just aboutfinished Shorty off. His best had been white prostitutes and a few of those poor specimens thatworked around in the mills and had "discovered" Negroes.
　　It was when I began to be seen around town with Sophia that I really began to mature into some realstatus in black downtown Roxbury. Up to then I had been just another among all of the conked andzooted youngsters. But now, with the best-looking white woman who ever walked in those bars andclubs, and with her giving me the money I spent, too, even the big, important black hustlers and"smart boys"-the club managers, name gamblers, numbers bankers, and others-were clapping me onthe back, setting us up to drinks at special tables, and calling me "Red." Of course I knew their reasonlike I knew my own name: they wanted to steal my fine white woman away from me.
　　In the ghetto, as in suburbia, it's the same status struggle to stand out in some envied way from therest. At sixteen, I didn't have the money to buy a Cadillac, but she had her own fine "rubber," as wecalled a car hi those days. And I had her, which was even better.
　　Laura never again came to the drugstore as long as I continued to work there. The next time I saw her,she was a wreck of a woman, notorious around black Roxbury, in and out of jail. She had finished high school, but by then she was already going the wrong way. Defying her grandmother, she hadstarted going out late and drinking liquor. This led to dope, and that to selling herself to men.
　　Learning to hate the men who bought her, she also became a Lesbian. One of the shames I havecarried for years is that I blame myself for all of this. To have treated her as I did for a white womanmade the blow doubly heavy. The only excuse I can offer is that like so many of my black brotherstoday, I was just deaf, dumb, and blind.
　　In any case, it wasn't long after I met Sophia that Ella found out about it, and watching from thewindows one early morning, saw me getting out of Sophia's car. Not surprisingly, Ella began treatingme like a viper.
　　About then, Shorty's cousin finally moved in with the woman he was so crazy about, and Sophiafinanced me to take over half of the apartment with Shorty-and I quit the drugstore and soon foundanew job.
　　I became a busboy at the Parker House in Boston. I wore a starched white jacket out in the diningroom, where the waiters would put the customers' dirty plates and silver on big aluminum trayswhich I would take back to the kitchen's dishwashers.
　　A few weeks later, one Sunday morning, I ran in to work expecting to get fired, I was so late. But thewhole kitchen crew was too excited and upset to notice: Japanese planes had just bombed a placecalled Pearl Harbor.
Chapter 5 Harlemite
"Get'cha goood haaaaam an' cheeeeese . . . sandwiches! Coffee! Candy! Cake! Ice Cream!" Rockingalong the tracks every other day for four hours between Boston and New York in the coach aisles ofthe New York, New Haven & Hartford's "Yankee Clipper."Old Man Rountree, an elderly Pullman porter and a friend of Elk's, had recommended the railroad jobfor me. He had told her the war was snatching away railroad men so fast that if I could pass fortwenty-one, he could get me on.
　　Ella wanted to get me out of Boston and away from Sophia. She would have loved nothing better thanto have seen me like one of those Negroes who were already thronging Roxbury in the Army's khakiand thick shoes-home on leave from boot camp. But my age of sixteen stopped that.
　　I went along with the railroad job for my own reasons. For a long time I'd wanted to visit New YorkCity. Since I had been in Roxbury, I had heard a lot about "the Big Apple," as it was called by the well-traveled musicians, merchant mariners, salesmen, chauffeurs for white families, and various kinds of hustlers I ran into. Even as far back as Lansing, I had been hearing about how fabulous New York was,and especially Harlem. In fact, my father had described Harlem with pride, and showed us pictures ofthe huge parades by the Harlem followers of Marcus Garvey. And every time Joe Louis won a fightagainst a white opponent, big front-page pictures in the Negro newspapers such as the _ChicagoDefender_, the _Pittsburgh Courier_, and the _Afro-American_ showed a sea of Harlem Negroescheering and waving and the Brown Bomber waving back at them from the balcony of Harlem'sTheresa Hotel. Everything I'd ever heard about New York City was exciting-things like Broadway'sbright lights and the Savoy Ballroom and Apollo Theater in Harlem, where great bands played andfamous songs and dance steps and Negro stars originated.
　　But you couldn't just pick up and go to visit New York from Lansing, or Boston, or anywhere else-notwithout money. So I'd never really given too much thought to getting to New York until the free wayto travel there came in the form of Ella's talk with old man Rountree, who was a member of Ella'schurch.
　　What Ella didn't know, of course, was that I would continue to see Sophia. Sophia could get away onlya few nights a week. She said, when I told her about the train job, that she'd get away every night I gotback into Boston, and this would mean every other night, if I got the run I wanted. Sophia didn't wantme to leave at all, but she believed I was draft age already, and thought the train job would keep meout of the Army.
　　Shorty thought it would be a great chance for me. He was worried sick himself about the draft call thathe knew was soon to come. Like hundreds of the black ghetto's young men, he was taking some stuffthat, it was said, would make your heart sound defective to the draft board's doctors.
　　Shorty felt about the war the same way I and most ghetto Negroes did: "Whitey owns everything. Hewants us to go and bleed for him? Let him fight."Anyway, at the railroad personnel hiring office down on Dover Street, a tired-acting old white clerkgot down to the crucial point, when I came to sign up. "Age, Little?" When I told him "Twenty-one," henever lifted his eyes from his pencil. I knew I had the job.
　　I was promised the first available Boston-to-New York fourth-cook job. But for a while, I worked therein the Dover Street Yard, helping to load food requisitions onto the trains. Fourth cook, I knew, wasjust a glorified name for dishwasher, but it wouldn't be my first time, and just as long as I traveledwhere I wanted, it didn't make any difference to me. Temporarily though, they put me on "TheColonial" that ran to Washington, D.C.
　　The kitchen crew, headed by a West Indian chef named Duke Vaughn, worked with almostunbelievable efficiency in the cramped quarters. Against the sound of the train clacking along, thewaiters were jabbering the customers' orders, the cooks operated like machines, and five hundredmiles of dirty pots and dishes and silverware rattled back to me. Then, on the overnight layover, Inaturally went sightseeing in downtown Washington. I was astounded to find in the nation's capital, just a few blocks from Capitol Hill, thousands of Negroes living worse than any I'd ever seen in thepoorest sections of Roxbury; in dirt-floor shacks along unspeakably filthy lanes with names like PigAlley and Goat Alley. I had seen a lot, but never such a dense concentration of stumblebums, pushers,hookers, public crap-shooters, even little kids running around at midnight begging for pennies, half-naked and barefooted. Some of the railroad cooks and waiters had told me to be very careful, becausemuggings, knifings and robberies went on every night among these Negroes . . . just a few blocks fromthe White House.
　　But I saw other Negroes better off; they lived in blocks of rundown red brick houses. The old"Colonial" railroaders had told me about Washington having a lot of "middle-class" Negroes withHoward University degrees, who were working as laborers, janitors, porters, guards, taxi-drivers, andthe like. For the Negro in Washington, mail-carrying was a prestige job.
　　After a few of the Washington runs, I snatched the chance when one day personnel said I couldtemporarily replace a sandwich man on the "Yankee Clipper" to New York. I was into my zoot suitbefore the first passenger got off.
　　The cooks took me up to Harlem in a cab. White New York passed by like a movie set, then abruptly,when we left Central Park at the upper end, at 110th Street, the people's complexion began to change.
　　Busy Seventh Avenue ran along in front of a place called Small's Paradise. The crew had told mebefore we left Boston that it was their favorite night spot in Harlem, and not to miss it. No Negro placeof business had ever impressed me so much. Around the big, luxurious-looking, circular bar werethirty or forty Negroes, mostly men, drinking and talking.
　　I was hit first, I think, by their conservative clothes and manners. Wherever I'd seen as many as tenBoston Negroes-let alone Lansing Negroes-drinking, there had been a big noise.
　　But with all of these Harlemites drinking and talking, there was just a low murmur of sound.
　　Customers came and went. The bartenders knew what most of them drank and automatically fixed it.
　　A bottle was set on the bar before some.
　　Every Negro I'd ever known had made a point of flashing whatever money he had. But these HarlemNegroes quietly laid a bill on the bar. They drank. They nonchalantly nodded to the bartender to poura drink for some friend, while the bartenders, smooth as any of the customers, kept making changefrom the money on the bar.
　　Their manners seemed natural; they were not putting on any airs. I was awed. Within the first fiveminutes in Small's, I had left Boston and Roxbury forever.
　　I didn't yet know that these weren't what you might call everyday or average Harlem Negroes. Lateron, even later that night, I would find out that Harlem contained hundreds of thousands of my peoplewho were just as loud and gaudy as Negroes anywhere else. But these were the cream of the older, more mature operators in Harlem. The day's "numbers" business was done. The night's gambling andother forms of hustling hadn't yet begun. The usual night-life crowd, who worked on regular jobs allday, were at home eating their dinners. The hustlers at this time were in the daily six o'clockcongregation, having their favorite bars all over Harlem largely to themselves.
　　From Small's, I taxied over to the Apollo Theater. (I remember so well that Jay McShann's band wasplaying, because his vocalist was later my close friend, Walter Brown, the one who used to sing"Hooty Hooty Blues.") From there, on the other side of 125th Street, at Seventh Avenue, I saw the big,tall, gray Theresa Hotel. It was the finest in New York City where Negroes could then stay, yearsbefore the downtown hotels would accept the black man. (The Theresa is now best known as the placewhere Fidel Castro went during his U.N. visit, and achieved a psychological coup over the U.S: StateDepartment when it confined him to Manhattan, never dreaming that he'd stay uptown in Harlemand make such an impression among the Negroes.)The Braddock Hotel was just up 126th Street, near the Apollo's backstage entrance. I knew its bar wasfamous as a Negro celebrity hang-out. I walked in and saw, along that jam-packed bar, such famousstars as Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dinah Washington.
　　As Dinah Washington was leaving with some friends, I overheard someone say she was on her wayto. the Savoy Ballroom where Lionel Hampton was appearing that night-she was then Hamp'svocalist. The ballroom made the Roseland in Boston look small and shabby by comparison. And thelindy-hopping there matched the size and elegance of the place. Hampton's hard-driving outfit kept ared-hot pace with his greats such as Amett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Dexter Gordon, Alvin Hayse, JoeNewman, and George Jenkins. I went a couple of rounds on the floor with girls from the sidelines.
　　Probably a third of the sideline booths were filled with white people, mostly just watching theNegroes dance; but some of them danced together, and, as in Boston, a few white women were withNegroes. The people kept shouting for Hamp's "Flyin' Home," and finally he did it. (I could believe thestory I'd heard in Boston about this number-that once in the Apollo, Hamp's "Flyin' Home" had madesome reefer-smoking Negro in the second balcony believe he could fly, so he tried-and jumped-andbroke his leg, an event later immortalized in song when Earl Hines wrote a hit tune called "SecondBalcony Jump.") I had never seen such fever-heat dancing. After a couple of slow numbers cooled theplace off, they brought on Dinah Washington. When she did her "Salty Papa Blues," those people justabout tore the Savoy roof off. (Poor Dinah's funeral was held not long ago in Chicago. I read that overtwenty thousand people viewed her body, and I should have been there myself. Poor Dinah! Webecame great friends, back in those days.)But this night of my first visit was Kitchen Mechanics' Night at the Savoy, the traditional Thursdaynight off for domestics. I'd say there were twice as many women as men in there, not only kitchenworkers and maids, but also war wives and defense-worker women, lonely and looking. Out in thestreet, when I left the ballroom, I heard a prostitute cursing bitterly that the professionals couldn't doany business because of the amateurs.
　　 Up and down, along and between Lenox and Seventh and Eighth avenues, Harlem was like sometechnicolor bazaar. Hundreds of Negro soldiers and sailors, gawking and young like me, passed by.
　　Harlem by now was officially off limits to white servicemen. There had already been some muggingsand robberies, and several white servicemen had been found murdered. The police were also trying todiscourage white civilians from coming uptown, but those who wanted to still did. Every manwithout a woman on his arm was being "worked" by the prostitutes. "Baby, wanna have some fun?"The pimps would sidle up close, stage-whispering, "All kinds of women, Jack-want a white woman?"And the hustlers were merchandising: "Hundred-dollar ring, man, diamond; ninety-dollar watch, too-look at 'em. Take 'em both for twenty-five."In another two years, I could have given them all lessons. But that night, I was mesmerized. Thisworld was where I belonged. On that night I had started on my way to becoming a Harlemite. I wasgoing to become one of the most depraved parasitical hustlers among New York's eight millionpeople-four million of whom work, and the other four million of whom live off them.
　　I couldn't quite believe all that I'd heard and seen that night as I lugged my shoulder-strap sandwichbox and that heavy five-gallon aluminum coffee pot up and down the aisles of the "Yankee Clipper"back to Boston. I wished that Ella and I had been on better terms so that I could try to describe to herhow I felt. But I did talk to Shorty, urging him to at least go to see the Big Apple music world. Sophialistened to me, too. She told me that I'd never be satisfied anywhere but New York. She was so right.
　　In one night, New York-Harlem-had just about narcotized me.
　　That sandwich man I'd replaced had little chance of getting his job back. I went bellowing up anddown those train aisles. I sold sandwiches, coffee, candy, cake, and ice cream as fast as the railroad'scommissary department could supply them. It didn't take me a week to learn that all you had to dowas give white people a show and they'd buy anything you offered them. It was like popping yourshoeshine rag. The dining car waiters and Pullman porters knew it too, and they faked their UncleTomming to get bigger tips. We were in that world of Negroes who are both servants andpsychologists, aware that white people are so obsessed with their own importance that they will payliberally, even dearly, for the impression of being catered to and entertained.
　　Every layover night in Harlem, I ran and explored new places. I first got a room at the Harlem YMCA,because it was less than a block from Small's Paradise. Then, I got a cheaper room at Mrs. Fisher'srooming house which was close to the YMCA. Most of the railroad men stayed at Mrs. Fisher's. Icombed not only the bright-light areas, but Harlem's residential areas from best to worst, from SugarHill up near the Polo Grounds, where many famous celebrities lived, down to the slum blocks of oldrat-trap apartment houses, just crawling with everything you could mention that was illegal andimmoral. Dirt, garbage cans overflowing or kicked over; drunks, dope addicts, beggars. Sleazy bars,store-front churches with gospels being shouted inside, "bargain" stores, hockshops, undertakingparlors. Greasy "home-cooking" restaurants, beauty shops smoky inside from Negro women's hairgetting fried, barbershops advertising conk experts. Cadillacs, secondhand and new, conspicuousamong the cars on the streets.
　　 All of it was Lansing's West Side or Roxbury's South End magnified a thousand times. Little basementdance halls with "For Rent" signs on them. People offering you little cards advertising "rent-raisingparties." I went to one of these-thirty or forty Negroes sweating, eating, drinking, dancing, andgambling in a jammed, beat-up apartment, the record player going full blast, the fried chicken orchitlins with potato salad and collard greens for a dollar a plate, and cans of beer or shots of liquor forfifty cents. Negro and white canvassers sidled up alongside you, talking fast as they tried to get you tobuy a copy of the _Daily Worker_: "This paper's trying to keep your rent controlled . . . Make thatgreedy landlord kill them rats in your apartment . . . This paper represents the only political party thatever ran a black man for the Vice Presidency of the United States . . . Just want you to read, won't takebut a little of your time . . . Who do you think fought the hardest to help free those Scottsboro boys?"Things I overheard among Negroes when the salesmen were around let me know that the papersomehow was tied in with the Russians, but to my sterile mind in those early days, it didn't meanmuch; the radio broadcasts and the newspapers were then full of our-ally-Russia, a strong, muscularpeople, peasants, with their backs to the wall helping America to fight Hitler and Mussolini.
　　But New York was heaven to me. And Harlem was Seventh Heaven! I hung around in Small's and theBraddock bar so much that the bartenders began to pour a shot of bourbon, my favorite brand of it,when they saw me walk in the door. And the steady customers in both places, the hustlers in Small'sand the entertainers in the Braddock, began to call me "Red," a natural enough nickname in view ofmy bright red conk. I now had my conk done in Boston at the shop of Abbott and Fogey; it was thebest conk shop on the East Coast, according to the musical greats who had recommended it to me.
　　My friends now included musicians like Duke Ellington's great drummer, Sonny Greer, and that greatpersonality with the violin, Ray Nance. He's the one who used to stag in that wild "scat" style: "Blipblip-de-blop-de-blam-blam-" And people like Cootie Williams, and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, who'dkid me about his conk-he had nothing up there but skin. He was hitting the heights then with hissong, "Hey, Pretty Mama, Chunk Me In Your Big Brass Bed." I also knew Sy Oliver; he was married toa red-complexioned girl, and they lived up on Sugar Hill; Sy did a lot of arranging for Tommy Dorseyin those days. His most famous tune, I believe, was "Yes, Indeed!"The regular "Yankee Clipper" sandwich man, when he came back, was put on another train. Hecomplained about seniority, but my sales record made them placate him some other way. The waitersand cooks had begun to call me "Sandwich Red."By that time, they had a laughing bet going that I wasn't going to last, sales or not, because I had sorapidly become such an uncouth, wild young Negro. Profanity had become my language. I'd evencurse customers, especially servicemen; I couldn't stand them. I remember that once, when somepassenger complaints had gotten me a warning, and I wanted to be careful, I was working down theaisle and a big, beefy, red-faced cracker soldier got up in front of me, so drunk he was weaving, andannounced loud enough that everybody in the car heard him, "I'm going to fight you, nigger." Iremember the tension. I laughed and told him, "Sure, I'll fight, but you've got too many clothes on." Hehad on a big Army overcoat. He took that off, and I kept laughing and said he still had on too many. I was able to keep that cracker stripping off clothes until he stood there drunk with nothing on from hispants up, and the whole car was laughing at him, and some other soldiers got him out of the way. Iwent on. I never would forget that-that I couldn't have whipped that white man as badly with a clubas I had with my mind.
　　Many of the New Haven Line's cooks and waiters still in railroad service today will remember oldPappy Cousins. He was the "Yankee Clipper" steward, a white man, of course, from Maine. (Negroeshad been in dining car service as much as thirty and forty years, but in those days there were noNegro stewards on the New Haven Line.) Anyway, Pappy Cousins loved whisky, and he likedeverybody, even me. A lot of passenger complaints about me, Pappy had let slide. He'd ask some ofthe old Negroes working with me to try and calm me down.
　　"Man, you can't tell him nothing!" they'd exclaim. And they couldn't. At home in Roxbury, they wouldsee me parading with Sophia, dressed in my wild zoot suits. Then I'd come to work, loud and wildand half-high on liquor or reefers, and I'd stay that way, jamming sandwiches at people until we got toNew York. Off the train, I'd go through that Grand Central Station afternoon rush-hour crowd, andmany white people simply stopped in their tracks to watch me pass. The drape and the cut of a zootsuit showed to the best advantage if you were tall-and I was over six feet. My conk was fire-red. I wasreally a clown, but my ignorance made me think I was "sharp." My knob-toed, orange-colored "kickup" shoes were nothing but Florsheims, the ghetto's Cadillac of shoes in those days. (Some shoecompanies made these ridiculous styles for sale only in the black ghettoes where ignorant Negroes likeme would pay the big-name price for something that we associated with being rich.) And then,between Small's Paradise, the Braddock Hotel, and other places-as much as my twenty-or twenty-fivedollar pay would allow, I drank liquor, smoked marijuana, painted the Big Apple red with increasingnumbers of friends, and finally in Mrs. Fisher's rooming house I got a few hours of sleep before the"Yankee Clipper" rolled again.
　　 It was inevitable that I was going to be fired sooner or later. What finally finished me was an angryletter from a passenger. The conductors added their-bit, telling how many verbal complaints they'dhad, and how many warnings I'd been given.
　　But I didn't care, because in those wartime days such jobs as I could aspire to were going begging.
　　When the New Haven Line paid me off, I decided it would be nice to make a trip to visit my brothersand sisters in Lansing. I had accumulated some railroad free-travel privileges.
　　None of them back in Michigan could believe it was me. Only my oldest brother, Wilfred, wasn'tthere; he was away at Wilberforce University in Ohio studying a trade. But Philbert and Hilda wereworking in Lansing. Reginald, the one who had always looked up to me, had gotten big enough tofake his age, and he was planning soon to enter the merchant marine. Yvonne, Wesley and Robertwere in school.
　　 My conk and whole costume were so wild that I might have been taken as a man from Mars. I causeda minor automobile collision; one driver stopped to gape at me, and the driver behind bumped intohim. My appearance staggered the older boys I had once envied; I'd stick out my hand, saying "Skinme, daddy-o!" My stories about the Big Apple, my reefers keeping me sky-high-wherever I went, Iwas the life of the party. "My man! . . . Gimme some skin!"The only thing that brought me down to earth was the visit to the state hospital in Kalamazoo. Mymother sort of half-sensed who I was.
　　And I looked up Shorty's mother. I knew he'd be touched by my doing that. She was an old lady, andshe was glad to hear from Shorty through me. I told her that Shorty was doing fine and one day wasgoing to be a great leader of his own band. She asked me to tell Shorty that she wished he'd write her,and send her something.
　　And I dropped over to Mason to see Mrs. Swerlin, the woman at the detention home who had kept methose couple of years. Her mouth flew open when she came to the door. My sharkskin gray "CabCalloway" zoot suit, the long, narrow, knob-toed shoes, and the four-inch-brimmed pearl-gray hatover my conked fire-red hair; it was just about too much for Mrs. Swerlin. She just managed to pullherself together enough to invite me in. Between the way I looked and my style of talk, I made her sonervous and uncomfortable that we were both glad when I left.
　　The night before I left, a dance was given in the Lincoln School gymnasium. (I've since learned that ina strange city, to find the Negroes without asking where, you just check in the phone book for a"Lincoln School." It's always located in the segregated black ghetto-at least it was, in those days.) I'dleft Lansing unable to dance, but now I went around the gymnasium floor flinging little girls over myshoulders and hips, showing my most startling steps. Several times, the little band nearly stopped,and nearly everybody left the floor, watching with their eyes like saucers. That night, I even signedautographs-"Harlem Red"-and I left Lansing shocked and rocked.
　　Back in New York, stone broke and without any means of support, I realized that the railroad was allthat I actually knew anything about. So I went over to the Seaboard Line's hiring office. The railroadsneeded men so badly that all I had to do was tell them I had worked on the New Haven, and two dayslater I was on the "Silver Meteor" to St. Petersburg and Miami. Renting pillows and keeping thecoaches clean and the white passengers happy, I made about as much as I had with sandwiches.
　　I soon ran afoul of the Florida cracker who was assistant conductor. Back in New York, they told me tofind another job. But that afternoon, when I walked into Small's Paradise, one of the bartenders,knowing how much I loved New York, called me aside and said that if I were wilting to quit therailroad, I might be able to replace a day waiter who was about to go into the Army.
　　The owner of the bar was Ed Small. He and his brother Charlie were inseparable, and I guess Harlemdidn't have two more popular and respected people. They knew I was a railroad man, which, for awaiter, was the best kind of recommendation. Charlie Small was the one I actually talked with in their office. I was afraid he'd want to wait to ask some of his old-timer railroad friends for their opinion.
　　Charlie wouldn't have gone for anybody he heard was wild. But he decided on the basis of his ownimpression, having seen me in his place so many times, sitting quietly, almost in awe, observing thehustling set. I told him, when he asked, that I'd never been in trouble with the police-and up to then,that was the truth. Charlie told me their rules for employees: no lateness, no laziness, no stealing, nokind of hustling off any customers, especially men in uniform. And I was hired.
　　This was in 1942.I had just turned seventeen.
　　 With Small's practically in the center of everything, waiting tables there was Seventh Heaven seventimes over. Charlie Small had no need to caution me against being late; I was so anxious to be there,I'd arrive an hour early. I relieved the morning waiter. As far as he was concerned, mine was theslowest, most no-tips time of day, and sometimes he'd stick around most of that hour teaching methings, for he didn't want to see me fired.
　　Thanks to him, I learned very quickly dozens of little things that could really ingratiate a new waiterwith the cooks and bartenders. Both of these, depending on how they liked the waiter, could make hisjob miserable or pleasant-and I meant to become indispensable. Inside of a week, I had succeeded withboth. And the customers who had seen me among them around the bar, recognizing me now in thewaiter's jacket, were pleased and surprised; and they couldn't have been more friendly. And I couldn'thave been more solicitous.
　　"Another drink? . . . Right away, sir . . . Would you like dinner? . . . It's very good . . . Could I get you amenu, sir? . . . Well, maybe a sandwich?"Not only the bartenders and cooks, who knew everything about everything, it seemed to me, but eventhe customers, also began to school me, in little conversations by the bar when I wasn't busy.
　　Sometimes a customer would talk to me as he ate. Sometimes I'd have long talks-absorbingeverything-with the real old-timers, who had been around Harlem since Negroes first came there.
　　That, in fact, was one of my biggest surprises: that Harlem hadn't always been a community ofNegroes.
　　It first had been a Dutch settlement, I learned. Then began the massive waves of poor and half-starvedand ragged immigrants from Europe, arriving with everything they owned in the world in bags andsacks on their backs. The Germans came first; the Dutch edged away from them, and Harlem becameall German.
　　Then came the Irish, running from the potato famine. The Germans ran, looking down their noses atthe Irish, who took over Harlem. Next, the Italians; same thing-the Irish ran from them. The Italianshad Harlem when the Jews came down the gangplanks-and then the Italians left.
　　 Today, all these same immigrants' descendants are running as hard as they can to escape thedescendants of the Negroes who helped to unload the immigrant ships.
　　I was staggered when old-timer Harlemites told me that while this immigrant musical chairs gamehad been going on, Negroes had been in New York City since 1683, before any of them came, and hadbeen ghettoed all over the city. They had first been in the Wall Street area; then they were pushed intoGreenwich Village. The next shove was up to the Pennsylvania Station area. And men, the last stopbefore Harlem, the black ghetto was concentrated around 52nd Street, which is how 52nd Street gotthe Swing Street name and reputation that lasted long after the Negroes were gone.
　　Then, in 1910, a Negro real estate man somehow got two or three Negro families into one JewishHarlem apartment house. The Jews flew from that house, then from that block, and more Negroescame in to fill their apartments. Then whole blocks of Jews ran, and still more Negroes came uptown,until in a short time, Harlem was like it still is today-virtually all black.
　　Then, early in the 1920's music and entertainment sprang up as an industry in Harlem, supported bydowntown whites who poured uptown every night. It all started about the time a tough young NewOrleans cornet man named Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong climbed off a train in New York wearingclodhopper policemen's shoes, and started playing with Fletcher Henderson. In 1925, Small's Paradisehad opened with crowds all across Seventh Avenue; in 1926, the great Cotton Club, where DukeEllington's band would play for five years; also in 1926 the Savoy Ballroom opened, a whole blockfront on Lenox Avenue, with a two-hundred-foot dance floor under spotlights before two bandstandsand a disappearing rear stage.
　　Harlem's famous image spread until it swarmed nightly with white people from all over the world.
　　The tourist buses came there. The Cotton Club catered to whites only, and hundreds of other clubsranging on down to cellar speakeasies catered to white people's money. Some of the best-known wereConnie's Inn, the Lenox Club, Barron's, The Nest Club, Jimmy's Chicken Shack, and Minton's. TheSavoy, the Golden Gate, and theRenaissance ballrooms battled for the crowds-the Savoy introduced such attractions as ThursdayKitchen Mechanics' Nights, bathing beauty contests, and a new car given away each Saturday night.
　　They had bands from all across the country in the ballrooms and the Apollo and Lafayette theaters.
　　They had colorful bandleaders like 'Fess Williams in his diamond-studded suit and top hat, and CabCalloway in his white zoot suit to end all zoots, and his wide-brimmed white hat and string tie, settingHarlem afire with "Tiger Rag" and "St. James Infirmary" and "Minnie the Moocher."Blacktown crawled with white people, with pimps, prostitutes, bootleggers, with hustlers of all kinds,with colorful characters, and with police and prohibition agents. Negroes danced like they never haveanywhere before or since. I guess I must have heard twenty-five of the old-timers in Small's swear tome that they had been the first to dance in the Savoy the "Lindy Hop" which was born there in 1927,named for Lindbergh, who had just made his flight to Paris.
　　 Even the little cellar places with only piano space had fabulous keyboard artists such as James P.
　　Johnson and Jelly Roll Morton, and singers such as Ethel Waters. And at four A.M., when all thelegitimate clubs had to close, from all over town the white and Negro musicians would come to someprearranged Harlem after-hours spot and have thirty-and forty-piece jam sessions that would last intothe next day.
　　When it all ended with the stock market crash in 1929, Harlem had a world reputation as America'sCasbah. Small's had been a part of all that. There, I heard the old-timers reminisce about all those greattimes.
　　Every day I listened raptly to customers who felt like talking, and it all added to my education. Myears soaked it up like sponges when one of them, in a rare burst of confidence, or a little beyond hisusual number of drinks, would tell me inside things about the particular form of hustling that hepursued as a way of life. I was thus schooled well, by experts in such hustles as the numbers, pimping,con games of many kinds, peddling dope, and thievery of all sorts, including armed robbery.
Chapter 6 Detroit Red
Every day, I would gamble all of my tips-as high as fifteen and twenty dollars-on the numbers, anddream of what I would do when I hit.
　　I saw people on their long, wild spending sprees, after big hits. I don't mean just hustlers who alwayshad some money. I mean ordinary working people, the kind that we otherwise almost never saw in abar like Small's, who, with a good enough hit, had quit their jobs working somewhere downtown forthe white man. Often they had bought a Cadillac, and sometimes for three and four days, they weresetting up drinks and buying steaks for all their friends. I would have to pull two tables together intoone, and they would be throwing me two-and three-dollar tips each time I came with my tray.
　　Hundreds of thousands of New York City Negroes, every day but Sunday, would play from a pennyon up to large sums on three-digit numbers. A hit meant duplicating the last three figures of the StockExchange's printed daily total of U.S. domestic and foreign sales.
　　With the odds at six hundred to one, a penny hit won $6, a dollar won $600, and so on. On $15, the hitwould mean $9,000. Famous hits like that had bought controlling interests in lots of Harlem's bars andrestaurants, or even bought some of them outright. The chances of hitting were a thousand to one.
　　Many players practiced what was called "combinating." For example six cents would put one pennyon each of the six possible combinations of three digits. The number 840, combinated, would include840, 804, 048, 084, 408, and 480.
　　 Practically everyone played every day in the poverty-ridden black ghetto of Harlem. Every day,someone you knew was likely to hit and of course it was neighborhood news; if big enough a hit,neighborhood excitement. Hits generally were small; a nickel, dime, or a quarter. Most people tried toplay a dollar a day, but split it up among different numbers and combinated.
　　Harlem's numbers industry hummed every morning and into the early afternoon, with the runnersjotting down people's bets on slips of paper in apartment house hallways, bars, barbershops, stores, onthe sidewalks. The cops looked on; no runner lasted long who didn't, out of his pocket, put in a free"figger" for his working area's foot cops, and it was generally known that the numbers bankers paidoff at higher levels of the police department.
　　The daily small army of runners each got ten percent of the money they turned in, along with the betslips, to their controllers. (And if you hit, you gave the runner a ten percent tip.) A controller mighthave as many as fifty runners working for him, and the controller got five percent of what he turnedover to the banker, who paid off the hit, paid off the police, and got rich off the balance.
　　Some people played one number all year. Many had lists of the daily hit numbers going back foryears; they figured reappearance odds, and used other systems. Others played their hunches:
　　addresses, license numbers of passing cars, any numbers on letters, telegrams, laundry slips, numbersfrom anywhere. Dream books that cost a dollar would say what number nearly any dream suggested.
　　Evangelists who on Sundays peddled Jesus, and mystics, would pray a lucky number for you, for afee.
　　Recently, the last three numbers of the post office's new Zip Code for a postal district of Harlem hit,and one banker almost went broke. Let this very book circulate widely in the black ghettoes of thecountry, and-although I'm no longer a gambling person-I'd lay a small wager for your favorite charitythat millions of dollars would be bet by my poor, foolish black brothers and sisters upon, say,whatever happens to be the number of this page, or whatever is the total of the whole book's pages.
　　Every day in Small's Paradise Bar was fascinating to me. And from a Harlem point of view, I couldn'thave been in a more educational situation. Some of the ablest of New York's black hustlers took aliking to me, and knowing that I still was green by their terms, soon began in a paternal way to"straighten Red out."Their methods would be indirect. A dark, businessman-looking West Indian often would sit at one ofmy tables. One day when I brought his beer, he said, "Red, hold still a minute." He went over me withone of those yellow tape measures, and jotted figures in his notebook. When I came to work the nextafternoon, one of the bartenders handed me a package. In it was an expensive, dark blue suit,conservatively cut. The gift was thoughtful, and the message clear.
　　The bartenders let me know that this customer was one of the top executives of the fabulous FortyThieves gang. That was the gang of organized boosters, who would deliver, to order, in one day,C.O.D., any kind of garment you desired. You would pay about one-third of the store's price.
　　 I heard how they made mass hauls. A well-dressed member of the gang who wouldn't arousesuspicion by his manner would go into a selected store about closing time, hide somewhere, and getlocked inside when the store closed. The police patrols would have been timed beforehand. Afterdark, he'd pack suits in bags, then turn off the burglar alarm, and use the telephone to call a waitingtruck and crew. When the truck came, timed with the police patrols, it would be loaded and gonewithin a few minutes. I later got to know several members of the Forty Thieves.
　　Plainclothes detectives soon were quietly identified to me, by a nod, a wink. Knowing the law peoplein the area was elementary for the hustlers, and, like them, in time I would learn to sense the presenceof any police types. In late 1942, each of the military services had their civilian-dress eyes and earspicking up anything of interest to them, such as hustles being used to avoid the draft, or who hadn'tregistered, or hustles that were being worked on servicemen.
　　Longshoremen, or fences for them, would come into the bars selling guns, cameras, perfumes,watches, and the like, stolen from the shipping docks. These Negroes got what white-longshoremanthievery left over. Merchant marine sailors often brought in foreign items, bargains, and the bestmarijuana cigarettes to be had were made of the _gunja_ and _kisca_ that merchant sailors smuggledin from Africa and Persia.
　　In the daytime, whites were given a guarded treatment. Whites who came at night got a betterreception; the several Harlem nightclubs they patronized were geared to entertain and jive the nightwhite crowd to get their money.
　　And with so many law agencies guarding the "morals" of servicemen, any of them that came in, and alot did, were given what they asked for, and were spoken to if they spoke, and that was all, unlesssomeone knew them as natives of Harlem.
　　What I was learning was the hustling society's first rule; that you never trusted anyone outside of yourown closemouthed circle, and that you selected with time and care before you made any intimateseven among these.
　　The bartenders would let me know which among the regular customers were mostly "fronts," andwhich really had something going; which were really in the underworld, with downtown police orpolitical connections; which really handled some money, and which were making it from day to day;which were the real gamblers, and which had just hit a little luck; and which ones never to run afoul ofin any way.
　　The latter were extremely well known about Harlem, and they were feared and respected. It wasknown that if upset, they would break open your head and think nothing of it. These were old-timers,not to be confused with the various hotheaded, wild, young hustlers out trying to make a name forthemselves for being crazy with a pistol trigger or a knife. The old heads that I'm talking about weresuch as "Black Sammy," "Bub" Hewlett, "King" Padmore and "West Indian Archie." Most of these tough ones had worked as strongarm men for Dutch Schultz back when he muscled into the Harlemnumbers industry after white gangsters had awakened to the fortunes being made in what they hadpreviously considered "nigger pennies"; and the numbers game was referred to by the whiteracketeers as "nigger pool."Those tough Negroes' heyday had been before the big 1931 Seabury Investigation that started DutchSchultz on the way out, until his career ended with his 1934 assassination. I heard stories of how theyhad "persuaded" people with lead pipes, wet cement, baseball bats, brass knuckles, fists, feet, andblackjacks.
　　Nearly every one of them had done some time, and had come back on the scene, and since hadworked as top runners for the biggest bankers who specialized in large bettors.
　　There seemed to be an understanding that these Negroes and the tough black cops never clashed; Iguess both knew that someone would die. They had some bad black cops in Harlem, too. The FourHorsemen that worked Sugar Hill-I remember the worst one had freckles-there was a tough quartet.
　　The biggest, blackest, worst cop of them all in Harlem was the West Indian, Brisbane. Negroes crossedthe street to avoid him when he walked his 125th Street and Seventh Avenue beat. When I was inprison, someone brought me a story that Brisbane had been shot to death by a scared, nervous youngkid who hadn't been up from the South long enough to realize how bad Brisbane was.
　　The world's most unlikely pimp was "Cadillac" Drake. He was shiny baldheaded, built like a football;he used to call his huge belly "the chippies' playground." Cadillac had a string of about a dozen of thestringiest, scrawniest, black and white street prostitutes in Harlem. Afternoons around the bar, theold-timers who knew Cadillac well enough would tease him about how women who looked like hismade enough to feed themselves, let alone him. He'd roar with laughter right along with us; I can hearhim now, "Bad-looking women work harder."Just about the complete opposite of Cadillac was the young, smooth, independent-acting pimp,"Sammy the Pimp." He could, as I have mentioned, pick out potential prostitutes by watching theirexpressions in dance halls. Sammy and I became, in time, each other's closest friend. Sammy, who wasfrom Kentucky, was a cool, collected expert in his business, and his business was women. LikeCadillac, he too had both black and white women out making his living, but Sammy's women-whowould come into Small's sometimes, looking for him, to give him money, and have him buy them adrink-were about as beautiful as any prostitutes who operated anywhere, I'd imagine.
　　One of his white women, known as "Alabama Peach," a blonde, could put everybody in stitches withher drawl; even the several Negro women numbers controllers around Small's really liked her. Whatmade a lot of Negroes around the bar laugh the hardest was the way she would take three syllables tosay "nigger." But what she usually was saying was "Ah jes' lu-uv ni-uh-guhs-." Give her two drinksand she would tell her life story in a minute; how in whatever little Alabama town it was she camefrom, the first thing she remembered being conscious of was that she was supposed to "hate niggers."And then she started hearing older girls in grade school whispering the hush-hush that "niggers" were such sexual giants and athletes, and she started growing up secretly wanting to try one. Finally, rightin her own house, with her family away, she threatened a Negro man who worked for her father thatif he didn't take her she would swear he tried rape. He had no choice, except that he quit working forthem. And from then until she finished high school, she managed it several times with other Negroes-and she somehow came to New York, and went straight to Harlem. Later on, Sammy told me how hehad happened to spot her in the Savoy, not even dancing with anybody, just standing on the sidelines,watching, and he could tell. And once she really went for Negroes, the more the better, Sammy said,and wouldn't have a white man. I have wondered what ever became of her.
　　There was a big, fat pimp we called "Dollarbill." He loved to flash his "Kansas City roll," probably fiftyone-dollar bills folded with a twenty on the inside and a one-hundred dollar bill on the outside. Wealways wondered what Dollarbill would do if someone ever stole his hundred-dollar "cover."A man who, in his prime, could have stolen Dollarbill's whole roll, blindfolded, was threadbare, comicold "Fewclothes." Fewclothes had been one of the best pickpockets in Harlem, back when the whitepeople swarmed up every night in the 1920's, but then during the Depression, he had contracted a badcase of arthritis in his hands. His finger joints were knotted and gnarled so that it made peopleuncomfortable to look at them. Rain, sleet, or snow, every afternoon, about six, Fewclothes would beat Small's, telling tall tales about the old days, and it was one of the day's rituals for one or anotherregular customer to ask the bartender to give him drinks, and me to feed him.
　　My heart goes out to all of us who in those afternoons at Small's enacted our scene with Fewclothes. Iwish you could have seen him, pleasantly "high" with drinks, take his seat with dignity-no begging,not on anybody's Welfare-and open his napkin, and study the day's menu that I gave nun, and placehis order. I'd tell the cooks it was Fewclothes and he'd get the best in the house. I'd go back and serveit as though he were a millionaire.
　　Many times since, I have thought about it, and what it really meant. In one sense, we were huddled inthere, bonded together in seeking security and warmth and comfort from each other, and we didn'tknow it. All of us-who might have probed space, or cured cancer, or built industries-were, instead,black victims of the white man's American social system. In another sense, the tragedy of the oncemaster pickpocket made him, for those brother old-timer hustlers, a "there but for the grace of God"symbol. To wolves who still were able to catch some rabbits, it had meaning that an old wolf who hadlost his fangs was still eating.
　　Then there was the burglar, "Jumpsteady." In the ghettoes the white man has built for us, he has forcedus not to aspire to greater things, but to view everyday living as survival-and in that kind of acommunity, survival is what is respected. In any average white neighborhood bar, you couldn'timagine a known cat-man thief regularly exposing himself, as one of the most popular people in there.
　　But if Jumpsteady missed a few days running in Small's, we would begin inquiring for him.
　　Jumpsteady was called that because, it was said, when he worked in white residential areasdowntown, he jumped from roof to roof and was so steady that he maneuvered along window ledges, leaning, balancing, edging with his toes. If he fell, he'd have been dead. He got into apartmentsthrough windows. It was said that he was so cool that he had stolen even with people in the nextroom. I later found out that Jumpsteady always keyed himself up high on dope when he worked. Hetaught me some things that I was to employ in later years when hard times would force me to havemy own burglary ring.
　　I should stress that Small's wasn't any nest of criminals. I dwell upon the hustlers because it was theirworld that fascinated me. Actually, for the night-life crowd, Small's was one of Harlem's two or threemost decorous nightspots. In fact, the New York City police department recommended Small's towhite people who would ask for a "safe" place in Harlem.
　　The first room I got after I left the railroad (half of Harlem roomed) was in the 800 block of St.
　　Nicholas Avenue. You could walk into one or another room in this house and get a hot fur coat, agood camera, fine perfume, a gun, anything from hot women to hot cars, even hot ice. I was one of thevery few males in this rooming house. This was during the war, when you couldn't turn on the radioand not hear about Guadalcanal or North Africa. In several of the apartments the women tenants wereprostitutes. The minority were in some other racket or hustle-boosters, numbers runners, or dope-peddlers-and I'd guess that everyone who lived in the house used dope of some kind. This shouldn'treflect too badly on that particular building, because almost everyone in Harlem needed some kind ofhustle to survive, and needed to stay high in some way to forget what they had to do to survive.
　　It was in this house that I learned more about women than I ever did in any other single place. It wasthese working prostitutes who schooled me to things that every wife and every husband should know.
　　Later on, it was chiefly the women who weren't prostitutes who taught me to be very distrustful ofmost women; there seemed to be a higher code of ethics and sisterliness among those prostitutes thanamong numerous ladies of the church who have more men for kicks than the prostitutes have for pay.
　　And I am talking about both black and white. Many of the black ones in those wartime days wereright in step with the white ones in having husbands fighting overseas while they were laying up withother men, even giving them their husbands' money. And many women just faked as mothers andwives, while playing the field as hand as prostitutes-with their husbands and children right there inNew York.
　　I got my first schooling about the cesspool morals of the white man from the best possible source,from his own women. And then as I got deeper into my own life of evil, I saw the white man's moralswith my own eyes. I even made my living helping to guide him to the sick things he wanted.
　　I was young, working in the bar, not bothering with these women. Probably I touched their kid-brother instincts, something like that. Some would drop into my room when they weren't busy, andwe would smoke reefers and talk. It generally would be after their morning rush-but let me tell youabout that rush.
　　Seeing the hallways and stairs busy any hour of the night with white and black men coming and going was no more than one would expect when one lived in a building out of which prostitutes wereworking. But what astonished me was the full-house crowd that rushed in between, say, six andseven-thirty in the morning, then rushed away, and by about nine, I would be the only man in thehouse.
　　It was husbands-who had left home in time to stop by this St. Nicholas Avenue house before theywent on to work. Of course not the same ones every day, but always enough of them to make up therush. And it included white men who had come in cabs all the way up from downtown.
　　Domineering, complaining, demanding wives who had just about psychologically castrated theirhusbands were responsible for the early rush. These wives were so disagreeable and had made theirmen so tense that they were robbed of the satisfaction of being men. To escape this tension and thechance of being ridiculed by his own wife, each of these men had gotten up early and come to aprostitute.
　　The prostitutes had to make it their business to be students of men. They said that after most menpassed their virile twenties, they went to bed mainly to satisfy their egos, and because a lot of womendon't understand it that way, they damage and wreck a man's ego. No matter how little virility a manhas to offer, prostitutes make him feel for a time that he is the greatest man in the world. That's whythese prostitutes had that morning rush of business. More wives could keep their husbands if theyrealized their greatest urge is _to be men_.
　　Those women would tell me anything. Funny little stories about the bedroom differences they sawbetween white and black men. The perversities! I thought I had heard the whole range of perversitiesuntil I later became a steerer taking white men to what they wanted. Everyone in the house laughedabout the little Italian fellow whom they called the "Ten Dollar A Minute Man." He came without failevery noontime, from his little basement restaurant up near the Polo Grounds; the joke was he neverlasted more than two minutes. . . but he always left twenty dollars.
　　Most men, the prostitutes felt, were too easy to push around. Every day these prostitutes heard theircustomers complaining that they never heard anything but griping from women who were beingtaken care of and given everything. The prostitutes said that most men needed to know what thepimps knew. A woman should occasionally be babied enough to show her the man had affection, butbeyond that she should be treated firmly. These tough women said that it worked with _them_. Allwomen, by their nature, are fragile and weak: they are attracted to the male in whom they seestrength.
　　 From time to time, Sophia would come over to see me from Boston. Even among Harlem Negroes, herlooks gave me status. They were just like the Negroes everywhere else. That was why the whiteprostitutes made so much money. It didn't make any difference if you were in Lansing, Boston, orNew York-what the white racist said, and still says, was right in those days! All you had to do was put a white girl anywhere close to the average black man, and he would respond. The black woman alsomade the white man's eyes light up-but he was slick enough to hide it.
　　Sophia would come in on a late afternoon train. She would come to Small's and I'd introduce heraround until I got off from work. She was bothered about me living among the prostitutes until Iintroduced her to some of them, and they talked, and she thought they were great. They would tell herthey were keeping me straight for her. We would go to the Braddock Hotel bar, where we would meetsome of the musicians who now would greet me like an old friend, "Hey, Red-who have we got here?"They would make a big deal over her; I couldn't even think about buying a drink. No Negroes in theworld were more white-woman-crazy in those days than most of those musicians. People in showbusiness, of course, were less inhibited by social and racial taboos.
　　The white racist won't tell you that it also works in reverse. When it got late, Sophia and I would go tosome of the after-hours places and speakeasies. When the downtown nightclubs had closed, most ofthese Harlem places crawled with white people. These whites were just mad for Negro "atmosphere,"especially some of the places which had what you might call Negro soul. Sometimes Negroes wouldtalk about how a lot of whites seemed unable to have enough of being close around us, and among us-in groups. Both white men and women, it seemed, would get almost mesmerized by Negroes.
　　I remember one really peculiar case of this-a white girl who never missed a single night in the SavoyBallroom. She fascinated my friend Sammy; he had watched her several times. Dancing only withNegroes, she seemed to go nearly into a trance. If a white man asked her to dance, she would refuse.
　　Then when the place was ready to close, early in the morning, she would let a Negro take her as far asthe subway entrance. And that was it. She never would tell anyone her name, let alone reveal whereshe lived.
　　Now, I'll tell you another peculiar case that worked out differently, and which taught me something Ihave since learned in a thousand other ways. This was my best early lesson in how most white men'shearts and guts will turn over inside of them, whatever they may have you otherwise believe,whenever they see a Negro man on close terms with a white woman.
　　A few of the white men around Harlem, younger ones whom we called "hippies," acted more Negrothan Negroes. This particular one talked more "hip" talk than we did. He would have fought anyonewho suggested he felt any race difference. Musicians around the Braddock could hardly move withoutfalling over him. Every time I saw him, it was "Daddy! Come on, let's get our heads tight!" Sammycouldn't stand him; he was underfoot wherever you went. He even wore a wild zoot suit, used aheavy grease in his hair to make it look like a conk, and he wore the knob-toed shoes, the long,swinging chain-everything. And he not only wouldn't be seen with any woman but a black one, but infact he lived with two of them in the same little apartment. I never was sure how they worked that oneout, but I had my idea.
　　About three or four o'clock one morning, we ran into this white boy, in Creole Bill's speakeasy. He washigh-in that marijuana glow where the world relaxes. I introduced Sophia; I went away to say hello to someone else. When I returned, Sophia looked peculiar-but she wouldn't tell me until we left. He hadasked her, "Why is a white girl like you throwing yourself away with a spade?"Creole Bill-naturally you know he was from New Orleans-became another good friend of mine. AfterSmall's closed, I'd bring fast-spending white people who still wanted some drinking action to CreoleBill's speakeasy. That was my earliest experience at steering. The speakeasy was only Creole Bill'sapartment. I think a partition had been knocked out to make the living room larger. But theatmosphere, plus the food, made the place one of Harlem's soul spots.
　　A record player maintained the right, soft music. There was any kind of drink. And Bill sold plates ofhis spicy, delicious Creole dishes-gumbo, jambalaya. Bill's girl friend-a beautiful black girl-served thecustomers. Bill called her "Brown Sugar," and finally everyone else did. If a good number of customerswere to be served at one time, Creole Bill would bring out some pots, Brown Sugar would bring theplates, and Bill would serve everyone big platefuls; and he'd heap a plate for himself and eat with us.
　　It was a treat to watch him eat; he loved his food so; it was good. Bill could cook rice like the Chinese-Imean rice that stood every grain on its own, but I never knew the Chinese to do what Bill could withseafood and beans.
　　Bill made money enough in that apartment speakeasy to open up a Creole restaurant famous inHarlem. He was a great baseball fan. All over the walls were framed, autographed photographs ofmajor league stars, and also some political and show business celebrities who would come there to eat,bringing friends. I wonder what's become of Creole Bill? His place is sold, and I haven't heardanything of him. I must remember to ask some of the Seventh Avenue old-timers, who would know.
　　Once, when I called Sophia in Boston, she said she couldn't get away until the following weekend. Shehad just married some well-to-do Boston white fellow. He was in the service, he had been home onleave, and he had just gone back. She didn't mean it to change a thing between us. I told her it madeno difference. I had of course introduced Sophia to my friend Sammy, and we had gone out togethersome nights. And Sammy and I had thoroughly discussed the black man and white womanpsychology. I had Sammy to thank that I was entirely prepared for Sophia's marriage.
　　Sammy said that white women were very practical; he had heard so many of them express how theyfelt. They knew that the black man had all the strikes against him, that the white man kept the blackman down, under his heel, unable to get anywhere, really. The white woman wanted to becomfortable, she wanted to be looked upon with favor by her own kind, but also she wanted to haveher pleasure. So some of them just married a white man for convenience and security, and kept righton going with a Negro. It wasn't that they were necessarily in love with the Negro, but they were inlove with lust-particularly "taboo" lust.
　　A white man was not too unusual if he had a ten-, twenty-, thirty-, forty-, or fifty-thousand-dollar-ayear job. A Negro man who made even five thousand in the white man's world was unusual. Thewhite woman with a Negro man would be with him for one of two reasons: either extremely insanelove, or to satisfy her lust.
　　 When I had been around Harlem long enough to show signs of permanence, inevitably I got anickname that would identify me beyond any confusion with two other red-conked and well-known"Reds" who were around. I had met them both; in fact, later on I'd work with them both. One, "St.
　　Louis Red," was a professional armed robber. When I was sent to prison, he was serving time fortrying to stick up a dining car steward on a train between New York and Philadelphia. He was finallyfreed; now, I hear, he is in prison for a New York City jewel robbery.
　　The other was "Chicago Red." We became good buddies in a speakeasy where later on I was a waiter;Chicago Red was the funniest dishwasher on this earth. Now he's making his living being funny as anationally known stage and nightclub comedian. I don't see any reason why old Chicago Red wouldmind me telling that he is Redd Foxx.
　　Anyway, before long, my nickname happened. Just when, I don't know-but people, knowing I wasfrom Michigan, would ask me what city. Since most New Yorkers had never heard of Lansing, Iwould name Detroit. Gradually, I began to be called "Detroit Red"-and it stuck.
　　 One afternoon in early 1943, before the regular six o'clock crowd had gathered, a black soldier satdrinking by himself at one of my tables. He must have been there an hour or more. He looked dumband pitiful and just up from the Deep South. The fourth or fifth drink I served this soldier, wiping thetable I bent over close and asked him if he wanted a woman.
　　I knew better. It wasn't only Small's Paradise law, it was the law of every tavern that wanted to stay inbusiness-never get involved with anything that could be interpreted as "impairing the morals" ofservicemen, or any kind of hustling off them. This had caused trouble for dozens of places: some hadbeen put off limits by the military; some had lost their state or city licenses.
　　I played right into the hands of a military spy. He sure would like a woman. He acted so grateful. Heeven put on an extreme Southern accent. And I gave him the phone number of one of my best friendsamong the prostitutes where I lived.
　　But something felt wrong. I gave the fellow a half-hour to get there, and then I telephoned. I expectedthe answer I got-that no soldier had been there.
　　I didn't even bother to go back out to the bar. I just went straight to Charlie Small's office.
　　"I just did something, Charlie," I said. "I don't know why I did it-" and I told him.
　　Charlie looked at me. "I wish you hadn't done that, Red." We both knew what he meant.
　　When the West Indian plainclothes detective, Joe Baker, came in, I was waiting. I didn't even ask him any questions. When we got to the 135th Street precinct, it was busy with police in uniform, and MP'swith soldiers in tow. I was recognized by some other detectives who, like Joe Baker, sometimesdropped in at Small's.
　　Two things were in my favor. I'd never given the police any trouble, and when that black spy soldierhad tried to tip me, I had waved it away, telling him I was just doing him a favor. They must haveagreed that Joe Baker should just scare me.
　　I didn't know enough to be aware that I wasn't taken to the desk and booked. Joe Baker took me backinside of the precinct building, into a small room. In the next room, we could hear somebody gettingwhipped. _Whop! Whop!_ He'd cry out, "Please! Please don't beat my face, that's how I make myliving!" I knew from that it was some pimp. _Whop! Whop!"_ Please! Please!"(Not much later, I heard that Joe Baker had gotten trapped over in New Jersey, shaking down a Negropimp and his white prostitute. He was discharged from the New York City police force, the State ofNew Jersey convicted him, and he went off to do some time.)More bitter than getting fired, I was barred from Small's. I could understand. Even if I wasn't actuallywhat was called "hot," I was now going to be under surveillance-and the Small brothers had to protecttheir business.
　　Sammy proved to be my friend in need. He put the word on the wire for me to come over to his place.
　　I had never been there. His place seemed to me a small palace; his women really kept him in style.
　　While we talked about what kind of a hustle I should get into, Sammy gave me some of the bestmarijuana I'd ever used.
　　Various numbers controllers, Small's regulars, had offered me jobs as a runner. But that meant I wouldearn very little until I could build up a clientele. Pimping, as Sammy did, was out. I felt I had noabilities in that direction, and that I'd certainly starve to death trying to recruit prostitutes.
　　Peddling reefers, Sammy and I pretty soon agreed, was the best thing. It was a relatively uninvolvedlone-wolf type of operation, and one in which I could make money immediately. For anyone witheven a little brains, no experience was needed, especially if one had any knack at all with people.
　　Both Sammy and I knew some merchant seamen and others who could supply me with loosemarijuana. And musicians, among whom I had so many good contacts, were the heaviest consistentmarket for reefers. And then, musicians also used the heavier narcotics, if I later wanted to graduate tothem. That would be more risky, but also more money. Handling heroin and cocaine could earn onehundreds of dollars a day, but it required a lot of experience with the narcotics squad for one to beable to last long enough to make anything.
　　I had been around long enough either to know or to spot instinctively most regular detectives andcops, though not the narcotics people. And among the Small's veteran hustler regulars, I had a variety of potentially helpful contacts. This was important because just as Sammy could get me supplied withmarijuana, a large facet of any hustler's success was knowing where he could get help when he neededit. The help could involve police and detectives-as well as higher ups. But I hadn't yet reached thatstage. So Sammy staked me, about twenty dollars, I think it was.
　　Later that same night, I knocked at his door and gave him back his money and asked him if I couldlend him some. I had gone straight from Sammy's to a supplier he had mentioned. I got just a smallamount of marijuana, and I got some of the paper to roll up my own sticks. As they were only aboutthe size of stick matches, I was able to make enough of them so that, after selling them to musicians Iknew at the Braddock Hotel, I could pay back Sammy and have enough profit to be in business. Andthose musicians when they saw their buddy, and their fan, in business: "My man!" "Crazy, Red!"In every band, at least half of the musicians smoked reefers. I'm not going to list names; I'd have toinclude some of those most prominent then in popular music, even a number of them around today.
　　In one case, every man in one of the bands which is still famous was on marijuana. Or again, anynumber of musicians could tell you who I mean when I say that one of the most famous singerssmoked his reefers through a chicken thighbone. He had smoked so many through the bone that hecould just light a match before the empty bone, draw the heat through, and get what he called a"contact" high.
　　I kept turning over my profit, increasing my supplies, and I sold reefers like a wild man. I scarcelyslept; I was wherever musicians congregated. A roll of money was in my pocket. Every day, I clearedat least fifty or sixty dollars. In those days (or for that matter these days), this was a fortune to aseventeen-year-old Negro. I felt, for the first time in my life, that great feeling of _free_! Suddenly,now, I was the peer of the other young hustlers I had admired.
　　It was at this time that I discovered the movies. Sometimes I made as many as five in one day, bothdowntown and in Harlem. I loved the tough guys, the action, Humphrey Bogart in "Casablanca," and Iloved all of that dancing and carrying on in such films as "Stormy Weather" and "Cabin in the Sky."After leaving the movies, I'd make my connections for supplies, then roll my sticks, and, about dark,I'd start my rounds. I'd give a couple of extra sticks when someone bought ten, which was five dollars'
　　worth. And I didn't sell and run, because my customers were my friends. Often I'd smoke along withthem. None of them stayed any more high than I did.
　　Free now to do what I pleased, upon an impulse I went to Boston. Of course, I saw Ella. I gave hersome money: it was just a token of appreciation, I told her, for helping me when I had come fromLansing. She wasn't the same old Ella; she still hadn't forgiven me for Laura. She never mentioned her,nor did I. But, even so, Ella acted better than she had when I had left for New York. We reviewed thefamily changes. Wilfred had proved so good at his trade they had asked him to stay on at Wilberforceas an instructor. And Ella had gotten a card from Reginald who had managed to get into the merchantmarine.
　　From Shorty's apartment, I called Sophia. She met me at the apartment just about as Shorty went off to work. I would have liked to take her out to some of the Roxbury clubs, but Shorty had told us that, asin New York, the Boston cops used the war as an excuse to harass interracial couples, stopping themand grilling the Negro about his draft status. Of course Sophia's now being married made us morecautious, too.
　　When Sophia caught a cab home, I went to hear Shorty's band. Yes, he had a band now. He hadsucceeded in getting a 4-F classification, and I was pleased for him and happy to go. His band was-well, fair. But Shorty was making out well in Boston, playing in small clubs. Back in the apartment, wetalked into the next day. "Homeboy, you're something else!" Shorty kept saying. I told him some of thewild things I'd done in Harlem, and about the friends I had. I told him the story of Sammy the Pimp.
　　In Sammy's native Paducah, Kentucky, he had gotten a girl pregnant. Her parents made it so hot thatSammy had come to Harlem, where he got a job as a restaurant waiter. When a woman came in to eatalone, and he found she really was alone, not married, or living with somebody, it generally was nothard for smooth Sammy to get invited to her apartment. He'd insist on going out to a nearbyrestaurant to bring back some dinner, and while he was out he would have her key duplicated. Then,when he knew she was away, Sammy would go in and clean out all her valuables. Sammy was thenable to offer some little stake, to help her back on her feet. This could be the beginning of an emotionaland financial dependency, which Sammy knew how to develop until she was his virtual slave.
　　Around Harlem, the narcotics squad detectives didn't take long to find out I was selling reefers, andoccasionally one of them would follow me. Many a peddler was in jail because he had been caughtwith the evidence on his person; I figured a way to avoid that. The law specified that if the evidencewasn't actually in your possession, you couldn't be arrested. Hollowed-out shoe heels, fake hat-linings, these things were old stuff to the detectives.
　　I carried about fifty sticks in a small package inside my coat, under my armpit, keeping my arm flatagainst my side. Moving about, I kept my eyes open. If anybody looked suspicious, I'd quickly crossthe street, or go through a door, or turn a comer, loosening my arm enough to let the package drop. Atnight, when I usually did my selling, any suspicious person wouldn't be likely to see the trick. If Idecided I had been mistaken, I'd go back and get my sticks.
　　However, I lost many a stick this way. Sometimes, I knew I had frustrated a detective. And I kept outof the courts.
　　One morning, though, I came in and found signs that my room had been entered. I knew it had beendetectives. I'd heard too many times how if they couldn't find any evidence, they would plant some,where you would never find it, then they'd come back in and "find" it. I didn't even have to thinktwice what to do. I packed my few belongings and never looked back. When I went to sleep again, itwas in another room.
　　It was then that I began carrying a little .25 automatic. I got it, for some reefers, from an addict who Iknew had stolen it somewhere. I carried it pressed under my belt right down the center of my back.
　　 Someone had told me that the cops never hit there in any routine patting-down. And unless I knewwho I was with, I never allowed myself to get caught in any crush of people. The narcotics cops hadbeen known to rush up and get their o hands on you and plant evidence while "searching." I felt thatas long as I kept on the go, and in the open, I had a good chance. I don't know now what my realthoughts were about carrying the pistol. But I imagine I felt that I wasn't going to get put away ifsomebody tried framing me in any situation that I could help.
　　I sold less than before because having to be so careful consumed so much time. Every now and then,on a hunch, I'd move to another room. I told nobody but Sammy where I slept.
　　Finally, it was on the wire that the Harlem narcotics squad had me on its special list.
　　Now, every other day or so, usually in some public place, they would flash the badge to search me.
　　But I'd tell them at once, loud enough for others standing about to hear me, that I had nothing on me,and I didn't want to get anything planted on me. Then they wouldn't, because Harlem already thoughtlittle enough of the law, and they did have to be careful that some crowd of Negroes would notintervene roughly. Negroes were starting to get very tense in Harlem. One could almost smell troubleready to break out-as it did very soon.
　　But it was really tough on me then. I was having to hide my sticks in various places near where I wasselling. I'd put five sticks in an empty cigarette pack, and drop the empty-looking pack by a lamppost,or behind a garbage can, or a box. And I'd first tell customers to pay me, and then where to pick up.
　　But my regular customers didn't go for that. You couldn't expect a well-known musician to gogrubbing behind a garbage can. So I began to pick up some of the street trade, the people you couldsee looked high. I collected a number of empty Red Cross bandage boxes and used them for drops.
　　That worked pretty good.
　　But the middle-Harlem narcotics force found so many ways to harass me that I had to change my area.
　　I moved down to lower Harlem, around 110th Street. There were many more reefer smokers aroundthere, but these were a cheaper type, this was the worst of the ghetto, the poorest people, the ones whoin every ghetto keep themselves narcotized to keep from having to face their miserable existence. Ididn't last long down there, either. I lost too much of my product. After I sold to some of those reefersmokers who had the instincts of animals, they followed me and learned my pattern. They would dartout of a doorway, I'd drop my stuff, and they would be on it like a chicken on corn. When you becomean animal, a vulture, in the ghetto, as I had become, you enter a world of animals and vultures. Itbecomes truly the survival of only the fittest.
　　Soon I found myself borrowing little stakes, from Sammy, from some of the musicians. Enough to buysupplies, enough to keep high myself, enough sometimes to just eat.
　　Then Sammy gave me an idea.
　　 "Red, you still got your old railroad identification?" I did have it. They hadn't taken it back. "Well, whydon't you use it to make a few runs, until the heat cools?"He was right.
　　I found that if you walked up and showed a railroad line's employee identification card, theconductor-even a real cracker, if you approached him right, not begging-would just wave you aboard.
　　And when he came around he would punch you one of those little coach seat slips to ride whereverdie train went.
　　The idea came tome mat, this way, I could travel all over the East Coast selling reefers among myfriends who were on tour with their bands.
　　I had the New Haven identification. I worked a couple of weeks for other railroads, to get theiridentification, and men I was set.
　　In New York, I rolled and packed a great quantity of sticks, and sealed them into jars. Theidentification card worked perfectly. If you persuaded the conductor you were a fellow employee whohad to go home on some family business, he just did the favor for you without a second thought. Mostwhites don't give a Negro credit for having sense enough to fool them-or nerve enough.
　　I'd turn up in towns where my friends were playing. "Red!" I was an old friend from home. In thesticks, I was somebody from the Braddock Hotel. _"My man! Daddy-o!"_ And I had Big Apple reefers.
　　Nobody had ever heard of a traveling reefer peddler.
　　I followed no particular band. Each band's musicians knew the other bands' one-nighter touringschedules. When I ran out of supplies, I'd return to New York, and load up, then hit the road again.
　　Auditoriums or gymnasiums all lighted up, the band's chartered bus outside, the dressed-up, excited,local dancers pouring in. At the door, I'd announce that I was some bandman's brother; in most casesthey thought I was one of the musicians. Throughout the dance, I'd show the country folks some plainand fancy lindy-hopping. Sometimes, I'd stay overnight in a town. Sometimes I'd ride the band's busto their next stop. Sometimes, back in New York, I would stay awhile. Things had cooled down. Wordwas around that I had left town, and the narcotics squad was satisfied with that. In some of the smalltowns, people thinking I was with the band even mobbed me for autographs. Once, in Buffalo, my suitwas nearly torn off.
　　My brother Reginald was waiting for me one day when I pulled into New York. The day before, hismerchant ship had put into port over in New Jersey. Thinking I still worked at Small's, Reginald hadgone there, and the bartenders had directed him to Sammy, who put him up.
　　It felt good to see my brother. It was hard to believe that he was once the little kid who tagged afterme. Reginald now was almost six feet tall, but still a few inches shorter than me. His complexion wasdarker man mine, but he had greenish eyes, and a white streak in his hair, which was otherwise dark reddish, something like mine.
　　I took Reginald everywhere, introducing nun. Studying my brother, I liked him. He was a lot moreself-possessed than I had been at sixteen.
　　I didn't have a room right at the time, but I had some money, so did Reginald, and we checked into theSt. Nicholas Hotel on Sugar Hill. It has since been torn down.
　　Reginald and I talked all night about the Lansing years, about our family. I told him things about ourrather and mother that he couldn't remember. Then Reginald filled me in on our brothers and sisters.
　　Wilfred was still a trade instructor at Wilberforce University. Hilda, still in Lansing, was talking ofgetting married; so was Philbert.
　　Reginald and I were the next two in line. And Yvonne, Wesley, and Robert were still in Lansing, inschool.
　　Reginald and I laughed about Philbert, who, the last time I had seen him, had gotten deeply religious;he wore one of those round straw hats.
　　Reginald's ship was in for about a week getting some kind of repairs on its engines. I was pleased tosee that Reginald, though he said little about it, admired my living by my wits. Reginald dressed alittle too loudly, I thought. I got a reefer customer of mine to get him a more conservative overcoat andsuit. I toldReginald what I had learned: that in order to get something you had to look as though you alreadyhad something.
　　Before Reginald left, I urged him to leave the merchant marine and I would help him get started inHarlem. I must have felt that having my kid brother around me would be a good thing. Then therewould be two people I could trust-Sammy was the other.
　　Reginald was cool. At his age, I would have been willing to run behind the train, to get to New Yorkand to Harlem. But Reginald, when he left, said, "I'll think about it."Not long after Reginald left, I dragged out the wildest zoot suit in New York. This was 1943. TheBoston draft board had written me at Ella's, and when they had no results there, had notified the NewYork draft board, and, in care of Sammy, I received Uncle Sam's Greetings.
　　In those days only three things in the world scared me: jail, a job, and the Army. I had about ten daysbefore I was to show up at the induction center. I went right to work. The Army Intelligence soldiers,those black spies in civilian clothes, hung around in Harlem with their ears open for the white mandowntown. I knew exactly where to start dropping the word. I started noising around that I wasfrantic to join. . . the Japanese Army.
　　 When I sensed that I had the ears of the spies, I would talk and act high and crazy. A lot of Harlemhustlers actually had reached that state-as I would later. It was inevitable when one had gone longenough on heavier and heavier narcotics, and under the steadily tightening vise of the hustling life. I'dsnatch out and read my Greetings aloud, to make certain they heard who I was, and when I'd reportdowntown. (This was probably the only time my real name was ever heard in Harlem in those days.)The day I went down there, I costumed like an actor. With my wild zoot suit I wore the yellow knob-toe shoes, and I frizzled my hair up into a reddish bush of conk.
　　I went in, skipping and tipping, and I thrust my tattered Greetings at that reception desk's whitesoldier-"Crazy-o, daddy-o, get me moving. I can't wait to get in that brown"-very likely that soldierhasn't recovered from me yet.
　　They had their wire on me from uptown, all right. But they still put me through the line. In that bigstarting room were forty or fifty other prospective inductees. The room had fallen vacuum-quiet, withme running my mouth a mile a minute, talking nothing but slang. I was going to fight on all fronts; Iwas going to be a general, man, before I got done-such talk as that.
　　Most of them were white, of course. The tender-looking ones appeared ready to run from me. Someothers had that vinegary "worst kind of nigger" look. And a few were amused, seeing me as the"Harlem jigaboo" archetype.
　　Also amused were some of the room's ten or twelve Negroes. But the stony-faced rest of them lookedas if they were ready to sign up to go off killing somebody-they would have liked to start with me.
　　The line moved along. Pretty soon, stripped to my shorts, I was making my eager-to-join comments inthe medical examination rooms-and everybody in the white coats that I saw had 4-F in his eyes.
　　I stayed in the line longer than I expected, before they siphoned me off. One of the white coatsaccompanied me around a turning hallway: I knew we were on the way to a head-shrinker-the Armypsychiatrist.
　　The receptionist there was a Negro nurse. I remember she was in her early twenties, and not bad tolook at. She was one of those Negro "firsts."Negroes know what I'm talking about. Back then, the white man during the war was so pressed forpersonnel that he began letting some Negroes put down their buckets and mops and dust rags anduse a pencil, or sit at some desk, or hold some twenty-five-cent tide. You couldn't read the Negro pressfor the big pictures of smug black "firsts."Somebody was inside with the psychiatrist. I didn't even have to put on any act for this black girl; shewas already sick of me.
　　 When, finally, a buzz came at her desk, she didn't send me, _she_ went in. I knew what she was doing,she was going to make clear, in advance, what she thought of me. This is still one of the black man'sbig troubles today. So many of those so-called "upper-class" Negroes are so busy trying to impress onthe white man that they are "different from those others" that they can't see they are only helping thewhite man to keep his low opinion of _all_ Negroes.
　　And then, with her prestige in the clear, she came out and nodded to me to go in.
　　I must say this for that psychiatrist. He tried to be objective and professional in his manner. He satthere and doodled with his blue pencil on a tablet, listening to me spiel to him for three or fourminutes before he got a word in.
　　His tack was quiet questions, to get at why I was so anxious. I didn't rush him; I circled and hedged,watching him closely, to let him think he was pulling what he wanted out of me. I kept jerkingaround, backward, as though somebody might be listening. I knew I was going to send him back tothe books to figure what kind of a case I was.
　　Suddenly, I sprang up and peeped under both doors, the one I'd entered and another that probablywas a closet. And then I bent and whispered fast in his ear. "Daddy-o, now you and me, we're from upNorth here, so don't you tell nobody. . . . I want to get sent down South. Organize them niggersoldiers, you dig? Steal us some guns, and kill us crackers!"That psychiatrist's blue pencil dropped, and his professional manner fell off in all directions. He staredat me as if I were a snake's egg hatching, fumbling for his red pencil. I knew I had him. I was goingback out past Miss First when he said, "That will be all."A 4-F card came to me in the mail, and I never heard from the Army anymore, and never bothered toask why I was rejected.
Chapter 7 Hustler
I  can't remember all the hustles I had during the next two years in Harlem, after the abrupt end of myriding the trains and peddling reefers to the touring bands.
　　Negro railroad men waited for their trains in their big locker room on the lower level of Grand CentralStation. Big blackjack and poker games went on in there around the clock. Sometimes five hundreddollars would be on the table. One day, in a blackjack game, an old cook who was dealing the cardstried to be slick, and I had to drop my pistol in his face.
　　 The next time I went into one of those games, intuition told me to stick my gun under my belt rightdown the middle of my back. Sure enough, someone had squealed. Two big, beefy-faced Irish copscame in. They frisked me-and they missed my gun where they hadn't expected one.
　　The cops told me never again to be caught in Grand Central Station unless I had a ticket to ridesomewhere. And I knew that by the next day, every railroad's personnel office would have a blackballon me, so I never tried to get another railroad job.
　　There I was back in Harlem's streets among all the rest of the hustlers. I couldn't sell reefers; the dopesquad detectives were too familiar with me. I was a true hustler-uneducated, unskilled at anythinghonorable, and I considered myself nervy and cunning enough to live by my wits, exploiting any preythat presented itself. I would risk just about anything.
　　Right now, in every big city ghetto, tens of thousands of yesterday's and today's school dropouts arekeeping body and soul together by some form of hustling in the same way I did.
　　And they inevitably move into more and more, worse and worse, illegality and immorality. Full-timehustlers never can relax to appraise what they are doing and where they are bound. As is the case inany jungle, the hustler's every waking hour is lived with both the practical and the subconsciousknowledge that if he ever relaxes, if he ever slows down, the other hungry, restless foxes, ferrets,wolves, and vultures out there with him won't hesitate to make him their prey.
　　During the next six to eight months, I pulled my first robberies and stick-ups. Only small ones.
　　Always in other, nearby cities. And I got away. As the pros did, I too would key myself to pull thesejobs by my first use of hard dope. I began with Sammy's recommendation-sniffing cocaine.
　　Normally now, for street wear, I might call it, I carried a hardly noticeable little flat, blue-steel .25automatic. But for working, I carried a .32, a .38 or a .45. I saw how when the eyes stared at the bigblack hole, the faces fell slack and the mouths sagged open. And when I spoke, the people seemed tohear as though they were far away, and they would do whatever I asked.
　　Between jobs, staying high on narcotics kept me from getting nervous. Still, upon sudden impulses,just to play safe, I would abruptly move from one to another fifteen-to twenty-dollar-a-week room,always in my favorite 147th-150th Street area, just flanking Sugar Hill.
　　Once on a job with Sammy, we had a pretty close call. Someone must have seen us. We were makingour getaway, running, when we heard the sirens. Instantly, we slowed to walking. As a police carscreeched to a stop, we stepped out into the street, meeting it, hailing it to ask for directions. Theymust have thought we were about to give them some information. They just cursed us and raced on.
　　Again, it didn't cross the white men's minds that a trick like that might be pulled on them by Negroes.
　　The suits that I wore, the finest, I bought hot for about thirty-five to fifty dollars. I made it my rulenever to go after more than I needed to live on. Any experienced hustler will tell you that getting greedy is the quickest road to prison. I kept "cased" in my head vulnerable places and situations and Iwould perform the next job only when my bankroll in my pocket began to get too low.
　　Some weeks, I bet large amounts on the numbers. I still played with the same runner with whom I'dstarted in Small's Paradise. Playing my hunches, many a day I'd have up to forty dollars on twonumbers, hoping for that fabulous six hundred-to-one payoff. But I never did hit a big number fullforce. There's no telling what I would have done if ever I'd landed $10,000 or $12,000 at one time. Ofcourse, once in a while I'd hit a small combination figure. Sometimes, flush like that, I'd telephoneSophia to come over from Boston for a couple of days.
　　I went to the movies a lot again. And I never missed my musician friends wherever they were playing,either in Harlem, downtown at the big theaters, or on 52nd Street.
　　Reginald and I got very close the next time his ship came back into New York. We discussed ourfamily, and what a-shame it was that our book-loving oldest brother Wilfred had never had the chanceto go to some of those big universities where he would have gone far. And we exchanged thoughts wehad never shared with anyone.
　　Reginald, in his quiet way, was a mad fan of musicians and music. When his ship sailed one morningwithout him, a principal reason was that I had thoroughly exposed him to the exciting musical world.
　　We had wild times backstage with the musicians when they were playing the Roxy, or the Paramount.
　　After selling reefers with the bands as they traveled, I was known to almost every popular Negromusician around New York in 1944-1945.
　　Reginald and I went to the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Theater, the Braddock Hotel bar, thenightclubs and speakeasies, wherever Negroes played music. The great Lady Day, Billie Holiday,hugged him and called him "baby brother." Reginald shared tens of thousands of Negroes' feelingsthat the living end of the big bands was Lionel Hampton's. I was very close to many of the men inHamp's band; I introduced Reginald to them, and also to Hamp himself, and Hamp's wife andbusiness manager, Gladys Hampton. One of this world's sweetest people is Hamp. Anyone whoknows him will tell you that he'd often do the most generous things for people he barely knew. Asmuch money as Hamp has made, and still makes, he would be broke today if his money and hisbusiness weren't handled by Gladys, who is one of the brainiest women I ever met. The ApolloTheater's owner, Frank Schifrman, could tell you. He generally signed bands to play for a set weeklyamount, but I know that once during those days Gladys Hampton instead arranged a deal for Hamp'sband to play for a cut of the gate. Then the usual number of shows was doubled up-if I'm notmistaken, eight shows a day, instead of the usual four-and Hamp's pulling power cleaned up. GladysHampton used to talk to me a lot, and she tried to give me good advice: "Calm down, Red." Gladyssaw how wild I was. She saw me headed toward a bad end.
　　One of the things I liked about Reginald was that when I left him to go away "working," Reginaldasked me no questions. After he came to Harlem, I went on more jobs than usual. I guess that whatinfluenced me to get my first actual apartment was my not wanting Reginald to be knocking around Harlem without anywhere to call "home." That first apartment was three rooms, for a hundred dollarsa month, I think, in the front basement of a house on 147th Street between Convent and St. NicholasAvenues. Living in the rear basement apartment, right behind Reginald and me, was one of Harlem'smost successful narcotics dealers.
　　With the apartment as our headquarters, I gradually got Reginald introduced around to Creole Bill's,and other Harlem after-hours spots. About two o'clock every morning, as the downtown whitenightclubs closed, Reginald and I would stand around in front of this or that Harlem after-hours place,and I'd school him to what was happening.
　　Especially after the nightclubs downtown closed, the taxis and black limousines would be drivinguptown, bringing those white people who never could get enough of Negro _soul_. The placespopular with these whites ranged all the way from the big locally famous ones such as Jimmy'sChicken Shack, and Dickie Wells', to the little here-tonight-gone-tomorrow-night private clubs, so-called, where a dollar was collected at the door for "membership."Inside every after-hours spot, the smoke would hurt your eyes. Four white people to every Negrowould be in there drinking whisky from coffee cups and eating fried chicken. The generally flush-faced white men and their makeup-masked, glittery-eyed women would be pounding each other'sbacks and uproariously laughing and applauding the music. A lot of the whites, drunk, would gostaggering up to Negroes, the waiters, the owners, or Negroes at tables, wringing their hands, eventrying to hug them,"You're just as good as I am-I want you to know that!" The most famous places drew both Negro andwhite celebrities who enjoyed each other. A jam-packed four-thirty A.M. crowd at Jimmy's ChickenShack or Dickie Wells' might have such jam-session entertainment as Hazel Scott playing the piano forBillie Holiday singing the blues. Jimmy's Chicken Shack, incidentally, was where once, later on, Iworked briefly as a waiter. That's where Redd Foxx was the dishwasher who kept the kitchen crew institches.
　　After a while, my brother Reginald had to have a hustle, and I gave much thought to what would be,for him, a good, safe hustle. After he'd learned his own way around, it would be up to him to takerisks for himself-if he wanted to make more and quicker money.
　　The hustle I got Reginald into really was very simple. It utilized the psychology of the ghetto jungle.
　　Downtown, he paid the two dollars, or whatever it was, for a regular city peddler's license. Then Itook him to a manufacturers' outlet where we bought a supply of cheap imperfect "seconds"-shirts,underwear, cheap rings, watches, all kinds of quick-sale items.
　　Watching me work this hustle back in Harlem, Reginald quickly caught on to how to go intobarbershops, beauty parlors, and bars acting very nervous as he let the customers peep into his smallvalise of "loot." With so many thieves around anxious to get rid of stolen good-quality merchandisecheaply, many Haderoites, purely because of this conditioning, jumped to pay hot prices for inferior goods whose sale was perfectly legitimate. It never took long to get rid of a valiseful for at least twicewhat it had cost. And if any cop stopped Reginald, he had in his pocket both the peddler's license andthe manufacturers' outlet bills of sale. Reginald only had to be certain that none of the customers towhom he sold ever saw that he was legitimate.
　　I assumed that Reginald, like most of the Negroes I knew, would go for a white woman. I'd point outNegro-happy white women to him, and explain that a Negro with any brains could wrap thesewomen around his ringers. But I have to say this for Reginald: he never liked white women. Iremember the one time he met Sophia; he was so cool it upset Sophia, and it tickled me.
　　Reginald got himself a black woman. I'd guess she was pushing thirty; an "old settler," as we calledthem back in those days. She was a waitress in an exclusive restaurant downtown. She lavished onReginald everything she had, she was so happy to get a young man. I mean she bought him clothes,cooked and washed for him, and everything, as though he were a baby.
　　That was just another example of why my respect for my younger brother kept increasing. Reginaldshowed, in often surprising ways, more sense than a lot of working hustlers twice his age. Reginaldthen was only sixteen, but, a six-footer, he looked and acted much older than his years.
　　 All through the war, the Harlem racial picture never was too bright. Tension built to a pretty highpitch. Old-timers told me that Harlem had never been the same since the 1935 riot, when millions ofdollars worth of damage was done by thousands of Negroes, infuriated chiefly by the whitemerchants in Harlem refusing to hire a Negro even as their stores raked in Harlem's money.
　　During World War II, Mayor LaGuardia officially closed the Savoy Ballroom. Harlem said the realreason was to stop Negroes from dancing with white women. Harlem said that no one dragged thewhite women in there. Adam Clayton Powell made it a big fight. He had successfully foughtConsolidated Edison and the New York Telephone Company until they had hired Negroes. Then hehad helped to battle the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army about their segregating of uniformed Negroes.
　　But Powell couldn't win this battle. City Hall kept the Savoy closed for a long time. It was just anotherone of the "liberal North" actions that didn't help Harlem to love the white man any.
　　Finally, rumor flashed that in the Braddock Hotel, white cops had shot a Negro soldier. I was walkingdown St. Nicholas Avenue; I saw all of these Negroes hollering and running north from 125th Street.
　　Some of them were loaded down with armfuls of stuff. I remember it was the bandleader FletcherHenderson's nephew "Shorty" Henderson who told me what had happened. Negroes were smashingstore windows, and taking everything they could grab and carry-furniture, food, jewelry, clothes,whisky. Within an hour, every New York City cop seemed to be in Harlem. Mayor LaGuardia and theNAACP's then Secretary, the famed late Walter White, were in a red firecar, riding around pleadingover a loudspeaker to all of those shouting, muling, angry Negroes to please go home and stay inside.
　　 Just recently I ran into Shorty Henderson on Seventh Avenue. We were laughing about a fellow whomthe riot had left with the nickname of "Left Feet." In a scramble in a women's shoe store, somehow he'dgrabbed five shoes, all of them for left feet! And we laughed about the scared little Chinese whoserestaurant didn't have a hand laid on it, because the rioters just about convulsed laughing when theysaw the sign the Chinese had hastily stuck on his front door: "Me Colored Too."After the riot, things got very tight in Harlem. It was terrible for the night-life people, and for thosehustlers whose main income had been the white man's money. The 1935 riot had left only a relativetrickle of the money which had poured into Harlem during the 1920's. And now this new riot endedeven that trickle.
　　Today the white people who visit Harlem, and this mostly on weekend nights, are hardly more than afew dozen who do the twist, the frug, the Watusi, and all the rest of the current dance crazes in Small'sParadise, owned now by the great basketball champion "Wilt the Stilt" Chamberlain, who drawscrowds with his big, clean, All-American-athlete image. Most white people today are physically afraidto come to Harlem-and it's for good reasons, too. Even for Negroes, Harlem night life is aboutfinished. Most of the Negroes who have money to spend are spending it downtown somewhere in thishypocritical "integration," in places where previously the police would have been called to haul offany Negro insane enough to try and get in. The already Croesus-rich white man can't get anotherskyscraper hotel finished and opened before all these integration-mad Negroes, who themselves don'town a tool shed, are booking the swanky new hotel for "cotillions" and "conventions." Those richwhites could afford it when they used to throw away their money in Harlem. But Negroes can't affordto be taking their money downtown to the white man.
　　 Sammy and I, on a robbery job, got a bad scare, a very close call.
　　Things had grown so tight in Harlem that some hustlers had been forced to go to work. Even someprostitutes had gotten jobs as domestics, and cleaning office buildings at night. The pimping was sopoor, Sammy had gone on the job with me. We had selected one of those situations considered"impossible." But wherever people think that, the guards will unconsciously grow gradually morerelaxed, until sometimes those can be the easiest jobs of all.
　　But right in the middle of the act, we had some bad luck. A bullet grazed Sammy. We just barelyescaped.
　　Sammy fortunately wasn't really hurt. We split up, which was always wise to do.
　　Just before daybreak, I went to Sammy's apartment. His newest woman, one of those beautiful buthot-headed Spanish Negroes, was in there crying and carrying on over Sammy. She went for me,screaming and clawing; she knew I'd been in on it with him. I fended her off. Not able to figure outwhy Sammy didn't shut her up, I did . . . and from the corner of my eye, I saw Sammy going for his gun.
　　Sammy's reaction that way to my hitting his woman-close as he and I were-was the only weak spot I'dever glimpsed. The woman screamed and dove for him. She knew as I did that when your best frienddraws a gun on you, he usually has lost all control of his emotions, and he intends to shoot. Shedistracted Sammy long enough for me to bolt through the door. Sammy chased me, about a block.
　　We soon made up-on the surface. But things never are fully right again with anyone you have seentrying to kill you.
　　Intuition told us that we had better lay low for a good while. The worst thing was that we'd been seen.
　　The police in that nearby town had surely circulated our general descriptions.
　　I just couldn't forget that incident over Sammy's woman. I came to rely more and more upon mybrother Reginald as the only one in my world I could completely trust.
　　Reginald was lazy, I'd discovered that. He had quit his hustle altogether. But I didn't mind that, really,because one could be as lazy as he wanted, if he would only use his head, as Reginald was doing. Hehad left my apartment by now. He was living off his "old settler" woman-when he was in town. I hadalso taught Reginald how he could work a little while for a railroad, then use his identification card totravel for nothing-and Reginald loved to travel. Several times, he had gone visiting all around, amongour brothers and sisters. They had now begun to scatter to different cities. In Boston, Reginald wascloser to our sister Mary man to Ella, who had been my favorite. Both Reginald and Mary were quiettypes, and Ella and I were extroverts. And Shorty in Boston had given my brother a royal time.
　　Because of my reputation, it was easy for me to get into the numbers racket. That was probablyHarlem's only hustle which hadn't slumped in business. In return for a favor to some white mobster,my new boss and his wife had just been given a six-months numbers banking privilege for the Bronxrailroad area called Motthaven Yards. The white mobsters had the numbers racket split into specificareas. A designated area would be assigned to someone for a specified period of time. My boss's wifehad been Dutch Schultz's secretary in the 1930's, during the time when Schultz had strong-armed hisway into control of the Harlem numbers business.
　　My job now was to ride a bus across the George Washington Bridge where a fellow was waiting forme to hand him a bag of numbers betting slips. We never spoke. I'd cross the street and catch the nextbus back to Harlem. I never knew who that fellow was. I never knew who picked up the bettingmoney for the slips that I handled. You didn't ask questions in the rackets.
　　My boss's wife and Gladys Hampton were the only two women I ever met in Harlem whose businessability I really respected. My boss's wife, when she had the time and the inclination to talk, would tellme many interesting things. She would talk to me about the Dutch Schultz days-about deals that shehad known, about graft paid to officials-rookie cops and shyster lawyers right on up into the top levelsof police and politics. She knew from personal experience how crime existed only to the degree that the law cooperated with it. She showed me how, in the country's entire social, political and economicstructure, the criminal, the law, and the politicians were actually inseparable partners.
　　It was at this time that I changed from my old numbers man, the one I'd used since I first worked inSmall's Paradise. He hated to lose a heavy player, but he readily understood why I would now want toplay with a runner of my own outfit. That was how I began placing my bets with West Indian Archie.
　　I've mentioned him before-one of Harlem's really _bad_ Negroes; one of those former Dutch Schultzstrong-arm men around Harlem.
　　West Indian Archie had finished time in Sing Sing not long before I came to Harlem. But my boss'swife had hired him not just because she knew him from the old days. West Indian Archie had the kindof photographic memory that put him among the elite of numbers runners. He never wrote downyour number; even in the case of combination plays, he would just nod. He was able to file all thenumbers in his head, and write them down for the banker only when he turned in his money. Thismade him the ideal runner because cops could never catch him with any betting slips.
　　I've often reflected upon such black veteran numbers men as West Indian Archie. If they had lived inanother kind of society, their exceptional mathematical talents might have been better used. But theywere black.
　　Anyway, it was status just to be known as a client of West Indian Archie's, because he handled onlysizable bettors. He also required integrity and sound credit: it wasn't necessary that you pay as youplayed; you could pay West Indian Archie by the week. He always carried a couple of thousanddollars on him, his own money. If a client came up to him and said he'd hit for some moderateamount, say a fifty-cent or one-dollar combination, West Indian Archie would peel off the three or sixhundred dollars, and later get his money back from the banker.
　　Every weekend, I'd pay my bill-anywhere from fifty to even one hundred dollars, if I had reallyplunged on some hunch. And when, once or twice, I did hit, always just some combination, as I'vedescribed, West Indian Archie paid me off from his own roll.
　　The six months finally ended for my boss and his wife. They had done well. Their runners got nicetips, and promptly were snatched up by other bankers. I continued working for my boss and his wifein a gambling house they opened.
　　 A Harlem madam I'd come to know-through having done a friend of hers a favor-introduced me to aspecial facet of the Harlem night world, something which the riot had only interrupted. It was theworld where, behind locked doors, Negroes catered to monied white people's weird sexual tastes.
　　The whites I'd known loved to rub shoulders publicly with black folks in the after-hours clubs andspeakeasies. These, on the other hand, were whites who did not want it known that they had been anywhere near Harlem. The riot had made these exclusive white customers nervous. Their slippinginto and about Harlem hadn't been so noticeable when other whites were also around. But now theywould be conspicuous; they also feared the recently aroused anger of Harlem Negroes. So the madamwas safeguarding her growing operation by offering me a steerer's job.
　　During the war, it was extremely difficult to get a telephone. One day the madam told me to stay atmy apartment the next morning. She talked to somebody. I don't know who it was, but before the nextnoon, I dialed the madam from my own telephone-unlisted.
　　This madam was a specialist in her field. If her own girls could not-or would not-accommodate acustomer, she would send me to another place, usually an apartment somewhere else in Harlem,where the requested "specialty" was done.
　　My post for picking up the customers was right outside the Astor Hotel, that always-busy northwestcomer of 45th Street and Broadway. Watching the moving traffic, I was soon able to spot the taxi, car,or limousine-even before it slowed down-with the anxious white faces peering out for the tall,reddish-brown-complexioned Negro wearing a dark suit, or raincoat, with a white flower in his lapel.
　　If they were in a private car, unless it was chauffeured I would take the wheel and drive where wewere going. But if they were in a taxi, I would always tell the cabbie, "The Apollo Theater in Harlem,please," since among New York City taxis a certain percentage are driven by cops. We would getanother cab-driven by a black man-and I'd give him the right address.
　　As soon as I got that party settled, I'd telephone the madam. She would generally have me rush by taxiright back downtown to be on the 45th Street and Broadway comer at a specified time. Appointmentswere strictly punctual; rarely was I on the corner as much as five minutes. And I knew how to keepmoving about so as not to attract the attention of any vice squad plainclothes-men or uniformed cops.
　　With tips, which were often heavy, sometimes I would make over a hundred dollars a night steeringup to ten customers in a party-to see anything, to do anything, to have anything done to them, thatthey wanted. I hardly ever knew the identities of my customers, but the few I did recognize, or whosenames I happened to hear, remind me now of the Profumo case in England. The English are not farahead of rich and influential Americans when it comes to seeking rarities and oddities.
　　Rich men, middle-aged and beyond, men well past their prime: these weren't college boys, these weretheir Ivy League fathers. Even grandfathers, I guess. Society leaders. Big politicians. Tycoons.
　　Important friends from out of town. City government big shots. All kinds of professional people. Starperforming artists. Theatrical and Hollywood celebrities. And, of course, racketeers.
　　Harlem was their sin-den, their fleshpot. They stole off among taboo black people, and took offwhatever antiseptic, important, dignified masks they wore in their white world. These were men whocould afford to spend large amounts of money for two, three, or four hours indulging their strangeappetites.
　　 But in this black-white nether world, nobody judged the customers. Anything they could name,anything they could imagine, anything they could describe, they could do, or could have done tothem, just as long as they paid.
　　In the Profumo case in England, Christine Keeler's friend testified that some of her customers wantedto be whipped. One of my main steers to one specialty address away from the madam's house was theapartment of a big, coal-black girl, strong as an ox, with muscles like a dockworker's. A funny thing, itgenerally was the oldest of these white men-in their sixties, I know, some maybe in their seventies-they couldn't seem to recover quickly enough from their last whipping so they could have me meetthem again at 45th and Broadway to take them back to that apartment, to cringe on their knees andbeg and cry out for mercy under that black girl's whip. Some of them would pay me extra to come andwatch them being beaten. That girl greased her big Amazon body all over to look shinier and blacker.
　　She used small, plaited whips, she would draw blood, and she was making herself a small fortune offthose old white men.
　　I wouldn't tell all the things I've seen. I used to wonder, later on, when I was in prison, what apsychiatrist would make of it all. And so many of these men held responsible positions; they exercisedguidance, influence, and authority over others.
　　In prison later, I'd think, too, about another thing. Just about all of those whites specifically expressedas their preference black, black, "the blacker the better!" The madam, having long since learned this,had in her house nothing but the blackest accommodating women she could find.
　　In all of my time in Harlem, I never saw a white prostitute touched by a white man. White girls werein some of the various Harlem specialty places. They would participate in customers' most frequentexhibition requests-a sleek, black Negro male having a white woman. Was this the white man wantingto witness his deepest sexual fear? A few times, I even had parties that included white women whomthe men had brought with them to watch this. I never steered any white women other than in theseinstances, brought by their own men, or who had been put into contact with me by a white Lesbianwhom I knew, who was another variety of specialty madam.
　　This Lesbian, a beautiful white woman, had a mate Negro stable. Her vocabulary was all profanity.
　　She supplied Negro males, on order, to well-to-do white women.
　　I'd seen this Lesbian and her blonde girl friend around Harlem, drinking and talking at bars, alwayswith young Negroes. No one who didn't know would ever guess that the Lesbian was recruiting. Butone night I gave her and her girl friend some reefers which they said were the best they'd eversmoked. They lived in a hotel downtown, and after that, now and then, they would call me, and Iwould bring them some reefers, and we'd talk.
　　She told me how she had accidentally gotten started in her specialty. As a Harlem habitu? she hadknown Harlem Negroes who liked white women. Her role developed from a pattern of talk she often heard from bored, well-to-do white women where she worked, in an East Side beauty salon. Hearingthe women complain about sexually inadequate mates, she would tell what she'd "heard" about Negromen. Observing how excited some of the women seemed to become, she finally arranged some dateswith some of the Harlem Negroes she knew at her own apartment.
　　Eventually, she rented three midtown apartments where a woman customer could meet a Negro byappointment. Her customers recommended her service to their friends. She quit the beauty salon, setup a messenger service as an operating front, and ran all of her business by telephone.
　　She had also noticed the color preference. I never could substitute in an emergency, she would tell mewith a laugh, because I was too light. She told me that nearly every white woman in her clientelewould specify "a black one"; sometimes they would say "a _real_ one," meaning black, no brownNegroes, no red Negroes.
　　The Lesbian thought up her messenger service idea because some of her trade wanted the Negroes tocome to their homes, at times carefully arranged by telephone. These women lived in neighborhoodsof swank brownstones and exclusive apartment houses, with doormen dressed like admirals. Butwhite society never thinks about challenging any Negro in a servant role. Doormen would telephoneup and hear "Oh, yes, send him right up, James"; service elevators would speed those neatly dressedNegro messenger boys right up-so that they could "deliver" what had been ordered by some of themost privileged white women in Manhattan.
　　The irony is that those white women had no more respect for those Negroes than white men have hadfor the Negro women they have been "using" since slavery times. And, in turn, Negroes have norespect for the whites they get into bed with. I know the way I felt about Sophia, who still came toNew York whenever I called her.
　　The West Indian boy friend of the Profumo scandal's Christine Keeler, Lucky Gordon, and his friendsmust have felt the same way. After England's leaders had been with those white girls, those girls, fortheir satisfaction, went to Negroes, to smoke reefers and make fun of some of England's greatest peersas cuckolds and fools. I don't doubt that Lucky Gordon knows the identity of "the man in the mask"and much more. If Gordon told everything those white girls told him, he would give England a newscandal.
　　It's no different from what happens in some of America's topmost white circles. Twenty years ago, Isaw them nightly, with my own eyes, I heard them with my own ears.
　　The hypocritical white man will talk about the Negro's "low morals." But who has the world's lowestmorals if not whites? And not only that, but the "upper-class" whites! Recently, details were publishedabout a group of suburban New York City white housewives and mothers operating as a professionalcall-girl ring. In some cases, these wives were out prostituting with the agreement, even thecooperation, of husbands, some of whom even waited at home, attending the children. And the customers-to quote a major New York City morning newspaper: "Some 16 ledgers and books withnames of 200 Johns, many important social, financial and political figures, were seized in the raidFriday night."I have also read recently about groups of young white couples who get together, the husbands throwtheir house keys into a hat, then, blindfolded, the husbands draw out a key and spend the night withthe wife that the house key matches. I have never heard of anything like that being done by Negroes,even Negroes who live in the worst ghettoes and alleys and gutters.
　　Early one morning in Harlem, a tall, light Negro wearing a hat and with a woman's stocking drawndown over his face held up a Negro bartender and manager who were counting up the night'sreceipts. Like most bars in Harlem, Negroes fronted, and a Jew really owned the place. To get alicense, one had to know somebody in the State Liquor Authority, and Jews working with Jewsseemed to have the best S.L.A. contacts. The black manager hired some Negro hoodlums to go huntingfor the hold-up man. And the man's description caused them to include me among their suspects.
　　About daybreak that same morning, they kicked in the door of my apartment.
　　I told them I didn't know a thing about it, that I hadn't had a thing to do with whatever they weretalking about. I told them I had been out on my hustle, steering, until maybe four in the morning, andthen I had come straight to my apartment and gone to bed.
　　The strong-arm thugs were bluffing. They were trying to flush out the man who had done it. They stillhad other suspects to check out-that's all that saved me.
　　I put on my clothes and took a taxi and I woke up two people, the madam, then Sammy. I had somemoney, but the madam gave me some more, and I told Sammy I was going to see my brother Philbertin Michigan. I gave Sammy the address, so that he could let me know when things got straightenedout.
　　This was the trip to Michigan in the wintertime when I put congolene on my head, then discoveredthat the bathroom sink's pipes were frozen. To keep the lye from burning up my scalp, I had to stickmy head into the stool and flush and flush to rinse out the stuff.
　　A week passed in frigid Michigan before Sammy's telegram came. Another red Negro had confessed,which enabled me to live in Harlem again.
　　But I didn't go back into steering. I can't remember why I didn't. I imagine I must have felt like stayingaway from hustling for a while, going to some of the clubs at night, and narcotizing with my friends.
　　Anyway, I just never went back to the madam's job.
　　It was at about this time, too, I remember, that I began to be sick. I had colds all the time. It got to be asteady irritation, always sniffling and wiping my nose, all day, all night. I stayed so high that I was ina dream world. Now, sometimes, I smoked opium with some white friends, actors who lived downtown. And I smoked more reefers than ever before. I didn't smoke the usual wooden-matchsized sticks of marijuana. I was so far gone by now that I smoked it almost by the ounce.
　　 After awhile, I worked downtown for a Jew. He liked me because of something I had managed to dofor him. He bought rundown restaurants and bars. Hymie was his name. He would remodel theseplaces, then stage a big, gala reopening, with banners and a spotlight outside. The jam-packed, busyplace with the big "Under New Management" sign in the window would attract speculators, usuallyother Jews who were around looking for something to invest money in. Sometimes even in the weekof the new opening, Hymie would re-sell, at a good profit.
　　Hymie really liked me, and I liked him. He loved to talk. I loved to listen. Half his talk was about Jewsand Negroes. Jews who had anglicized their names were Hymie's favorite hate. Spitting and curlinghis mouth in scorn, he would reel off names of people he said had done this. Some of them werefamous names whom most people never thought of as Jews.
　　"Red, I'm a Jew and you're black," he would say. "These Gentiles don't like either one of us. If the Jewwasn't smarter than the Gentile, he'd get treated worse than your people."Hymie paid me good money while I was with him, sometimes two hundred and three hundreddollars a week. I would have done anything for Hymie. I did do all kinds of things. But my main jobwas transporting bootleg liquor that Hymie supplied, usually to those spruced-up bars which he hadsold to someone.
　　Another fellow and I would drive out to Long Island where a big bootleg whisky outfit operated.
　　We'd take with us cartons of empty bonded whisky bottles that were saved illegally by bars wesupplied. We would buy five-gallon containers of bootleg, funnel it into the bottles, then deliver,according to Hymie's instructions, this or that many crates back to the bars.
　　Many people claiming they drank only such-and-such a brand couldn't tell their only brand from pureweek-old Long Island bootleg. Most ordinary whisky drinkers are "brand" chumps like this. On theside, with Hymie's approval, I was myself at that time supplying some lesser quantities of bootleg toreputable Harlem bars, as well as to some of the few speakeasies still in Harlem.
　　But one weekend on Long Island, something happened involving the State Liquor Authority. One ofNew York State's biggest recent scandals has been the exposure of wholesale S.L.A. graft andcorruption. In the bootleg racket I was involved in, someone high up must have been taken for a realpile. A rumor about some "inside" tipster spread among Hymie and the others. One day Hymie didn'tshow up where he had told me to meet him. I never heard from him again . . . but I did hear that hewas put in the ocean and I knew he couldn't swim.
　　Up in the Bronx, a Negro held up some Italian racketeers in a floating crap game. I heard about it on the wire. Whoever did it, aside from being a fool, was said to be a "tall, light-skinned" Negro, maskedwith a woman's stocking. It has always made me wonder if that bar stickup had really been solved, orif the wrong man had confessed under beatings. But, anyway, the past suspicion of me helped torevive suspicion of me again.
　　Up in Fat Man's Bar on the hill overlooking the Polo Grounds, I had just gone into a telephone booth.
　　Everyone in the bar-all over Harlem, in fact-was drinking up, excited about the news that BranchRickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers' owner, had just signed Jackie Robinson to play in major leaguebaseball, with the Dodgers' farm team in Montreal-which would place the time in the fall of 1945.
　　Earlier in the afternoon, I had collected from West Indian Archie for a fifty-cent combination bet; hehad paid me three hundred dollars right out of his pocket. I was telephoning Jean Parks. Jean was oneof the most beautiful women who ever lived in Harlem. She once sang with Sarah Vaughan in theBluebonnets, a quartet that sang with Earl Hines. For a long time, Jean and I had enjoyed a standing,friendly deal that we'd go out and celebrate when either of us hit the numbers. Since my last hit, Jeanhad treated me twice, and we laughed on the phone, glad that now I'd treat her to a night out. Wearranged to go to a 52nd Street nightclub to hear Billie Holiday, who had been on the road and wasjust back in New York.
　　As I hung up, I spotted the two lean, tough-looking _paisanos_ gazing in at me cooped up in thebooth.
　　I didn't need any intuition. And I had no gun. A cigarette case was the only thing in my pocket. Istarted easing my hand down into my pocket, to try bluffing . . . and one of them snatched open thedoor. They were dark olive, swarthy-featured Italians. I had my hand down into my pocket.
　　"Come on outside, we'll hold court," one said.
　　At that moment, a cop walked through the front door. The two thugs slipped out. I never in my lifehave been so glad to see a cop.
　　I was still shaking when I got to the apartment of my friend, Sammy the Pimp, He told me that notlong before, West Indian Archie had been there looking for me.
　　Sometimes, recalling all of this, I don't know, to tell the truth, how I am alive to tell it today. They sayGod takes care of fools and babies. I've so often thought that Allah was watching over me. Through allof this time of my life, I really _was_ dead-mentally dead. I just didn't know that I was.
　　Anyway, to kill time, Sammy and I sniffed some of his cocaine, until the time came to pick up JeanParks, to go down and hear Lady Day. Sammy's having told me about West Indian Archie looking forme didn't mean a thing . . . not right then.
Chapter 8 Trapped
There was the knocking at the door. Sammy, lying on his bed in pajamas and a bathrobe, called"Who?"When West Indian Archie answered, Sammy slid the round, two-sided shaving mirror under the bed,with what little of the cocaine powder-or crystals, actually-was left, and I opened the door.
　　"Red-I want my money!"A .32-20 is a funny kind of gun. It's bigger than a .32. But it's not as big as a .38. I had faced down somedangerous Negroes. But no one who wasn't ready to die messed with West Indian Archie.
　　I couldn't believe it. He truly scared me. I was so incredulous at what was happening that it was hardto form words with my brain and my mouth.
　　"Man-what's the beef?"West Indian Archie said he'd thought I was trying something when I'd told him I'd hit, but he'd paidme the three hundred dollars until he could double-check his written betting slips; and, as he'dthought, I hadn't combinated the number I'd claimed, but another.
　　"Man, you're crazy!" I talked fast; I'd seen out of the corner of my eye Sammy's hand easing under hispillow where he kept his Army .45. "Archie, smart a man as you're supposed to be, you'd paysomebody who hadn't hit?"The .32-20 moved, and Sammy froze. West Indian Archie told him, "I ought to shoot you through theear." And he looked back at me. "You don't have my money?"I must have shaken my head. "I'll give you until twelve o'clock tomorrow." And he put his handbehind him and pulled open the door. He backed out, and slammed it.
　　 It was a classic hustler-code impasse. The money wasn't the problem. I still had about two hundreddollars of it. Had money been the issue, Sammy could have made up the difference; if it wasn't in hispocket, his women could quickly have raised it. West Indian Archie himself, for that matter, wouldhave loaned me three hundred dollars if I'd ever asked him, as many thousands of dollars of mine ashe'd gotten ten percent of. Once, in fact, when he'd heard I was broke, he had looked me up andhanded me some money and grunted, "Stick this in your pocket." The issue was the position which his action had put us both into. For a hustler in our sidewalk jungleworld, "face" and "honor" were important. No hustler could have it known that he'd been "hyped,"meaning outsmarted or made a fool of. And worse, a hustler could never afford to have itdemonstrated that he could be bluffed, that he could be frightened by a threat, that he lacked nerve.
　　West Indian Archie knew that some young hustlers rose in stature in our world when they somehowhoodwinked older hustlers, then put it on the wire for everyone to hear. He believed I was trying that.
　　In turn, I knew he would be protecting his stature by broadcasting all over the wire his threat to me.
　　Because of this code, in my time in Harlem I'd personally known a dozen hustlers who, threatened,left town, disgraced.
　　Once the wire had it, any retreat by either of us was unthinkable. The wire would be awaiting thereport of the showdown.
　　I'd also known of at least another dozen showdowns in which one took the Dead On Arrival ride tothe morgue, and the other went to prison for manslaughter or the electric chair for murder.
　　Sammy let me hold his .32. My guns were at my apartment. I put the .32 in my pocket, with my handon it, and walked out.
　　I couldn't stay out of sight. I had to show up at all of my usual haunts. I was glad that Reginald wasout of town. He might have tried protecting me, and I didn't want him shot in the head by WestIndian Archie.
　　I stood awhile on the corner, with my mind confused-the muddled thinking that's characteristic of theaddict. Was West Indian Archie, I began to wonder, bluffing a hype on me? To make fun of me? Someold hustlers did love to hype younger ones. I knew he wouldn't do it as some would, just to pick upthree hundred dollars. But everyone was so slick. In this Harlem jungle people would hype theirbrothers. Numbers runners often had hyped addicts who had hit, who were so drugged that, whenchallenged, they really couldn't be sure if they had played a certain number.
　　I began to wonder whether West Indian Archie might not be right. Had I really gotten mycombination confused? I certainly knew the two numbers I'd played; I knew I'd told him to com-binateonly one of them. Had I gotten mixed up about which number?
　　Have you ever been so sure you did something that you never would have thought of it again-unlessit was brought up again? Then you start trying to mentally confirm-and you're only about half-sure?
　　It was just about tune for me to go and pick up Jean Parks, to go downtown to see Billie at the OnyxClub. So much was swirling in my head. I thought about telephoning her and calling it off, makingsome excuse. But I knew that running now was the worst thing I could do. So I went on and picked up Jean at her place. We took a taxi on down to 52nd Street. "_Billie Holiday_" and those big photo blowups of her were under the lights outside. Inside, the tables were jammed against the wall, tables aboutbig enough to get two drinks and four elbows on; the Onyx was one of those very little places.
　　Billie, at the microphone, had just finished a number when she saw Jean and me. Her white gownglittered under the spotlight, her face had that coppery, Indianish look, and her hair was in thattrademark ponytail. For her next number she did the one she knew I always liked so: "You Don'tKnow What Love Is"-"until you face each dawn with sleepless eyes . . . until you've lost a love youhate to lose-"When her set was done, Billie came over to our table. She and Jean, who hadn't seen each other in along time, hugged each other. Billie sensed something wrong with me. She knew that I was alwayshigh, but she knew me well enough to see that something else was wrong, and asked in her customaryprofane language what was the matter with me. And in my own foul vocabulary of those days, Ipretended to be without a care, so she let it drop.
　　We had a picture taken by the club photographer that night. The three of us were sitting closetogether. That was the last time I ever saw Lady Day. She's dead; dope and heartbreak stopped thatheart as big as a barn and that sound and style that no one successfully copies. Lady Day sang withthe _soul_ of Negroes from the centuries of sorrow and oppression. What a shame that proud, fine,black woman never lived where the true greatness of the black race was appreciated!
　　In the Onyx Club men's room, I sniffed the little packet of cocaine I had gotten from Sammy. Jean andI, riding back up to Harlem in a cab, decided to have another drink. She had no idea what washappening when she suggested one of my main hangouts, the bar of the La Marr-Cheri on the cornerof 147th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. I had my gun, and the cocaine courage, and I said okay. Andby the time we'd had the drink, I was so high that I asked Jean to take a cab on home, and she did. Inever have seen Jean again, either.
　　Like a fool, I didn't leave the bar. I stayed there, sitting, like a bigger fool, with my back to the door,thinking about West Indian Archie. Since that day, I have never sat with my back to a door-and Inever will again. But it's a good thing I was then. I'm positive if I'd seen West Indian Archie come in,I'd have shot to kill.
　　The next thing I knew West Indian Archie was standing before me, cursing me, loud, his gun on me.
　　He was really making his public point, floor-showing for the people. He called me foul names,threatened me.
　　Everyone, bartenders and customers, sat or stood as though carved, drinks in mid-air. The jukebox, inthe rear, was going. I had never seen West Indian Archie high before. Not a whisky high, I could tell itwas something else. I knew the hustlers' characteristic of keying up on dope to do a job.
　　I was thinking, "I'm going to kill Archie . . . I'm just going to wait until he turns around-to get the drop on him." I could feel my own .32 resting against my ribs where it was tucked under my belt, beneathmy coat.
　　West Indian Archie, seeming to read my mind, quit cursing. And his words jarred me.
　　"You're thinking you're going to kill me first, Red. But I'm going to give you something to think about.
　　I'm sixty. I'm an old man. I've been to Sing Sing. My life is over. You're a young man. Kill me, you'relost anyway. All you can do is go to prison."I've since thought that West Indian Archie may have been trying to scare me into running, to saveboth his face and his life. It may be that's why he was high. No one knew that I hadn't killed anyone,but no one who knew me, including myself, would doubt that I'd kill.
　　I can't guess what might have happened. But under the code, if West Indian Archie had gone out ofthe door, after having humiliated me as he had, I'd have had to follow him out. We'd have shot it outin the street.
　　But some friends of West Indian Archie moved up alongside him, quietly calling his name, "Archie . . .
　　Archie."And he let them put their hands on him-and they drew him aside. I watched them move him pastwhere I was sitting, glaring at me. They were working him back toward the rear.
　　Then, taking my time, I got down off the stool. I dropped a bill on the bar for the bartender. Withoutlooking back, I went out.
　　I stood outside, in full view of the bar, with my hand in my pocket, for perhaps five minutes. WhenWest Indian Archie didn't come out, I left.
　　 It must have been five in the morning when, downtown, I woke up a white actor I knew who lived inthe Howard Hotel on 45th Street, off Sixth Avenue.
　　I knew I had to stay high.
　　The amount of dope I put into myself within the next several hours sounds inconceivable. I got someopium from that fellow. I took a cab back up to my apartment and I smoked it. My gun was ready if Iheard a mosquito cough.
　　My telephone rang. It was the white Lesbian who lived downtown. She wanted me to bring her andher girl friend fifty dollars worth of reefers.
　　 I felt that if I had always done it, I had to do it now. Opium had me drowsy. I had a bottle ofbenzedrine tablets in my bathroom; I swallowed some of them to perk up. The two drugs working inme had my head going in opposite directions at the same time.
　　I knocked at the apartment right behind mine. The dealer let me have loose marijuana on credit. Hesaw I was so high that he even helped me roll it-a hundred sticks. And while we were rolling it, weboth smoked some.
　　Now opium, benzedrine, reefers.
　　I stopped by Sammy's on the way downtown. His flashing-eyed Spanish Negro woman opened thedoor. Sammy had gotten weak for that woman. He had never let any other of his women hang aroundso much; now she was even answering his doorbell. Sammy was by this time very badly addicted. Heseemed hardly to recognize me. Lying in bed, he reached under and again brought out that inevitableshaving mirror on which, for some reason, he always kept his cocaine crystals. He motioned for me tosniff some. I didn't refuse.
　　Going downtown to deliver the reefers, I felt sensations I cannot describe, in all those differentgrooves at the same time. The only word to describe it was a _timelessness_. A day might haveseemed to me five minutes. Or a half-hour might have seemed a week.
　　I can't imagine how I looked when I got to the hotel. When the Lesbian and her girl friend saw me,they helped me to a bed; I fell across it and passed out.
　　That night, when they woke me up, it was half a day beyond West Indian Archie's deadline. Late, Iwent back uptown. It was on the wire. I could see people who knew me finding business elsewhere. Iknew nobody wanted to be caught in a crossfire.
　　But nothing happened. The next day, either. I just stayed high.
　　Some raw kid hustler in a bar, I had to bust in his mouth. He came back, pulling a blade; I would haveshot him, but somebody grabbed him. They put him out, cursing that he was going to kill me.
　　Intuition told me to get rid of my gun. I gave a hustler the eye across the bar. I'd no more than slippedhim the gun from my belt when a cop I'd seen about came in the other door. He had his hand on hisgun butt. He knew what was all over the wire; he was certain I'd be armed. He came slowly overtoward me, and I knew if I sneezed, he'd blast me down.
　　He said, "Take your hand out of your pocket, Red-_real_ carefully."I did. Once he saw me empty handed, we both could relax a little. He motioned for me to walk outside, ahead of him, and I did. His partner was waiting on the sidewalk, opposite their patrol car,double-parked with its radio going. With people stopping, looking, they patted me down there on thesidewalk.
　　"What are you looking for?" I asked them when they didn't find anything.
　　"Red, there's a report you're carrying a gun.""I had one," I said. "But I threw it in the river."The one who had come into the bar said, "I think I'd leave town if I were you, Red."I went back into the bar. Saying that I had thrown my gun away had kept them from taking me to myapartment. Things I had there could have gotten me more time than ten guns, and could have gottenthem a promotion.
　　Everything was building up, closing in on me. I was trapped in so many cross turns. West IndianArchie gunning for me. The Italians who thought I'd stuck up their crap game after me. The scared kidhustler I'd hit. The cops.
　　For four years, up to that point, I'd been lucky enough, or slick enough, to escape jail, or even gettingarrested. Or any _serious_ trouble. But I knew that any minute now something had to give.
　　 Sammy had done something that I've often wished I could have thanked him for.
　　When I heard the car's horn, I was walking on St. Nicholas Avenue. But my ears were hearing a gun. Ididn't dream the horn could possibly be for me.
　　"_Homeboy!_"I jerked around; I came close to shooting.
　　_Shorty_-from Boston!
　　I'd scared him nearly to death.
　　"_Daddy-o!_"I couldn't have been happier.
　　Inside the car, he told me Sammy had telephoned about how I was jammed up tight and told him he'd better come and get me. And Shorty did his band's date, then borrowed his piano man's car, andburned up the miles to New York.
　　I didn't put up any objections to leaving. Shorty stood watch outside my apartment. I brought out andstuffed into the car's trunk what little stuff I cared to hang on to. Then we hit the highway. Shorty hadbeen without sleep for about thirty-six hours. He told me afterward that through just about the wholeride back, I talked out of my head.
Chapter 9 Caught
Ella couldn't believe how atheist, how uncouth I had become. I believed that a man should doanything that he was slick enough, or bad and bold enough, to do and that a woman was nothing butanother commodity. Every word I spoke was hip or profane. I would bet that my working vocabularywasn't two hundred words.
　　Even Shorty, whose apartment I now again shared, wasn't prepared for how I lived and thought-like apredatory animal. Sometimes I would catch him watching me.
　　At first, I slept a lot-even at night. I had slept mostly in the daytime during the preceding two years.
　　When awake, I smoked reefers. Shorty had originally introduced me to marijuana, and myconsumption of it now astounded him.
　　I didn't want to talk much, at first. When awake, I'd play records continuously. The reefers gave me afeeling of contentment. I would enjoy hours of floating, day dreaming, imaginary conversations withmy New York musician friends.
　　Within two weeks, I'd had more sleep than during any two months when I had been in Harlemhustling day and night. When I finally went out in the Roxbury streets, it took me only a little while tolocate a peddler of "snow"-cocaine. It was when I got back into that familiar snow feeling that I beganto want to talk.
　　Cocaine produces, for those who sniff its powdery white crystals, an illusion of supreme well-being,and a soaring over-confidence in both physical and mental ability. You think you could whip theheavyweight champion, and that you are smarter than anybody. There was also that feeling oftimelessness. And there were intervals of ability to recall and review things that had happened yearsback with an astonishing clarity.
　　Shorty's band played at spots around Boston three or four nights a week. After he left for work, Sophiawould come over and I'd talk about my plans. She would be gone back to her husband by the timeShorty returned from work, and I'd bend his ear until daybreak.
　　 Sophia's husband had gotten out of the military, and he was some sort of salesman. He was supposedto have a big deal going which soon would require his traveling a lot to the West Coast. I didn't askquestions, but Sophia often indicated they weren't doing too well. I know _I_ had nothing to do withthat. He never dreamed I existed. A white woman might blow up at her husband and scream and yelland call him every name she can think of, and say the most vicious things in an effort to hurt him, andtalk about his mother and his grandmother, too, but one thing she never will tell him herself is that sheis going with a black man. That's one automatic red murder flag to the white man, and his womanknows it.
　　Sophia always had given me money. Even when I had hundreds of dollars in my pocket, when shecame to Harlem I would take everything she had short of her train fare back to Boston. It seems thatsome women love to be exploited. When they are not exploited, they exploit the man. Anyway, it washis money that she gave me, I guess, because she never had worked. But now my demands on herincreased, and she came up with more; again, I don't know where she got it. Always, every now andthen, I had given her a hard time, just to keep her in line. Every once in a while a woman seems toneed, in fact _wants_ this, too. But now, I would feel evil and slap her around worse than ever, someof the nights when Shorty was away. She would cry, curse me, and swear that she would never beback. But I knew she wasn't even thinking about not coming back.
　　Sophia's being around was one of Shorty's greatest pleasures about my homecoming. I have said itbefore, I never in my life have seen a black man that desired white women as sincerely as Shorty did.
　　Since I had known him, he had had several. He had never been able to keep a white woman anylength of time, though, because he was too good to them, and, as I have said, any woman, white orblack, seems to get bored with that.
　　It happened that Shorty was between white women when one night Sophia brought to the house herseventeen-year-old sister. I never saw anything like the way that she and Shorty nearly jumped foreach other. For him, she wasn't only a white girl, but a _young_ white girl. For her, he wasn't only aNegro, but a Negro _musician_. In looks, she was a younger version of Sophia, who still turned heads.
　　Sometimes I'd take the two girls to Negro places where Shorty played. Negroes showed thirty-twoteeth apiece as soon as they saw the white girls. They would come over to your booth, or your table;they would stand there and drool. And Shorty was no better. He'd stand up there playing andwatching that young girl waiting for him, and waving at him, and winking. As soon as the set wasover, he'd practically run over people getting down to our table.
　　I didn't lindy-hop any more now, I wouldn't even have thought of it now, just as I wouldn't have beencaught in a zoot suit now. All of my suits were conservative. A banker might have worn my shoes.
　　I met Laura again. We were really glad to see each other. She was a lot more like me now, a good-timegirl. We talked and laughed. She looked a lot older than she really was. She had no one man, she freelanced around. She had long since moved away from her grandmother. Laura told me she hadfinished school, but then she gave up the college idea. Laura was high whenever I saw her, now, too; we smoked some reefers together.
　　 After about a month of "laying dead," as inactivity was called, I knew I had to get some kind of hustlegoing.
　　A hustler, broke, needs a stake. Some nights when Shorty was playing, I would take whatever Sophiahad been able to get for me, and I'd try to run it up into something, playing stud poker at JohnHughes' gambling house.
　　When I had lived in Roxbury before, John Hughes had been a big gambler who wouldn't have spokento me. But during the war the Roxbury "wire" had carried a lot about things I was doing in Harlem,and now the New York name magic was on me. That was the feeling that hustlers everywhere elsehad: if you could hustle and make it in New York, they were well off to know you; it gave themprestige. Anyway, through the same flush war years, John Hughes had hustled profitably enough tobe able to open a pretty good gambling house.
　　John, one night, was playing in a game I was in. After the first two cards were dealt around the table, Ihad an ace showing. I looked beneath it at my hole card; another ace-a pair, back-to-back.
　　My ace showing made it my turn to bet.
　　But I didn't rush. I sat there and studied.
　　Finally, I knocked my knuckles on the table, passing, leaving the betting to the next man. My actionimplied that beneath my ace was some "nothing" card that I didn't care to risk my money on.
　　The player sitting next to me took the bait. He bet pretty heavily. And the next man raised him.
　　Possibly each of them had small pairs. Maybe they just wanted to scare me out before I drew anotherace. Finally, the bet reached John, who had a queen showing; he raised everybody.
　　Now, there was no telling what John had. John truly was a clever gambler. He could gamble as well asanybody I had gambled with in New York.
　　So the bet came back to me. It was going to cost me a lot of money to call all the raises. Some of themobviously had good cards but I knew I had every one of them beat. But again I studied, and studied; Ipretended perplexity. And finally I put in my money, calling the bets.
　　The same betting pattern went on, with each new card, right around to the last card. And when thatlast card went around, I hit another ace in sight. Three aces. And John hit another queen in sight.
　　He bet a pile. Now, everyone else studied a long time-and, one by one, all folded their hands. Except me. All I could do was put what I had left on the table.
　　If I'd had the money, I could have raised five hundred dollars or more, and he'd have had to call me.
　　John couldn't have gone the rest of his life wondering if I had bluffed him out of a pot that big.
　　I showed my hole card ace; John had three queens. As I hauled in the pot, something over fivehundred dollars-my first real stake in Boston-John got up from the table. He'd quit. He told his houseman, "Anytime Red comes in here and wants anything, let him have it." He said, "I've never seen ayoung man play his hole card like he played."John said "young man," being himself about fifty, I guess, although you can never be certain about aNegro's age. He thought, as most people would have, that I was about thirty. No one in Roxburyexcept my sisters Ella and Mary suspected my real age.
　　The story of that poker game helped my on-scene reputation among the other gamblers and hustlersaround Roxbury. Another thing that happened in John's gambling house contributed: the incident thatmade it known that I carried not a gun, but some guns.
　　John had a standing rule that anyone who came into the place to gamble had to check his guns if hehad any. I always checked two guns. Then, one night, when a gambler tried to pull something slick, Idrew a third gun, from its shoulder holster. This added to the rest of my reputation the word that Iwas "trigger-happy" and "crazy."Looking back, I think I really was at least slightly out of my mind. I viewed narcotics as most peopleregard food. I wore my guns as today I wear my neckties. Deep down, I actually believed that afterliving as fully as humanly possible, one should then die violently. I expected then, as I still expecttoday, to die at any time. But then, I think I deliberately invited death in many, sometimes insane,ways.
　　For instance, a merchant marine sailor who knew me and my reputation came into a bar carrying apackage. He motioned me to follow him downstairs into the men's room. He unwrapped a stolenmachine gun; he wanted to sell it. I said, "How do I know it works?" He loaded it with a cartridge clip,and told me that all I would have to do then was squeeze the trigger release. I took the gun, examinedit, and the first thing he knew I had it jammed right up in his belly. I told him I would blow him wideopen. He went backwards out of the rest room and up the stairs the way Bill "Bojangles" Robinsonused to dance going backwards. He knew I was crazy enough to kill him. I was insane enough not toconsider that he might just wait his chance to kill me. For perhaps a month I kept the machine gun atShorty's before I was broke and sold it.
　　When Reginald came to Roxbury visiting, he was shocked at what he'd found out upon returning toHarlem. I spent some time with him. He still was the kid brother whom I still felt more "family"toward than I felt now even for our sister Ella. Ella still liked me. I would go to see her once in a while.
　　But Ella had never been able to reconcile herself to the way I had changed. She has since told me that she had a steady foreboding that I was on my way into big trouble. But I always had the feeling thatElla somehow admired my rebellion against the world, because she, who had so much more drive andguts than most men, often felt stymied by having been born female.
　　Had I been thinking only in terms of myself, maybe I would have chosen steady gambling as a hustle.
　　There were enough chump gamblers that hung around John Hughes' for a good gambler to make aliving off them; chumps that worked, usually. One would just have to never miss the games on theirpaydays. Besides, John Hughes had offered me a job dealing for games; I didn't want that.
　　But I had come around to thinking not only of myself. I wanted to get something going that could helpShorty, too. We had been talking; I really felt sorry for Shorty. The same old musician story. The so-called glamor of being a musician, earning just about enough money so that after he paid rent andbought his reefers and food and other routine things, he had nothing left. Plus debts. How couldShorty have anything? I'd spent years in Harlem and on the road around the most popular musicians,the "names," even, who really were making big money for musicians-and they had nothing.
　　For that matter, all the thousands of dollars I'd handled, and _I_ had nothing. Just satisfying mycocaine habit alone cost me about twenty dollars a day. I guess another five dollars a day could havebeen added for reefers and plain tobacco cigarettes that I smoked; besides getting high on drugs, Ichain-smoked as many as four packs a day. And, if you ask me today, I'll tell you that tobacco, in all itsforms, is just as much an addiction as any narcotic.
　　When I opened the subject of a hustle with Shorty, I started by first bringing him to agree with myconcept-of which he was a living proof-that only squares kept on believing they could ever getanything by slaving.
　　And when I mentioned what I had in mind-house burglary Shorty, who always had been so relativelyconservative, really surprised me by how quickly he agreed. He didn't even know anything aboutburglarizing.
　　When I began to explain how it was done, Shorty wanted to bring in this friend of his, whom I hadmet, and liked, called Rudy.
　　Rudy's mother was Italian, his father was a Negro. He was born right there in Boston, a short, lightfellow, a pretty boy type. Rudy worked regularly for an employment agency that sent him to wait ontables at exclusive parties. He had a side deal going, a hustle that took me right back to the oldsteering days in Harlem. Once a week, Rudy went to the home of this old, rich Boston blueblood,pillar-of-society aristocrat. He paid Rudy to undress them both, then pick up the old man like a baby,lay him on his bed, then stand over him and sprinkle him all over with _talcum powder_, Rudy saidthe old man would actually reach his climax from that.
　　I told him and Shorty about some of the things I'd seen. Rudy said that as far as he knew, Boston hadno organized specialty sex houses, just individual rich whites who had their private specialty desires catered to by Negroes who came to their homes camouflaged as chauffeurs, maids, waiters, or someother accepted image. Just as in New York, these were the rich, the highest society-the predominantlyold men, past the age of ability to conduct any kind of ordinary sex, always hunting for new ways tobe "sensitive."Rudy, I remember, spoke of one old white man who paid a black couple to let him watch them haveintercourse on his bed. Another was so "sensitive" that he paid to sit on a chair outside a room where acouple was-he got his satisfaction just from imagining what was going on inside.
　　A good burglary team includes, I knew, what is called a "finder." A finder is one who locates lucrativeplaces to rob. Another principal need is someone able to "case" these places' physical layouts-todetermine means of entry, the best getaway routes, and so forth. Rudy qualified on both counts. Beingsent to work in rich homes, he wouldn't be suspected when he sized up their loot and cased the joint,just running around looking busy with a white coat on.
　　Rudy's reaction, when he was told what we had in mind, was something, I remember, like "Man,when do we start?"But I wasn't rushing off half-cocked. I had learned from some of the pros, and from my ownexperience, how important it was to be careful and plan. Burglary, properly executed, though it had itsdangers, offered the maximum chances of success with the minimum risk. If you did your job so thatyou never met any of your victims, it first lessened your chances of having to attack or perhaps killsomeone. And if through some slip-up you were caught, later, by the police, there was never apositive eyewitness.
　　It is also important to select an area of burglary and stick to that. There are specific specialties amongburglars. Some work apartments only, others houses only, others stores only, or warehouses; stillothers will go after only safes or strongboxes.
　　Within the residence burglary category, there are further specialty distinctions. There are the dayburglars, the dinner-and theater-time burglars, the night burglars. I think that any city's police will tellyou that very rarely do they find one type who will work at another time. For instance Jumpsteady, inHarlem, was a nighttime apartment specialist. It would have been hard to persuade Jumpsteady towork in the daytime if a millionaire had gone out for lunch and left his front door wide open.
　　I had one very practical reason never to work in the daytime, aside from my inclinations. With myhigh visibility, I'd have been sunk in the daytime. I could just hear people: "A reddish-brown Negroover six feet tall." One glance would be enough.
　　 Setting up what I wanted to be the perfect operation, I thought about pulling the white girls into it for two reasons. One was that I realized we'd be too limited relying only upon places where Rudy workedas a waiter. He didn't get to work in too many places; it wouldn't be very long before we ran out ofsources. And when other places had to be found and cased in the rich, white residential areas, Negroeshanging around would stick out like sore thumbs, but these white girls could get invited into the rightplaces.
　　I disliked the idea of having too many people involved, all at the same time. But with Shorty andSophia's sister so close now, and Sophia and me as though we had been together for fifty years, andRudy as eager and cool as he was, nobody would be apt to spill, everybody would be under the samerisk; we would be like a family unit.
　　I never doubted that Sophia would go along. Sophia would do anything I said. And her sister woulddo anything that Sophia said. They both went for it. Sophia's husband was away on one of his trips tothe coast when I told her and her sister.
　　Most burglars, I knew, were caught not on the job, but trying to dispose of the loot. Finding the fencewe used was a rare piece of luck. We agreed upon the plan for operations. The fence didn't work withus directly. He had a representative, an ex-con, who dealt with me, and no one else in my gang. Asidefrom his regular business, he owned around Boston several garages and small warehouses. Thearrangement was that before a job, I would alert the representative, and give him a general idea ofwhat we expected to get, and he'd tell me at which garage or warehouse we should make the drop.
　　After we had made our drop, the representative would examine the stolen articles. He would removeall identifying marks from everything. Then he would call the fence, who would come and make apersonal appraisal. The next day the representative would meet me at a prearranged place and wouldmake the payment for what we had stolen-in cash.
　　One thing I remember. This fence always sent your money in crisp, brand-new bills. He was smart.
　　Somehow that had a very definite psychological effect upon all of us, after we had pulled a job,walking around with that crisp green money in our pockets. He may have had other reasons.
　　We needed a base of operations-not in Roxbury. The girls rented an apartment in Harvard Square.
　　Unlike Negroes, these white girls could go shopping for the locale and physical situation we wanted.
　　It was on the ground floor, where, moving late at night, all of us could come and go without attractingnotice.
　　 In any organization, someone must be the boss. If it's even just one person, you've got to be the boss ofyourself.
　　At our gang's first meeting in the apartment, we discussed how we were going to work. The girlswould get into houses to case them by ringing bells and saying they were saleswomen, poll-takers,college girls making a survey, or anything else suitable. Once in the houses, they would get around as much as they could without attracting attention. Then, back, they would report what special valuablesthey had seen, and where. They would draw the layout for Shorty, Rudy, and me. We agreed that thegirls would actually burglarize only in special cases where there would be some advantage. Butgenerally the three men would go, two of us to do the job while the third kept watch in the getawaycar, with the motor running.
　　Talking to them, laying down the plans, I had deliberately sat on a bed away from them. All of asudden, I pulled out my gun, shook out all five bullets, and then let them see me put back only onebullet. I twirled the cylinder, and put the muzzle to my head. "Now, I'm going to see how much gutsall of you have," I said.
　　I grinned at them. All of their mouths had flapped open. I pulled the trigger-we all heard it _click_.
　　"I'm going to do it again, now."They begged me to stop. I could see in Shorty's and Rudy's eyes some idea of rushing me.
　　We all heard the hammer _click_ on another empty cylinder. The women were in hysterics. Rudy andShorty were begging, _"Man. . . Red. . . cut it out, man!. . . Freeze!"_ I pulled the trigger once more.
　　"I'm doing this, showing you I'm not afraid to die," I told them. "Never cross a man not afraid to die. . .
　　now, let's get to work!"I never had one moment's trouble with any of them after that. Sophia acted awed, her sister all butcalled me "Mr. Red." Shorty and Rudy were never again quite the same with me. Neither of them evermentioned it. They thought I was crazy. They were afraid of me.
　　We pulled the first job that night-the place of the old man who hired Rudy to sprinkle him withtalcum powder. A cleaner job couldn't have been asked for. Everything went like clockwork. The fencewas full of praise; he proved he meant it with his crisp, new money. The old man later told Rudy howa small army of detectives had been there-and they decided that the job had the earmarks of somegang which had been operating around Boston for about a year.
　　We quickly got it down to a science. The girls would scout and case in wealthy neighborhoods. Theburglary would be pulled; sometimes it took no more than ten minutes. Shorty and I did most of theactual burglary. Rudy generally had the getaway car.
　　If the people weren't at home, we'd use a passkey on a common door lock. On a patent lock, we'd usea jimmy, as it's called, or a lockpick. Or, sometimes, we would enter by windows from a fire-escape, ora roof. Gullible women often took the girls all over their houses, just to hear them exclaiming over thefinery. With the help of the girls' drawings and a finger-beam searchlight, we went straight to thethings we wanted.
　　Sometimes the victims were in their beds asleep. That may sound very daring. Actually, it was almost easy. The first thing we had to do when people were in the house was to wait, very still, and pick upthe sounds of breathing. Snorers we loved; they made it real easy. In stockinged feet, we'd go rightinto the bedrooms. Moving swiftly, like shadows, we would lift clothes, watches, wallets, handbags,and jewelry boxes.
　　The Christmas season was Santa Claus for us; people had expensive presents lying all over theirhouses. And they had taken more cash than usual out of their banks. Sometimes, working earlier thanwe usually did, we even worked houses that we hadn't cased. If the shades were drawn full, and nolights were on, and there was no answer when one of the girls rang the bell, we would take the chanceand go in.
　　I can give you a very good tip if you want to keep burglars out of your house. A light on for theburglar to see is the very best single means of protection. One of the ideal things is to leave a bathroomlight on all night. The bathroom is one place where somebody could be, for any length of time, at anytime of the night, and he would be likely to hear the slightest strange sound. The burglar, knowingthis, won't try to enter. 'It's also the cheapest possible protection. The kilowatts are a lot cheaper thanyour valuables.
　　We became efficient. The fence sometimes relayed tips as to where we could find good loot. It was inthis way that for one period, one of our best periods, I remember, we specialized in Oriental rugs. Ihave always suspected that the fence himself sold the rugs to the people we stole them from. But,anyway, you wouldn't imagine the value of those things. I remember one small one that brought us athousand dollars. There's no telling what the fence got for it. Every burglar knew that fences robbedthe burglars worse than the burglars had robbed the victims.
　　Our only close brush with the law came once when we were making our getaway, three of us in thefront seat of the car, and the back seat loaded with stuff. Suddenly we saw a police car round thecorner, coming toward us, and it went on past us. They were just cruising. But then in the rear-viewmirror, we saw them make a U-turn, and we knew they were going to flash us to stop. They hadspotted us, in passing, as Negroes, and they knew that Negroes had no business in the area at thathour. It was a close situation. There was a lot of robbery going on; we weren't the only gang working,we knew, not by any means. But I knew that the white man is rare who will ever consider that a Negrocan outsmart him. Before their light began flashing, I told Rudy to stop. I did what I'd done oncebefore-got out and flagged them, walking toward them. When they stopped, I was at their car. I askedthem, bumbling my words like a confused Negro, if they could tell me how to get to a Roxburyaddress. They told me, and we, and they, went on about our respective businesses.
　　We were going along fine. We'd make a good pile and then lay low awhile, living it up. Shorty stillplayed with his band, Rudy never missed attending his sensitive old man, or the table-waiting at hisexclusive parties, and the girls maintained their routine home schedules.
　　Sometimes, I still took the girls out to places where Shorty played, and to other places, spendingmoney as though it were going out of style, the girls dressed in jewelry and furs they had selected from our hauls. No one knew our hustle, but it was clear that we were doing fine. And sometimes, thegirls would come over and we'd meet them either at Shorty's in Roxbury or in our Harvard Squareplace, and just smoke reefers, and play music. It's a shame to tell on a man, but Shorty was so obsessedwith the white girl that even if the lights were out, he would pull up the shade to be able to see thatwhite flesh by the street lamp from outside.
　　 Early evenings when we were laying low between jobs, I often went to a Massachusetts Avenuenightclub called the Savoy. And Sophia would telephone me there punctually. Even when we pulledjobs, I would leave from this club, then rush back there after the job. The reason was so that if it wasever necessary, people could testify that they had seen me at just about the time the job was pulled.
　　Negroes being questioned by policemen would be very hard to pin down on any exact time.
　　Boston at this time had two Negro detectives. Ever since I had come back on the Roxbury scene, one ofthese detectives, a dark brown fellow named Turner, had never been able to stand me, and it wasmutual. He talked about what he would do to me, and I had promptly put an answer back on thewire. I knew from the way he began to act that he had heard it. Everyone knew that I carried guns.
　　And he did have sense enough to know that I wouldn't hesitate to use them-and on him, detective ornot.
　　This early evening I was in this place when at the usual time, the phone in the booth rang. It rang justas this detective Turner happened to walk in through the front door. He saw me start to get up, heknew the call was for me, but stepped inside the booth, and answered.
　　I heard him saying, looking straight at me, "Hello, hello, hello-" And I knew that Sophia, taking nochances with the strange voice, had hung up.
　　"Wasn't that call for me?" I asked Turner.
　　He said that it was.
　　I said, "Well, why didn't you say so?"He gave me a rude answer. I knew he wanted me to make a move, first. We both were being cagey.
　　We both knew that we wanted to kill each other. Neither wanted to say the wrong thing. Turner didn'twant to say anything that, repeated, would make him sound bad. I didn't want to say anything thatcould be interpreted as a threat to a cop.
　　But I remember exactly what I said to him anyway, purposely loud enough for some people at the barto hear me. I said, "You know, Turner-you're trying to make history. Don't you know that if you playwith me, you certainly will go down in history because you've got to kill me?" Turner looked at me. Then he backed down. He walked on by me. I guess he wasn't ready to makehistory.
　　I had gotten to the point where I was walking on my own coffin.
　　It's a law of the rackets that every criminal expects to get caught. He tries to stave off the inevitable foras long as he can.
　　Drugs helped me push the thought to the back of my mind. They were the center of my life. I hadgotten to the stage where every day I used enough drugs-reefers, cocaine, or both-so that I felt aboveany worries, any strains. If any worries did manage to push their way through to the surface of myconsciousness, I could float them back where they came from until tomorrow, and then until the nextday.
　　But where, always before, I had been able to smoke the reefers and to sniff the snow and rarely show itvery much, by now it was not that easy.
　　One week when we weren't working-after a big haul-I was just staying high, and I was outnightclubbing. I came into this club, and from the bartender's face when he spoke, "Hello, Red," Iknew that something was wrong. But I didn't ask him anything. I've always had this rule-never askanybody in that kind of situation; they will tell you what they want you to know. But the bartenderdidn't get a chance to tell me, if he had meant to. When I sat down on a stool and ordered a drink, Isaw them.
　　Sophia and her sister sat at a table inside, near the dance floor, with a white man.
　　I don't know how I ever made such a mistake as I next did. I could have talked to her later. I didn'tknow, or care, who the white fellow was. My cocaine told me to get up.
　　It wasn't Sophia's husband. It was his closest friend. They had served in the war together. With herhusband out of town, he had asked Sophia and her sister out to dinner, and they went. But then, later,after dinner, driving around, he had suddenly suggested going over to the black ghetto.
　　Every Negro who lives in a city has seen the type a thousand times, the Northern cracker who will goto visit "niggertown," to be amused at "the coons."The girls, so well known in the Negro places in Roxbury, had tried to change his mind, but he hadinsisted. So they had just held their breaths coming into this club where they had been a hundredtimes. They walked in stiff-eyeing the bartenders and waiters who caught their message and acted asthough they never had seen them before. And they were sitting there with drinks before them,praying that no Negro who knew them would barge up to their table.
　　Then up I came. I know I called them "Baby." They were chalky-white, he was beet-red.
　　 That same night, back at the Harvard Square place, I really got sick. It was less of a physical sicknessthan it was all of the last five years catching up. I was in my pajamas in bed, half asleep, when I heardsomeone knock.
　　I knew that something was wrong. We all had keys. No one ever knocked at the door. I rolled oft andunder the bed; I was so groggy it didn't cross my mind to grab for my gun on the dresser.
　　Under the bed, I heard the key turn, and I saw the shoes and pants cuffs walk in. I watched them walkaround. I saw them stop. Every time they stopped, I knew what the eyes were looking at. And I knew,before he did, that he was going to get down and look under the bed. He did. It was Sophia'shusband's friend. His face was about two feet from mine. It looked congealed.
　　"Ha, ha, ha, I fooled you, didn't I?" I said. It wasn't at all funny. I got out from under the bed, still fake-laughing. He didn't run, I'll say that for him. He stood back; he watched me as though I were a snake.
　　I didn't try to hide what he already knew. The girls had some things in the closets, and around; he hadseen all of that. We even talked some. I told him the girls weren't there, and he left. What shook me themost was realizing that I had trapped myself under the bed without a gun. I really was slipping.
　　 I had put a stolen watch into a jewelry shop to replace a broken crystal. It was about two days later,when I went to pick up the watch, that things fell apart.
　　As I have said, a gun was as much a part of my dress as a necktie. I had my gun in a shoulder holster,under my coat.
　　The loser of the watch, the person from whom it had been stolen by us, I later found, had describedthe repair that it needed. It was a very expensive watch, that's why I had kept it for myself. And all ofthe jewelers in Boston had been alerted.
　　The Jew waited until I had paid him before he laid the watch on the counter. He gave his signal-andthis other fellow suddenly appeared, from the back, walking toward me.
　　One hand was in his pocket. I knew he was a cop.
　　He said, quietly, "Step into the back."Just as I started back there, an innocent Negro walked into the shop. I remember later hearing that hehad just that day gotten out of the military. The detective, thinking he was with me, turned to him.
　　There I was, wearing my gun, and the detective talking to that Negro with his back to me. Today I believe that Allah was with me even then. I didn't try to shoot him. And that saved my life.
　　I remember that his name was Detective Slack.
　　I raised my arm, and motioned to him, "Here, take my gun."I saw his face when he took it. He was shocked. Because of the sudden appearance of the other Negro,he had never thought about a gun. It really moved him that I hadn't tried to kill him.
　　Then, holding my gun in his hand, he signaled. And out from where they had been concealed walkedtwo other detectives. They'd had me covered. One false move, I'd have been dead.
　　I was going to have a long time in prison to think about that.
　　If I hadn't been arrested right when I was, I could have been dead another way. Sophia's husband'sfriend had told her husband about me. And the husband had arrived that morning, and had gone tothe apartment with a gun, looking for me. He was at the apartment just about when they took me tothe precinct.
　　The detectives grilled me. They didn't beat me. They didn't even put a finger on me. And I knew itwas because I hadn't tried to kill the detective.
　　They got my address from some papers they found on me. The girls soon were picked up. Shorty waspulled right off the bandstand that night. The girls also had implicated Rudy. To this day, I havealways marveled at how Rudy, somehow, got the word, and I know he must have caught the firstthing smoking out of Boston, and he got away. They never got him.
　　I have thought a thousand times, I guess, about how I so narrowly escaped death twice that day.
　　That's why I believe that everything is written.
　　The cops found the apartment loaded with evidence-fur coats, some jewelry, other small stuff-plus thetools of our trade. A jimmy, a lockpick, glass cutters, screwdrivers, pencil-beam flashlights, falsekeys. . . and my small arsenal of guns. The girls got low bail. They were still white-burglars or not.
　　Their worst crime was their involvement with Negroes. But Shorty and I had bail set at $10, 000 each,which they knew we were nowhere near able to raise.
　　The social workers worked on us. White women in league with Negroes was their main obsession.
　　The girls weren't so-called "tramps," or "trash," they were well-to-do upper-middle-class whites. Thatbothered the social workers and the forces of the law more than anything else.
　　How, where, when, had I met them? Did we sleep together? Nobody wanted to know anything at allabout the robberies. All they could see was that we had taken the white man's women.
　　 I just looked at the social workers: "Now, what do you think?"Even the court clerks and the bailiffs: "Nice white girls . . . goddam niggers-" It was the same evenfrom our court-appointed lawyers as we sat down, under guard, at a table, as our hearing assembled.
　　Before the judge entered, I said to one lawyer, "We seem to be getting sentenced because of thosegirls." He got red from the neck up and shuffled his papers: "You had no business with white girls!"Later, when I had learned the full truth about the white man, I reflected many times that the averageburglary sentence for a first offender, as we all were, was about two years. But we weren't going to getthe average-not for _our_ crime.
　　 I want to say before I go on that I have never previously told anyone my sordid past in detail. I haven'tdone it now to sound as though I might be proud of how bad, how evil, I was.
　　But people are always speculating-why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life,from birth, must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that everhappened to us is an ingredient.
　　Today, when everything that I do has an urgency, I would not spend one hour in the preparation of abook which had the ambition to perhaps titillate some readers. But I am spending many hours becausethe full story is the best way that I know to have it seen, and understood, that I had sunk to the verybottom of the American white man's society when-soon now, in prison-I found Allah and the religionof Islam and it completely transformed my life.
Chapter 10 Satan
Shorty didn't know what the word "concurrently" meant.
　　Somehow, Lansing-to-Boston bus fare had been scraped up by Shorty's old mother. "Son, read meBook of Revelations and pray to God!" she had kept telling Shorty, visiting him, and once me, whilewe awaited our sentencing. Shorty had read the Bible's Revelation pages; he had actually gotten downon his knees, praying like some Negro Baptist deacon.
　　Then we were looking up at the judge in Middlesex County Court. (Our, I think, fourteen counts ofcrime were committed in that county. ) Shorty's mother was sitting, sobbing with her head bowing upand down to her Jesus, over near Ella and Reginald. Shorty was the first of us called to stand up.
　　"Count one, eight to ten years "Count two, eight to ten years"Count three. . ."And, finally, "The sentences to run concurrently."Shorty, sweating so hard that his black face looked as though it had been greased, and notunderstanding the word "concurrently," had counted in his head to probably over a hundred years; hecried out, he began slumping. The bailiffs had to catch and support him.
　　In eight to ten seconds, Shorty had turned as atheist as I had been to start with.
　　I got ten years.
　　The girls got one to five years, in the Women's Reformatory at Framingham, Massachusetts.
　　This was in February, 1946. I wasn't quite twenty-one. I had not even started shaving.
　　They took Shorty and me, handcuffed together, to the Charlestown State Prison.
　　I can't remember any of my prison numbers. That seems surprising, even after the dozen years since Ihave been out of prison. Because your number in prison became part of you. You never heard yourname, only your number. On all of your clothing, every item, was your number, stenciled. It grewstenciled on your brain.
　　Any person who claims to have deep feeling for other human beings should think a long, long timebefore he votes to have other men kept behind bars-caged. I am not saying there shouldn't be prisons,but there shouldn't be bars. Behind bars, a man never reforms. He will never forget. He never will getcompletely over the memory of the bars.
　　After he gets out, his mind tries to erase the experience, but he can't. I've talked with numerous formerconvicts. It has been very interesting to me to find that all of our minds had blotted away many detailsof years in prison. But in every case, he will tell you that he can't forget those bars.
　　As a "fish" (prison slang for a new inmate) at Charlestown, I was physically miserable and as evil-tempered as a snake, being suddenly without drugs. The cells didn't have running water. The prisonhad been built in 1805-in Napoleon's day-and was even styled after the Bastille. In the dirty, crampedcell, I could lie on my cot and touch both walls. The toilet was a covered pail; I don't care how strongyou are, you can't stand having to smell a whole cell row of defecation.
　　The prison psychologist interviewed me and he got called every filthy name I could think of, and theprison chaplain got called worse. My first letter, I remember, was from my religious brother Philbert in Detroit, telling me his "holiness" church was going to pray for me. I scrawled him a reply I'mashamed to think of today.
　　Ella was my first visitor. I remember seeing her catch herself, then try to smile at me, now in the fadeddungarees stenciled with my number. Neither of us could find much to say, until I wished she hadn'tcome at all. The guards with guns watched about fifty convicts and visitors. I have heard scores ofnew prisoners swearing back in their cells that when free their first act would be to waylay thosevisiting-room guards. Hatred often focused on them.
　　I first got high in Charlestown on nutmeg. My cellmate was among at least a hundred nutmeg menwho, for money or cigarettes, bought from kitchen-worker inmates penny matchboxes full of stolennutmeg. I grabbed a box as though it were a pound of heavy drugs. Stirred into a glass of cold water, apenny matchbox full of nutmeg had the kick of three or four reefers.
　　With some money sent by Ella, I was finally able to buy stuff for better highs from guards in theprison. I got reefers, Nembutal, and benzedrine. Smuggling to prisoners was the guards' sideline;every prison's inmates know that's how guards make most of their living.
　　I served a total of seven years in prison. Now, when I try to separate that first year-plus that I spent atCharlestown, it runs all together in a memory of nutmeg and the other semi-drugs, of cursing guards,throwing things out of my cell, balking in the lines, dropping my tray in the dining hall, refusing toanswer my number-claiming I forgot it-and things like that.
　　I preferred the solitary that this behavior brought me. I would pace for hours like a caged leopard,viciously cursing aloud to myself. And my favorite targets were the Bible and God. But there was alegal limit to how much time one could be kept in solitary. Eventually, the men in the cellblock had aname for me: "Satan." Because of my antireligious attitude.
　　The first man I met in prison who made any positive impression on me whatever was a fellow inmate,"Bimbi." I met him in 1947, at Charlestown. He was a light, kind of red-complexioned Negro, as I was;about my height, and he had freckles. Bimbi, an old-time burglar, had been in many prisons. In thelicense plate shop where our gang worked, he operated the machine that stamped out the numbers. Iwas along the conveyor belt where the numbers were painted.
　　Bimbi was the first Negro convict I'd known who didn't respond to "What'cha know, Daddy?" Often,after we had done our day's license plate quota, we would sit around, perhaps fifteen of us, and listento Bimbi. Normally, white prisoners wouldn't think of listening to Negro prisoners' opinions onanything, but guards, even, would wander over close to hear Bimbi on any subject.
　　He would have a cluster of people riveted, often on odd subjects you never would think of. He wouldprove to us, dipping into the science of human behavior, that the only difference between us andoutside people was that we had been caught. He liked to talk about historical events and figures.
　　When he talked about the history of Concord, where I was to be transferred later, you would have thought he was hired by the Chamber of Commerce, and I wasn't the first inmate who had neverheard of Thoreau until Bimbi expounded upon him. Bimbi was known as the library's best customer.
　　What fascinated me with him most of all was that he was the first man I had ever seen command totalrespect. . . with his words.
　　Bimbi seldom said much to me; he was gruff to individuals, but I sensed he liked me. What made meseek his friendship was when I heard him discuss religion. I considered myself beyond atheism-I wasSatan. But Bimbi put the atheist philosophy in a framework, so to speak. That ended my viciouscursing attacks. My approach sounded so weak alongside his, and he never used a foul word.
　　Out of the blue one day, Bimbi told me flatly, as was his way, that I had some brains, if I'd use them. Ihad wanted his friendship, not that kind of advice. I might have cursed another convict, but nobodycursed Bimbi. He told me I should take advantage of the prison correspondence courses and thelibrary.
　　When I had finished the eighth grade back in Mason, Michigan, that was the last time I'd thought ofstudying anything that didn't have some hustle purpose. And the streets had erased everything I'dever learned in school; I didn't know a verb from a house. My sister Hilda had written a suggestionthat, if possible in prison, I should study English and penmanship; she had barely been able to read acouple of picture postcards I had sent her when I was selling reefers on the road.
　　So, feeling I had time on my hands, I did begin a correspondence course in English. When themimeographed listings of available books passed from cell to cell, I would put my number next totitles that appealed to me which weren't already taken.
　　Through the correspondence exercises and lessons, some of the mechanics of grammar graduallybegan to come back to me.
　　After about a year, I guess, I could write a decent and legible letter. About then, too, influenced byhaving heard Bimbi often explain word derivations, I quietly started another correspondence course-in Latin.
　　Under Bimbi's tutelage, too, I had gotten myself some little cellblock swindles going. For packs ofcigarettes, I beat just about anyone at dominoes. I always had several cartons of cigarettes in my cell;they were, in prison, nearly as valuable a medium of exchange as money. I booked cigarette andmoney bets on fights and ball games. I'll never forget the prison sensation created that day in April,1947, when Jackie Robinson was brought up to play with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Jackie Robinson had,then, his most fanatic fan in me. When he played, my ear was glued to the radio, and no game endedwithout my refiguring his average up through his last turn at bat.
　　 One day in 1948, after I had been transferred to Concord Prison, my brother Philbert, who was forever joining something, wrote me this time that he had discovered the "natural religion for the black man."He belonged now, he said, to something called "the Nation of Islam." He said I should "pray to Allahfor deliverance." I wrote Philbert a letter which, although in improved English, was worse than myearlier reply to his news that I was being prayed for by his "holiness" church.
　　When a letter from Reginald arrived, I never dreamed of associating the two letters, although I knewthat Reginald had been spending a lot of time with Wilfred, Hilda, and Philbert in Detroit. Reginald'sletter was newsy, and also it contained this instruction: "Malcolm, don't eat any more pork, and don'tsmoke any more cigarettes. I'll show you how to get out of prison."My automatic response was to think he had come upon some way I could work a hype on the penalauthorities. I went to sleep-and woke up-trying to figure what kind of a hype it could be. Somethingpsychological, such as my act with the New York draft board? Could I, after going without pork andsmoking no cigarettes for a while, claim some physical trouble that could bring about my release?
　　"Get out of prison." The words hung in the air around me, I wanted out so badly.
　　I wanted, in the worst way, to consult with Bimbi about it. But something big, instinct said, you spilledto nobody.
　　Quitting cigarettes wasn't going to be too difficult. I had been conditioned by days in solitary withoutcigarettes. Whatever this chance was, I wasn't going to fluff it. After I read that letter, I finished thepack I then had open. I haven't smoked another cigarette to this day, since 1948.
　　It was about three or four days later when pork was served for the noon meal.
　　I wasn't even thinking about pork when I took my seat at the long table. Sit-grab-gobble-stand-file out;that was the Emily Post in prison eating. When the meat platter was passed to me, I didn't even knowwhat the meat was; usually, you couldn't tell, anyway-but it was suddenly as though _don't eat anymore pork_ flashed on a screen before me.
　　I hesitated, with the platter in mid-air; then I passed it along to the inmate waiting next to me. Hebegan serving himself; abruptly, he stopped. I remember him turning, looking surprised at me.
　　I said to him, "I don't eat pork."The platter then kept on down the table.
　　It was the funniest thing, the reaction, and the way that it spread. In prison, where so little breaks themonotonous routine, the smallest thing causes a commotion of talk. It was being mentioned all overthe cell block by night that Satan didn't eat pork.
　　It made me very proud, in some odd way. One of the universal images of the Negro, in prison and out, was that he couldn't do without pork. It made me feel good to see that my not eating it hadespecially startled the white convicts.
　　Later I would learn, when I had read and studied Islam a good deal, that, unconsciously, my first pre-Islamic submission had been manifested. I had experienced, for the first time, the Muslim teaching, "Ifyou will take one step toward Allah-Allah will take two steps toward you."My brothers and sisters in Detroit and Chicago had all become converted to what they were beingtaught was the "natural religion for the black man" of which Philbert had written to me. They allprayed for me to become converted while I was in prison. But after Philbert reported my vicious reply,they discussed what was the best thing to do. They had decided that Reginald, the latest convert, theone to whom I felt closest, would best know how to approach me, since he knew me so well in thestreet life.
　　Independently of all this, my sister Ella had been steadily working to get me transferred to theNorfolk, Massachusetts, Prison Colony, which was an experimental rehabilitation jail. In other prisons,convicts often said that if you had the right money, or connections, you could get transferred to thisColony whose penal policies sounded almost too good to be true. Somehow, Ella's efforts in my behalfwere successful in late 1948, and I was transferred to Norfolk.
　　The Colony was, comparatively, a heaven, in many respects. It had flushing toilets; there were no bars,only walls-and within the walls, you had far more freedom. There was plenty of fresh air to breathe; itwas not in a city.
　　There were twenty-four "house" units, fifty men living in each unit, if memory serves me correctly.
　　This would mean that the Colony had a total of around 1200 inmates. Each "house" had three floorsand, greatest blessing of all, each inmate had his own room.
　　About fifteen per cent of the inmates were Negroes, distributed about five to nine Negroes in eachhouse.
　　Norfolk Prison Colony represented the most enlightened form of prison that I have ever heard of. Inplace of the atmosphere of malicious gossip, perversion, grafting, hateful guards, there was morerelative "culture," as "culture" is interpreted in prisons. A high percentage of the Norfolk PrisonColony inmates went in for "intellectual" things, group discussions, debates, and such. Instructors forthe educational rehabilitation programs came from Harvard, Boston University, and other educationalinstitutions in the area. The visiting rules, far more lenient than other prisons', permitted visitorsalmost every day, and allowed them to stay two hours. You had your choice of sitting alongside yourvisitor, or facing each other.
　　Norfolk Prison Colony's library was one of its outstanding features. A millionaire named Parkhursthad willed his library there; he had probably been interested in the rehabilitation program. Historyand religions were his special interests. Thousands of his books were on the shelves, and in the back were boxes and crates full, for which there wasn't space on the shelves. At Norfolk, we could actuallygo into the library, with permission-walk up and down the shelves, pick books. There were hundredsof old volumes, some of them probably quite rare. I read aimlessly, until I learned to read selectively,with a purpose.
　　I hadn't heard from Reginald in a good while after I got to Norfolk Prison Colony. But I had come inthere not smoking cigarettes, or eating pork when it was served. That caused a bit of eyebrow-raising.
　　Then a letter from Reginald telling me when he was coming to see me. By the time he came, I wasreally keyed up to hear the hype he was going to explain.
　　Reginald knew how my street-hustler mind operated. That's why his approach was so effective.
　　He had always dressed well, and now, when he came to visit, was carefully groomed. I was achingwith wanting the "no pork and cigarettes" riddle answered. But he talked about the family, what washappening in Detroit, Harlem the last time he was there. I have never pushed anyone to tell meanything before he is ready. The offhand way Reginald talked and acted made me know thatsomething big was coming.
　　He said, finally, as though it had just happened to come into his mind, "Malcolm, if a man knew everyimaginable thing that there is to know, who would he be?"Back in Harlem, he had often liked to get at something through this kind of indirection. It had oftenirritated me, because my way had always been direct. I looked at him. "Well, he would have to besome kind of a god-"Reginald said, "There's a _man_ who knows everything."I asked, "Who is that?""God is a man," Reginald said. "His real name is Allah."_Allah_. That word came back to me from Philbert's letter; it was my first hint of any connection. ButReginald went on. He said that God had 360 degrees of knowledge. He said that 360 degreesrepresented "the sum total of knowledge."To say I was confused is an understatement. I don't have to remind you of the background againstwhich I sat hearing my brother Reginald talk like this. I just listened, knowing he was taking his timein putting me onto something. And if somebody is trying to put you onto something, you need tolisten.
　　"The devil has only thirty-three degrees of knowledge-known as Masonry," Reginald said. I can sospecifically remember the exact phrases since, later, I was going to teach them so many times to others.
　　"The devil uses his Masonry to rule other people." He told me that this God had come to America, and that he had made himself known to a man namedElijah-"a black man, just like us." This God had let Elijah know, Reginald said, that the devil's "timewas up."I didn't know what to think. I just listened.
　　"The devil is also a man," Reginald said.
　　"What do you mean?"With a slight movement of his head, Reginald indicated some white inmates and their visitors talking,as we were, across the room.
　　"Them," he said. "The white man is the devil."He told me that all whites knew they were devils-"especially Masons."I never will forget: my mind was involuntarily flashing across the entire spectrum of white people Ihad ever known; and for some reason it stopped upon Hymie, the Jew, who had been so good to me.
　　Reginald, a couple of times, had gone out with me to that Long Island bootlegging operation to buyand bottle up the bootleg liquor for Hymie.
　　I said, "Without any exception?""Without any exception.""What about Hymie?""What is it if I let you make five hundred dollars to let me make ten thousand?"After Reginald left, I thought. I thought. Thought.
　　I couldn't make of it head, or tail, or middle.
　　The white people I had known marched before my mind's eye. From the start of my life. The statewhite people always in our house after the other whites I didn't know had killed my father. . . thewhite people who kept calling my mother "crazy" to her face and before me and my brothers andsisters, until she finally was taken off by white people to the Kalamazoo asylum . . . the white judgeand others who had split up the children . . . the Swerlins, the other whites around Mason. . . whiteyoungsters I was in school there with, and the teachers-the one who told me in the eighth grade to "bea carpenter" because thinking of being a lawyer was foolish for a Negro. . . .
　　 My head swam with the parading faces of white people. The ones in Boston, in the white-only dancesat the Roseland Ballroom where I shined their shoes. . . at the Parker House where I took their dirtyplates back to the kitchen. . . the railroad crewmen and passengers . . . Sophia . . . .
　　The whites in New York City-the cops, the white criminals I'd dealt with. . . the whites who piled intothe Negro speakeasies for a taste of Negro _soul_ . . . the white women who wanted Negro men. . . themen I'd steered to the black "specialty sex" they wanted . . . .
　　The fence back in Boston, and his ex-con representative. . . Boston cops . . . Sophia's husband's friend,and her husband, whom I'd never seen, but knew so much about . . . Sophia's sister . . . the Jew jewelerwho'd helped trap me . . . the social workers . . . the Middlesex County Court people . . . the judge whogave me ten years . . . the prisoners I'd known, the guards and the officials . . . .
　　A celebrity among the Norfolk Prison Colony inmates was a rich, older fellow, a paralytic, called John.
　　He had killed his baby, one of those "mercy" killings. He was a proud, big-shot type, alwaysreminding everyone that he was a 33rd-degree Mason, and what powers Masons had-that onlyMasons ever had been U. S. Presidents, that Masons in distress could secretly signal to judges andother Masons in powerful positions.
　　I kept thinking about what Reginald had said. I wanted to test it with John. He worked in a soft job inthe prison's school. I went over there.
　　"John," I said, "how many degrees in a circle?"He said, "Three hundred and sixty."I drew a square. "How many degrees in that?" He said three hundred and sixty.
　　I asked him was three hundred and sixty degrees, then, the maximum of degrees in anything?
　　He said "Yes."I said, "Well, why is it that Masons go only to thirty-three degrees?"He had no satisfactory answer. But for me, the answer was that Masonry, actually, is only thirty-threedegrees of the religion of Islam, which is the full projection, forever denied to Masons, although theyknow it exists.
　　Reginald, when he came to visit me again in a few days, could gauge from my attitude the effect thathis talking had had upon me. He seemed very pleased. Then, very seriously, he talked for two solidhours about "the devil white man" and "the brainwashed black man." When Reginald left, he left me rocking with some of the first serious thoughts I had ever had in mylife: that the white man was fast losing his power to oppress and exploit the dark world; that the darkworld was starting to rise to rule the world again, as it had before; that the white man's world was onthe way down, it was on the way out.
　　"You don't even know who you are," Reginald had said. "You don't even know, the white devil hashidden it from you, that you are of a race of people of ancient civilizations, and riches in gold andkings. You don't even know your true family name, you wouldn't recognize your true language if youheard it. You have been cut off by the devil white man from all true knowledge of your own kind. Youhave been a victim of the evil of the devil white man ever since he murdered and raped and stole youfrom your native land in the seeds of your forefathers. . . ."I began to receive at least two letters every day from my brothers and sisters in Detroit. My oldestbrother, Wilfred, wrote, and his first wife, Bertha, the mother of his two children (since her death,Wilfred has met and married his present wife, Ruth). Philbert wrote, and my sister Hilda. AndReginald visited, staying in Boston awhile before he went back to Detroit, where he had been the mostrecent of them to be converted. They were all Muslims, followers of a man they described to me as"The Honorable Elijah Muhammad," a small, gentle man, whom they sometimes referred to as "TheMessenger of Allah." He was, they said, "a black man, like us." He had been born in America on a farmin Georgia. He had moved with his family to Detroit, and there had met a Mr. Wallace D. Fard who heclaimed was "God in person." Mr. Wallace D. Fard had given to Elijah Muhammad Allah's message forthe black people who were "the Lost-Found Nation of Islam here in this wilderness of North America."All of them urged me to "accept the teachings of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad." Reginaldexplained that pork was not eaten by those who worshiped in the religion of Islam, and not smokingcigarettes was a rule of the followers of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, because they did not takeinjurious things such as narcotics, tobacco, or liquor into their bodies. Over and over, I read, andheard, "The key to a Muslim is submission, the attunement of one toward Allah."And what they termed "the true knowledge of the black man" that was possessed by the followers ofThe Honorable Elijah Muhammad was given shape for me in their lengthy letters, sometimescontaining printed literature.
　　 "The true knowledge," reconstructed much more briefly than I received it, was that history had been"whitened" in the white man's history books, and that the black man had been "brainwashed forhundreds of years." Original Man was black, in the continent called Africa where the human race hademerged on the planet Earth.
　　The black man, original man, built great empires and civilizations and cultures while the white manwas still living on all fours in caves. "The devil white man," down through history, out of his devilishnature, had pillaged, murdered, raped, and exploited every race of man not white.
　　 Human history's greatest crime was the traffic in black flesh when the devil white man went intoAfrica and murdered and kidnapped to bring to the West in chains, in slave ships, millions of blackmen, women, and children, who were worked and beaten and tortured as slaves.
　　The devil white man cut these black people off from all knowledge of their own kind, and cut them offfrom any knowledge of their own language, religion, and past culture, until the black man in Americawas the earth's only race of people who had absolutely no knowledge of his true identity.
　　In one generation, the black slave women in America had been raped by the slavemaster white manuntil there had begun to emerge a homemade, handmade, brainwashed race that was no longer evenof its true color, that no longer even knew its true family names. The slavemaster forced his familyname upon this rape-mixed race, which the slavemaster began to call "the Negro."This "Negro" was taught of his native Africa that it was peopled by heathen, black savages, swinginglike monkeys from trees. This "Negro" accepted this along with every other teaching of theslavemaster that was designed to make him accept and obey and worship the white man.
　　And where the religion of every other people on earth taught its believers of a God with whom theycould identify, a God who at least looked like one of their own kind, the slavemaster injected hisChristian religion into this "Negro." This "Negro" was taught to worship an alien God having the sameblond hair, pale skin, and blue eyes as the slavemaster.
　　This religion taught the "Negro" that black was a curse. It taught him to hate everything black,including himself. It taught him that everything white was good, to be admired, respected, and loved.
　　It brainwashed this "Negro" to think he was superior if his complexion showed more of the whitepollution of the slavemaster. This white man's Christian religion further deceived and brainwashedthis "Negro" to always turn the other cheek, and grin, and scrape, and bow, and be humble, and tosing, and to pray, and to take whatever was dished out by the devilish white man; and to look for hispie in the sky, and for his heaven in the hereafter, while right here on earth the slave-master whiteman enjoyed _his_ heaven.
　　Many a time, I have looked back, trying to assess, just for myself, my first reactions to all this. Everyinstinct of the ghetto jungle streets, every hustling fox and criminal wolf instinct in me, which wouldhave scoffed at and rejected anything else, was struck numb. It was as though all of that life merelywas back there, without any remaining effect, or influence. I remember how, some time later, readingthe Bible in the Norfolk Prison Colony library, I came upon, then I read, over and over, how Paul onthe road to Damascus, upon hearing the voice of Christ, was so smitten that he was knocked off hishorse, in a daze. I do not now, and I did not then, liken myself to Paul. But I do understand hisexperience.
　　I have since learned-helping me to understand what then began to happen within me-that the truthcan be quickly received, or received at all, only by the sinner who knows and admits that he is guilty of having sinned much. Stated another way: only guilt admitted accepts truth. The Bible again: the onepeople whom Jesus could not help were the Pharisees; they didn't feel they needed any help.
　　The very enormity of my previous life's guilt prepared me to accept the truth.
　　Not for weeks yet would I deal with the direct, personal application to myself, as a black man, of thetruth. It still was like a blinding light.
　　Reginald left Boston and went back to Detroit. I would sit in my room and stare. At the dining-roomtable, I would hardly eat, only drink the water. I nearly starved. Fellow inmates, concerned, andguards, apprehensive, asked what was wrong with me. It was suggested that I visit the doctor, and Ididn't. The doctor, advised, visited me. I don't know what his diagnosis was, probably that I wasworking on some act.
　　I was going through the hardest thing, also the greatest thing, for any human being to do; to acceptthat which is already within you, and around you.
　　I learned later that my brothers and sisters in Detroit put together the money for my sister Hilda tocome and visit me. She told me that when The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was in Detroit, he wouldstay as a guest at my brother Wilfred's home, which was on McKay Street. Hilda kept urging me towrite to Mr. Muhammad. He understood what it was to be in the white man's prison, she said,because he, himself, had not long before gotten out of the federal prison at Milan, Michigan, where hehad served five years for evading the draft.
　　Hilda said that The Honorable Elijah Muhammad came to Detroit to reorganize his Temple NumberOne, which had become disorganized during his prison time; but he lived in Chicago, where he wasorganizing and building his Temple Number Two.
　　It was Hilda who said to me, "Would you like to hear how the white man came to this planet Earth?"And she told me that key lesson of Mr. Elijah Muhammad's teachings, which I later learned was thedemonology that every religion has, called "Yacub's History." Elijah Muhammad teaches his followersthat, first, the moon separated from the earth. Then, the first humans, Original Man, were a blackpeople. They founded the Holy City Mecca.
　　Among this black race were twenty-four wise scientists. One of the scientists, at odds with the rest,created the especially strong black tribe of Shabazz, from which America's Negroes, so-called,descend.
　　About sixty-six hundred years ago, when seventy per cent of the people were satisfied, and thirty percent were dissatisfied, among the dissatisfied was born a "Mr. Yacub." He was born to create trouble,to break the peace, and to kill. His head was unusually large. When he was four years old, he beganschool. At the age of eighteen, Yacub had finished all of his nation's colleges and universities. He was known as "the big-head scientist." Among many other things, he had learned how to breed racesscientifically.
　　This big-head scientist, Mr. Yacub, began preaching in the streets of Mecca, making such hosts ofconverts that the authorities, increasingly concerned, finally exiled him with 59, 999 followers to theisland of Patmos-described in the Bible as the island where John received the message contained inRevelations in the New Testament.
　　Though he was a black man, Mr. Yacub, embittered toward Allah now, decided, as revenge, to createupon the earth a devil race-a bleached-out, white race of people.
　　From his studies, the big-head scientist knew that black men contained two germs, black and brown.
　　He knew that the brown germ stayed dormant as, being the lighter of the two germs, it was theweaker. Mr. Yacub, to upset the law of nature, conceived the idea of employing what we today knowas the recessive genes structure, to separate from each other the two germs, black and brown, and thengrafting the brown germ to progressively lighter, weaker stages. The humans resulting, he knew,would be, as they became lighter, and weaker, progressively also more susceptible to wickedness andevil. And in this way finally he would achieve the intended bleached-out white race of devils.
　　He knew that it would take him several total color-change stages to get from black to white. Mr. Yacubbegan his work by setting up a eugenics law on the island of Patmos.
　　Among Mr. Yacub's 59, 999 all-black followers, every third or so child that was born would showsome trace of brown. As these became adult, only brown and brown, or black and brown, werepermitted to marry. As their children were born, Mr. Yacub's law dictated that, if a black child, theattending nurse, or midwife, should stick a needle into its brain and give the body to cremators. Themothers were told it had been an "angel baby," which had gone to heaven, to prepare a place for her.
　　But a brown child's mother was told to take very good care of it.
　　Others, assistants, were trained by Mr. Yacub to continue his objective. Mr. Yacub, when he died onthe island at the age of one hundred and fifty-two, had left laws, and rules, for them to follow.
　　According to the teachings of Mr. Elijah Muhammad, Mr. Yacub, except in his mind, never saw thebleached-out devil race that his procedures and laws and rules created.
　　A two-hundred-year span was needed to eliminate on the island of Patmos all of the black people-until only brown people remained.
　　The next two hundred years were needed to create from the brown race the red race-with no morebrowns left on the island.
　　In another two hundred years, from the red race was created the yellow race.
　　 Two hundred years later-the white race had at last been created.
　　On the island of Patmos was nothing but these blond, pale-skinned, cold-blue-eyed devils-savages,nude and shameless; hairy, like animals, they walked on all fours and they lived in trees.
　　Six hundred more years passed before this race of people returned to the mainland, among the naturalblack people.
　　Mr. Elijah Muhammad teaches his followers that within six months' time, through telling lies that setthe black men fighting among each other, this devil race had turned what had been a peaceful heavenon earth into a hell torn by quarreling and fighting.
　　But finally the original black people recognized that their sudden troubles stemmed from this devilwhite race that Mr. Yacub had made. They rounded them up, put them in chains. With little aprons tocover their nakedness, this devil race was marched off across the Arabian desert to the caves ofEurope.
　　The lambskin and the cable-tow used in Masonry today are symbolic of how the nakedness of thewhite man was covered when he was chained and driven across the hot sand.
　　Mr. Elijah Muhammad further teaches that the white devil race in Europe's caves was savage. Theanimals tried to kill him. He climbed trees outside his cave, made clubs, trying to protect his familyfrom the wild beasts outside trying to get in.
　　When this devil race had spent two thousand years in the caves, Allah raised up Moses to civilizethem, and bring them out of the caves. It was written that this devil white race would rule the worldfor six thousand years.
　　The Books of Moses are missing. That's why it is not known that he was in the caves.
　　When Moses arrived, the first of these devils to accept his teachings, the first he led out, were those wecall today the Jews.
　　According to the teachings of this "Yacub's History," when the Bible says "Moses lifted up the serpentin the wilderness," that serpent is symbolic of the devil white race Moses lifted up out of the caves ofEurope, teaching them civilization.
　　It was written that after Yacub's bleached white race had ruled the world for six thousand years-downto our time-the black original race would give birth to one whose wisdom, knowledge, and powerwould be infinite.
　　It was written that some of the original black people should be brought as slaves to North America-to learn to better understand, at first hand, the white devil's true nature, in modem times.
　　Elijah Muhammad teaches that the greatest and mightiest God who appeared on the earth was MasterW. D. Fard. He came from the East to the West, appearing in North America at a time when thehistory and the prophecy that is written was coming to realization, as the non-white people all overthe world began to rise, and as the devil white civilization, condemned by Allah, was, through itsdevilish nature, destroying itself.
　　Master W. D. Fard was half black and half white. He was made in this way to enable him to beaccepted by the black people in America, and to lead them, while at the same time he was enabled tomove undiscovered among the white people, so that he could understand and judge the enemy of theblacks.
　　Master W. D. Fard, in 1931, posing as a seller of silks, met, in Detroit, Michigan, Elijah Muhammad.
　　Master W. D. Fard gave to Elijah Muhammad Allah's message, and Allah's divine guidance, to savethe Lost-Found Nation of Islam, the so-called Negroes, here in "this wilderness of North America."When my sister, Hilda, had finished telling me this "Yacub's History," she left. I don't know if I wasable to open my mouth and say good-bye.
　　I was to learn later that Elijah Muhammad's tales, like this one of "Yacub," infuriated the Muslims ofthe East. While at Mecca, I reminded them that it was their fault, since they themselves hadn't doneenough to make real Islam known in the West. Their silence left a vacuum into which any religiousfaker could step and mislead our people.
Chapter 11 Saved
I did write to Elijah Muhammad. He lived in Chicago at that time, at 6116 South Michigan Avenue. Atleast twenty-five times I must have written that first one-page letter to him, over and over. I wastrying to make it both legible and understandable. I practically couldn't read my handwriting myself;it shames even to remember it. My spelling and my grammar were as bad, if not worse. Anyway, aswell as I could express it, I said I had been told about him by my brothers and sisters, and I apologizedfor my poor letter.
　　Mr. Muhammad sent me a typed reply. It had an all but electrical effect upon me to see the signatureof the "Messenger of Allah." After he welcomed me into the "true knowledge," he gave me somethingto think about. The black prisoner, he said, symbolized white society's crime of keeping black menoppressed and deprived and ignorant, and unable to get decent jobs, turning them into criminals.
　　He told me to have courage. He even enclosed some money for me, a five-dollar bill. Mr. Muhammad sends money all over the country to prison inmates who write to him, probably to this day.
　　Regularly my family wrote to me, "Turn to Allah . . . pray to the East."The hardest test I ever faced in my life was praying. You understand. My comprehending, mybelieving the teachings of Mr. Muhammad had only required my mind's saying to me, "That's right!"or "I never thought of that."But bending my knees to pray-that _act_-well, that took me a week.
　　You know what my life had been. Picking a lock to rob someone's house was the only way my kneeshad ever been bent before.
　　I had to force myself to bend my knees. And waves of shame and embarrassment would force me backup.
　　For evil to bend its knees, admitting its guilt, to implore the forgiveness of God, is the hardest thing inthe world. It's easy for me to see and to say that now. But then, when I was the personification of evil, Iwas going through it. Again, again, I would force myself back down into the praying-to-Allah posture.
　　When finally I was able to make myself stay down-I didn't know what to say to Allah.
　　For the next years, I was the nearest thing to a hermit in the Norfolk Prison Colony. I never have beenmore busy in my life. I still marvel at how swiftly my previous life's thinking pattern slid away fromme, like snow off a roof. It is as though someone else I knew of had lived by hustling and crime. Iwould be startled to catch myself thinking in a remote way of my earlier self as another person.
　　The things I felt, I was pitifully unable to express in the one-page letter that went every day to Mr.
　　Elijah Muhammad. And I wrote at least one more daily letter, replying to one of my brothers andsisters. Every letter I received from them added something to my knowledge of the teachings of Mr.
　　Muhammad. I would sit for long periods and study his photographs.
　　I've never been one for inaction. Everything I've ever felt strongly about, I've done something about. Iguess that's why, unable to do anything else, I soon began writing to people I had known in thehustling world, such as Sammy the Pimp, John Hughes, the gambling-house owner, the thiefJumpsteady, and several dope peddlers. I wrote them all about Allah and Islam and Mr. ElijahMuhammad. I had no idea where most of them lived. I addressed their letters in care of the Harlem orRoxbury bars and clubs where I'd known them.
　　I never got a single reply. The average hustler and criminal was too uneducated to write a letter. Ihave known many slick, sharp-looking hustlers, who would have you think they had an interest inWall Street; privately, they would get someone else to read a letter if they received one. Besides,neither would I have replied to anyone writing me something as wild as "the white man is the devil." What certainly went on the Harlem and Roxbury wires was that Detroit Red was going crazy in stir, orelse he was trying some hype to shake up the warden's office.
　　During the years that I stayed in the Norfolk Prison Colony, never did any official directly sayanything to me about those letters, although, of course, they all passed through the prison censorship.
　　I'm sure, however, they monitored what I wrote to add to the files which every state and federalprison keeps on the conversion of Negro inmates by the teachings of Mr. Elijah Muhammad.
　　But at that time, I felt that the real reason was that the white man knew that he was the devil.
　　Later on, I even wrote to the Mayor of Boston, to the Governor of Massachusetts, and to Harry STruman. They never answered; they probably never even saw my letters. I hand-scratched to themhow the white man's society was responsible for the black man's condition in this wilderness of NorthAmerica.
　　It was because of my letters that I happened to stumble upon starting to acquire some kind of ahomemade education.
　　I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what I wanted to convey in letters that Iwrote, especially those to Mr. Elijah Muhammad. In the street, I had been the most articulate hustlerout there-I had commanded attention when I said something. But now, trying to write simple English,I not only wasn't articulate, I wasn't even functional. How would I sound writing in slang, the way Iwould say it, something such as, "Look, daddy, let me pull your coat about a cat, Elijah Muhammad-"Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something I'vesaid, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to myprison studies.
　　It had really begun back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock ofknowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversation he was in, and I had tried to emulatehim. But every book I picked up had few sentences which didn't contain anywhere from one to nearlyall of the words that might as well have been in Chinese. When I just skipped those words, of course, Ireally ended up with little idea of what the book said. So I had come to the Norfolk Prison Colony stillgoing through only book-reading motions. Pretty soon, I would have quit even these motions, unless Ihad received the motivation that I did.
　　I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary-to study, to learn some words. I waslucky enough to reason also that I should try to improve my penmanship. It was sad. I couldn't evenwrite in a straight line. It was both ideas together that moved me to request a dictionary along withsome tablets and pencils from the Norfolk Prison Colony school.
　　I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary's pages. I'd never realized so manywords existed! I didn't know _which_ words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying.
　　In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that firstpage, down to the punctuation marks.
　　I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, everything I'd written on the tablet.
　　Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting.
　　I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words-immensely proud to realize that not only hadI written so much at one time, but I'd written words that I never knew were in the world. Moreover,with a little effort, I also could remember what many of these words meant. I reviewed the wordswhose meanings I didn't remember. Funny thing, from the dictionary first page right now, that"aardvark" springs to my mind. The dictionary had a picture of it, a long-tailed, long-eared, burrowingAfrican mammal, which lives off termites caught by sticking out its tongue as an anteater does forants.
　　I was so fascinated that I went on-I copied the dictionary's next page. And the same experience camewhen I studied that. With every succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events fromhistory. Actually the dictionary is like a miniature encyclopedia. Finally the dictionary's A section hadfilled a whole tablet-and I went on into the B's. That was the way I started copying what eventuallybecame the entire dictionary. It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to pick uphandwriting speed. Between what I wrote in my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my timein prison I would guess I wrote a million words.
　　I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a bookand read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great dealcan imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison,in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn'thave gotten me out of books with a wedge. Between Mr. Muhammad's teachings, my correspondence,my visitors-usually Ella and Reginald-and my reading of books, months passed without my eventhinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.
　　The Norfolk Prison Colony's library was in the school building. A variety of classes was taught thereby instructors who came from such places as Harvard and Boston universities. The weekly debatesbetween inmate teams were also held in the school building. You would be astonished to know howworked up convict debaters and audiences would get over subjects like "Should Babies Be Fed Milk?"Available on the prison library's shelves were books on just about every general subject. Much of thebig private collection that Parkhurst had willed to the prison was still in crates and boxes in the backof the library-thousands of old books. Some of them looked ancient: covers faded, old-timeparchment-looking binding. Parkhurst, I've mentioned, seemed to have been principally interested inhistory and religion. He had the money and the special interest to have a lot of books that youwouldn't have in general circulation. Any college library would have been lucky to get that collection.
　　 As you can imagine, especially in a prison where there was heavy emphasis on rehabilitation, aninmate was smiled upon if he demonstrated an unusually intense interest in books. There was asizable number of well-read inmates, especially the popular debaters. Some were said by many to bepractically walking encyclopedias. They were almost celebrities. No university would ask any studentto devour literature as I did when this new world opened to me, of being able to read and_understand_.
　　I read more in my room than in the library itself. An inmate who was known to read a lot could checkout more than the permitted maximum number of books. I preferred reading in the total isolation ofmy own room.
　　When I had progressed to really serious reading, every night at about ten P. M. I would be outragedwith the "lights out." It always seemed to catch me right in the middle of something engrossing.
　　Fortunately, right outside my door was a corridor light that cast a glow into my room. The glow wasenough to read by, once my eyes adjusted to it. So when "lights out" came, I would sit on the floorwhere I could continue reading in that glow.
　　At one-hour intervals the night guards paced past every room. Each time I heard the approachingfootsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned sleep. And as soon as the guard passed, I got back out of bedonto the floor area of that light-glow, where I would read for another fifty-eight minutes-until theguard approached again. That went on until three or four every morning. Three or four hours of sleepa night was enough for me. Often in the years in the streets I had slept less than that.
　　 The teachings of Mr. Muhammad stressed how history had been "whitened"-when white men hadwritten history books, the black man simply had been left out. Mr. Muhammad couldn't have saidanything that would have struck me much harder. I had never forgotten how when my class, me andall of those whites, had studied seventh-grade United States history back in Mason, the history of theNegro had been covered in one paragraph, and the teacher had gotten a big laugh with his joke,"Negroes' feet are so big that when they walk, they leave a hole in the ground."This is one reason why Mr. Muhammad's teachings spread so swiftly all over the United States,among _all_ Negroes, whether or not they became followers of Mr. Muhammad. The teachings ringtrue-to every Negro. You can hardly show me a black adult in America-or a white one, for that matter-who knows from the history books anything like the truth about the black man's role. In my own case,once I heard of the "glorious history of the black man," I took special pains to hunt in the library forbooks that would inform me on details about black history.
　　I can remember accurately the very first set of books that really impressed me. I have since bought thatset of books and have it at home for my children to read as they grow up. It's called _Wonders of the World_. It's full of pictures of archaeological finds, statues that depict, usually, non-European people.
　　I found books like Will Durant's _Story of Civilization_. I read H. G. Wells' _Outline of History_.
　　_Souls Of Black Folk_ by W. E. B. Du Bois gave me a glimpse into the black people's history beforethey came to this country. Carter G. Woodson's _Negro History_ opened my eyes about black empiresbefore the black slave was brought to the United States, and the early Negro struggles for freedom.
　　J. A. Rogers' three volumes of _Sex and Race_ told about race-mixing before Christ's time; aboutAesop being a black man who told fables; about Egypt's Pharaohs; about the great Coptic ChristianEmpires; about Ethiopia, the earth's oldest continuous black civilization, as China is the oldestcontinuous civilization.
　　Mr. Muhammad's teaching about how the white man had been created led me to _Findings InGenetics_ by Gregor Mendel. (The dictionary's G section was where I had learned what "genetics"meant. ) I really studied this book by the Austrian monk. Reading it over and over, especially certainsections, helped me to understand that if you started with a black man, a white man could beproduced; but starting with a white man, you never could produce a black man-because the whitegene is recessive. And since no one disputes that there was but one Original Man, the conclusion isclear.
　　During the last year or so, in the _New York Times_, Arnold Toynbee used the word "bleached" indescribing the white man. (His words were: "White (i.e. bleached) human beings of North Europeanorigin. . . .") Toynbee also referred to the European geographic area as only a peninsula of Asia. Hesaid there is no such thing as Europe. And if you look at the globe, you will see for yourself thatAmerica is only an extension of Asia. (But at the same time Toynbee is among those who have helpedto bleach history. He has written that Africa was the only continent that produced no history. Hewon't write that again. Every day now, the truth is coming to light. )I never will forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery's total horror. It made suchan impact upon me that it later became one of my favorite subjects when I became a minister of Mr.
　　Muhammad's. The world's most monstrous crime, the sin and the blood on the white man's hands, arealmost impossible to believe. Books like the one by Frederick Olmstead opened my eyes to the horrorssuffered when the slave was landed in the United States. The European woman, Fannie Kimball, whohad married a Southern white slaveowner, described how human beings were degraded. Of course Iread _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. In fact, I believe that's the only novel I have ever read since I startedserious reading.
　　Parkhurst's collection also contained some bound pamphlets of the Abolitionist Anti-Slavery Societyof New England. I read descriptions of atrocities, saw those illustrations of black slave women tied upand flogged with whips; of black mothers watching their babies being dragged off, never to be seen bytheir mothers again; of dogs after slaves, and of the fugitive slave catchers, evil white men with whipsand clubs and chains and guns. I read about the slave preacher Nat Turner, who put the fear of Godinto the white slavemaster. Nat Turner wasn't going around preaching pie-in-the-sky and "non violent" freedom for the black man. There in Virginia one night in 1831, Nat and seven other slavesstarted out at his master's home and through the night they went from one plantation "big house" tothe next, killing, until by the next morning 57 white people were dead and Nat had about 70 slavesfollowing him. White people, terrified for their lives, fled from their homes, locked themselves up inpublic buildings, hid in the woods, and some even left the state. A small army of soldiers took twomonths to catch and hang Nat Turner. Somewhere I have read where Nat Turner's example is said tohave inspired John Brown to invade Virginia and attack Harper's Ferry nearly thirty years later, withthirteen white men and five Negroes.
　　I read Herodotus, "the father of History," or, rather, I read about him. And I read the histories ofvarious nations, which opened my eyes gradually, then wider and wider, to how the whole world'swhite men had indeed acted like devils, pillaging and raping and bleeding and draining the wholeworld's non-white people. I remember, for instance, books such as Will Durant's story of Orientalcivilization, and Mahatma Gandhi's accounts of the struggle to drive the British out of India.
　　Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the world's black, brown, red, andyellow peoples every variety of the sufferings of exploitation. I saw how since the sixteenth century,the so-called "Christian trader" white man began to ply the seas in his lust for Asian and Africanempires, and plunder, and power. I read, I saw, how the white man never has gone among the nonwhite peoples bearing the Cross in the true manner and spirit of Christ's teachings-meek, humble, andChrist-like.
　　I perceived, as I read, how the collective white man had been actually nothing but a piraticalopportunist who used Faustian machinations to make his own Christianity his initial wedge incriminal conquests. First, always "religiously," he branded "heathen" and "pagan" labels upon ancientnon-white cultures and civilizations. The stage thus set, he then turned upon his non-white victims hisweapons of war.
　　I read how, entering India-half a _billion_ deeply religious brown people-the British white man, by1759, through promises, trickery and manipulations, controlled much of India through Great Britain'sEast India Company. The parasitical British administration kept tentacling out to half of thesubcontinent. In 1857, some of the desperate people of India finally mutinied-and, excepting theAfrican slave trade, nowhere has history recorded any more unnecessary bestial and ruthless humancarnage than the British suppression of the non-white Indian people.
　　Over 115 million African blacks-close to the 1930's population of the United States-were murdered orenslaved during the slave trade. And I read how when the slave market was glutted, the cannibalisticwhite powers of Europe next carved up, as their colonies, the richest areas of the black continent. AndEurope's chancelleries for the next century played a chess game of naked exploitation and power fromCape Horn to Cairo.
　　Ten guards and the warden couldn't have torn me out of those books. Not even Elijah Muhammadcould have been more eloquent than those books were in providing indisputable proof that the collective white man had acted like a devil in virtually every contact he had with the world's collectivenon-white man. I listen today to the radio, and watch television, and read the headlines about thecollective white man's fear and tension concerning China. When the white man professes ignoranceabout why the Chinese hate him so, my mind can't help flashing back to what I read, there in prison,about how the blood forebears of this same white man raped China at a time when China was trustingand helpless. Those original white "Christian traders" sent into China millions of pounds of opium. By1839, so many of the Chinese were addicts that China's desperate government destroyed twentythousand chests of opium. The first Opium War was promptly declared by the white man. Imagine!
　　Declaring _war_ upon someone who objects to being narcotized! The Chinese were severely beaten,with Chinese-invented gunpowder.
　　The Treaty of Nanking made China pay the British white man for the destroyed opium; forced openChina's major ports to British trade; forced China to abandon Hong Kong; fixed China's import tariffsso low that cheap British articles soon flooded in, maiming China's industrial development.
　　After a second Opium War, the Tientsin Treaties legalized the ravaging opium trade, legalized aBritish-French-American control of China's customs. China tried delaying that Treaty's ratification;Peking was looted and burned.
　　"Kill the foreign white devils!" was the 1901 Chinese war cry in the Boxer Rebellion. Losing again, thistime the Chinese were driven from Peking's choicest areas. The vicious, arrogant white man put upthe famous signs, "Chinese and dogs not allowed."Red China after World War II closed its doors to the Western white world. Massive Chineseagricultural, scientific, and industrial efforts are described in a book that _Life_ magazine recentlypublished. Some observers inside Red China have reported that the world never has known such ahate-white campaign as is now going on in this non-white country where, present birth-ratescontinuing, in fifty more years Chinese will be half the earth's population. And it seems that someChinese chickens will soon come home to roost, with China's recent successful nuclear tests.
　　Let us face reality. We can see in the United Nations a new world order being shaped, along colorlines-an alliance among the non-white nations. America's U. N. Ambassador Adlai Stevensoncomplained not long ago that in the United Nations "a skin game" was being played. He was right. Hewas facing reality. A "skin game" _is_ being played. But Ambassador Stevenson sounded like JesseJames accusing the marshal of carrying a gun. Because who in the world's history ever has played aworse "skin game" than the white man?
　　 Mr. Muhammad, to whom I was writing daily, had no idea of what a new world had opened up to methrough my efforts to document his teachings in books.
　　When I discovered philosophy, I tried to touch all the landmarks of philosophical development.
　　 Gradually, I read most of the old philosophers, Occidental and Oriental. The Oriental philosopherswere the ones I came to prefer; finally, my impression was that most Occidental philosophy hadlargely been borrowed from the Oriental thinkers. Socrates, for instance, traveled in Egypt. Somesources even say that Socrates was initiated into some of the Egyptian mysteries. Obviously Socratesgot some of his wisdom among the East's wise men.
　　I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison thatreading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke insideme some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way acollege confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with everyadditional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness thatwas afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me from London,asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books." You will never catch mewith a free fifteen minutes in which I'm not studying something I feel might be able to help the blackman.
　　Yesterday I spoke in London, and both ways on the plane across the Atlantic I was studying adocument about how the United Nations proposes to insure the human rights of the oppressedminorities of the world. The American black man is the world's most shameful case of minorityoppression. What makes the black man think of himself as only an internal United States issue is just acatch-phrase, two words, "civil rights." How is the black man going to get "civil rights" before first hewins his _human_ rights? If the American black man will start thinking about his _human_ rights, andthen start thinking of himself as part of one of the world's great peoples, he will see he has a case forthe United Nations.
　　I can't think of a better case! Four hundred years of black blood and sweat invested here in America,and the white man still has the black man begging for what every immigrant fresh off the ship cantake for granted the minute he walks down the gangplank.
　　But I'm digressing. I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library. Every time Icatch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read-and that's a lot of books these days. If Iweren't out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, justsatisfying my curiosity-because you can hardly mention anything I'm not curious about. I don't thinkanybody ever got more out of going to prison than I did. In fact, prison enabled me to study far moreintensively than I would have if my life had gone differently and I had attended some college. Iimagine that one of the biggest troubles with colleges is there are too many distractions, too muchpanty-raiding, fraternities, and boola-boola and all of that. Where else but in a prison could I haveattacked my ignorance by being able to study intensely sometimes as much as fifteen hours a day?
　　Schopenhauer, Kant, Nietzsche, naturally, I read all of those. I don't respect them; I am just trying toremember some of those whose theories I soaked up in those years. These three, it's said, laid thegroundwork on which the Fascist and Nazi philosophy was built. I don't respect them because itseems to me that most of their time was spent arguing about things that are not really important. They remind me of so many of the Negro "intellectuals," so-called, with whom I have come in contact-theyare always arguing about something useless.
　　Spinoza impressed me for a while when I found out that he was black. A black Spanish Jew. The Jewsexcommunicated him because he advocated a pantheistic doctrine, something like the "allness ofGod," or "God in everything." The Jews read their burial services for Spinoza, meaning that he wasdead as far as they were concerned; his family was run out of Spain, they ended up in Holland, Ithink.
　　I'll tell you something. The whole stream of Western philosophy has now wound up in a cul-de-sac.
　　The white man has perpetrated upon himself, as well as upon the black man, so gigantic a fraud thathe has put himself into a crack. He did it through his elaborate, neurotic necessity to hide the blackman's true role in history.
　　And today the white man is faced head on with what is happening on the Black Continent, Africa.
　　Look at the artifacts being discovered there, that are proving over and over again, how the black manhad great, fine, sensitive civilizations before the white man was out of the caves. Below the Sahara, inthe places where most of America's Negroes' foreparents were kidnapped, there is being unearthedsome of the finest craftsmanship, sculpture and other objects, that has ever been seen by modern man.
　　Some of these things now are on view in such places as New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
　　Gold work of such fine tolerance and workmanship that it has no rival. Ancient objects produced byblack hands. . . refined by those black hands with results that no human hand today can equal.
　　History has been so "whitened" by the white man that even the black professors have known littlemore than the most ignorant black man about the talents and rich civilizations and cultures of theblack man of millenniums ago. I have lectured in Negro colleges and some of these brainwashed blackPh.D.'s, with their suspenders dragging the ground with degrees, have run to the white man'snewspapers calling me a "black fanatic." Why, a lot of them are fifty years behind the times. If I werepresident of one of these black colleges, I'd hock the campus if I had to, to send a bunch of blackstudents off digging in Africa for more, more and more proof of the black race's historical greatness.
　　The white man now is in Africa digging and searching. An African elephant can't stumble withoutfalling on some white man with a shovel. Practically every week, we read about some great new findfrom Africa's lost civilizations. All that's new is white science's attitude. The ancient civilizations of theblack man have been buried on the Black Continent all the time.
　　Here is an example: a British anthropologist named Dr. Louis S. B. Leakey is displaying some fossilbones-a foot, part of a hand, some jaws, and skull fragments. On the basis of these, Dr. Leakey has saidit's time to rewrite completely the history of man's origin.
　　This species of man lived 1,818,036 years before Christ. And these bones were found in Tanganyika. Inthe Black Continent.
　　It's a crime, the lie that has been told to generations of black men and white men both. Little innocent black children, born of parents who believed that their race had no history. Little black childrenseeing, before they could talk, that their parents considered themselves inferior. Innocent blackchildren growing up, living out their lives, dying of old age-and all of their lives ashamed of beingblack. But the truth is pouring out of the bag now.
　　Two other areas of experience which have been extremely formative in my life since prison were firstopened to me in the Norfolk Prison Colony. For one thing, I had my first experiences in opening theeyes of my brainwashed black brethren to some truths about the black race. And, the other: when Ihad read enough to know something, I began to enter the Prison Colony's weekly debating program-my baptism into public speaking.
　　I have to admit a sad, shameful fact. I had so loved being around the white man that in prison I reallydisliked how Negro convicts stuck together so much. But when Mr. Muhammad's teachings reversedmy attitude toward my black brothers, in my guilt and shame I began to catch every chance I could torecruit for Mr. Muhammad.
　　You have to be careful, very careful, introducing the truth to the black man who has never previouslyheard the truth about himself, his own kind, and the white man. My brother Reginald had told methat all Muslims experienced this in their recruiting for Mr. Muhammad. The black brother is sobrainwashed that he may even be repelled when he first hears the truth. Reginald advised that thetruth had to be dropped only a little bit at a time. And you had to wait a while to let it sink in beforeadvancing the next step.
　　I began first telling my black brother inmates about the glorious history of the black man-things theynever had dreamed. I told them the horrible slavery-trade truths that they never knew.
　　I would watch their faces when I told them about that, because the white man had completely erasedthe slaves' past, a Negro in America can never know his true family name, or even what tribe he wasdescended from: the Mandingos, the Wolof, the Serer, the Fula, the Fanti, the Ashanti, or others. I toldthem that some slaves brought from Africa spoke Arabic, and were Islamic in their religion. A lot ofthese black convicts still wouldn't believe it unless they could see that a white man had said it. So,often, I would read to these brothers selected passages from white men's books. I'd explain to themthat the real truth was known to some white men, the scholars; but there had been a conspiracy downthrough the generations to keep the truth from black men.
　　I would keep close watch on how each one reacted. I always had to be careful. I never knew whensome brainwashed black imp, some dyed-in-the-wool Uncle Tom, would nod at me and then gorunning to tell the white man. When one was ripe-and I could tell-then away from the rest, I'd drop iton him, what Mr. Muhammad taught: "The white man is the devil."That would shock many of them-until they started thinking about it.
　　This is probably as big a single worry as the American prison system has today-the way the Muslim teachings, circulated among all Negroes in the country, are converting new Muslims among black menin prison, and black men are in prison in far greater numbers than their proportion in the population.
　　The reason is that among all Negroes the black convict is the most perfectly preconditioned to hear thewords, "the white man is the devil."You tell that to any Negro. Except for those relatively few "integration"-mad so-called "intellectuals,"and those black men who are otherwise fat, happy, and deaf, dumb, and blinded, with their crumbsfrom the white man's rich table, you have struck a nerve center in the American black man. He maytake a day to react, a month, a year; he may never respond, openly; but of one thing you can be sure-when he thinks about his own life, he is going to see where, to him, personally, the white man sure hasacted like a devil.
　　And, as I say, above all Negroes, the black prisoner. Here is a black man caged behind bars, probablyfor years, put there by the white man. Usually the convict comes from among those bottom-of-the-pileNegroes, the Negroes who through their entire lives have been kicked about, treated like children-Negroes who never have met one white man who didn't either take something from them or dosomething to them.
　　You let this caged-up black man start thinking, the same way I did when I first heard ElijahMuhammad's teachings: let him start thinking how, with better breaks when he was young andambitious he might have been a lawyer, a doctor, a scientist, anything. You let this caged-up blackman start realizing, as I did, how from the first landing of the first slave ship, the millions of black menin America have been like sheep in a den of wolves. That's why black prisoners become Muslims sofast when Elijah Muhammad's teachings filter into their cages by way of other Muslim convicts. "Thewhite man is the devil" is a perfect echo of that black convict's lifelong experience.
　　I've told how debating was a weekly event there at the Norfolk Prison Colony. My reading had mymind like steam under pressure. Some way, I had to start telling the white man about himself to hisface. I decided I could do this by putting my name down to debate.
　　Standing up and speaking before an audience was a thing that throughout my previous life neverwould have crossed my mind. Out there in the streets, hustling, pushing dope, and robbing, I couldhave had the dreams from a pound of hashish and I'd never have dreamed anything so wild as thatone day I would speak in coliseums and arenas, at the greatest American universities, and on radioand television programs, not to mention speaking all over Egypt and Africa and in England.
　　But I will tell you that, right there, in the prison, debating, speaking to a crowd, was as exhilarating tome as the discovery of knowledge through reading had been. Standing up there, the faces looking upat me, things in my head coming out of my mouth, while my brain searched for the next best thing tofollow what I was saying, and if I could sway them to my side by handling it right, then I had won thedebate-once my feet got wet, I was gone on debating. Whichever side of the selected subject wasassigned to me, I'd track down and study everything I could find on it. I'd put myself in my opponent's place and decide how I'd try to win if I had the other side; and then I'd figure a way toknock down those points. And if there was any way in the world, I'd work into my speech thedevilishness of the white man.
　　"Compulsory Military Training-Or None?" That's one good chance I got unexpectedly, I remember.
　　My opponent flailed the air about the Ethiopians throwing rocks and spears at Italian airplanes,"proving" that compulsory military training was needed. I said the Ethiopians' black flesh had beenspattered against trees by bombs the Pope in Rome had blessed, and the Ethiopians would havethrown even their bare bodies at the airplanes because they had seen that they were fighting the devilincarnate.
　　They yelled "foul," that I'd made the subject a race issue. I said it wasn't race, it was a historical fact,that they ought to go and read Pierre van Paassen's _Days of Our Years_, and something notsurprising to me, that book, right after the debate, disappeared from the prison library. It was rightthere in prison that I made up my mind to devote the rest of my life to telling the white man abouthimself-or die. In a debate about whether or not Homer had ever existed, I threw into those whitefaces the theory that Homer only symbolized how white Europeans kidnapped black Africans, thenblinded them so that they could never get back to their own people. (Homer and Omar and Moor, yousee, are related terms; it's like saying Peter, Pedro, and petra, all three of which mean rock. ) Theseblinded Moors the Europeans taught to sing about the Europeans' glorious accomplishments. I made itclear that was the devilish white man's idea of kicks. Aesop's _Fables_-another case in point. "Aesop"was only the Greek name for an Ethiopian.
　　Another hot debate I remember I was in had to do with the identity of Shakespeare. No color wasinvolved there; I just got intrigued over the Shakespearean dilemma. The King James translation of theBible is considered the greatest piece of literature in English. Its language supposedly represents theultimate in using the King's English. Well, Shakespeare's language and the Bible's language are oneand the same. They say that from 1604 to 1611, King James got poets to translate, to write the Bible.
　　Well, if Shakespeare existed, he was then the top poet around. But Shakespeare is nowhere reportedconnected with the Bible. If he existed, why didn't King James use him? And if he did use him, why isit one of the world's best kept secrets?
　　I know that many say that Francis Bacon was Shakespeare. If that is true, why would Bacon have keptit secret? Bacon wasn't royalty, when royalty sometimes used the _nom de plume_ because it was"improper" for royalty to be artistic or theatrical. What would Bacon have had to lose? Bacon, in fact,would have had everything to gain.
　　In the prison debates I argued for the theory that King James himself was the real poet who used the_nom de plume_ Shakespeare. King James was brilliant. He was the greatest king who ever sat on theBritish throne. Who else among royalty, in his time, would have had the giant talent to writeShakespeare's works? It was he who poetically "fixed" the Bible-which in itself and its present KingJames version has enslaved the world.
　　 When my brother Reginald visited, I would talk to him about new evidence I found to document theMuslim teachings. In either volume 43 or 44 of The Harvard Classics, I read Milton's _Paradise Lost_.
　　The devil, kicked out of Paradise, was trying to regain possession. He was using the forces of Europe,personified by the Popes, Charlemagne, Richard the Lionhearted, and other knights. I interpreted thisto show that the Europeans were motivated and led by the devil, or the personification of the devil. SoMilton and Mr. Elijah Muhammad were actually saying the same thing.
　　I couldn't believe it when Reginald began to speak ill of Elijah Muhammad. I can't specify the exactthings he said. They were more in the nature of implications against Mr. Muhammad-the pitch ofReginald's voice, or the way that Reginald looked, rather than what he said.
　　It caught me totally unprepared. It threw me into a state of confusion. My blood brother, Reginald, inwhom I had so much confidence, for whom I had so much respect, the one who had introduced me tothe Nation of Islam. I couldn't believe it! And now Islam meant more to me than anything I ever hadknown in my life. Islam and Mr. Elijah Muhammad had changed my whole world.
　　Reginald, I learned, had been suspended from the Nation of Islam by Elijah Muhammad. He had notpracticed moral restraint. After he had learned the truth, and had accepted the truth, and the Muslimlaws, Reginald was still carrying on improper relations with the then secretary of the New YorkTemple. Some other Muslim who learned of it had made charges against Reginald to Mr. Muhammadin Chicago, and Mr. Muhammad had suspended Reginald.
　　When Reginald left, I was in torment. That night, finally, I wrote to Mr. Muhammad, trying to defendmy brother, appealing for him. I told him what Reginald was to me, what my brother meant to me.
　　I put the letter into the box for the prison censor. Then all the rest of that night, I prayed to Allah. Idon't think anyone ever prayed more sincerely to Allah. I prayed for some kind of relief from myconfusion.
　　It was the next night, as I lay on my bed, I suddenly, with a start, became aware of a man sitting besideme in my chair. He had on a dark suit. I remember. I could see him as plainly as I see anyone I look at.
　　He wasn't black, and he wasn't white. He was light-brown-skinned, an Asiatic cast of countenance,and he had oily black hair.
　　I looked right into his face.
　　I didn't get frightened. I knew I wasn't dreaming. I couldn't move, I didn't speak, and he didn't. Icouldn't place him racially-other than that I knew he was a non-European. I had no idea whatsoeverwho he was. He just sat there. Then, suddenly as he had come, he was gone.
　　Soon, Mr. Muhammad sent me a reply about Reginald. He wrote, "If you once believed in the truth,  and now you are beginning to doubt the truth, you didn't believe the truth in the first place. Whatcould make you doubt the truth other than your own weak self?"That struck me. Reginald was not leading the disciplined life of a Muslim. And I knew that ElijahMuhammad was right, and my blood brother was wrong. Because right is right, and wrong is wrong.
　　Little did I then realize the day would come when Elijah Muhammad would be accused by his ownsons as being guilty of the same acts of immorality that he judged Reginald and so many others for.
　　But at that time, all of the doubt and confusion in my mind was removed. All of the influence that mybrother had wielded over me was broken. From that day on, as far as I am concerned, everything thatmy brother Reginald has done is wrong.
　　But Reginald kept visiting me. When he had been a Muslim, he had been immaculate in his attire. Butnow, he wore things like a T-shirt, shabby-looking trousers, and sneakers. I could see him on the waydown. When he spoke, I heard him coldly. But I would listen. He was my blood brother.
　　Gradually, I saw the chastisement of Allah-what Christians would call "the curse"-come uponReginald. Elijah Muhammad said that Allah was chastising Reginald-and that anyone who challengedElijah Muhammad would be chastened by Allah. In Islam we were taught that as long as one didn'tknow the truth, he lived in darkness. But once the truth was accepted, and recognized, he lived inlight, and whoever would then go against it would be punished by Allah.
　　Mr. Muhammad taught that the five-pointed star stands for justice, and also for the five senses of man.
　　We were taught that Allah executes justice by working upon the five senses of those who rebel againstHis Messenger, or against His truth. We were taught that this was Allah's way of letting Muslimsknow His sufficiency to defend His Messenger against any and all opposition, as long as theMessenger himself didn't deviate from the path of truth. We were taught that Allah turned the mindsof any defectors into a turmoil. I thought truly that it was Allah doing this to my brother.
　　One letter, I think from my brother Philbert, told me that Reginald was with them in Detroit. I heardno more about Reginald until one day, weeks later, Ella visited me; she told me that Reginald was ather home in Roxbury, sleeping. Ella said she had heard a knock, she had gone to the door, and therewas Reginald, looking terrible. Ella said she had asked, "Where did you come from?" And Reginaldhad told her he came from Detroit. She said she asked him, "How did you get here?" And he had toldher, "I walked."I believed he _had_ walked. I believed in Elijah Muhammad, and he had convinced us that Allah'schastisement upon Reginald's mind had taken away Reginald's ability to gauge distance and time.
　　There is a dimension of time with which we are not familiar here in the West. Elijah Muhammad saidthat under Allah's chastisement, the five senses of a man can be so deranged by those whose mentalpowers are greater than his that in five minutes his hair can turn snow white. Or he will walk ninehundred miles as he might walk five blocks.
　　 In prison, since I had become a Muslim, I had grown a beard. When Reginald visited me, he nervouslymoved about in his chair; he told me that each hair on my beard was a snake. Everywhere, he sawsnakes.
　　He next began to believe that he was the "Messenger of Allah." Reginald went around in the streets ofRoxbury, Ella reported to me, telling people that he had some divine power. He graduated from thisto saying that he was Allah.
　　He finally began saying he was _greater_ than Allah.
　　Authorities picked up Reginald, and he was put into an institution. They couldn't find what waswrong. They had no way to understand Allah's chastisement. Reginald was released. Then he waspicked up again, and was put into another institution.
　　Reginald is in an institution now. I know where, but I won't say. I would not want to cause him anymore trouble than he has already had.
　　I believe, today, that it was written, it was meant, for Reginald to be used for one purpose only: as abait, as a minnow to reach into the ocean of blackness where I was, to save me.
　　I cannot understand it any other way.
　　After Elijah Muhammad himself was later accused as a very immoral man, I came to believe that itwasn't a divine chastisement upon Reginald, but the pain he felt when his own family totally rejectedhim for Elijah Muhammad, and this hurt made Reginald turn insanely upon Elijah Muhammad.
　　It's impossible to dream, or to see, or to have a vision of someone whom you never have seen before-and to see him exactly as he is. To see someone, and to see him exactly as he looks, is to have a prevision.
　　I would later come to believe that my pre-vision was of Master W. D. Fard, the Messiah, the onewhom Elijah Muhammad said had appointed him-Elijah Muhammad-as His Last Messenger to theblack people of North America.
　　 My last year in prison was spent back in the Charlestown Prison. Even among the white inmates, theword had filtered around. Some of those brainwashed black convicts talked too much. And I knowthat the censors had reported on my mail. The Norfolk Prison Colony officials had become upset. Theyused as a reason for my transfer that I refused to take some kind of shots, an inoculation or something.
　　The only thing that worried me was that I hadn't much time left before I would be eligible for parole-board consideration. But I reasoned that they might look at my representing and spreading Islam in another way: instead of keeping me in they might want to get me out.
　　I had come to prison with 20/20 vision. But when I got sent back to Charlestown, I had read so muchby the lights-out glow in my room at the Norfolk Prison Colony that I had astigmatism and the firstpair of the eyeglasses that I have worn ever since.
　　I had less maneuverability back in the much stricter Charles-town Prison. But I found that a lot ofNegroes attended a Bible class, and I went there.
　　Conducting the class was a tall, blond, blue-eyed (a perfect "devil") Harvard Seminary student. Helectured, and then he started in a question-and-answer session. I don't know which of us had read theBible more, he or I, but I had to give him credit; he really was heavy on his religion. I puzzled andpuzzled for a way to upset him, and to give those Negroes present something to think and talk aboutand circulate.
　　Finally, I put up my hand; he nodded. He had talked about Paul.
　　I stood up and asked, "What color was Paul?" And I kept talking, with pauses, "He had to be black. . .
　　because he was a Hebrew. . . and the original Hebrews were black. . . weren't they?"He had started flushing red. You know the way white people do. He said "Yes."I wasn't through yet. "What color was Jesus. . . he was Hebrew, too. . . wasn't he?"Both the Negro and the white convicts had sat bolt upright. I don't care how tough the convict, be hebrainwashed black Christian, or a "devil" white Christian, neither of them is ready to hear anybodysaying Jesus wasn't white. The instructor walked around. He shouldn't have felt bad. In all of the yearssince, I never have met any intelligent white man who would try to insist that Jesus was white. Howcould they? He said, "Jesus was brown."I let him get away with that compromise.
　　Exactly as I had known it would, almost overnight the Charlestown convicts, black and white, beganbuzzing with the story. Wherever I went, I could feel the nodding. And anytime I got a chance toexchange words with a black brother in stripes, I'd say, "My man! You ever heard about somebodynamed Mr. Elijah Muhammad?"
Chapter 12 Savior
During the spring of nineteen fifty-two I joyously wrote Elijah Muhammad and my family that the Massachusetts State Parole Board had voted that I should be released. But still a few months weretaken up with the red tape delay of paper work that went back and forth, arranging for my parolerelease in the custody of my oldest brother, Wilfred, in Detroit, who now managed a furniture store.
　　Wilfred got the Jew who owned the store to sign a promise that upon release I would be givenimmediate employment.
　　By the prison system wire, I heard that Shorty also was up for parole. But Shorty was having troublegetting some reputable person to sign for him. (Later, I found out that in prison Shorty had studiedmusical composition. He had even progressed to writing some pieces; one of them I know he named"The Bastille Concerto. ")My going to Detroit instead of back to Harlem or Boston was influenced by my family's feelingexpressed in their letters. Especially my sister Hilda had stressed to me that although I felt Iunderstood Elijah Muhammad's teachings, I had much to learn, and I ought to come to Detroit andbecome a member of a temple of practicing Muslims.
　　It was in August when they gave me a lecture, a cheap Li'l Abner suit, and a small amount of money,and I walked out of the gate. I never looked back, but that doesn't make me any different from amillion inmates who have left a prison behind them.
　　The first stop I made was at a Turkish bath. I got some of that physical feeling of prison-taint steamedoff me. Ella, with whom I stayed only overnight, had also agreed that it would be best for me to startagain in Detroit. The police in a new city wouldn't have it in for me; that was Ella's consideration-notthe Muslims, for whom Ella had no use. Both Hilda and Reginald had tried to work on Ella. But Ella,with her strong will, didn't go for it at all. She told me that she felt anyone could be whatever hewanted to be, Holy Roller, Seventh Day Adventist, or whatever it was, but she wasn't going to becomeany Muslim.
　　Hilda, the next morning, gave me some money to put in my pocket. Before I left, I went out andbought three things I remember well. I bought a better-looking pair of eyeglasses than the pair theprison had issued to me; and I bought a suitcase and a wrist watch.
　　I have thought, since, that without fully knowing it, I was preparing for what my life was about tobecome. Because those are three things I've used more than anything else. My eyeglasses correct theastigmatism that I got from all the reading in prison. I travel so much now that my wife keepsalternate suitcases packed so that, when necessary, I can just grab one. And you won't find anybodymore time-conscious than I am. I live by my watch, keeping appointments. Even when I'm using mycar, I drive by my watch, not my speedometer. Time is more important to me than distance.
　　I caught a bus to Detroit. The furniture store that my brother Wilfred managed was right in the blackghetto of Detroit; I'd better not name the store, if I'm going to tell the way they robbed Negroes.
　　Wilfred introduced me to the Jews who owned the store. And, as agreed, I was put to work, as asalesman.
　　 "Nothing Down" advertisements drew poor Negroes into that store like flypaper. It was a shame, theway they paid three and four times what the furniture had cost, because they could get credit fromthose Jews. It was the same kind of cheap, gaudy-looking junk that you can see in any of the blackghetto furniture stores today. Fabrics were stapled on the sofas. Imitation "leopard skin" bedspreads,"tiger skin" rugs, such stuff as that. I would see clumsy, work-hardened, calloused hands scrawlingand scratching signatures on the contract, agreeing to highway-robbery interest rates in the fine printthat never was read.
　　I was seeing in real life the same point made in a joke that during the 1964 Presidential campaign _Jet_magazine reported that Senator Barry Goldwater had told somewhere. It was that a white man, aNegro, and a Jew were given one wish each. The white man asked for securities; the Negro asked for alot of money; the Jew asked for some imitation jewelry "and that colored boy's address."In all my years in the streets, I'd been looking at the exploitation that for the first time I really saw andunderstood. Now I watched brothers entwining themselves in the economic clutches of the white manwho went home every night with another bag of the money drained out of the ghetto. I saw that themoney, instead of helping the black man, was going to help enrich these white merchants, whousually lived in an "exclusive" area where a black man had better not get caught unless he workedthere for somebody white.
　　Wilfred invited me to share his home, and gratefully I accepted. The warmth of a home and a familywas a healing change from the prison cage for me. It would deeply move almost any newly freedconvict, I think. But especially this Muslim home's atmosphere sent me often to my knees to praiseAllah. My family's letters while I was in prison had included a description of the Muslim homeroutine, but to truly appreciate it, one had to be a part of the routine. Each act, and the significance ofthat act, was gently, patiently explained to me by my brother Wilfred.
　　There was none of the morning confusion that exists in most homes. Wilfred, the father, the familyprotector and provider, was the first to rise. "The father prepares the way for his family," he said. He,then I, performed the morning ablutions. Next came Wilfred's wife, Ruth, and then their children, sothat orderliness prevailed in the use of the bathroom.
　　"In the name of Allah, I perform the ablution," the Muslim said aloud before washing first the righthand, then the left hand. The teeth were thoroughly brushed, followed by three rinsings of the mouth.
　　The nostrils were also rinsed out thrice. A shower then completed the whole body's purification inreadiness for prayer.
　　Each family member, even children upon meeting each other for that new day's first time, greetedsoftly and pleasantly, "As-Salaam-Alaikum" (the Arabic for "Peace be unto you"). "Wa-Alaikum-Salaam" ("and unto you be peace") was the other's reply. Over and over again, the Muslim said in hisown mind, "Allahu-Akbar, Allahu-Akbar" ("Allah is the greatest").
　　 The prayer rug was spread by Wilfred while the rest of the family purified themselves. It wasexplained to me that a Muslim family prayed with the sun near the horizon. If that time was missed,the prayer had to be deferred until the sun was beyond the horizon. "Muslims are not sun-worshipers.
　　We pray facing the East to be in unity with the rest of our 725 million brothers and sisters in the entireMuslim world."All the family, in robes, lined up facing East. In unison, we stepped from our slippers to stand on theprayer rug.
　　Today, I say with my family in the Arabic tongue the prayer which I first learned in English: "Iperform the morning prayer to Allah, the Most High, Allah is the greatest. Glory to Thee Oh Allah,Thine is the praise, Blessed is Thy Name, and Exalted is Thy Majesty. I bear witness that nothingdeserves to be served or worshiped besides Thee."No solid food, only juice and coffee, was taken for our breakfasts. Wilfred and I went off to work.
　　There, at noon and again at around three in the afternoon, unnoticed by others in the furniture store,we would rinse our hands, faces and mouths, and softly meditate.
　　Muslim children did likewise at school, and Muslim wives and mothers interrupted their chores tojoin the world's 725 million Muslims in communicating with God.
　　 Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays were the meeting days of the relatively small Detroit TempleNumber One. Near the temple, which actually was a storefront, were three hog-slaughtering pens. Thesquealing of hogs being slaughtered filtered into our Wednesday and Friday meetings. I'm describingthe condition that we Muslims were in back in the early 1950's.
　　The address of Temple Number One was 1470 Frederick Street, I think. The first Temple to be formed,back in 1931, by Master W. D. Fard, was formed in Detroit, Michigan. I never had seen any Christian-believing Negroes conduct themselves like the Muslims, the individuals and the families alike. Themen were quietly, tastefully dressed. The women wore ankle-length gowns, no makeup, and scarvescovered their heads. The neat children were mannerly not only to adults but to other children as well.
　　I had never dreamed of anything like that atmosphere among black people who had learned to beproud they were black, who had learned to love other black people instead of being jealous andsuspicious. I thrilled to how we Muslim men used both hands to grasp a black brother's both hands,voicing and smiling our happiness to meet him again. The Muslim sisters, both married and single,were given an honor and respect that I'd never seen black men give to their women, and it feltwonderful to me. The salutations which we all exchanged were warm, filled with mutual respect anddignity: "Brother". . . "Sister". . . "Ma'am". . . "Sir." Even children speaking to other children used theseterms. Beautiful!
　　 Lemuel Hassan then was the Minister at Temple Number One. "As-Salaikum," he greeted us. "Wa-Salaikum," we returned. Minister Lemuel stood before us, near a blackboard. The blackboard hadfixed upon it in permanent paint, on one side, the United States flag and under it the words "Slavery,Suffering and Death," then the word "Christianity" alongside the sign of the Cross. Beneath the Crosswas a painting of a black man hanged from a tree. On the other side was painted what we were taughtwas the Muslim flag, the crescent and star on a red background with the words "Islam: Freedom,Justice, Equality," and beneath that "Which One Will Survive the War of Armageddon?"For more than an hour, Minister Lemuel lectured about Elijah Muhammad's teachings. I sat raptlyabsorbing Minister Lemuel's every syllable and gesture. Frequently, he graphically illustrated pointsby chalking key words or phrases on the blackboard.
　　I thought it was outrageous that our small temple still had some empty seats. I complained to mybrother Wilfred that there should be no empty seats, with the surrounding streets full of ourbrainwashed black brothers and sisters, drinking, cursing, fighting, dancing, carousing, and usingdope-the very things that Mr. Muhammad taught were helping the black man to stay under the heel ofthe white man here in America.
　　From what I could gather, the recruitment attitude at the temple seemed to me to amount to a self-defeating waiting view . . . an assumption that Allah would bring us more Muslims. I felt that Allahwould be more inclined to help those who helped themselves. I had lived for years in ghetto streets; Iknew the Negroes in those streets. Harlem or Detroit were no different. I said I disagreed, that Ithought we should go out into the streets and get more Muslims into the fold. All of my life, as youknow, I had been an activist, I had been impatient. My brother Wilfred counseled me to keep patience.
　　And for me to be patient was made easier by the fact that I could anticipate soon seeing and perhapsmeeting the man who was called "The Messenger," Elijah Muhammad himself.
　　Today, I have appointments with world-famous personages, including some heads of nations. But Ilooked forward to the Sunday before Labor Day in 1952 with an eagerness never since duplicated.
　　Detroit Temple Number One Muslims were going in a motor caravan-I think about ten automobiles-tovisit Chicago Temple Number Two, to hear Elijah Muhammad.
　　Not since childhood had I been so excited as when we drove in Wilfred's car. At great Muslim ralliessince then I have seen, and heard, and felt ten thousand black people applauding and cheering. But onthat Sunday afternoon when our two little temples assembled, perhaps only two hundred Muslims,the Chicagoans welcoming and greeting us Detroiters, I experienced tinglings up my spine as I'venever had since.
　　I was totally unprepared for the Messenger Elijah Muhammad's physical impact upon my emotions.
　　From the rear of Temple Number Two, he came toward the platform. The small, sensitive, gentle,brown face that I had studied in photographs, until I had dreamed about it, was fixed straight aheadas the Messenger strode, encircled by the marching, strapping Fruit of Islam guards. The Messenger,compared to them, seemed fragile, almost tiny. He and the Fruit of Islam were dressed in dark suits, white shirts, and bow ties. The Messenger wore a gold-embroidered fez.
　　I stared at the great man who had taken the time to write to me when I was a convict whom he knewnothing about. He was the man whom I had been told had spent years of his life in suffering andsacrifice to lead us, the black people, because he loved us so much. And then, hearing his voice, I satleaning forward, riveted upon his words. (I try to reconstruct what Elijah Muhammad said fromhaving since heard him speak hundreds of times.)"I have not stopped one day for the past twenty-one years. I have been standing, preaching to youthroughout those past twenty-one years, while I was free, and even while I was in bondage. I spentthree and one-half years in the federal penitentiary, and also over a year in the city jail for teachingthis truth. I was also deprived of a father's love for his family for seven long years while I was runningfrom hypocrites and other enemies of this word and revelation of God-which will give life to you, andput you on the same level with all other civilized and independent nations and peoples of this planetearth. . . ."Elijah Muhammad spoke of how in this wilderness of North America, for centuries the "blue-eyeddevil white man" had brainwashed the "so-called Negro." He told us how, as one result, the black manin America was "mentally, morally and spiritually dead." Elijah Muhammad spoke of how the blackman was Original Man, who had been kidnapped from his homeland and stripped of his language, hisculture, his family structure, his family name, until the black man in America did not even realize whohe was.
　　He told us, and showed us, how his teachings of the true knowledge of ourselves would lift up theblack man from the bottom of the white man's society and place the black man where he had begun, atthe top of civilization.
　　Concluding, pausing for breath, he called my name.
　　It was like an electrical shock. Not looking at me directly, he asked me to stand.
　　He told them that I was just out of prison. He said how "strong" I had been while in prison. "Everyday," he said, "for years, Brother Malcolm has written a letter from prison to me. And I have written tohim as often as I could."Standing there, feeling the eyes of the two hundred Muslims upon me, I heard him make a parableabout me.
　　When God bragged about how faithful Job was, said Elijah Muhammad, the devil said only God'shedge around Job kept Job so faithful. "Remove that protective hedge," the devil told God, "and I willmake Job curse you to your face."The devil could claim that, hedged in prison, I had just used Islam, Mr. Muhammad said. But the devil would say that now, out of prison, I would return to my drinking, smoking, dope, and life of crime.
　　"Well, now, our good brother Malcolm's hedge is removed and we will see how he does," Mr.
　　Muhammad said. "I believe that he is going to remain faithful."And Allah blessed me to remain true, firm and strong in my faith in Islam, despite many severe trialsto my faith. And even when events produced a crisis between Elijah Muhammad and me, I told him atthe beginning of the crisis, with all the sincerity I had in me, that I still believed in him more stronglythan he believed in himself.
　　Mr. Muhammad and I are not together today only because of envy and jealousy. I had more faith inElijah Muhammad than I could ever have in any other man upon this earth.
　　You will remember my having said that, when I was in prison, Mr. Muhammad would be my brotherWilfred's house guest whenever he visited Detroit Temple Number One. Every Muslim said thatnever could you do as much for Mr. Muhammad as he would do for you in return. That Sunday, afterthe meeting, he invited our entire family group and Minister Lemuel Hassan to be his guests fordinner that evening, at his new home.
　　Mr. Muhammad said that his children and his followers had insisted that he move into this larger,better eighteen-room house in Chicago at 4847 Woodlawn Avenue. They had just moved in that week,I believe. When we arrived, Mr. Muhammad showed us where he had just been painting. I had torestrain my impulse to run and bring a chair for the Messenger of Allah. Instead, as I had heard hewould do, he was worrying about my comfort.
　　We had hoped to hear his wisdom during the dinner, but instead he encouraged us to talk. I satthinking of how our Detroit Temple more or less just sat and awaited Allah to bring converts-and,beyond that, of the millions of black people all over America, who never had heard of the teachingsthat could stir and wake and resurrect the black man. . . and there at Mr. Muhammad's table, I foundmy tongue. I have always been one to speak my mind.
　　During a conversational lull, I asked Mr. Muhammad how many Muslims were supposed to be in ourTemple Number One in Detroit.
　　He said, "There are supposed to be thousands.""Yes, sir," I said. "Sir, what is your opinion of the best way of getting thousands there?""Go after the young people," he said. "Once you get them, the older ones will follow through shame."I made up my mind that we were going to follow that advice.
　　Back in Detroit, I talked with my brother Wilfred. I offered my services to our Temple's Minister, Lemuel Hassan. He shared my determination that we should apply Mr. Muhammad's formula in arecruitment drive. Beginning that day, every evening, straight from work at the furniture store, I wentdoing what we Muslims later came to call "fishing." I knew the thinking and the language of ghettostreets: "My man, let me pull your coat to something-"My application had, of course, been made and during this time I received from Chicago my "X." TheMuslim's "X" symbolized the true African family name that he never could know. For me, my "X"replaced the white slavemaster name of "Little" which some blue-eyed devil named Little hadimposed upon my paternal forebears. The receipt of my "X" meant that forever after in the nation ofIslam, I would be known as Malcolm X. Mr. Muhammad taught that we would keep this "X" until GodHimself returned and gave us a Holy Name from His own mouth.
　　Recruit as I would in the Detroit ghetto bars, in the poolrooms, and on the corners, I found my poor,ignorant, brainwashed black brothers mostly too deaf, dumb, and blind, mentally, morally, andspiritually, to respond. It angered me that only now and then would one display even a little curiosityabout the teachings that would resurrect the black man.
　　These few I would almost beg to visit Temple Number One at our next meeting. But then not half ofthose who agreed to come would actually show up.
　　Gradually, enough were made interested, though, that each month, a few more automobileslengthened our caravans to Temple Two in Chicago. But even after seeing and hearing ElijahMuhammad in person, only a few of the interested visitors would apply by formal letter to Mr.
　　Muhammad to be accepted for Nation of Islam membership.
　　With a few months of plugging away, however, our storefront Temple One about tripled itsmembership. And that so deeply pleased Mr. Muhammad that he paid us the honor of a personalvisit.
　　Mr. Muhammad gave me warm praise when Minister Lemuel Hassan told how hard I had labored inthe cause of Islam.
　　Our caravans grew. I remember with what pride we led twenty-five automobiles to Chicago. Andeach time we went, we were honored with dinner at the home of Elijah Muhammad. He wasinterested in my potential, I could tell from things he would say.
　　And I worshiped him.
　　In early 1953, 1 left the furniture store. I earned a little better weekly pay check working at the GarWood factory in Detroit, where big garbage truck bodies were made. I cleaned up behind the welderseach time they finished another truck body.
　　Mr. Muhammad was saying at his dining table by this time that one of his worst needs was more young men willing to work as hard as they would have to in order to bear the responsibilities of hisministers. He was saying that the teachings should be spreading further than they had, and templesneeded to be established in other cities.
　　It simply had never occurred to me that / might be a minister. I had never felt remotely qualified todirectly represent Mr. Muhammad. If someone had asked me about becoming a minister, I wouldhave been astonished, and told them I was happy and willing to serve Mr. Muhammad in the lowliestcapacity.
　　I don't know if Mr. Muhammad suggested it or if our Temple One Minister Lemuel Hassan on hisown decision encouraged me to address our assembled brothers and sisters. I know that I testified towhat Mr. Muhammad's teachings had done for me: "If I told you the life I have lived, you would findit hard to believe me. . . . When I say something about the white man, I am not talking about someoneI don't know. . . ."Soon after that, Minister Lemuel Hassan urged me to address the brothers and sisters with anextemporaneous lecture. I was uncertain, and hesitant-but at least I had debated in prison, and I triedmy best. (Of course, I can't remember exactly what I said, but I do know that in my beginning effortsmy favorite subject was Christianity and the horrors of slavery, where I felt well-equipped from somuch reading in prison. )"My brothers and sisters, our white slavemaster's Christian religion has taught us black people here inthe wilderness of North America that we will sprout wings when we die and fly up into the sky whereGod will have for us a special place called heaven. This is white man's Christian religion used to_brainwash_ us black people! We have _accepted_ it! We have _embraced_ it! We have _believed_ it!
　　We have _practiced_ it! And while we are doing all of that, for himself, this blue-eyed devil has_twisted_ his Christianity, to keep his _foot_ on our backs. . . to keep our eyes fixed on the pie in thesky and heaven in the hereafter. . . while _he_ enjoys _his_ heaven right _here_ . . . on _this earth_ . . .
　　in _this life_."Today when thousands of Muslims and others have been audiences out before me, when audiences ofmillions have been beyond radio and television microphones, I'm sure I rarely feel as much electricityas was then generated in me by the upturned faces of those seventy-five or a hundred Muslims, plusother curious visitors, sitting there in our storefront temple with the squealing of pigs filtering in fromthe slaughterhouse just outside.
　　In the summer of 1953-all praise is due to Allah-I was named Detroit Temple Number One's AssistantMinister.
　　Every day after work, I walked, "fishing" for potential converts in the Detroit black ghetto. I saw theAfrican features of my black brothers and sisters whom the devilish white man had brainwashed. Isaw the hair as mine had been for years, conked by cooking it with lye until it lay limp, lookingstraight like the white man's hair. Time and again Mr. Muhammad's teachings were rebuffed and even ridiculed . . . ."Aw, man, get out of my face, you niggers are crazy!" My head would reel sometimes,with mingled anger and pity for my poor blind black brothers. I couldn't wait for the next time ourMinister Lemuel Hassan would let me speak:
　　"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock, my brothers and sisters-Plymouth Rock landed on _us!_" . . . "Give_all_ you can to help Messenger Elijah Muhammad's independence program for the black man! . . .
　　This white man always has controlled us black people by keeping us running to him begging, 'Please,lawdy, please, Mr. White Man, boss, would you push me off another crumb down from your tablethat's sagging with riches . . . .'
　　". . . my _beautiful_, black brothers and sisters! And when we say 'black,' we mean everything notwhite, brothers and sisters! Because _look_ at your skins! We're all black to the white man, but we're athousand and one different colors. Turn around, _look_ at each other! What shade of black Africanpolluted by devil white man are you? You see me-well, in the streets they used to call me Detroit Red.
　　Yes! Yes, that raping, red-headed devil was my _grandfather_! That close, yes! My _mother's_ father!
　　She didn't like to speak of it, can you blame her? She said she never laid eyes on him! She was _glad_for that! I'm _glad_ for her! If I could drain away _his_ blood that pollutes _my_ body, and pollutesmy complexion, I'd do it! Because I hate every drop of the rapist's blood that's in me!
　　"And it's not just me, it's _all_ of us! During slavery, _think_ of it, it was a _rare_ one of our blackgrandmothers, our great-grandmothers and our great-great-grandmothers who escaped the whiterapist slavemaster. That rapist slavemaster who emasculated the black man . . . with threats, with fear .
　　. . until even today the black man lives with fear of the white man in his heart! Lives even today stillunder the heel of the white man!
　　"_Think_ of it-think of that black slave man filled with fear and dread, hearing the screams of his wife,his mother, his daughter being _taken_-in the barn, the kitchen, in the bushes! _Think_ of it, my dearbrothers and sisters! _Think_ of hearing wives, mothers, daughters, being _raped_! And you were toofilled with _fear_ of the rapist to do anything about it! And his vicious, animal attacks' offspring, thiswhite man named things like 'mulatto' and 'quadroon' and 'octoroon' and all those other things that hehas called us-you and me-when he is not calling us '_nigger_'!
　　"Turn around and look at each other, brothers and sisters, and _think_ of this! You and me, pollutedall these colors-and this devil has the arrogance and the gall to think we, his victims, should _love_him!"I would become so choked up that sometimes I would walk in the streets until late into the night.
　　Sometimes I would speak to no one for hours, thinking to myself about what the white man had doneto our poor people here in America.
　　 At the Gar Wood factory where I worked, one day the supervisor came, looking nervous. He said that a man in the office was waiting to see me.
　　The white man standing in there said, "I'm from the F.B.I." He flipped open-that way they do, to shockyou-his little folded black leather case containing his identification. He told me to come with him. Hedidn't say for what, or why.
　　I went with him. They wanted to know, at their office, why hadn't I registered for the Korean Wardraft?
　　"I just got out of prison," I said. "I didn't know you took anybody with prison records."They really believed I thought ex-convicts weren't supposed to register. They asked a lot of questions.
　　I was glad they didn't ask if I intended to put on the white man's uniform, because I didn't. They justtook it for granted that I would. They told me they weren't going to send me to jail for failing toregister, that they were going to give me a break, but that I would have to register immediately.
　　So I went straight from there to the draft board. When they gave me a form to fill out, I wrote in theappropriate places that I was a Muslim, and that I was a conscientious objector.
　　I turned in the form. This middle-aged, bored-acting devil who scanned it looked out from under hiseyes at me. He got up and went into another office, obviously to consult someone over him. After awhile, he came out and motioned for me to go in there.
　　These three-I believe there were three, as I remember-older devils sat behind desks. They all wore that"troublesome nigger" expression. And I looked "white devil" right back into their eyes. They asked meon what basis did I claim to be a Muslim in my religion. I told them that the Messenger of Allah wasMr. Elijah Muhammad, and that all who followed Mr. Muhammad here in America were Muslims. Iknew they had heard this before from some Temple One young brothers who had been there beforeme.
　　They asked if I knew what "conscientious objector" meant. I told them that when the white man askedme to go off somewhere and fight and maybe die to preserve the way the white man treated the blackman in America, then my conscience made me object.
　　They told me that my case would be "pending." But I was put through the physical anyway, and theysent me a card with some kind of a classification. That was 1953, then I heard no more for seven years,when I received another classification card in the mail. In fact, I carry it in my wallet right now. Here:
　　it's card number 20 219 25 1377, it's dated November 21, 1960. It says, "Class 5-A," whatever thatmeans, and stamped on the card's back is "Michigan Local Board No. 19, Wayne County, 3604 SouthWayne Road, Wayne, Michigan." Every time I spoke at our Temple One, my voice would still be hoarse from the last time. My throattook a long time to get into condition.
　　"Do you know _why_ the white man really hates you? It's because every time he sees your face, hesees a mirror of his crime-and his guilty conscience can't bear to face it!
　　"Every white man in America, when he looks into a black man's eyes, should fall to his knees and say'I'm sorry, I'm sorry-my kind has committed history's greatest crime against your kind; will you giveme the chance to atone?' But do you brothers and sisters expect any white man to do that? _No_, you_know_ better! And why won't he do it? Because he _can't_ do it. The white man has _created_ a devil,to bring chaos upon this earth. . . ."Somewhere about this time, I left the Gar Wood factory and I went to work for the Ford MotorCompany, one of the Lincoln-Mercury Division assembly lines.
　　As a young minister, I would go to Chicago and see Mr. Elijah Muhammad every time I could get off.
　　He encouraged me to come when I could. I was treated as if I had been one of the sons of Mr.
　　Muhammad and his dark, good wife Sister Clara Muhammad. I saw their children only occasionally.
　　Most of them in those years worked around Chicago in various jobs, laborers, driving taxis, and thingssuch as that. Also living in the home was Mr. Muhammad's dear Mother Marie.
　　I would spend almost as much time with Mother Marie as I did with Mr. Muhammad. I loved to hearher reminiscences about her son Elijah's early life when they lived in Sandersville, Georgia, where hewas born in 1897.
　　Mr. Muhammad would talk with me for hours. After eating good, healthful Muslim food, we wouldstay at the dinner table and talk. Or I would ride with him as he drove on his daily rounds betweenthe few grocery stores that the Muslims then owned in Chicago. The stores were examples to helpblack people see what they could do for themselves by hiring their own kind and trading with theirown kind and thus quit being exploited by the white man.
　　In the Muslim-owned combination grocery-drug store on Wentworth and 31st Street, Mr. Muhammadwould sweep the floor or something like that. He would do such work himself as an example to hisfollowers whom he taught that idleness and laziness were among the black man's greatest sins againsthimself. I would want to snatch the broom from Mr. Muhammad's hand, because I thought he was toovaluable to be sweeping a floor. But he wouldn't let me do anything but stay with him and listen whilehe advised me on the best ways to spread his message.
　　The way we were with each other, it would make me think of Socrates on the steps of the Athensmarket place, spreading his wisdom to his students. Or how one of those students, Aristotle, had hisstudents following behind him, walking through the Lyceum.
　　 One day, I remember, a dirty glass of water was on a counter and Mr. Muhammad put a clean glass ofwater beside it. "You want to know how to spread my teachings?" he said, and he pointed to theglasses of water. "Don't condemn if you see a person has a dirty glass of water," he said, "just showthem the clean glass of water that you have. When they inspect it, you won't have to say that yours isbetter."Of all the things that Mr. Muhammad ever was to teach me, I don't know why, that still stands out inmy mind. Although I haven't always practiced it. I love too much to battle. I'm inclined to tellsomebody if his glass of water is dirty.
　　Mother Marie, when Mr. Muhammad was busy, would tell me about her son's boyhood and of hisgrowing up in Georgia to young manhood.
　　Mother Marie's account of her son began when she was herself but seven years old. She told me thatthen she had a vision that one day she would be the mother of a very great man. She married a Baptistminister, Reverend Poole, who worked around Sandersville on the farms, and in the sawmills. Amongtheir thirteen children, said Mother Marie, little Elijah was very different, almost from when he couldwalk and talk.
　　The small, frail boy usually settled his older brothers' and sisters' disputes, Mother Marie said. Andyoung as he was, he became regarded by them as their leader. And Elijah, about the time he enteredschool, began displaying a strong race consciousness. After the fourth grade, because the family wasso poor, Elijah had to quit school and begin full-time working. An older sister taught Elijah as much asshe was able at night.
　　Mother Marie said that Elijah spent hours poring through the Bible, with tears shining in his eyes. (Mr.
　　Muhammad told me himself later that as a boy he felt that the Bible's words were a locked door, thatcould be unlocked, if only he knew how, and he cried because of his frustrated anxiety to receiveunderstanding. ) Elijah grew up into a still-frail teenager who displayed a most uncommonly stronglove for his race, and, Mother Marie said, instead of condemning Negroes' faults, young Elijah alwayswould speak of reasons for those faults.
　　Mother Marie has since died. I believe that she had as large a funeral as Chicago has seen. Not onlyMuslims, but others knew of the deep bond that Messenger Elijah had with his mother.
　　"I am not ashamed to say how little learning I have had," Mr. Muhammad told me. "My going toschool no further than the fourth grade proves that I can know nothing except the truth I have beentaught by Allah. Allah taught me mathematics. He found me with a sluggish tongue, and taught mehow to pronounce words."Mr. Muhammad said that somehow, he never could stand how the Sandersville white farmers, thesawmill foremen, or other white employers would habitually and often curse Negro workers. He saidhe would politely ask any for whom he worked never to curse him. "I would ask them to just fire me if they didn't like my work, but just don't curse me." (Mr. Muhammad's ordinary conversation was themanner he used when making speeches. He was not "eloquent," as eloquence is usually meant, butwhatever he uttered had an impact on me that trained orators did not begin to have. ) He said that onthe jobs he got, he worked so honestly that generally he was put in charge of the other Negroes.
　　After Mr. Muhammad and Sister Clara met and married and their first two children had been born, awhite employer early in 1923 did curse Mr. Muhammad, then Elijah Poole. Elijah Poole, determined toavoid trouble, took his family to Detroit, arriving when he was twenty-five. Five more children wouldbe born there in Detroit, and, finally, the last one in Chicago.
　　In Detroit in 1931, Mr. Muhammad met Master W. D. Fard.
　　The effects of the depression were bad everywhere, but in the black ghetto they were horrible, Mr.
　　Muhammad told me. A small, light brown-skinned man knocked from door to door at the apartmentsof the poverty-stricken Negroes. The man offered for sale silks and other yard goods, and he identifiedhimself as "a brother from the East."This man began to tell Negroes how they came from a distant land, in the seeds of their forefathers.
　　He warned them against eating the "filthy pig" and other "wrong foods" that it was habitual forNegroes to eat.
　　Among the Negroes whom he found most receptive, he began holding little meetings in their poorhomes. The man taught both the Quran and the Bible, and his students included Elijah Poole.
　　This man said his name was W. D. Fard. He said that he was born in the _Koreish_ tribe ofMuhammad ibn Abdullah, the Arabian prophet Himself. This peddler of silks and yard goods, Mr. W.
　　D. Fard, knew the Bible better than any of the Christian-bred Negroes.
　　In the essence, Mr. W. D. Fard taught that God's true name was Allah, that His true religion was Islam,that the true name for that religion's people was Muslims.
　　Mr. W. D. Fard taught that the Negroes in America were directly descended from Muslims. He taughtthat Negroes in America were Lost Sheep, lost for four hundred years from the Nation of Islam, andthat he, Mr. Fard, had come to redeem and return the Negro to his true religion.
　　No heaven was in the sky, Mr. Fard taught, and no hell was in the ground. Instead, both heaven andhell were conditions in which people lived right here on this planet Earth. Mr. Fard taught that theNegro in America had been for four hundred years in hell, and he, Mr. Fard, had come to return themto where heaven for them was-back home, among their own kind.
　　Master Fard taught that as hell was on earth, also on earth was the devil-the white race which was bred from black Original Man six thousand years before, purposely to create a hell on earth for thenext six thousand years.
　　The black people, God's children, were Gods themselves, Master Fard taught. And he taught thatamong them was one, also a human being like the others, who was the God of Gods: The Most, MostHigh, The Supreme Being, supreme in wisdom and power-and His proper name was Allah.
　　Among his handful of first converts in 1931 in Detroit, Master W. D. Fard taught that every religionsays that near the Last Day, or near the End of Time, God would come, to resurrect the Lost Sheep, toseparate them from their enemies, and restore them to their own people. Master Fard taught thatProphecy referred to this Finder and Savior of the Lost Sheep as The Son of Man, or God in Person, orThe Lifegiver, The Redeemer, or The Messiah, who would come as lightning from the East and appearin the West.
　　He was the One to whom the Jews referred as The Messiah, the Christians as The Christ, and theMuslims as The Mahdi.
　　 I would sit, galvanized, hearing what I then accepted from Mr. Muhammad's own mouth as being thetrue history of our religion, the true religion for the black man. Mr. Muhammad told me that oneevening he had a revelation that Master W. D. Fard represented the fulfillment of the prophecy.
　　"I asked Him," said Mr. Muhammad, "'Who are you, and what is your real name?' And He said, 'I amThe One the world has been looking for to come for the past two thousand years.'
　　"I said to Him again," said Mr. Muhammad, "'What is your _true_ name?' And then He said, 'My nameis Mahdi. I came to guide you into the right path.'"Mr. Elijah Muhammad says that he sat listening with an open heart and an open mind-the way I wassitting listening to Mr. Muhammad. And Mr. Muhammad said he never doubted any word that the"Savior" taught him.
　　Starting to organize, Master W. D. Fard set up a class for training ministers to carry the teachings toAmerica's black people. In giving names to these first ministers, Master Fard named Elijah Poole"Elijah Karriem."Next, Master W. D. Fard established in 1931 in Detroit a University of Islam. It had adult classes whichtaught, among other things, mathematics, to help the poor Negroes quit being duped and deceived bythe "tricknology" of "the blue-eyed devil white man."Starting a school in the rough meant that it lacked qualified teachers, but a start had to be made somewhere. Mr. Elijah Karriem removed his own children from Detroit public schools, to start anucleus of children in the University of Islam.
　　Mr. Muhammad told me that his older children's lack of formal education reflected their sacrifice toform the backbone for today's Universities of Islam in Detroit and Chicago which have better-qualifiedfaculties.
　　Master W. D. Fard selected Elijah Karriem to be the Supreme Minister, over all other ministers, andamong all of those others sprang up a bitter jealousy. All of them had better education than ElijahKarriem, and also they were more articulate than he was. They raged, even in his presence, "Whyshould we bow down to someone who appears less qualified?"But Mr. Elijah Karriem was then in some way re-named "Elijah Muhammad," who as the SupremeMinister began to receive from Master W. D. Fard for the next three and a half years private teachings,during which time he says he "heard things never revealed to others."During this period, Mr. Elijah Muhammad and Master W. D. Fard went to Chicago and establishedTemple Number Two. They also established in Milwaukee the beginnings of a Temple Number Three.
　　In 1934, Master W. D. Fard disappeared, without a trace.
　　Elijah Muhammad says that attempts were made upon his life, because the other ministers' jealousyhad reached such a pitch. He says that these "hypocrites" forced him to flee to Chicago. TempleNumber Two became his headquarters until the "hypocrites" pursued him there, forcing him to fleeagain. In Washington, D. C., he began Temple Number Four. Also while there, in the CongressionalLibrary, he studied books which he says Master W. D. Fard had told him contained different pieces ofthe truth that devil white man had recorded, but which were not in books generally available to thepublic.
　　Saying that he was still pursued by the "hypocrites," Mr. Muhammad fled from city to city, neverstaying long in any. Whenever able, now and then, he slipped home to see his wife and his eightyoung children, who were fed by other poor Muslims who shared what little they had. Even Mr.
　　Muhammad's original Chicago followers wouldn't know he was at home, for he says the "hypocrites"made serious efforts to kill him.
　　In 1942, Mr. Muhammad was arrested. He says Uncle Tom Negroes had tipped off the devil whiteman to his teachings, and he was charged by this devil white man with draft-dodging, although hewas too old for military service. He was sentenced to five years in prison. In the Milan, Michigan,federal prison, Mr. Muhammad served three and a half years, then he was paroled. He had returnedto his work in 1946, to remove the blinders from the eyes of the black man in the wilderness of NorthAmerica.
　　I can hear myself now, at the lectern in our little Muslim Temple, passionately addressing my black brothers and sisters:
　　"This little, gentle, sweet man! The Honorable Elijah Muhammad who is at this very hour teaching ourbrothers and sisters over there in Chicago! Allah's Messenger-which makes him the most powerfulblack man in America! For you and me, he has sacrificed seven years on the run from filthyhypocrites, he spent another three and a half years in a prison cage! He was put there by the devilwhite man! That devil white man does not want the Honorable Elijah Muhammad stirring awake thesleeping giant of you and me, and all of our ignorant, brainwashed kind here in the white man'sheaven and the black man's hell herein the wilderness of North America!
　　"I have sat at our Messenger's feet, hearing the truth from his own mouth! I have pledged on myknees' to Allah to tell the white man about his crimes and the black man the true teachings of ourHonorable Elijah Muhammad. I don't care if it costs my life . . . ."This was my attitude. These were my uncompromising words, uttered anywhere, without hesitationor fear. I was his most faithful servant, and I know today that I did believe in him more firmly than hebelieved in himself.
　　In the years to come, I was going to have to face a psychological and spiritual crisis.
Chapter 13 Minister Malcolm X
I quit the Ford Motor Company's Lincoln-Mercury Division. It had become clear to me that Mr.
　　Muhammad needed ministers to spread his teachings, to establish more temples among the twenty-two million black brothers who were brainwashed and sleeping in the cities of North America.
　　My decision came relatively quickly. I have always been an activist, and my personal chemistryperhaps made me reach more quickly than most ministers in the Nation of Islam that stage ofdedication. But every minister in the Nation, in his own time, in his own way, in the privacy of hisown soul, came to the conviction that it was written that all of his "before" life had been onlyconditioning and preparation to become a disciple of Mr. Muhammad's.
　　Everything that happens-Islam teaches-is written.
　　Mr. Muhammad invited me to visit his home in Chicago, as often as possible, while he trained me, formonths.
　　Never in prison had I studied and absorbed so intensely as I did now under Mr. Muhammad'sguidance. I was immersed in the worship rituals; in what he taught us were the true natures of menand women; the organizational and administrative procedures; the real meanings, and the interrelated meanings, and uses, of the Bible and the Quran.
　　I went to bed every night ever more awed. If not Allah, who else could have put such wisdom intothat little humble lamb of a man from the Georgia fourth grade and sawmills and cotton patches. The"lamb of a man" analogy I drew for myself from the prophecy in the Book of Revelations of a symboliclamb with a two-edged sword in its mouth. Mr. Muhammad's two-edged sword was his teachings,which cut back and forth to free the black man's mind from the white man.
　　My adoration of Mr. Muhammad grew, in the sense of the Latin root word _adorare_. It means muchmore than our "adoration" or "adore." It means that my worship of him was so awesome that he wasthe first man whom I had ever feared-not fear such as of a man with a gun, but the fear such as onehas of the power of the sun.
　　Mr. Muhammad, when he felt me able, permitted me to go to Boston. Brother Lloyd X lived there. Heinvited people whom he had gotten interested in Islam to hear me in his living room.
　　I quote what I said when I was just starting out, and then later on in other places, as I can bestremember the general pattern that I used, in successive phases, in those days. I know that then Ialways liked to start off with my favorite analogy of Mr. Muhammad.
　　"God has given Mr. Muhammad some sharp truth," I told them. "It is like a two-edged sword. It cutsinto you. It causes you great pain, but if you can take the truth, it will cure you and save you fromwhat otherwise would be certain death."Then I wouldn't waste any time to start opening their eyes about the devil white man. "I know youdon't realize the enormity, the horrors, of the so-called _Christian_ white man's crime. . . .
　　"Not even in the _Bible_ is there such a crime! God in His wrath struck down with _fire_ theperpetrators of _lesser_ crimes! _One hundred million_ of us black people! Your grandparents! Mine!
　　_Murdered_ by this white man. To get fifteen million of us here to make us his slaves, on the way hemurdered one hundred million! I wish it was possible for me to show you the sea bottom in thosedays-the black bodies, the blood, the bones broken by boots and clubs! The pregnant black womenwho were thrown overboard if they got too sick! Thrown overboard to the sharks that had learnedthat following these slave ships was the way to grow fat!
　　"Why, the white man's raping of the black race's woman began right on those slave ships! The blue-eyed devil could not even wait until he got them here! Why, brothers and sisters, civilized mankindhas never known such an orgy of greed and lust and murder. . . ."The dramatization of slavery never failed intensely to arouse Negroes hearing its horrors spelled outfor the first time. It's unbelievable how many black men and women have let the white man fool theminto holding an almost romantic idea of what slave days were like. And once I had them fired up withslavery, I would shift the scene to themselves.
　　 "I want you, when you leave this room, to start to _see_ all this whenever you see this devil whiteman. Oh, yes, he's a devil! I just want you to start watching him, in his places where he doesn't wantyou around; watch him reveling in his precious-ness, and his exclusiveness, and his vanity, while hecontinues to subjugate you and me.
　　"Every time you see a white man, think about the devil you're seeing! Think of how it was on _your_slave foreparents' bloody, sweaty backs that he _built_ this empire that's today the richest of allnations-where his evil and his greed cause him to be hated around the world!"Every meeting, the people who had been there before returned, bringing friends. None of them everhad heard the wraps taken off the white man. I can't remember any black man ever in those living-room audiences in Brother Lloyd X's home at 5 Wellington Street who didn't stand up immediatelywhen I asked after each lecture, "Will all stand who believe what you have heard?" And each Sundaynight, some of them stood, while I could see others not quite ready, when I asked, "How many of youwant to _follow_ The Honorable Elijah Muhammad?"Enough had stood up after about three months that we were able to open a little temple. I rememberwith what pleasure we rented some folding chairs. I was beside myself with joy when I could report toMr. Muhammad a new temple address.
　　It was when we got this little mosque that my sister Ella first began to come to hear me. She sat,staring, as though she couldn't believe it was me. Ella never moved, even when I had only asked allwho believed what they had heard to stand up. She contributed when our collection was held. Itdidn't bother or challenge me at all about Ella. I never even thought about converting her, astoughminded and cautious about joining anything as I personally knew her to be. I wouldn't haveexpected anyone short of Allah Himself to have been able to convert Ella.
　　I would close the meeting as Mr. Muhammad had taught me: "In the name of Allah, the beneficent, themerciful, all praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds, the beneficent, merciful master of theday of judgment in which we now live -Thee alone do we serve, and Thee alone do we beseech forThine aid. Guide us on the right path, the path of those upon whom Thou has bestowed favors -not ofthose upon whom Thy wrath is brought down, nor the path of those who go astray after they haveheard Thy teaching. I bear witness that there is no God but Thee and The Honorable ElijahMuhammad is Thy Servant and Apostle. "I believed he had been divinely sent to our people by AllahHimself.
　　I would raise my hand, for them to be dismissed: "Do nothing unto anyone that you would not like tohave done unto yourself. Seek peace, and never be the aggressor-but if anyone attacks you, we do notteach you to turn the other cheek. May Allah bless you to be successful and victorious in all that youdo."Except for that one day when I had stayed with Ella on the way to Detroit after prison, I had not been in the old Roxbury streets for seven years. I went to have a reunion with Shorty.
　　Shorty, when I found him, acted uncertain. The wire had told him I was in town, and on some"religious kick." He didn't know if I was serious, or if I was another of the hustling preacher-pimps tobe found in every black ghetto, the ones with some little storefront churches of mostly hardworking,older women, who kept their "pretty boy" young preacher dressed in "sharp" clothes and driving afancy car. I quickly let Shorty know how serious I was with Islam, but then, talking the old street talk,I quickly put him at his ease, and we had a great reunion. We laughed until we cried at Shorty'sdramatization of his reactions when he heard that judge keep saying "Count one, ten years . . . counttwo, ten years -" We talked about how having those white girls with us had gotten as tea years wherewe had seen in prison plenty of worse offenders with far less time to serve.
　　Shorty still had a little band, and he was doing fairly well. He was rightfully very proud that in prisonhe had studied music. I told him enough about Islam to see from his reactions that he didn't reallywant to hear it. In prison, he had misheard about our religion. He got me off the subject by making ajoke. He said that he hadn't had enough pork chops and white women. I don't know if he has yet, ornot. I know that he's married to a white woman now. . . and he's fat as a hog from eating hog.
　　I also saw John Hughes, the gambling-house owner, and some others I had known who were stillaround Roxbury. The wire about me had made them all uncomfortable, but my "What you know,Daddy?" approach at least enabled us to have some conversations. I never mentioned Islam to most ofthem. I knew, from what I had been when I was with them, how brainwashed they were.
　　As Temple Eleven's minister, I served only briefly, because as soon as I got it organized, by March1954, I left it in charge of Minister Ulysses X, and the Messenger moved me on to Philadelphia.
　　The City of Brotherly Love black people reacted even faster to the truth about the white man than theBostonians had. And Philadelphia's Temple Twelve was established by the end of May. It had taken alittle under three months.
　　The next month, because of those Boston and Philadelphia successes, Mr. Muhammad appointed meto be the minister of Temple Seven-in vital New York City.
　　I can't start to describe for you my welter of emotions. For Mr. Muhammad's teachings really toresurrect American black people, Islam obviously had to grow, to grow very big. And nowhere inAmerica was such a single temple potential available as in New York's five boroughs.
　　They contained over a million black people.
　　 It was nine years since West Indian Archie and I had been stalking the streets, momentarily expectingto try and shoot each other down like dogs.
　　 "_Red!_" . . ."My man!" . . ."Red, this _can't_ be you-With my natural kinky red hair now close-cropped, in place of the old long-haired, lye-cooked conk they had always known on my head, I knowI looked much different.
　　"Gim'me some _skin_, man! A drink here, bartender-what? You _quit!_ Aw, man, come off it!"It was so good seeing so many whom I had known so well. You can understand how that was. But itwas West Indian Archie and Sammy the Pimp for whom I was primarily looking. And the first nastyshock came quickly, about Sammy. He had quit pimping, he had gotten pretty high up in the numbersbusiness, and was doing well. Sammy even had married. Some fast young girl. But then shortly afterhis wedding one morning he was found lying dead across his bed-they said with twenty-fivethousand dollars in his pockets. (People don't want to believe the sums that even the minorunderworld handles. Why, listen: in March 1964, a Chicago nickel-and-dime bets Wheel of Fortuneman, Lawrence Wakefield, died, and over $760, 000 in cash was in his apartment, in sacks and bags . . .
　　all taken from poor Negroes . . . and we wonder why we stay so poor. )Sick about Sammy, I queried from bar to bar among old-timers for West Indian Archie. The wirehadn't reported him dead, or living somewhere else, but none seemed to know where he was. I heardthe usual hustler fates of so many others. Bullets, knives, prison, dope, diseases, insanity, alcoholism. Iimagine it was about in that order. And so many of the survivors whom I knew as tough hyenas andwolves of the streets in the old days now were so pitiful. They had known all the angles, but beneaththat surface they were poor, ignorant, untrained black men; life had eased up on them and hypedthem. I ran across close to twenty-five of these old-timers I had known pretty well, who in the space ofnine years had been reduced to the ghetto's minor, scavenger hustles to scratch up room rent and foodmoney. Some now worked downtown, messengers, janitors, things like that. I was thankful to Allahthat I had become a Muslim and escaped their fate.
　　There was Cadillac Drake. He was a big jolly, cigar-smoking, fat, black, gaudy-dressing pimp, aregular afternoon character when I was waiting on tables in Small's Paradise. Well, I recognized himshuffling toward me on the street. He had gotten hooked on heroin; I'd heard that. He was the dirtiest,sloppiest bum you ever laid eyes on. I hurried past because we would both have been embarrassed ifhe recognized me, the kid he used to toss a dollar tip.
　　The wire worked to locate West Indian Archie for me. The wire of the streets, when it wants to, issomething like Western Union with the F.B.I. for messengers. At one of my early services at TempleSeven, an old scavenger hustler, to whom I gave a few dollars, came up when services were dismissed.
　　He told me that West Indian Archie was sick, living up in a rented room in the Bronx.
　　I took a taxi to the address. West Indian Archie opened the door. He stood there in rumpled pajamasand barefooted, squinting at me.
　　Have you ever seen someone who seemed a ghost of the person you remembered? It took him a few seconds to fix me in his memory. He claimed, hoarsely, "Red! I'm so glad to see you!"I all but hugged the old man. He was sick in that weak way. I helped him back. He sat down on theedge of his bed. I sat in his one chair, and I told him how his forcing me out of Harlem had saved mylife by turning me in the direction of Islam.
　　He said, "I always liked you, Red," and he said that he had never really wanted to kill me. I told him ithad made me shudder many times to think how close we had come to killing each other. I told him Ihad sincerely thought I had hit that combinated six-way number for the three hundred dollars he hadpaid me. Archie said that he had later wondered if he had made some mistake, since I was so ready todie about it. And then we agreed that it wasn't worth even talking about, it didn't mean anythinganymore. He kept saying, over and over, in between other things, that he was so glad to see me.
　　I went into a little of Mr. Muhammad's teaching with Archie. I told him how I had found out that all ofus who had been in the streets were victims of the white man's society I told Archie what I hadthought in prison about him; that his brain, which could tape-record hundreds of numbercombinations a day, should have been put at the sendee of mathematics or science. "Red, that sure issomething to think about," I can remember him saying.
　　But neither of us would say that it was not too late. I have the feeling that he knew, as I could see, thatthe end was closing in on Archie. I became too moved about what he had been and what he had nowbecome to be able to stay much longer. I didn't have much money, and he didn't want to accept whatlittle I was able to press on him. But I made him take it.
　　 I keep having to remind myself that then, in June 1954, Temple Seven in New York City was a littlestorefront. Why, it's almost unbelievable that one bus couldn't have been filled with the Muslims inNew York City! Even among our own black people in the Harlem ghetto, you could have said"Muslim" to a thousand, and maybe only one would not have asked you "What's that?" As for whitepeople, except for that relative handful privy to certain police or prison files, not five hundred whitepeople in all of America knew we existed.
　　I began firing Mr. Muhammad's teaching at the New York members and the few friends theymanaged to bring in. And with each meeting, my discomfort grew that in Harlem, choked with poor,ignorant black men suffering all of the evils that Islam could cure, every time I lectured my heart outand then asked those who wanted to follow Mr. Muhammad to stand, only two or three would. And, Ihave to admit, sometimes not that many.
　　I think I was all the angrier with my own ineffectiveness because I knew the streets. I had to get myselftogether and think out the problem. And the big trouble, obviously, was that we were only one amongthe many voices of black discontent on every busy Harlem corner. The different Nationalist groups,the "Buy Black!" forces, and others like that; dozens of their step-ladder orators were trying to increase their followings. I had nothing against anyone trying to promote independence and unity amongblack men, but they still were making it tough for Mr. Muhammad's voice to be heard.
　　In my first effort to get over this hurdle, I had some little leaflets printed. There wasn't a much-traveled Harlem street corner that five or six good Muslim brothers and I missed. We would step upright in front of a walking black man or woman so that they had to accept our leaflet, and if theyhesitated one second, they had to hear us saying some catch thing such as "Hear how the white mankidnapped and robbed and raped our black race-"Next, we went to work "fishing" on those Harlem corners-on the fringes of the Nationalist meetings.
　　The method today has many refinements, but then it consisted of working the always shifting edges ofthe audiences that others had managed to draw. At a Nationalist meeting, everyone who was listeningwas interested in the revolution of the black race. We began to get visible results almost immediatelyafter we began thrusting handbills in people's hands, "Come to hear us, too, brother.
　　The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us how to cure the black man's spiritual, mental, moral,economic, and political sicknesses-"I saw the new faces of our Temple Seven meetings. And then we discovered the best "fishing"audience of all, by far the best-conditioned audience for Mr. Muhammad's teachings: the Christianchurches.
　　Our Sunday services were held at two P. M. All over Harlem during the hour or so before that,Christian church services were dismissing. We by-passed the larger churches with their higher ratio ofso-called "middle-class" Negroes who were so full of pretense and "status" that they wouldn't becaught in our little storefront.
　　We went "fishing" fast and furiously when those little evangelical storefront churches each let out theirthirty to fifty people on the sidewalk. "Come to hear us, brother, sister-" "You haven't heard anythinguntil you have heard the teachings of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad-" These Congregations wereusually Southern migrant people, usually older, who would go anywhere to hear what they called"good preaching." These were the church congregations who were always putting out little signsannouncing that inside they were selling fried chicken and chitlin dinners to raise some money. Andthree or four nights a week, they were in their storefront rehearsing for the next Sunday, I guess,shaking and rattling and rolling the gospels with their guitars and tambourines.
　　I don't know if you know it, but there's a whole circuit of commercial gospel entertainers who havecome out of these little churches in the city ghettoes or from down South. People such as Sister RosettaTharpe, The Clara Ward Singers are examples, and there must be five hundred lesser lights of thesame general order. Mahalia Jackson, the greatest of them all-she was a preacher's daughter inLouisiana. She came up there to Chicago where she worked cooking and scrubbing for white peopleand then in a factory while she sang in the Negro churches the gospel style that, when it caught on,made her the first Negro that Negroes ever made famous. She was selling hundreds of thousands of records among Negroes before white people ever knew who Mahalia Jackson was. Anyway, I knowthat somewhere I once read that Mahalia said that every time she can, she will slip unannounced intosome little ghetto storefront church and sing with her people. She calls that "my filling station."The black Christians we "fished" to our Temple were conditioned, I found, by the very shock I couldgive them about what had been happening to them while they worshiped a blond, blue-eyed God. Iknew the temple that I could build if I could really get to those Christians. I tailored the teachings forthem. I would start to speak and sometimes be so emotionally charged I had to explain myself:
　　"You see my tears, brothers and sisters . . . . Tears haven't been in my eyes since I was a young boy. ButI cannot help this when I feel the responsibility I have to help you comprehend for the first time whatthis white man's religion that we call Christianity has _done_ to us . . . .
　　"Brothers and sisters here for the first time, please don't let that shock you. I know you didn't expectthis. Because almost none of us black people have thought that maybe we were making a mistake notwondering if there wasn't a special religion somewhere for us-a special religion for the black man.
　　"Well, there is such a religion. It's called Islam. Let me spell it for you, I-s-I-a-m! _Islam!_ But I'm goingto tell you about Islam a little later. First, we need to understand some things about this Christianitybefore we can understand why the _answer_ for us is Islam.
　　"Brothers and sisters, the white man has brainwashed us black people to fasten our gaze upon a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus! We're worshiping a Jesus that doesn't even _look_ like us! Oh, yes! Now justbear with me, listen to the teachings of the Messenger of Allah, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
　　Now, just think of this. The blond-haired, blue-eyed white man has taught you and me to worship a_white_ Jesus, and to shout and sing and pray to this God that's _his_ God, the white man's God. Thewhite man has taught us to shout and sing and pray until we _die_, to wait until _death_, for somedreamy heaven-in-the-hereafter, when we're _dead_, while this white man has his milk and honey inthe streets paved with golden dollars right here on _this_ earth!
　　"You don't want to believe what I am telling you, brothers and sisters? Well, I'll tell you what you do.
　　You go out of here, you just take a good look around where you live. Look at not only how _you_ live,but look at how anybody that you _know_ lives-that way, you'll be sure that you're not just a bad-luckaccident. And when you get through looking at where _you_ live, then you take you a walk downacross Central Park, and start to look at what this white God had brought to the white man. I mean,take yourself a look down there at how the white man is living!
　　"And don't stop there. In fact, you won't be able to stop for long-his doormen are going to tell you'Move on!' But catch a subway and keep on downtown. Anywhere you may want to get off, _look_ atthe white man's apartments, businesses! Go right on down to the tip of Manhattan Island that thisdevilish white man stole from the trusting Indians for twenty-four dollars! Look at his City Hall, downthere; look at his Wall Street! Look at yourself! Look at _his_ God!" I had learned early one important thing, and that was to always teach in terms that the people couldunderstand. Also, where the Nationalists whom we had "fished" were almost all men, among thestorefront Christians, a heavy preponderance were women, and I had the sense to offer somethingspecial for them. "_Beautiful_ black woman! The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that theblack man is going around saying he wants respect; well, the black man never will get anybody'srespect until he first learns to respect his own women! The black man needs _today_ to stand up andthrow off the weaknesses imposed upon him by the slavemaster white man! The black man needs tostart today to shelter and protect and _respect_ his black women!"One hundred percent would stand up without hesitation when I said, "How many _believe_ whatthey have heard?" But still never more than an agonizing few would stand up when I invited, "Willthose stand who want to _follow_ The Honorable Elijah Muhammad?"I knew that our strict moral code and discipline was what repelled them most. I fired at this point, atthe reason for our code. "The white man _wants_ black men to stay immoral, unclean and ignorant. Aslong as we stay in these conditions we will keep on begging him and he will control us. We never canwin freedom and justice and equality until we are doing something for ourselves!"The code, of course, had to be explained to any who were tentatively interested in becoming Muslims.
　　And the word got around in their little storefronts quickly, which is why they would come to hear me,yet wouldn't join Mr. Muhammad. Any fornication was absolutely forbidden in the Nation of Islam.
　　Any eating of the filthy pork, or other injurious or unhealthful foods; any use of tobacco, alcohol, ornarcotics. No Muslim who followed Elijah Muhammad could dance, gamble, date, attend movies, orsports, or take long vacations from work. Muslims slept no more than health required. Any domesticquarreling, any discourtesy, especially to women, was not allowed. No lying or stealing, and noinsubordination to civil authority, except on the grounds of religious obligation.
　　Our moral laws were policed by our Fruit of Islam-able, dedicated, and trained Muslim men.
　　Infractions resulted in suspension by Mr. Muhammad, or isolation for various periods, or evenexpulsion for the worst offenses "from the only group that really cares about you." Temple Seven grew somewhat with each meeting. It just grew too slowly to suit me. During theweekdays, I traveled by bus and train. I taught each Wednesday at Philadelphia's Temple Twelve. Iwent to Springfield, Massachusetts, to try to start a new temple. A temple which Mr. Muhammadnumbered Thirteen was established there with the help of Brother Osborne, who had first heard ofIslam from me in prison. A lady visiting a Springfield meeting asked if I'd come to Hartford, whereshe lived; she specified the next Thursday and said she would assemble some friends. And I was rightthere.
　　Thursday is traditionally domestic servants' day off. This sister had in her housing project apartment about fifteen of the maids, cooks, chauffeurs and house men who worked for the Hartford-area whitepeople. You've heard that saying, "No man is a hero to his valet." Well, those Negroes who waited onwealthy whites hand and foot opened their eyes quicker than most Negroes. And when they went"fishing" enough among more servants, and other black people in and around Hartford, Mr.
　　Muhammad before long was able to assign a Hartford temple the number Fourteen. And everyThursday I scheduled my teaching there.
　　Mr. Muhammad, when I went to see him in Chicago, had to chastise me on some point during nearlyevery visit. I just couldn't keep from showing in some manner that with his ministers equipped withthe power of his message, I felt the Nation should go much faster. His patience and his wisdom inchastising me would always humble me from head to foot. He said, one time, that no true leaderburdened his followers with a greater load than they could carry, and no true leader sets too fast apace for his followers to keep up.
　　"Most people seeing a man in an old touring car going real slow think the man doesn't want to gofast," Mr. Muhammad said, "but the man knows that to drive any faster would destroy the old car.
　　When he gets a fast car, then he will drive at a fast speed." And I remember him telling me anothertime, when I complained about an inefficient minister at one of his mosques, "I would rather have amule I can depend upon than a race horse that I can't depend upon."I knew that Mr. Muhammad _wanted_ that fast car to drive. And I don't think you could pick thesame number of faithful brothers and sisters from the Nation of Islam today and find "fishing" teamsto beat the efforts of those who helped to bring growth to the Boston, Philadelphia, Springfield,Hartford, and New York temples. I'm, of course, just mentioning those that I knew most about becauseI was directly involved. This was through 1955. And 1955 was the year I made my first trip of anydistance. It was to help open the temple that today is Number Fifteen-in Atlanta, Georgia.
　　Any Muslim who ever moved for personal reasons from one city to another was of course exhorted toplant seeds for Mr. Muhammad. Brother James X, one of our top Temple Twelve brothers, hadinterested enough black people in Atlanta so that when Mr. Muhammad was advised, he told me togo to Atlanta and hold a first meeting. I think I have had a hand in most of Mr. Muhammad's temples,but I'll never forget that opening in Atlanta.
　　A funeral parlor was the only place large enough that Brother James X could afford to rent. Everythingthat the Nation of Islam did in those days, from Mr. Muhammad on down, was strictly on ashoestring. When we all arrived, though, a Christian Negro's funeral was just dismissing, so we had towait awhile, and we watched the mourners out.
　　"You saw them all crying over their physical dead," I told our group when we got inside. "But theNation of Islam is rejoicing over you, our mentally dead. That may shock you, but, oh, yes, you justdon't realize how our whole black race in America is mentally dead. We are here today with Mr. ElijahMuhammad's teachings which resurrect the black man from the dead . . . ." And, speaking of funerals, I should mention that we never failed to get some new Muslims when non-Muslims, family and friends of a Muslim deceased, attended our short, moving ceremony thatillustrated Mr. Muhammad's teaching, "Christians have their funerals for the living, ours are for ourdeparted."As the minister of several temples, conducting the Muslim ceremony had occasionally fallen to my lot.
　　As Mr. Muhammad had taught me, I would start by reading over the casket of the departed brother orsister a prayer to Allah. Next I read a simple obituary record of his or her life. Then I usually read fromJob; two passages, in the seventh and fourteenth chapters, where Job speaks of no life after death.
　　Then another passage where David, when his son died, spoke also of no life after death.
　　To the audience before me, I explained why no tears were to be shed, and why we had no flowers, orsinging, or organ-playing. "We shed tears for our brother, and gave him our music and our tears whilehe was alive. If he wasn't wept for and given our music and flowers then, well, now there is no need,because he is no longer aware. We now will give his family any money we might have spent."Appointed Muslim Sisters quickly passed small trays from which everyone took a thin, round patty ofpeppermint candy. At my signal, the candy was put into mouths. "We will file by now for a last lookat our brother. We won't cry-just as we don't cry over candy. Just as this sweet candy will dissolve, sowill our brother's sweetness that we have enjoyed when he lived now dissolve into a sweetness in ourmemories."I have had probably a couple of hundred Muslims tell me that it was attending one of our funerals fora departed brother or sister that first turned them toward Allah. But I was to learn later that Mr.
　　Muhammad's teaching about death and the Muslim funeral service was in drastic contradiction towhat Islam taught in the East.
　　We had grown, by 1956-well, sizable. Every temple had "fished" with enough success that there werefar more Muslims, especially in the major cities of Detroit, Chicago, and New York than anyone wouldhave guessed from the outside. In fact, as you know, in the really big cities, you can have a very bigorganization and, if it makes no public show, or noise, no one will necessarily be aware that it isaround.
　　But more than just increasing in numbers, Mr. Muhammad's version of Islam now had been getting insome other types of black people. We began now getting those with some education, both academic,and vocations and trades, and even some with "positions" in the white world, and all of this wasstarting to bring us closer to the desired fast car for Mr. Muhammad to drive. We had, for instance,some civil servants, some nurses, clerical workers, salesmen from the department stores. And one ofthe best things was that some brothers of this type were developing into smart, fine, aggressive youngministers for Mr. Muhammad.
　　I went without a lot of sleep trying to merit his increasing evidences of trust and confidence in myefforts to help build our Nation of Islam. It was in 1956 that Mr. Muhammad was able to authorize Temple Seven to buy and assign for my use a new Chevrolet. (The car was the Nation's, not mine. Ihad nothing that was mine but my clothes, wrist watch, and suitcase. As in the case of all of theNation's ministers, my living expenses were paid and I had some pocket money. Where once youcouldn't have named anything I wouldn't have done for money, now money was the last thing to crossmy mind.) Anyway, in letting me know about the car, Mr. Muhammad told me he knew how I lovedto roam, planting seeds for new Muslims, or more temples, so he didn't want me to be tied down.
　　In five months, I put about 30, 000 miles of "fishing" on that car before I had an accident. Late onenight a brother and I were coming through Weathersfield, Connecticut, when I stopped for a red lightand a car smashed into me from behind. I was just shook up, not hurt. That excited devil had a womanwith him, hiding her face, so I knew she wasn't his wife. We were exchanging our identification (helived in Meriden, Connecticut) when the police arrived, and their actions told me he was somebodyimportant. I later found out he was one of Connecticut's most prominent politicians; I won't call hisname. Anyway, Temple Seven settled on a lawyer's advice, and that money went down on anOldsmobile, the make of car I've been driving ever since.
　　 I had always been very careful to stay completely clear of any personal closeness with any of theMuslim sisters. My total commitment to Islam demanded having no other interests, especially, I felt,no women. In almost every temple at least one single sister had let out some broad hint that shethought I needed a wife. So I always made it clear that marriage had no interest for me whatsoever; Iwas too busy.
　　Every month, when I went to Chicago, I would find that some sister had written complaining to Mr.
　　Muhammad that I talked so hard against women when I taught our special classes about the differentnatures of the two sexes. Now, Islam has very strict laws and teachings about women, the core of thembeing that the true nature of a man is to be strong, and a woman's true nature is to be weak, and whilea man must at all times respect his woman, at the same time he needs to understand that he mustcontrol her if he expects to get her respect.
　　But in those days I had my own personal reasons. I wouldn't have considered it possible for me to loveany woman. I'd had too much experience that women were only tricky, deceitful, untrustworthy flesh.
　　I had seen too many men ruined, or at least tied down, or in some other way messed up by women.
　　Women talked too much. To tell a woman not to talk too much was like telling Jesse James not to carrya gun, or telling a hen not to cackle. Can you imagine Jesse James without a gun, or a hen that didn'tcackle? And for anyone in any kind of a leadership position, such as I was, the worst thing in theworld that he could have was the wrong woman. Even Samson, the world's strongest man, wasdestroyed by the woman who slept in his arms. She was the one whose words hurt him.
　　I mean, I'd had so much experience. I had talked to too many prostitutes and mistresses. They knewmore about a whole lot of husbands than the wives of those husbands did. The wives always filledtheir husbands' ears so full of wife complaints that it wasn't the wives, it was the prostitutes and mistresses who heard the husbands' innermost problems and secrets. They thought of him, andcomforted him, and that included listening to him, and so he would tell them everything.
　　Anyway, it had been ten years since I thought anything about any mistress, I guess, and as a ministernow, I was thinking even less about getting any wife. And Mr. Muhammad himself encouraged me tostay single.
　　Temple Seven sisters used to tell brothers, "You're just staying single because Brother MinisterMalcolm never looks at anybody." No, I didn't make it any secret to any of those sisters, how I felt.
　　And, yes, I did tell the brothers to be very, very careful.
　　This sister-well, in 1956, she joined Temple Seven. I just noticed her, not with the slightest interest, youunderstand. For about the next year, I just noticed her. You know, she never would have dreamed Iwas even thinking about her. In fact, probably you couldn't have convinced her I even knew her name.
　　It was Sister Betty X. She was tall, brown-skinned-darker than I was. And she had brown eyes.
　　I knew she was a native of Detroit, and that she had been a student at Tuskegee Institute down inAlabama-an education major. She was in New York at one of the big hospitals' school of nursing. Shelectured to the Muslim girls' and women's classes on hygiene and medical facts.
　　I ought to explain that each week night a different Muslim class, or event, is scheduled. Monday night,every temple's Fruit of Islam trains. People think this is just military drill, judo, karate, things like that-which _is_ part of the F.O.I. training, but only one part. The F.O.I. spends a lot more time in lecturesand discussions on men learning to be men. They deal with the responsibilities of a husband andfather; what to expect of women; the rights of women which are not to be abrogated by the husband;the importance of the father-male image in the strong household; current events; why honesty, andchastity, are vital in a person, a home, a community, a nation, and a civilization; why one should batheat least once each twenty-four hours; business principles; and things of that nature.
　　Then, Tuesday night in every Muslim temple is Unity Night, where the brothers and sisters enjoy eachother's conversational company and refreshments, such as cookies and sweet and sour fruit punches.
　　Wednesday nights, at eight P. M., is what is calledStudent Enrollment, where Islam's basic issues are discussed; it is about the equivalent of catechismclass in the Catholic religion.
　　Thursday nights there are the M.G.T. (Muslim Girls' Training) and the G.C.C. (General CivilizationClass), where the women and girls of Islam are taught how to keep homes, how to rear children, howto care for husbands, how to cook, sew, how to act at home and abroad, and other things that areimportant to being a good Muslim sister and mother and wife.
　　Fridays are devoted to Civilization Night, when classes are held for brothers and sisters in the area ofthe domestic relations, emphasizing how both husbands and wives must understand and respect each other's true natures. Then Saturday night is for all Muslims a free night, when, usually, they visit ateach other's homes. And, of course, on Sundays, every Muslim temple holds its services.
　　On the Thursday M.G.T. and G.C.C. nights, sometimes I would drop in on the classes, and maybe atSister Betty X's classes-just as on other nights I might drop in on the different brothers' classes. At firstI would just ask her things like how were the sisters learning-things like that, and she would say "Fine,Brother Minister." I'd say, "Thank you, Sister." Like that. And that would be all there was to it. Andafter a while, I would have very short conversations with her, just to be friendly.
　　One day I thought it would help the women's classes if I took her-just because she happened to be aninstructor, to the Museum of Natural History. I wanted to show her some Museum displays having todo with the tree of evolution, that would help her in her lectures. I could show her proofs of Mr.
　　Muhammad's teachings of such things as that the filthy pig is only a large rodent. The pig is a graftbetween a rat, a cat and a dog, Mr. Muhammad taught us. When I mentioned my idea to Sister BettyX, I made it very clear that it was just to help her lectures to the sisters. I had even convinced myselfthat this was the only reason.
　　Then by the time of the afternoon I said we would go, well, I telephoned her; I told her I had to cancelthe trip, that something important had come up. She said, "Well, you sure waited long enough to tellme, Brother Minister, I was just ready to walk out of the door." So I told her, well, all right, come onthen, I'd make it somehow. But I wasn't going to have much time.
　　While we were down there, offhandedly I asked her all kinds of things. I just wanted some idea of herthinking; you understand, I mean _how_ she thought. I was halfway impressed by her intelligenceand also her education. In those days she was one of the few whom we had attracted who hadattended college.
　　Then, right after that, one of the older sisters confided to me a personal problem that Sister Betty Xwas having. I was really surprised that when she had had the chance, Sister Betty X had notmentioned anything to me about it. Every Muslim minister is always hearing the problems of youngpeople whose parents have ostracized them for becoming Muslims. Well, when Sister Betty X told herfoster parents, who were financing her education, that she was a Muslim, they gave her a choice: leavethe Muslims, or they'd cut off her nursing school.
　　It was right near the end of her term-but she was hanging on to Islam. She began taking baby-sittingjobs for some of the doctors who lived on the grounds of the hospital where she was training.
　　In my position, I would never have made any move without thinking how it would affect the Nationof Islam organization as a whole.
　　I got to turning it over in my mind. What would happen if I just _should_ happen, sometime, to thinkabout getting married to somebody? For instance Sister Betty X-although it could be any sister in anytemple, but Sister Betty X, for instance, would just happen to be the right height for somebody my height, and also the right age.
　　Mr. Elijah Muhammad taught us that a tall man married to a too-short woman, or vice-versa, theylooked odd, not matched. And he taught that a wife's ideal age was half the man's age, plus seven. Hetaught that women are physiologically ahead of men. Mr. Muhammad taught that no marriage couldsucceed where the woman did not look up with respect to the man. And that the man had to havesomething above and beyond the wife in order for her to be able to look to him for psychologicalsecurity.
　　I was so shocked at myself, when I realized _what_ I was thinking, I quit going anywhere near SisterBetty X, or any where I knew she would be. If she came into our restaurant and I was there, I went outsomewhere. I was glad I knew that she had no idea what I had been thinking about. My not talking toher wouldn't give her any reason to think anything, since there had never been one _personal_ wordspoken between us-even if she had _thought_ anything.
　　I studied about if I just _should_ happen to say something to her-what would her position be? Becauseshe wasn't going to get any chance to embarrass me. I had heard too many women bragging, "I toldthat chump 'Get lost!'" I'd had too much experience of the kind to make a man very cautious.
　　I knew one good thing; she had few relatives. My feeling about in-laws was that they were outlaws.
　　Right among the Temple Seven Muslims, I had seen more marriages destroyed by in-laws, usuallyanti-Muslim, than any other single thing I knew of.
　　I wasn't about to say any of that romance stuff that Hollywood and television had filled women'sheads with. If I was going to do something, I was going to do it directly. And anything I was going todo, I was going to do _my_ way. And because _I_ wanted to do it. Not because I saw somebody do it.
　　Or read about it in a book. Or saw it in a moving picture somewhere.
　　I told Mr. Muhammad, when I visited him in Chicago that month, that I was thinking about a veryserious step. He smiled when he heard what it was.
　　I told him I was just thinking about it, that was all. Mr. Muhammad said that he'd like to meet thissister.
　　The Nation by this time was financially able to bear the expenses so that instructor sisters fromdifferent temples could be sent to Chicago to attend the Headquarters Temple Two women's classes,and, while there, to meet The Honorable Elijah Muhammad in person. Sister Betty X, of course, knewall about this, so there was no reason for her to think anything of it when it was arranged for her to goto Chicago. And like all visiting instructor sisters, she was the house guest of the Messenger and SisterClara Muhammad.
　　Mr. Muhammad told me that he thought that Sister Betty X was a fine sister.
　　 If you are thinking about doing a thing, you ought to make up your mind if you are going to do it, ornot do it. One Sunday night, after the Temple Seven meeting, I drove my car out on the Garden StateParkway. I was on my way to visit my brother Wilfred, in Detroit. Wilfred, the year before, in 1957,had been made the minister of Detroit's Temple One. I hadn't seen him, or any of my family, in a goodwhile.
　　It was about ten in the morning when I got inside Detroit. Getting gas at a filling station, I just went totheir pay phone on a wall; I telephoned Sister Betty X. I had to get Information to get the number ofthe nurses' residence at this hospital. Most numbers I memorized, but I had always made it some pointnever to memorize her number. Somebody got her to the phone finally. She said, "Oh, hello, BrotherMinister-" I just said it to her direct: "Look, do you want to get married?"Naturally, she acted all surprised and shocked.
　　The more I have thought about it, to this day I believe she was only putting on an act. Because womenknow. They know.
　　She said, just like I knew she would, "Yes." Then I said, well, I didn't have a whole lot of time, she'dbetter catch a plane to Detroit.
　　So she grabbed a plane. I met her foster parents who lived in Detroit. They had made up by this time.
　　They were very friendly, and happily surprised. At least, they acted that way.
　　Then I introduced Sister Betty X at my oldest brother Wilfred's house. I had already asked him wherepeople could get married without a whole lot of mess and waiting. He told me in Indiana.
　　Early the next morning, I picked up Betty at her parents' home. We drove to the first town in Indiana.
　　We found out that only a few days before, the state law had been changed, and now Indiana had along waiting period.
　　This was the fourteenth of January, 1958; a Tuesday. We weren't far from Lansing, where my brotherPhilbert lived. I drove there. Philbert was at work when we stopped at his house and I introducedBetty X. She and Philbert's wife were talking when I found out on the phone that we could get marriedin one day, if we rushed.
　　We got the necessary blood tests, then the license. Where the certificate said "Religion," I wrote"Muslim." Then we went to the Justice of the Peace.
　　An old hunchbacked white man performed the wedding. And all of the witnesses were white. Whereyou are supposed to say all those "I do' s," we did. They were all standing there, smiling and watchingevery move. The old devil said, "I pronounce you man and wife," and then, "Kiss your bride."I got her out of there. All of that Hollywood stuff! Like these women wanting men to pick them up and carry them across thresholds and some of them weigh more than you do. I don't know how manymarriage breakups are caused by these movie-and television-addicted women expecting somebouquets and kissing and hugging and being swept out like Cinderella for dinner and dancing-thengetting mad when a poor, scraggly husband comes in tired and sweaty from working like a dog allday, looking for some food.
　　We had dinner there at Philbert's home in Lansing. "I've got a surprise for you," I told him when wecame in. "You haven't got any surprise for me," he said. When he got home from work and heard I'dbeen there introducing a Muslim sister, he knew I was either married, or on the way to get married.
　　Betty's nursing school schedule called for her to fly right back to New York, and she could return infour days. She claims she didn't tell anybody in Temple Seven that we had married.
　　That Sunday, Mr. Muhammad was going to teach at Detroit's Temple One. I had an Assistant Ministerin New York now; I telephoned him to take over for me. Saturday, Betty came back. The Messenger,after his teaching on Sunday, made the announcement. Even in Michigan, my steering clear of allsisters was so well known, they just couldn't believe it.
　　We drove right back to New York together. The news really shook everybody in Temple Seven. Someyoung brothers looked at me as though I had betrayed them. But everybody else was grinning likeCheshire cats. The sisters just about ate up Betty. I never will forget hearing one exclaim, "You gothim!" That's like I was telling you, the _nature_ of women. She'd _got_ me. That's part of why I neverhave been able to shake it out of my mind that she knew something-all the time. Maybe she did getme!
　　Anyway, we lived for the next two and a half years in Queens, sharing a house of two smallapartments with Brother John AH and his wife of that time. He's now the National Secretary inChicago.
　　Attallah, our oldest daughter, was born in November 1958.
　　She's named for Attilah the Hun (he sacked Rome). Shortly after Attallah came, we moved to ourpresent seven-room house in an all-black section of Queens, Long Island.
　　Another girl, Qubilah (named after Qubilah Khan) was born on Christmas Day of 1960. Then, yasah("Ilyas" is Arabic for "Elijah") was born in July 1962. And in 1964 our fourth daughter, Amilah, arrived.
　　I guess by now I will say I love Betty. She's the only woman I ever even thought about loving. Andshe's one of the very few-four women-whom I have ever trusted. The thing is, Betty's a good Muslimwoman and wife. You see, Islam is the only religion that gives both husband and wife a trueunderstanding of what love is. The Western "love" concept, you take it apart, it really is lust. But lovetranscends just the physical. Love is disposition, behavior, attitude, thoughts, likes, dislikes-thesethings make a beautiful woman, a beautiful wife. This is the beauty that never fades. You find in your Western civilization that when a man's wife's physical beauty fails, she loses her attraction. But Islamteaches us to look into the woman, and teaches her to look into us.
　　Betty does this, so she understands me. I would even say I don't imagine many other women mightput up with the way I am. Awakening this brainwashed black man and telling this arrogant, devilishwhite man the truth about himself, Betty understands, is a full-time job. If I have work to do when Iam home, the little time I am at home, she lets me have the quiet I need to work in. I'm rarely at homemore than half of any week; I have been away as much as five months. I never get much chance to takeher anywhere, and I know she likes to be with her husband. She is used to my calling her fromairports anywhere from Boston to San Francisco, or Miami to Seattle, or, here lately, cabling her fromCairo, Accra, or the Holy City of Mecca. Once on the long-distance telephone, Betty told me inbeautiful phrasing the way she thinks. She said, "You are present when you are away."Later that year, after Betty and I were married, I exhausted myself trying to be everywhere at once,trying to help the Nation to keep growing. Guest-teaching at the Temple in Boston, I ended, as always,"Who among you wish to _follow_ The Honorable Elijah Muhammad?" And then I saw, in utterastonishment, that among those who were standing was my sister-_Ella!_ We have a saying that thosewho are the hardest to convince make the best Muslims. And for Ella it had taken five years.
　　I mentioned, you will remember, how in a big city, a sizable organization can remain practicallyunknown, unless something happens that brings it to the general public's attention. Well, certainly noone in the Nation of Islam had any anticipation of the kind of thing that would happen in Harlem onenight.
　　Two white policemen, breaking up a street scuffle between some Negroes, ordered other Negropassers-by to "Move on!" Of these bystanders, two happened to be Muslim brother Johnson Hintonand another brother of Temple Seven. They didn't scatter and run the way the white cops wanted.
　　Brother Hinton was attacked with nightsticks. His scalp was split open, and a police car came and hewas taken to a nearby precinct.
　　The second brother telephoned our restaurant. And with some telephone calls, in less than half anhour about fifty of Temple Seven's men of the Fruit of Islam were standing in ranks-formation outsidethe police precinct house.
　　Other Negroes, curious, came running, and gathered in excitement behind the Muslims. The police,coming to the station house front door, and looking out of the windows, couldn't believe what theysaw. I went in, as the minister of Temple Seven, and demanded to see our brother. The police first saidhe wasn't there. Then they admitted he was, but said I couldn't see him. I said that until he was seen,and we were sure he received proper medical attention, the Muslims would remain where they were.
　　They were nervous and scared of the gathering crowd outside. When I saw our Brother Hinton, it wasall I could do to contain myself. He was only semi-conscious. Blood had bathed his head and face andshoulders. I hope I never again have to withstand seeing another case of sheer police brutality like that.
　　I told the lieutenant in charge, "That man belongs in the hospital." They called an ambulance. When itcame and Brother Hinton was taken to Harlem Hospital, we Muslims followed, in loose formations,for about fifteen blocks along Lenox Avenue, probably the busiest thoroughfare in Harlem. Negroeswho never had seen anything like this were coming out of stores and restaurants and bars andenlarging the crowd following us.
　　The crowd was big, and angry, behind the Muslims in front of Harlem Hospital. Harlem's blackpeople were long since sick and tired of police brutality. And they never had seen any organization ofblack men take a firm stand as we were.
　　A high police official came up to me, saying "Get those people out of there." I told him that ourbrothers were standing peacefully, disciplined perfectly, and harming no one. He told me thoseothers, behind them, weren't disciplined. I politely told him those others were his problem.
　　When doctors assured us that Brother Hinton was receiving the best of care, I gave the order and theMuslims slipped away. The other Negroes' mood was ugly, but they dispersed also, when we left. Wewouldn't learn until later that a steel plate would have to be put into Brother Hinton's skull. (After thatoperation, the Nation of Islam helped him to sue; a jury awarded him over $70, 000, the largest policebrutality judgment that New York City has ever paid. )For New York City's millions of readers of the downtown papers, it was, at that time, another one ofthe periodic "Racial Unrest in Harlem" stories. It was not played up, because of what had happened.
　　But the police department, to be sure, pulled out and carefully studied the files on the Nation of Islam,and appraised us with new eyes. Most important, in Harlem, the world's most heavily populatedblack ghetto, the _Amsterdam News_ made the whole story headline news, and for the first time theblack man, woman, and child in the streets were discussing "those Muslims."
Chapter 14 Black Muslims
In the spring of nineteen fifty-nine-some months before Brother Johnson Hinton's case had awakenedthe Harlem black ghetto to us-a Negro journalist, Louis Lomax, then living in New York, asked meone morning whether our Nation of Islam would cooperate in being filmed as a televisiondocumentary program for the Mike Wallace Show, which featured controversial subjects. I told Lomaxthat, naturally, anything like that would have to be referred to The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. AndLomax did fly to Chicago to consult Mr. Muhammad. After questioning Lomax, then cautioning himagainst some things he did not desire, Mr. Muhammad gave his consent.
　　Cameramen began filming Nation of Islam scenes around our mosques in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D. C. Sound recordings were made of Mr. Muhammad and some ministers, includingme, teaching black audiences the truths about the brainwashed black man and the devil white man.
　　At Boston University around the same time, C. Eric Lincoln, a Negro scholar then working for hisdoctorate, had selected for his thesis subject the Nation of Islam. Lincoln's interest had been arousedthe previous year when, teaching at Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia, he received from one of hisReligion students a term paper whose introduction I can now quote from Lincoln's book. It was theplainspoken convictions of one of Atlanta's numerous young black collegians who often visited ourlocal Temple Fifteen.
　　"The Christian religion is incompatible with the Negro's aspirations for dignity and equality inAmerica," the student had written. "It has hindered where it might have helped; it has been evasivewhen it was morally bound to be forthright; it has separated believers on the basis of color, although ithas declared its mission to be a universal brotherhood under Jesus Christ. Christian love is the whiteman's love for himself and for his race. For the man who is not white, Islam is the hope for justice andequality in the world we must build tomorrow."After some preliminary research showed Professor Lincoln what a subject he had hold of, he had beenable to obtain several grants, and a publisher's encouragement to expand his thesis into a book.
　　On the wire of our relatively small Nation, these two big developments-a television show, and a bookabout us-naturally were big news. Every Muslim happily anticipated that now, through the whiteman's powerful communications media, our brainwashed black brothers and sisters across the UnitedStates, and devils, too, were going to see, hear, and read Mr. Muhammad's teachings which cut backand forth like a two-edged sword.
　　We had made our own very limited efforts to employ the power of print. First, some time back, I hadmade an appointment to see editor James Hicks of the _Amsterdam News_, published in Harlem.
　　Editor Hicks said he felt every voice in the community deserved to be heard. Soon, each week's_Amsterdam News_ carried a little column that I wrote. Then, Mr. Muhammad agreed to write acolumn for that valuable _Amsterdam News_ space, and my column was transferred to another blacknewspaper, the Los Angeles _Herald Dispatch_.
　　But I kept wanting to start, somehow, our own newspaper, that would be filled with Nation of Islamnews.
　　Mr. Muhammad in 1957 sent me to organize a Temple in Los Angeles. When I had done that, being inthat city where the _Herald Dispatch_ was, I went visiting and I worked in their office; they let meobserve how a newspaper was put together. I've always been blessed in that if I can once watchsomething being done, generally I can catch onto how to do it myself. Quick "picking up" wasprobably the number one survival rule when I'd been out there in the streets as a hustler.
　　Back in New York, I bought a secondhand camera. I don't know how many rolls of film I shot until I could take usable pictures. Every chance I had, I wrote some little news about interesting Nation ofIslam happenings. One day every month, I'd lock up in a room and assemble my material and picturesfor a printer that I found. I named the newspaper _Muhammad Speaks_ and Muslim brothers sold iton the ghetto sidewalks. Little did I dream that later on, when jealousy set in among the hierarchy,nothing about me would be printed in the paper I had founded.
　　Anyway, national publicity was in the offing for the Nation of Islam when Mr. Muhammad sent meon a three-week trip to Africa. Even as small as we then were, some of the African and Asianpersonages had sent Mr. Muhammad private word that they liked his efforts to awaken and lift up theAmerican black people. Sometimes, the messages had been sent through me. As Mr. Muhammad'semissary, I went to Egypt, Arabia, to the Sudan, to Nigeria, and Ghana.
　　You will often hear today a lot of the Negro leaders complaining that what thrust the Muslims intointernational prominence was the white man's press, radio, television, and other media. I have noshred of argument with that. They are absolutely correct. Why, none of us in the Nation of Islamremotely anticipated what was about to happen.
　　 In late 1959, the television program was aired. "The Hate That Hate Produced"-the title-was editedtightly into a kaleidoscope of "shocker" images . . . Mr. Muhammad, me, and others speaking . . .
　　strong-looking, set-faced black men, our Fruit of Islam . . . white-scarved, white-gowned Muslimsisters of all ages. . . Muslims in our restaurants, and other businesses . . . Muslims and other blackpeople entering and leaving our mosques . . . .
　　Every phrase was edited to increase the shock mood. As the producers intended, I think people satjust about limp when the program went off.
　　In a way, the public reaction was like what happened back in the 1930's when Orson Welles frightenedAmerica with a radio program describing, as though it was actually happening, an invasion by "menfrom Mars."No one now jumped from any windows, but in New York City there was an instant avalanche ofpublic reaction. It's my personal opinion that the "Hate . . . Hate . . ." title was primarily responsible forthe reaction. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, black and white, were exclaiming "Did you hearit? Did you see it? Preaching _hate_ of white people!"Here was one of the white man's most characteristic behavior patterns-where black men areconcerned. He loves himself so much that he is startled if he discovers that his victims don't share hisvainglorious self-opinion. In America for centuries it had been just fine as long as the victimized,brutalized and exploited black people had been grinning and begging and "Yessa, Massa" and UncleTomming. But now, things were different. First came the white newspapers-feature writers andcolumnists: "Alarming" . . ."hate-messengers" . . ."threat to the good relations between the races" . . ."black segregationists" . . ."black supremacists," and the like.
　　And the newspapers' ink wasn't dry before the big national weekly news magazines started: "Hateteachers" . . ."violence-seekers" . . ."black racists" . . ."black fascists" . . ."anti-Christian" . . . "possiblyCommunist-inspired . . . ."It rolled out of the presses of the biggest devil in the history of mankind. And then the aroused whiteman made his next move.
　　Since slavery, the American white man has always kept some handpicked Negroes who fared muchbetter than the black masses suffering and slaving out in the hot fields. The white man had these"house" and "yard" Negroes for his special servants. He threw them more crumbs from his rich table,he even let them eat in his kitchen. He knew that he could always count on them to keep "good massa"happy in his self-image of being so "good" and "righteous." "Good massa" always heard just what hewanted to hear from these "house" and "yard" blacks. "You're such a good, _fine_ massa!" Or, "Oh,massa, those old black nigger fieldhands out there, they're happy just like they are; why, massa,they're not intelligent enough for you to try and do any better for them, massa-"Well, slavery time's "house" and "yard" Negroes had become more sophisticated, that was all. Whennow the white man picked up his telephone and dialed his "house" and "yard" Negroes-why, he didn'teven need to instruct the trained black puppets. They had seen the television program; had read thenewspapers. They were already composing their lines. They knew what to do.
　　I'm not going to call any names. But if you make a list of the biggest Negro "leaders," so-called, in 1960,then you've named the ones who began to attack us "field" Negroes who were sounding _insane_,talking that way about "good massa.""By no means do these Muslims represent the Negro masses-" That was the first worry, to reassure"good massa" that he had no reason to be concerned about his fieldhands in the ghettoes. "Anirresponsible hate cult" . . ."an unfortunate Negro image, just when the racial picture is improving-"They were stumbling over each other to get quoted. "A deplorable reverse-racism" . . ."Ridiculouspretenders to the ancient Islamic doctrine" . . ."Heretic anti-Christianity-'
　　The telephone in our then small Temple Seven restaurant nearly jumped off the wall. I had a receiveragainst my ear five hours a day. I was listening, and jotting in my notebook, as press, radio, andtelevision people called, all of them wanting the Muslim reaction to the quoted attacks of these black"leaders." Or I was on long-distance to Mr. Muhammad in Chicago, reading from my notebook andasking for Mr. Muhammad's instructions.
　　I couldn't understand how Mr. Muhammad could maintain his calm and patience, hearing the things Itold him. I could scarcely contain myself.
　　 My unlisted home telephone number somehow got out. My wife Betty put down the phone aftertaking one message, and it was ringing again. It seemed that wherever I went, telephones wereringing.
　　The calls naturally were directed to me, New York City being the major news-media headquarters,and I was the New York minister of Mr. Muhammad. Calls came, long-distance from San Francisco toMaine . . . from even London, Stockholm, Paris. I would see a Muslim brother at our restaurant, orBetty at home, trying to keep cool; they'd hand me the receiver, and I couldn't believe it, either. Onefunny thing-in all that hectic period, something quickly struck my notice: the Europeans never pressedthe "hate" question. Only the American white man was so plagued and obsessed with being "hated."He was so guilty, it was clear to me, of hating Negroes.
　　"Mr. Malcolm X, why do you teach black supremacy, and hate?" A red flag waved for me, somethingchemical happened inside me, every time I heard that. When we Muslims had talked about "the devilwhite man" he had been relatively abstract, someone we Muslims rarely actually came into contactwith, but now here was that devil-in-the-flesh on the phone-with all of his calculating, cold-eyed, self-righteous tricks and nerve and gall. The voices questioning me became to me as breathing, livingdevils.
　　And I tried to pour on pure fire in return. "The white man so guilty of white supremacy can't hide_his_ guilt by trying to accuse The Honorable Elijah Muhammad of teaching black supremacy andhate! All Mr. Muhammad is doing is trying to uplift the black man's mentality and the black man'ssocial and economic condition in this country.
　　"The guilty, two-faced white man can't decide what he wants. Our slave foreparents would have beenput to death for advocating so-called 'integration' with the white man. Now when Mr. Muhammadspeaks of 'separation,' the white man calls us 'hate-teachers' and 'fascists'!
　　"The white man doesn't _want_ the blacks! He doesn't _want_ the blacks that are a parasite upon him!
　　He doesn't _want_ this black man whose presence and condition in this country expose the white manto the world for what he is! So why do you attack Mr. Muhammad?"I'd have _scathing_ in my voice; I _felt_ it.
　　"For the white man to ask the black man if he hates him is just like the rapist asking the _raped_, or thewolf asking the _sheep_, 'Do you hate me?' The white man is in no moral _position_ to accuse anyoneelse of hate!
　　"Why, when all of my ancestors are snake-bitten, and I'm snake-bitten, and I warn my children toavoid snakes, what does that snake sound like accusing _me_ of hate-teaching?""Mr. Malcolm X," those devils would ask, "why is your Fruit of Islam being trained in judo andkarate?" An image of black men learning anything suggesting self-defense seemed to terrify the white man. I'd turn their question around: "Why does judo or karate suddenly get so ominous because blackmen study it? Across America, the Boy Scouts, the YMCA, even the YWCA, the CYP, PAL-they _all_teach judo! It's all right, it'sfine-until _black men_ teach it! Even little grammar school classes, little girls, are taught to defendthemselves-""How many of you are in your organization, Mr. Malcolm X? Right Reverend Bishop T. Chickenwingsays you have only a handful of members-""Whoever tells you how many Muslims there are doesn't know, and whoever does know will nevertell you-"The Bishop Chickenwings were also often quoted about our "anti-Christianity." I'd fire right back onthat:
　　"Christianity is the white man's religion. The Holy Bible in the white man's hands and hisinterpretations of it have been the greatest single ideological weapon for enslaving millions of nonwhite human beings. Every country the white man has conquered with his guns, he has always pavedthe way, and salved his conscience, by carrying the Bible and interpreting it to call the people'heathens' and 'pagans'; then he sends his guns, then his missionaries behind the guns to mop up-"White reporters, anger in their voices, would call us "demagogues," and I would try to be ready after Ihad been asked the same question two or three times.
　　"Well, let's go back to the Greek, and maybe you will learn the first thing you need to know about theword 'demagogue.' 'Demagogue' means, actually, 'teacher of the people.' And let's examine somedemagogues. The greatest of all Greeks, Socrates, was killed as a 'demagogue.' Jesus Christ died on thecross because the Pharisees of His day were upholding their law, not the spirit. The modern Phariseesare trying to heap destruction upon Mr. Muhammad, calling him a demagogue, a crackpot, andfanatic. What about Gandhi? The man that Churchill called 'a naked little fakir,' refusing food in aBritish jail? But then a quarter of a billion people, a whole subcontinent, rallied behind Gandhi-andthey twisted the British lion's tail! What about Galileo, standing before his inquisitors, saying 'Theearth _does_ move!' What about Martin Luther, nailing on a door his thesis against the all-powerfulCatholic church which called him 'heretic'? We, the followers of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, aretoday in the ghettoes as once the sect of Christianity's followers were like termites in the catacombsand the grottoes-and they were preparing the grave of the mighty Roman Empire!"I can remember those hot telephone sessions with those reporters as if it were yesterday. The reporterswere angry. I was angry. When I'd reach into history, they'd try to pull me back to the present. Theywould quit interviewing, quit their work, trying to defend their personal white devil selves. Theywould unearth Lincoln and his freeing of the slaves. I'd tell them things Lincoln said in speeches,_against_ the blacks. They would drag up the 1954 Supreme Court decision on school integration.
　 "That was one of the greatest magical feats ever performed in America," I'd tell them. "Do you mean totell me that nine Supreme Court judges, who are past masters of legal phraseology, couldn't haveworked their decision to make it stick as _law_? No! It was trickery and magic that told Negroes theywere desegregated-Hooray! Hooray!-and at the same time it told whites 'Here are your loopholes.'"The reporters would try their utmost to raise some "good" white man whom I couldn't refute as such.
　　I'll never forget how one practically lost his voice. He asked me did I feel _any_ white men had everdone anything for the black man in America. I told him, "Yes, I can think of two. Hitler, and Stalin. Theblack man in America couldn't get a decent factory job until Hitler put so much pressure on the whiteman. And men Stalin kept up the pressure-'
　　But I don't care what points I made in the interviews, it practically never got printed the way I said it. Iwas learning under fire how the press, when it wants to, can twist, and slant. If I had said "Mary had alittle lamb," what probably would have appeared was "Malcolm X Lampoons Mary."Even so, my bitterness was less against the white press than it was against those Negro "leaders" whokept attacking us. Mr. Muhammad said he wanted us to try our best not to publicly counterattack theblack "leaders" because one of the white man's tricks was keeping the black race divided and fightingagainst each other. Mr. Muhammad said that this had traditionally kept the black people fromachieving the unity which was the worst need of the black race in America.
　　But instead of abating, the black puppets continued ripping and tearing at Mr. Muhammad and theNation of Islam-until it began to appear as though we were afraid to speak out against these"important" Negroes. That's when Mr. Muhammad's patience wore thin. And with his nod, I beganreturning their fire.
　　"Today's Uncle Tom doesn't wear a handkerchief on his head. This modern, twentieth-century UncleThomas now often wears a top hat. He's usually well-dressed and well-educated. He's often thepersonification of culture and refinement. The twentieth-century Uncle Thomas sometimes speaksWith a Yale or Harvard accent. Sometimes he is known as Professor, Doctor, Judge, and Reverend,even Right Reverend Doctor. This twentieth-century Uncle Thomas is a _professional_ Negro . . . bythat I mean his profession is being a Negro for the white man."Never before in America had these hand-picked so-called "leaders" been publicly blasted in this way.
　　They reacted to the truth about themselves even more hotly than the devilish white man. Now their"institutional" indictments of us began. Instead of "leaders" speaking as themselves, for themselves,now their weighty name organizations attacked Mr. Muhammad.
　　"Black bodies with white heads!" I called them what they were. Every one of those "Negro progress"organizations had the same composition. Black "leaders" were out in the public eye-to be seen by theNegroes for whom they were supposed to be fighting the white man. But obscurely, behind thescenes, was a white boss-a president, or board chairman, or some other title, pulling the real strings.
　　 It was hot, hot copy, both in the white and the black press. _Life_, _Look_, _Newsweek_ and _Time_reported us. Some newspaper chains began to run not one story, but a series of three, four, or five"exposures" of the Nation of Islam. The _Reader's Digest_ with its worldwide circulation of twenty-four million copies in thirteen languages carried an article titled "Mr. Muhammad Speaks," by thewriter to whom I am telling this book; and that led off other major monthly magazines' coverage of us.
　　 Before very long, radio and television people began asking me to defend our Nation of Islam in paneldiscussions and debates. I was to be confronted by hand-picked scholars both whites and some ofthose Ph.D. "house" and "yard" Negroes who had been attacking us. Every day, I was more incensedwith the general misrepresentation and distortion of Mr. Muhammad's teachings; I truly think that notonce did it cross my mind that previously I never had been _inside_ a radio or television station-letalone faced a microphone to audiences of millions of people. Prison debating had been my onlyexperience speaking to anyone but Muslims.
　　From the old hustling days I knew that there were tricks to everything. In the prison debating, I hadlearned tricks to upset my opponents, to catch them where they didn't expect to be caught. I knewthere were bound to be tricks I didn't know anything about arguing on the air.
　　I knew that if I closely studied what the others did, I could learn things in a hurry to help me to defendMr. Muhammad and his teachings.
　　I'd walk into those studios. The devils and black Ph.D. puppets would be acting so friendly and"integrated" with each other-laughing and calling each other by first names, and all that; it was such abig lie it made me sick in my stomach. They would even be trying to act friendly toward me-we allknowing they had asked me there to try and beat out my brains. They would offer me coffee. I wouldtell them "No, thanks," to please just tell me where was I supposed to sit. Sometimes the microphonesat on the table before you, at other times a smaller, cylindrical microphone was hung on a cordaround your neck. From the start, I liked those microphones better; I didn't have to keep constantlyaware of my distance from a microphone on the table.
　　The program hosts would start with some kind of dice-loading, non-religious introduction for me. Itwould be something like-and we have with us today the fiery, angry chief Malcolm X of the New York Muslims. . . ." I made upmy own introduction. At home, or driving my car, I practiced until I could interrupt a radio ortelevision host and introduce myself.
　　"I represent Mr. Elijah Muhammad, the spiritual head of the fastest-growing group of Muslims in theWestern Hemisphere. We who follow him know that he has been divinely taught and sent to us byGod Himself. We believe that the miserable plight of America's twenty million black people is the fulfillment of divine prophecy. We also believe the presence today in America of The Honorable ElijahMuhammad, his teachings among the so-called Negroes, and his naked warning to Americaconcerning her treatment of these so-called Negroes, is all the fulfillment of divine prophecy. I amprivileged to be the minister of ourTemple Number Seven here in New York City which is a part of the Nation of Islam, under the divineleadership of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad-"I would look around at those devils and their trained black parrots staring at me, while I was catchingmy breath-and I had set my tone.
　　They would outdo each other, leaping in on me, hammering at Mr. Muhammad, at me, and at theNation of Islam. Those "integration"-mad Negroes-you know what they jumped on. _Why_ couldn'tMuslims _see_ that "integration" was the answer to American Negroes' problems? I'd try to rip that topieces.
　　"No _sane_ black man really wants integration! No _sane_ white man really wants integration! Nosane black man really believes that the white man ever will give the black man anything more thantoken integration. No! The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches that for the black man in America theonly solution is complete _separation_ from the white man!"Anyone who has ever heard me on radio or television programs knows that my technique is non-stop,until what I want to get said is said. I was developing the technique then.
　　"The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that since Western society is deteriorating, it hasbecome overrun with immorality, and God is going to judge it, and destroy it. And the only way theblack people caught up in this society can be saved is not to _integrate_ into this corrupt society, but to_separate_ from it, to a land of our _own_, where we can reform ourselves, lift up our moralstandards, and try to be godly. The Western world's most learned diplomats have failed to solve thisgrave race problem. Her learned legal experts have failed. Her sociologists have failed. Her civilleaders have failed. Her fraternal leaders have failed. Since all of these have _failed_ to solve this raceproblem, it is time for us to sit down and _reason!_ I am certain that we will be forced to agree that ittakes _God Himself_ to solve this grave racial dilemma."Every time I mentioned "separation," some of them would cry that we Muslims were standing for thesame thing that white racists and demagogues stood for. I would explain the difference. "No! We reject_segregation_ even more militantly than you say you do! We want _separation_, which is not thesame! The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that _segregation_ is when your life and libertyare controlled, regulated, _by someone else_. To _segregate_ means to control. Segregation is thatwhich is forced upon inferiors by superiors. But _separation_ is that which is done voluntarily, by twoequals-for the good of both! The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that as long as our peoplehere in America are dependent upon the white man, we will always be begging him for jobs, food,clothing, and housing. And he will always control our lives, regulate our lives, and have the power to segregate us. The Negro here in America has been treated like a child. A child stays within the motheruntil the time of birth! When the time of birth arrives, the child must be separated, or it will _destroy_its mother and itself. The mother can't carry that child after its time. The child cries for and needs itsown world!"Anyone who has listened to me will have to agree that I believed in Elijah Muhammad andrepresented him one hundred per cent. I never tried to take any credit for myself.
　　I was never in one of those panel discussions without some of them just waiting their chance to accuseme of "inciting Negroes to violence." I didn't even have to do any special studying to prepare for thatone.
　　"The greatest miracle Christianity has achieved in America is that the black man in white Christianhands has not grown violent. It _is_ a miracle that 22 million black people have not _risen up_ againsttheir oppressors-in which they would have been justified by all moral criteria, and even by thedemocratic tradition! It is a miracle that a nation of black people has so fervently continued to believein a turn-the-other-cheek and heaven-for-you-after-you-die philosophy! It _is a miracle_ that theAmerican black people have remained a peaceful people, while catching all the centuries of hell thatthey have caught, here in white man's heaven! The _miracle_ is that the white man's puppet Negro'leaders,' his preachers and the educated Negroes laden with degrees, and others who have beenallowed to wax fat off their black poor brothers, have been able to hold the black masses quiet untilnow."I guarantee you one thing-every time I was mixed up in those studios with those brainwashed,"integration"-mad black puppets, and those tricky devils trying to rip and tear me down, as long as thelittle red light glowed "on the air," I tried to represent Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam tothe utmost.
　　Dr. C. Eric Lincoln's book was published amid widening controversy about us Muslims, at just aboutthe time we were starting to put on our first big mass rallies.
　　Just as the television "Hate That Hate Produced" title had projected that "hate-teaching" image of us,now Dr. Lincoln's book was titled _The Black Muslims in America_. The press snatched at that name.
　　"Black Muslims" was in all the book reviews, which quoted from the book only what was critical of us,and generally praised Dr. Lincoln's writing.
　　The public mind fixed on "Black Muslims." From Mr. Muhammad on down, the name "BlackMuslims" distressed everyone in the Nation of Islam. I tried for at least two years to kill off that "BlackMuslims." Every newspaper and magazine writer and microphone I got close to: "_No!_ We are black_people_ here in America. Our _religion_ is Islam. We are properly called 'Muslims'!" But that "BlackMuslims" name never got dislodged.
　　Our mass rallies, from their very beginning, were astounding successes. Where once Detroit's struggling little Temple One proudly sent a ten-automobile caravan to Chicago to hear Mr.
　　Muhammad, now, from East Coast Temples-the older Temples as well as the new ones that all of themassive publicity had helped us to bring into being-as many as 150, 200 and even as many as 300 big,chartered buses rolled the highways to wherever Mr. Muhammad was going to speak. On each bus,two Fruit of Islam men were in charge. Big three-by-nine-foot painted canvas banners hung on thebuses' sides, to be read by the highway traffic and thousands of people at home and on the sidewalksof the towns the buses passed through.
　　Hundreds more Muslims and curious Negroes drove their own cars. And Mr. Muhammad with hispersonal jet plane from Chicago. From the airport to the rally hall, Mr. Muhammad's motorcade had asiren-screaming police escort. Law agencies once had scoffed at our Nation as "black crackpots"; nowthey took special pains to safeguard against some "white crackpots" causing any "incidents" or"accidents."America had never seen such fantastic all-black meetings! To hear Elijah Muhammad, up to tenthousand and more black people poured from public and private transportation to overflow the bighalls we rented, such as the St. Nicholas Arena in New York City, Chicago's Coliseum, andWashington, D.C. 's Uline Arena.
　　The white man was barred from attendance-the first time the American black man had ever dreamedof such a thing. And that brought us new attacks from the white man and his black puppets. "Blacksegregationists . . . racists!" Accusing us of segregation! Across America, whites barring blacks wasstandard.
　　Many hundreds arrived too late for us to seat them. We always had to wire up outside loudspeakers.
　　An electric atmosphere excited the great, shifting masses of black people. The long lines, three andfour abreast, funneling to the meeting hall, were kept in strict order by Fruit of Islam mencommunicating by walkie-talkie. In anterooms just inside the halls, more Fruit of Islam men andwhite-gowned, veiled mature Muslim sisters thoroughly searched every man, woman, and childseeking to enter. Any alcohol and tobacco had to be checked, and any objects which could possibly beused to attempt to harm Mr. Muhammad. He always seemed deathly afraid that some one wouldharm him, and he insisted that everyone be searched to forestall this. Today I understand better, why.
　　The hundreds of Fruit of Islam men represented contingents which had arrived early that morning,from their Temples in the nearest cities. Some were detailed as ushers, who seated the people bydesignated sections. The balconies and the rear half of the main floor were filled with black people ofthe general public. Ahead of them were the all-Muslim seating sections-the white-garbed beautifulblack sisters, and the dark-suited, white-shirted brothers. A special section near the front was for blackso-called "dignitaries." Many of these had been invited. Among them were our black puppet andparrot attackers, the intellectuals and professional Negroes over whom Mr. Muhammad grieved somuch, for these were the educated ones who should have been foremost in leading their poor blackbrothers out of the maze of misery and want. We wanted them to miss not a single syllable of thetruths from Mr. Muhammad in person.
　　 The front two or three press rows were filled with the black reporters and cameramen representing theNegro press, or those who had been hired by the white man's newspapers, magazines, radio, andtelevision. America's black writers should hold a banquet for Mr. Muhammad. Writing about theNation of Islam was the path to success for most of the black writers who now are recognized.
　　Up on the speaker's platform, we ministers and other officials of the Nation, entering from backstage,found ourselves chairs in the five or six rows behind the big chair reserved for Mr. Muhammad. Someof the ministers had come hundreds of miles to be present. We would be turning about in our chairs,beaming with smiles, wringing each other's hands, and exchanging "As-Salaam-Alaikum" and "Wa-Alaikum-Salaam" in our genuine deep rejoicing to see each other again.
　　Always, meeting us older hands in Mr. Muhammad's service for the first time, there were several newministers of small new Temples. My brothers Wilfred and Philbert were respectively now theministers of the Detroit and Lansing Temples. Minister Jeremiah X headed Atlanta's Temple. MinisterJohn X had Los Angeles' Temple. The Messenger's son, Minister Wallace Muhammad, had thePhiladelphia Temple. Minister Woodrow X had the Atlantic City Temple. Some of our ministers hadunusual backgrounds. The Washington, D.C., Temple Minister Lucius X was previously a SeventhDay Adventist and a 32nd degree Mason. Minister George X of the Camden, New Jersey, Temple wasa pathologist. Minister David X was previously the minister of a Richmond, Virginia, Christianchurch; he and enough of his congregation had become Muslims so that the congregation split and themajority turned the church into our Richmond Temple. The Boston Temple's outstanding youngMinister Louis X, previously a well-known and rising popular singer called "The Charmer," hadwritten our Nation's popular first song, titled "White Man's Heaven is Black Mali's Hell." MinisterLouis X had also authored our first play, "Orgena" ("A Negro" spelled backwards); its theme was theall-black trial of a symbolic white man for his world crimes against non-whites; found guilty,sentenced to death, he was dragged off shouting about all he had done "for the nigra people."Younger even than our talented Louis X were some newer ministers, Minister Thomas J. X of theHartford Temple being one example, and another the Buffalo Temple's Minister Robert J. X.
　　I had either originally established or organized for Mr. Muhammad most of the represented temples.
　　Greeting each of these Temples' brother ministers would bring back into my mind images of "fishing"for converts along the streets and from door-to-door wherever the black people were congregated. Iremembered the countless meetings in living rooms where maybe seven would be a crowd; thegradually building, building-on up to renting folding chairs for dingy little storefronts which Muslimsscrubbed to spotlessness.
　　We together on a huge hall's speaking platform, and that vast audience before us, miraculouslymanifested, as far as I was concerned, the incomprehensible power of Allah. For the first time, I trulyunderstood something Mr. Muhammad had told me: he claimed that when he was going through thesacrificial trials of fleeing the black hypocrites from city to city, Allah had often sent him visions of great audiences who would one day hear the teachings; and Mr. Muhammad said the visions alsobuoyed him when he was locked up for years in the white man's prison.
　　The great audience's restless whisperings would cease . . . .
　　At the microphone would be the Nation's National Secretary John Ali, or the Boston Temple MinisterLouis X. They enlivened the all-black atmosphere, speaking of the new world open to the black manthrough the Nation of Islam. Sister Tynetta Dynear would speak beautifully of the Muslim women'spowerful, vital contributions, of the Muslim women's roles in our Nation's efforts to raise the physical,mental, moral, social, and political condition of America's black people.
　　Next, I would come to the microphone, specifically to condition the audience to hear Mr. Muhammad,who had flown from Chicago to teach us all in person.
　　I would raise up my hand, "_As-Salaikum-Salaam-_""_Wa-Alaikum-Salaam!_" It was a roared response from the great audience's Muslim seating section.
　　There was a general pattern that I would follow on these occasions:
　　"My black brothers and sisters-of all religious beliefs, or of no religious beliefs-we all have in commonthe greatest binding tie we could have . . . we all are _black_ people!
　　"I'm not going to take all day telling you some of the greatnesses of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
　　I'm just going to tell you now his _greatest_ greatness! He is the _first_, the _only_ black leader toidentify, to you and me, _who_ is our enemy!
　　"The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the first black leader among us with the _courage_ to tell us-outhere in public-something which when you begin to think of it back in your homes, you will realize weblack people have been _living_ with, we have been _seeing_, we have been _suffering_, all of ourlives!
　　"Our _enemy_ is the _white man!_"And why is Mr. Muhammad's teaching us this such a great thing? Because when you know _who_your enemy is, he can no longer keep you divided, and fighting, one brother against the other!
　　Because when you recognize who your enemy is, he can no longer use trickery, promises, lies,hypocrisy, and his evil acts to keep you deaf, dumb, and blinded!
　　"When you recognize _who_ your enemy is, he can no longer brainwash you, he can no longer pullwool over your eyes so that you never stop to see that you are living in pure _hell_ on this earth, whilehe lives in pure _heaven_ right on this same earth!-This enemy who tells you that you are bothsupposed to be worshiping the same white Christian God that-you are told-stands for the _same_ things for _all_ men!
　　"Oh, _yes_, that devil is our enemy. I'll _prove_ it! Pick up any daily newspaper! Read the falsecharges leveled against our beloved religious leader. It only points up the fact that the Caucasian racenever wants any black man who is not their puppet or parrot to speak for our people. This Caucasiandevil slavemaster does not want or trust us to leave him-yet when we stay here among him, hecontinues to keep us at the very lowest level of his society!
　　"The white man has always _loved_ it when he could keep us black men tucked away somewhere,always out of sight, around the comer! The white man has always _loved_ the kind of black leaderswhom he could ask, 'Well, how's things with your people up there?' But because Mr. ElijahMuhammad takes an uncompromising stand with the white man, the white man _hates_ him! Whenyou hear the _white man_ hate him, you, too, because you don't understand Biblical prophecy,wrongly label Mr. Muhammad-as a racist, a hate-teacher, or of being anti-white and teaching blacksupremacy-"The audience suddenly would begin a rustling of turning . . . .
　　Mr. Muhammad would be rapidly moving along up a center aisle from the rear-as once he hadentered our humble little mosques-this man whom we regarded as Islam's gentle, meek, brown-skinned Lamb. Stalwart, striding, close-cropped, hand-picked Fruit of Islam guards were a circlesurrounding him. He carried his Holy Bible, his holy Quran. The small, dark pillbox atop his head wasgold-embroidered with Islam's flag, the sun, moon, and stars. The Muslims were crying out theiradoration and their welcome. "Little Lamb!" "As-Salaikum-Salaam!" "Praise be to Allah!"Tears would be in more eyes than mine. He had rescued me when I was a convict; Mr. Muhammadhad trained me in his home, as if I was his son. I think that my life's peaks of emotion, until recently, atleast, were when, suddenly, the Fruit of Islam guards would stop stiffly at attention, and theplatform's several steps would be mounted alone by Mr. Muhammad, and his ministers, including me,sprang around him, embracing him, wringing both his hands . . . .
　　I would turn right back to the microphone, not to keep waiting those world's biggest black audienceswho had come to hear him.
　　"My black brothers and sisters-_no_ one will know _who_ we are . . . until _we_ know who we are! Wenever will be able to _go_ anywhere until we know _where_ we are! The Honorable ElijahMuhammad is giving us a true identity, and a true position-the first time they have ever been_known_ to the American black man!
　　"You can be around this man and never dream from his actions the power and the authority he has-"(Behind me, believe me when I tell you, I could _feel_ Mr. Muhammad's _power_.)"He does not _display_, and _parade_, his _power_! But no other black leader in America has followers who will lay down their lives if he says so! And I don't mean all of this non-violent, begging-the-white-man kind of dying . . . all of this sitting-in, sliding-in, wading-in, eating-in, diving-in, and allthe rest"My black brothers and sisters, you have come from your homes to hear-now you are _going_ to hear-America's _wisest_ black man! America's _boldest_ black man! America's most _fearless_ black man!
　　This wilderness of North America's most _powerful_ black man!"Mr. Muhammad would come quickly to the stand, looking out over the vacuum-quiet audience, hisgentle-looking face set, for just a fleeting moment. Then, "As-Salaikum-Salaam-'
　　" WA-ALAIKUM-SALAAM!"The Muslims roared it, as they settled to listen. From experience, they knew that for the next twohours Mr. Muhammad would wield his two-edged sword of truth. In fact, every Muslim worried thathe overtaxed himself in the length of his speeches, considering his bronchial asthmatic condition.
　　"I don't have a degree like many of you out there before me have. But history don't care anythingabout your degrees.
　　"The white man, he has filled you with a fear of him from ever since you were little black babies. Soover you is the greatest enemy a man can have-and that is fear. I know some of you are afraid to listento the truth-you have been raised on fear and lies. But I am going to preach to you the truth until youare free of thatfear .. . .
　　"Your slavemaster, he brought you over here, and of your past everything was destroyed. Today, youdo not know your true language. What tribe are you from? You would not recognize your tribe's nameif you heard it. You don't know nothing about your true culture. You don't even know your family'sreal name. You are wearing a _white man's_ name! The white slave-master, who _hates_ you!
　　"You are a people who think you know all about the Bible, and all about Christianity. You even arefoolish enough to believe that nothing is _right_ but Christianity!
　　"You are the planet Earth's only group of people ignorant of yourself, ignorant of your own kind, ofyour true history, ignorant of your enemy! You know nothing at _all_ but what your whiteslavemaster has chosen to tell you. And he has told you only that which will benefit himself, and hisown kind. He has taught you, for his benefit, that you are a neutral, shiftless, helpless so-called'Negro.'
　　"I say _'so-called'_ because you are _not_ a _'Negro.'_ There is no such thing as a race of _'Negroes.'_You are members of the Asiatic nation, from the tribe of _Shabazz_! 'Negro' is a false labelforced on you by your slavemaster! He has been pushing things onto you and me and our kind ever since he brought the first slave shipload of us black people here-"When Mr. Muhammad paused, the Muslims before him cried out, "Little Lamb!" . . ."All praise is dueto Allah!" . . ."_Teach_, Messenger!" He would continue.
　　"The _ignorance_ we of the black race here in America have, and the _self-hatred_ we have, they arefine examples of what the white slavemaster has seen fit to teach to us. Do we show the plain commonsense, like every other people on this planet Earth, to unite among ourselves? No! We are humblingourselves, sitting-in, and begging-in, trying to _unite_ with the slavemaster! I don't seem able toimagine any more ridiculous sight. A thousand ways every day, the white man is telling you 'Youcan't live here, you can't enter here, you can't eat here, drink here, walk here, work here, you can't ridehere, you can't play here, you can't study here.' Haven't we yet seen enough to see that he has no planto _unite_ with you?
　　"You have tilled his fields! Cooked his food! Washed his clothes! You have cared for his wife andchildren when he was away. In many cases, you have even suckled him at your _breast_! You havebeen far and away better Christians than this slave-master who _taught_ you his Christianity!
　　"You have sweated blood to help him build a country so rich that he can today afford to give awaymillions-even to his _enemies_! And when those enemies have gotten enough from him to then beable to attack him, you have been his brave soldiers, dying for him. And you have been always hismost faithful servant during the so-called 'peaceful' times"And, _still_, this Christian American white man has not got it in him to find the human _decency_,and enough sense of _justice_, to recognize us, and accept us, the black people who have done somuch for him, as fellow human beings!""YAH, Man!" . . ."_Um-huh_!" "_Teach_, Messenger!" . . ."_Yah_!" . . ."_Tell 'em_!" . . ."You_right_!" . . ."Take your _time_ up there, little Messenger!" . . ."Oh, _yes_!"Others besides the Muslims would be shouting now. We Muslims were less extroverted than ChristianNegroes. It would sound now like an old-fashioned camp meeting.
　　"So let us, the black people, _separate_ ourselves from this white man slavemaster, who despises us somuch! You are out here begging him for some so-called '_integration_!' But what is this slavemasterwhite, _rapist_, going about saying! He is saying _he_ won't integrate because black blood will_mongrelize_ his race! _He_ says that-and look at _us_! Turn around in your seats and look at eachother! This slavemaster white man already has '_integrated_' us until you can hardly find among ustoday any more than a very few who are the black color of our foreparents!""God-a-mighty, the man's right!" . . ."_'Teach_, Messenger-" "_Hear_ him! _Hear_ him!""He has left such a little black in us," Mr. Muhammad would go on, "that now he despises us so bad meaning he despises _himself_, for what he has _done_ to us-that he tells us that _legally_ if we havegot _one drop_ of black blood in us, that means you are all-black as far as his laws are concerned!
　　Well, if that's all we've got left, we want to _reclaim_ that one drop!"Mr. Muhammad's frail strength could be seen to be waning. But he would teach on:
　　"So let us _separate_ from this white man, and for the same reason _he_ says-in time to save ourselvesfrom any more '_integration_! '
　　"Why _shouldn't_ this white man who likes to think and call himself so good, and so generous, thiswhite man who finances even his enemies-why _shouldn't_ he subsidize a separate state, a separateterritory, for we black people who have been such faithful slaves and servants? A separate territory onwhich we can lift _ourselves_ out of these white man's _slums_ for us, and his _breadlines_ for us.
　　And even for _those_ he is complaining that we cost him too much! We can do something for_ourselves_! We never have done what we _could_-because we have been brainwashed so well by theslavemaster white man that we must come to him, begging him, for everything we want, and need-"After perhaps ninety minutes, behind Mr. Muhammad, every minister would have to restrain himselffrom bolting up to his side, to urge him that it was enough. He would be pressing his hands tightlyagainst the edges of the speaker's stand, to support himself.
　　"We black people don't _know_ what we can do. You never can know what _anything_ can do-until itis set _free_, to act by itself! If you have a cat in your house that you pamper and pet, you have to freethat cat, set it on its _own_, in the woods, before you can see that the cat had it in him to shelter andfeed itself!
　　"We, the black people here in America, we never have been _free_ to find _out_ what we really can_do_! We have knowledge and experience to pool to do for ourselves! All of our lives we have farmed-we can grow our own food. We can set up factories to manufacture our own necessities! We can buildother kinds of businesses, to establish trade, and commerce-and become independent, as othercivilized people are"We can _throw off_ our brainwashing, and our self-hate, and live as _brothers_ together . . .
　　". . . some land of our _own_! . . . Something for _ourselves_! . . . leave this white slavemaster to_himself_. . . ."Mr. Muhammad always stopped abruptly when he was unable to speak any longer.
　　The standing ovation, a solid wall of sound, would go on unabating.
　　Standing up there, flailing my arms, finally I could quiet the audiences as Fruit of Islam ushers beganto pass along the seating rows the large, waxed paper buckets we used to take up the collection. I would speak.
　　"You _know_, from what you have just heard, that no white money finances The Honorable ElijahMuhammad and his program-to 'advise' him and 'contain' him! Mr. Muhammad's program, and hisfollowers, are not 'integrated.' Mr. Muhammad's program and organization are _all_-black!
　　"We are the _only_ black organization that _only_ black people support! These so-called 'Negroprogress' organizations-Why, they insult your intelligence, claiming they are fighting in your behalf,to get you the equal rights you are asking for . . . claiming they are _fighting_ the white man whorefuses to give you your rights. Why, the white man _supports_ those organizations! If you belong,you pay your two, or three, or five dollars a year-but _who_ gives those organizations those two, andthree, and five _thousand_ dollar donations? The _white_ man! He _feeds_ those organizations! So hecontrols those organizations! He _advises_ them-so he _contains_ them! Use your common sensearen't you going to advise and control and contain anyone that you support, like your child?
　　"The white man would love to support Mr. Elijah Muhammad. Because if Mr. Muhammad had to relyon his support, he could _advise_ Mr. Muhammad. My black brothers and sisters, it is _only_ because_your_ money, _black_ money, supports Mr. Muhammad, that he can hold these all-black meetingsfrom city to city, telling us black men the _truth_! That's why we are asking for your all-black_support_!"Nearly all bills-and far from all one-dollar bills, either, filled the waxed buckets. The buckets wereswiftly emptied, then refilled, as the Fruit of Islam ushers covered the entire audience.
　　The audience atmosphere was almost as if the people had gone limp. The collections always coveredthe rally expenses, and anything beyond that helped to continue building the Nation of Islam.
　　After several big rallies, Mr. Muhammad directed that we would admit the white press. Fruit of Islammen thoroughly searched them, as everyone else was searched-their notebooks, their cameras, cameracases, and whatever else they carried. Later, Mr. Muhammad said that _any_ whites who wanted tohear the truth could attend our public rallies, until a small separate section for whites was filled.
　　Most whites who came were students and scholars. I would watch their congealed and reddened facesstaring up at Mr. Muhammad. "The white man _knows_ that his acts have been those of a devil!" Iwould watch also the faces of the professional black men, the so-called intellectuals who attacked us.
　　They possessed the academic know-how, they possessed the technical and the scientific skills thatcould help to lead their mass of poor, black brothers out of our condition. But all these intellectual andprofessional black men could seem to think of was humbling themselves, and begging, trying to"integrate" with the so-called "liberal" white man who was telling them, "In time . . . everything's goingto work out one day . . . just wait and have patience." These intellectual and professional Negroescouldn't use what they knew for the benefit of their own black kind simply because even amongthemselves they were disunited. United among themselves, united with their own kind, they couldhave benefited black people all over the world!
　　 I would watch the faces of those intellectual and professional Negroes growing grave, and set-as thetruth hit home to them. We were watched. Our telephones were tapped. Still right today, on my hometelephone, if I said, "I'm going to bomb the Empire State Building," I guarantee you in five minutes itwould be surrounded. When I was speaking publicly sometimes I'd guess which were F.B.I. faces inthe audience, or other types of agents. Both the police and the F.B.I. intently and persistently visitedand questioned us. "I do not fear them," Mr. Muhammad said. "I have all that I need-the truth."Many a night, I drifted off to sleep, filled with wonder at how the two-edged-sword teachings so hurt,confused, concerned, and upset the government full of men trained highly in all of the modernsciences. I felt that it never could have been unless The Most Learned One, Allah Himself, had giventhe little fourth-grade-trained Messenger something.
　　 Black agents were sent to infiltrate us. But the white man's "secret" spy often proved, first of all, ablack man. I can't say _all_ of them, of course, there's no way to know-but some of them, after joiningus, and hearing, seeing and _feeling_ the truth for every black man, revealed their roles to us. Someresigned from the white man's agencies and came to work in the Nation of Islam. A few kept their jobsto counterspy, telling us the white man's statements and plans about our Nation. This was how welearned that after wanting to know what happened within our Temples, the white law agencies'
　　second major concern was the thing that I believe still ranks today as a big worry among America'spenologists: the steadily increasing rate at which black convicts embrace Islam.
　　Generally, while still in prison, our convict-converts preconditioned themselves to meet our Nation'smoral laws. As it had happened with me, when they left prison, they entered a Temple fully qualifiedto become registered Muslims. In fact, convict-converts usually were better prepared than werenumerous prospective Muslims who never had been inside a prison.
　　We were not nearly so easy to enter as a Christian church. One did not merely declare himself afollower of Mr. Muhammad, then continue leading the same old, sinful, immoral life. The Muslim firsthad to change his physical and moral self to meet our strict rules. To remain a Muslim he had tomaintain those rules.
　　Few temple meetings were held, for instance, without the minister looking down upon some freshlyshaved bald domes of new Muslim brothers in the audience. They had just banished from their livesforever that phony, lye-conked, metallic-looking hair, or "the process," as some call it these days. Itgrieves me that I don't care where you go, you see this symbol of ignorance and self-hate on so manyNegroes' heads. I know it's bound to hurt the feelings of some of my good conked non-Muslimfriends-but if you study closely any conked or "processed" Negro, you usually find he is an ignorantNegro. Whatever "show" or "front" he affects, his hair lye-cooked to be "white-looking" fairly shouts toeveryone who looks at his head, "I'm ashamed to be a Negro." He will discover, just as I did, that hewill be much-improved mentally whenever he discovers enough black self-pride to have that mess clipped off, and then wear the natural hair that God gives black men to wear.
　　No Muslim smokes-that was another of our rules. Some prospective Muslims found it more difficult toquit tobacco than others found quitting the dope habit. But black men and women quit more easilywhen we got them to consider seriously how the white man's government cared less about the public'shealth than about continuing the tobacco industry's _billions_ in tax revenue. "What does aserviceman pay for a carton of cigarettes?" a prospective Muslim convert would be asked. It helpedhim to see that every regularly priced carton he bought meant that the white man's government tookaround two dollars of a black man's hard-earned money for taxes, not for tobacco.
　　You may have read somewhere-a lot has been written concerning it-about the Nation of Islam'sphenomenal record of dope-addiction cures of longtime junkies. In fact, the _New York Times_ carrieda story about how some of the social agencies have asked representatives of the Muslim program forclinical suggestions.
　　The Muslim program began with recognizing that color and addiction have a distinct connection. It isno accident that in the entire Western Hemisphere, the greatest localized concentration of addicts is in_Harlem_.
　　Our cure program's first major ingredient was the painfully patient work of Muslims who previouslywere junkies themselves.
　　In the ghetto's dope jungle, the Muslim ex-junkies would fish out addicts who knew them back inthose days. Then with an agonizing patience that might span anywhere from a few months to a year,our ex-junkie Muslims would conduct the addicts through the Muslim six-point therapeutic process.
　　The addict first was brought to admit to himself that he was an addict. Secondly, he was taught _why_he used narcotics. Third, he was shown that there was a _way_ to stop addiction. Fourth, the addict'sshattered self-image, and ego, were built up until the addict realized that he had, _within_, the self-power to end his addiction. Fifth, the addict voluntarily underwent a cold turkey break with drugs.
　　Sixth, finally cured, now an ex-addict completes the cycle by "fishing" up other addicts whom heknows, and supervising their salvaging.
　　This sixth stage always instantly eliminated what so often defeats the average social agencies-thecharacteristic addict's hostility and suspicion. The addict who is "fished" up knew personally that theMuslim approaching him very recently had the same fifteen to thirty dollar a day habit. The Muslimmay be this addict's buddy; they had plied the same dope jungle. They even may have been thievestogether. The addict had _seen_ the Muslim drifting off to sleep leaning against a building, or steppingas high over a matchstick as if it were a dog. And the Muslim, approaching the addict, uses the sameold junkie jungle language.
　　Like the alcoholic, the junkie can never start to cure himself until he recognizes and accepts his truecondition. The Muslim sticks like a leech, drumming at his old junkie buddy, "You're hooked, man!" It might take months before the addict comes to grips with this. The curative program is never reallyunderway until this happens.
　　The next cure-phase is the addict's realization of why he takes dope. Still working on his man, right inthe old jungle locale, in dives that you wouldn't believe existed, the Muslim often collects audiences ofa dozen junkies. They listen only because they know the clean-cut proud Muslim had earlier been likethem.
　　Every addict takes junk to escape something, the Muslim explains. He explains that most black junkiesreally are trying to narcotize themselves against being a black man in the white man's America. But,actually, the Muslim says, the black man taking dope is only helping the white man to "prove" that theblack man is nothing.
　　The Muslim talks confidentially, and straight. "Daddy, you know I know how you feel. Wasn't I rightout here with you? Scratching like a monkey, smelling all bad, living mad, hungry, stealing andrunning and hiding from Whitey. Man, what's a black man buying Whitey's dope for but to makeWhitey richer-killing yourself!"The Muslim can tell when his quarry is ready to be shown that the way for him to quit dope isthrough joining the Nation of Islam. The addict is brought into the local Muslim restaurant, he mayoccasionally be exposed to some other social situations-among proud, clean Muslims who show eachother mutual affection and respect instead of the familiar hostility of the ghetto streets. For the firsttime in years, the addict hears himself called, genuinely, "Brother," "Sir" and "Mr." No one cares abouthis past. His addiction may casually be mentioned, but if so, it is spoken of as merely an especiallytough challenge that he must face. Everyone whom this addict meets is confident that he will kick hishabit.
　　As the addict's new image of himself builds, inevitably he begins thinking that he can break the habit.
　　For the first time he is feeling the effects of black self-pride.
　　That's a powerful combination for a man who has been existing in the mud of society. In fact, once heis motivated no one can change more completely than the man who has been at the bottom. I callmyself the best example of that.
　　Finally, vitally, this addict will decide for himself that he wants to go on cold turkey. This means toendure the physical agonies of abruptly quitting dope.
　　When this time comes, ex-addict Muslims will arrange to spend the necessary days in around-theclock shifts, attending the addict who intends to purge himself, on the way to becoming a Muslim.
　　When the addict's withdrawal sets in, and he is screaming, cursing, and begging, "Just one shot, man!"the Muslims are right there talking junkie jargon to him. "Baby, knock that monkey off your back! Kickthat habit! Kick Whitey off your back!" The addict, writhing in pain, his nose and eyes running, is pouring sweat from head to foot. He's trying to knock his head against the wall, flailing his arms,trying to fight his attendants, he is vomiting, suffering diarrhea. "Don't hold nothing back! Let Whiteygo, baby! You're going to stand tall, man! I can see you now in the Fruit of Islam!"When the awful ordeal is ended, when the grip of dope is broken, the Muslims comfort the weak ex-addict, feeding him soups and broths, to get him on his feet again. He will never forget these brotherswho stood by him during this time. He will never forget that it was the Nation of Islam's programwhich rescued him from the special hell of dope. And that black brother (or the sister, whom Muslimsisters attend) rarely ever will return to the use of narcotics. Instead, the ex-addict when he is proud,clean, renewed, can scarcely wait to hit the same junkie jungle he was in, to "fish" out some buddy andsalvage _him_!
　　If some white man, or "approved" black man, created a narcotics cure program as successful as the oneconducted under the aegis of the Muslims, why, there would be government subsidy, and praise andspotlights, and headlines. But we were attacked instead. Why shouldn't the Muslims be subsidized tosave millions of dollars a year for the government and the cities? I don't know what addicts' crimescost nationally, but it is said to be _billions_ a year in New York City. An estimated $12 million a yearis lost to thieves in Harlem alone.
　　An addict doesn't work to supply his habit, which may cost anywhere from ten to fifty dollars a day.
　　How could he earn that much? No! The addict steals, he hustles in other ways; he preys upon otherhuman beings like a hawk or a vulture-as I did. Very likely, he is a school drop-out, the same as I was,an Army reject, psychologically unsuited to a job even if he was offered one, the same as I was.
　　Women addicts "boost" (shoplift), or they prostitute themselves. Muslim sisters talk hard to blackprostitutes who are struggling to quit using dope in order to qualify morally to become registeredMuslims. "You are helping the white man to regard your body as a garbage can-"Numerous "exposes" of the Nation of Islam have implied that Mr. Muhammad's followers werechiefly ex-cons and junkies. In the early years, yes, the converts from society's lowest levels were asizable part of the Nation's broad base of membership. Always Mr. Muhammad instructed us, "Goafter the black man in the mud." Often, he said, those converted made the best Muslims.
　　But gradually we recruited other black people-the "good Christians" whom we "fished" from theirchurches. Then, an increase began in the membership percentage of educated and trained Negroes.
　　For each rally attracted to the local temple a few more of that particular city's so-called "middle-class"Negroes, the type who previously had scoffed at us "Black Muslims" as "demagogues," and "hateteachers," "black racists" and all the rest of the names. The Muslim truths-listened to, thought about-reaped for us a growing quota of young black men and women. For those with training and talents,the Nation of Islam had plenty of positions where those abilities w
Chapter 15 I Carus
The more places I represented Mr. Muhammad on television and radio, and at colleges and elsewhere, the more letters came from people who had heard me. I'd say that ninety-five per cent of the letterswere from white people.
　　Only a few of the letters fell into the "Dear Nigger X" category, or the death-threats. Most of my mailexposed to me the white man's two major dreads. The first one was his own private belief that Godwrathfully is going to destroy this civilization. And the white man's second most pervading dread washis image of the black man entering the body of the white woman.
　　An amazing percentage of the white letter-writers agreed entirely with Mr. Muhammad's analysis ofthe problem-but not with his solution. One odd ambivalence was how some letters, otherwise all butchampioning Mr. Muhammad, would recoil at the expression "white devils." I tried to explain this insubsequent speeches:
　　"Unless we call one white man, by name, a 'devil,' we are not speaking of any _individual_ white man.
　　We are speaking of the _collective_ white man's _historical_ record. We are speaking of the collectivewhite man's cruelties, and evils, and greeds, that have seen him _act_ like a devil toward the nonwhite man. Any intelligent, honest, objective person cannot fail to realize that this white man's slavetrade, and his subsequent devilish actions are directly _responsible_ for not only the _presence_ of thisblack man in America, but also for the _condition_ in which we find this black man here. You cannotfind _one_ black man, I do not care who he is, who has not been personally damaged in some way bythe devilish acts of the collective white man!"Nearly every day, some attack on the "Black Muslims" would appear in some newspapers.
　　Increasingly, a focal target was something that I had said, "Malcolm X" as a "demagogue." I wouldgrow furious reading any harsh attack upon Mr. Muhammad. I didn't care what they said about me.
　　Those social workers and sociologists-they tried to take me apart. Especially the black ones, for somereason. Of course, I knew the reason: the white man signed their paychecks. If I wasn't "polarizing thecommunity," according to this bunch, I had "erroneously appraised the racial picture." Or in somestatement, I had "over-generalized." Or when I had made some absolutely true point, "Malcolm Xconveniently manipulated. . . ."Once, one of my Mosque Seven Muslim brothers who worked with teenagers in a well-known Harlemcommunity center showed me a confidential report. Some black senior social worker had been given amonth off to investigate the "Black Muslims" in the Harlem area. Every paragraph sent me back to thedictionary-I guess that's why I've never forgotten one line about me. Listen to this: "The dynamicinterstices of the Harlem sub-culture have been oversimplified and distorted by Malcolm X to meet hisown needs."Which of us, I wonder, knew more about that Harlem ghetto "sub-culture"? I, who had hustled foryears in those streets, or that black snob status-symbol-educated social worker?
　　But that's not important. What's important, to my way of thinking about it, is that among America's 22 million black people so relatively few have been lucky enough to attend a college-and here was one ofthose who had been lucky. Here was, to my way of thinking, one of those "educated" Negroes whonever had understood the true intent, or purpose, or application of education. Here was one of thosestagnant educations, never used except for parading a lot of big words.
　　Do you realize this is one of the major reasons why America's white man has so easily contained andoppressed America's black man? Because until just lately, among the few educated Negroes scarcelyany applied their education, as I am forced to say the white man does-in searching and creativethinking, tofurther themselves and their own kind in this competitive, materialistic, dog-eat-dog white man'sworld. For generations, the so-called "educated" Negroes have "led" their black brothers by echoingthe white man's thinking-which naturally has been to the exploitive white man's advantage.
　　The white man-give him his due-has an extraordinary intelligence, an extraordinary cleverness. Hisworld is full of proof of it. You can't name a thing the white man can't make. You can hardly name ascientific problem he can't solve. Here he is now solving the problems of sending men exploring intoouter space-and returning them safely to earth.
　　But in the arena of dealing with human beings, the white man's working intelligence is hobbled. Hisintelligence will fail him altogether if the humans happen to be non-white. The white man's emotionssuperseded his intelligence. He will commit against non-whites the most incredible spontaneousemotional acts, so psyche-deep is his "white superiority" complex.
　　Where was the A-bomb dropped . . ."to save American lives"? Can the white man be so naive as tothink the clear import of this ever will be lost upon the non-white two-thirds of the earth's population?
　　Before that bomb was dropped-right over here in the United States, what about the one hundredthousand loyal naturalized and native-born Japanese-American citizens who were herded into camps,behind barbed wire? But how many German-born naturalized Americans were herded behind barbedwire? They were _white_!
　　Historically, the non-white complexion has evoked and exposed the "devil" in the very nature of thewhite man.
　　What else but a controlling emotional "devil" so blinded American white intelligence that it couldn'tforesee that millions of black slaves, "freed," then permitted even limited education, would one dayrise up as a terrifying monster within white America's midst?
　　The white man's brains that today explore space should have told the slavemaster that any slave, if heis educated, will no longer fear his master. History shows that an educated slave always begins to ask,and next demand, equality with his master.
　 Today, in many ways the black man sees the collective white man in America better than that whiteman can see himself. And the 22 million blacks realize increasingly that physically, politically,economically, and even to some degree socially, the aroused black man can create a turmoil in whiteAmerica's vitals-not to mention America's international image.
　　 I had not intended to stray off. I had been telling how in 1963, I was trying to cope with the whitenewspaper, radio, and television reporters who were determined to defeat Mr. Muhammad'steachings.
　　I developed a mental image of reporters as human ferrets-steadily sniffing, darting, probing for someway to trick me, somehow to corner me in our interview exchanges.
　　Let some civil rights "leader" make some statement, displeasing to the white public power structure,and the reporters, in an effort to whip him back into line, would try to use me. I'll give an example. I'dget a question like this: "Mr. Malcolm X, you've often gone on record as disapproving of the sit-ins andsimilar Negro protest actions-what is your opinion of the Montgomery boycott that Dr. King isleading?"Now my feeling was that although the civil rights "leaders" kept attacking us Muslims, still they wereblack people, still they were our own kind, and I would be most foolish to let the white man maneuverme against the civil rights movement.
　　When I was asked about the Montgomery boycott, I'd carefully review what led up to it. Mrs. RosaParks was riding home on a bus and at some bus stop the white cracker bus driver ordered Mrs. Parksto get up and give her seat to some white passenger who had just got on the bus. I'd say, "Now, just_imagine_ that! This good, hard-working, Christian-believing black woman, she's paid her money,she's in her seat. Just because she's _black_, she's asked to get up! I mean, sometimes even for _me_ it'shard to believe the white man's arrogance!"Or I might say, "No one will ever know exactly what emotional ingredient made this relatively trivialincident a fuse for those Montgomery Negroes. There had been _centuries_ of the worst kind ofoutrages against Southern black people-lynchings, rapings, shootings, beatings! But you know historyhas been triggered by trivial-seeming incidents. Once a little nobody Indian lawyer was put off a train,and fed up with injustice, he twisted a knot in the British Lion's tail. _His_ name was MahatmaGandhi!"Or I might copy a trick I had seen lawyers use, both in life and on television. It was a way that lawyerswould slip in before a jury something otherwise inadmissable. (Sometimes I think I really might havemade it as a lawyer, as I once told that eighth-grade teacher in Mason, Michigan, I wanted to be, whenhe advised me to become a carpenter.) I would slide right over the reporter's question to drop into hislap a logical-extension hot potato for him.
　 "Well, sir, I see the same boycott reasoning for Negroes asked to join the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
　　Why should we go off to die somewhere to preserve a so-called 'democracy' that gives a whiteimmigrant of one day more than it gives the black man with four hundred years of slaving andserving in this country?"Whites would prefer fifty local boycotts to having 22 million Negroes start thinking about what I hadjust said. I don't have to tell you that it never got printed the way I said it. It would be turned insideout if it got printed at all. And I could detect when the white reporters had gotten their heads together;they quit asking me certain questions.
　　If I had developed a good point, though, I'd bait a hook to get it said when I went on radio ortelevision. I'd seem to slip and mention some recent so-called civil rights "advance." You know, wheresome giant industry had hired ten showpiece Negroes; some restaurant chain had begun making moremoney by serving Negroes; some Southern university had enrolled a black freshman withoutbayonets-like that. When I "slipped," the program host would leap on that bait: "Ahhh! Indeed, Mr.
　　Malcolm X-you can't deny _that's_ an advance for your race!"I'd jerk the pole then. "I can't turn around without hearing about some 'civil rights advance'! Whitepeople seem to think the black man ought to be shouting 'hallelujah'! Four hundred years the whiteman has had his foot-long knife in the black man's back-and now the white man starts to _wiggle_ theknife out, maybe six inches! The black man's supposed to be _grateful_? Why, if the white man jerkedthe knife _out_, it's still going to leave a _scar_!"Similarly, just let some mayor or some city council somewhere boast of having "no Negro problem."That would get off the newsroom teletypes and it would soon be jammed right in my face. I'd say theydidn't need to tell me where this was, because I knew that all it meant was that relatively very fewNegroes were living there. That's true the world over, you know. Take "democratic" England-when100,000 black West Indians got there, England stopped the black migration. Finland welcomed aNegro U.S. Ambassador. Well, let enough Negroes follow him to Finland! Or in Russia, whenKhrushchev was in power, he threatened to cancel the visas of black African students whose antidiscrimination demonstration said to the world, "Russia, too. . . ." The Deep South white press generally blacked me out. But they front-paged what I felt aboutNorthern white and black Freedom Riders going _South_ to "demonstrate." I called it "ridiculous";their own Northern ghettoes, right at home, had enough rats and roaches to kill to keep all of theFreedom Riders busy. I said that ultra-liberal New York had more integration problems thanMississippi. If the Northern Freedom Riders wanted more to do, they could work on the roots of suchghetto evils as the little children out in the streets at midnight, with apartment keys on strings aroundtheir necks to let themselves in, and their mothers and fathers drunk, drug addicts, thieves,prostitutes. Or the Northern Freedom Riders could light some fires under Northern city halls, unions, and major industries to give more jobs to Negroes to remove so many of them from the relief andwelfare rolls, which created laziness, and which deteriorated the ghettoes into steadily worse placesfor humans to live. It was all-it is all-the absolute truth; but what did I want to say it for? Snakescouldn't have turned on me faster than the liberal.
　　Yes, I will pull off that liberal's halo that he spends such efforts cultivating! The North's liberals havebeen for so long pointing accusing fingers at the South and getting away with it that they have fitswhen they are exposed as the world's worst hypocrites.
　　I believe my own life _mirrors_ this hypocrisy. I know nothing about the South. I am a creation of theNorthern white man and of his hypocritical attitude toward the Negro.
　　The white Southerner was always given his due by Mr. Muhammad. The white Southerner, you cansay one thing-he is honest. He bares his teeth to the black man; he tells the black man, to his face, thatSouthern whites never will accept phony "integration." The Southern white goes further, to tell theblack man that he means to fight him every inch of the way-against even the so-called "tokenism." Theadvantage of this is the Southern black man never has been under any illusions about the oppositionhe is dealing with.
　　You can say for many Southern white people that, individually, they have been paternalisticallyhelpful to many individual Negroes. But the Northern white man, he grins with his teeth, and hismouth has always been full of tricks and lies of "equality" and "integration." When one day all overAmerica, a black hand touched the white man's shoulder, and the white man turned, and there stoodthe Negro saying "Me, too . . ." why, that Northern liberal shrank from that black man with as muchguilt and dread as any Southern white man.
　　Actually, America's most dangerous and threatening black man is the one who has been kept sealedup by the Northerner in the black ghettoes-the Northern white power structure's system to keeptalking democracy while keeping the black man out of sight somewhere, around the comer.
　　The word "integration" was invented by a Northern liberal. The word has no real meaning. I ask you:
　　in the racial sense in which it's used so much today, whatever "integration" is supposed to mean, can itprecisely be defined? The truth is that "integration" is an _image_, it's a foxy Northern liberal'ssmokescreen that confuses the true wants of the American black man. Here in these fifty racist andneo-racist states of North America, this word "integration" has millions of white people confused, andangry, believing wrongly that the black masses want to live mixed up with the white man. That is thecase only with the relative handful of these "integration"-mad Negroes.
　　I'm talking about these "token-integrated" Negroes who flee from their poor, downtrodden blackbrothers-from their own self-hate, which is what they're really trying to escape. I'm talking about theseNegroes you will see who can't get enough of nuzzling up to the white man. These "chosen few"Negroes are more white-minded, more anti-black, than even the white man is.
　　 Human rights! Respect as _human beings_! That's what America's black masses want. That's the trueproblem. The black masses want not to be shrunk from as though they are plague-ridden. They wantnot to be walled up in slums, in the ghettoes, like animals. They want to live in an open, free societywhere they can walk with their heads up, like men, and women!
　　Few white people realize that many black people today dislike and avoid spending any more timethan they must around white people. This "integration" image, as it is popularly interpreted, hasmillions of vain, self-exalted white people convinced that black people want to sleep in bed with them-and that's a lie! Or you can't _tell_ the average white man that the Negro man's prime desire isn't tohave a white woman-another lie! Like a black brother recently observed to me, "Look, you ever smellone of them wet?"The black masses prefer the company of their own kind. Why, even these fancy, bourgeois Negroes-when they get back home from the fancy "integrated" cocktail parties, what do they do but kick offtheir shoes and talk about those white liberals they just left as if the liberals were dogs. And the whiteliberals probably do the very same thing. I can't be sure about the whites, I am never around them inprivate-but the bourgeois Negroes know I'm not lying.
　　I'm telling it like it _is_! You _never_ have to worry about me biting my tongue if something I know astruth is on my mind. Raw, naked truth exchanged between the black man and the white man is what awhole lot more of is needed in this country-to clear the air of the racial mirages, clich 俿, and lies thatthis country's very atmosphere has been filled with for four hundred years.
　　In many communities, especially small communities, white people have created a benevolent image ofthemselves as having had so much "good-will toward our Negroes," every time any "local Negro"begins suddenly letting the local whites know the truth-that the black people are sick of being hind-tit,second-class, disfranchised, that's when you hear, uttered so sadly, "Unfortunately now because ofthis, our whites of good-will are starting to turn against the Negroes. . . . It's so regrettable. . . progress was being made . . . but now our communications between the races have broken down!"What are they talking about? There never was any _communication_. Until after World War II, therewasn't a single community in the entire United States where the white man heard from any localNegro "leaders" the truth of what Negroes felt about the conditions that the white communityimposed upon Negroes.
　　You need some proof? Well, then, why was it that when Negroes did start revolting across America,virtually all of white America was caught up in surprise and even shock? I would hate to be general ofan army as badly informed as the American white man has been about the Negro in this country.
　　This is the situation which permitted Negro combustion to slowly build up to the revolution-point,without the white man realizing it. AH over America, the local Negro "leader," in order to survive as a"leader," kept reassuring the local white man, in effect, "Everything's all right, everything's right in hand, boss!" When the "leader" wanted a little something for his people: "Er, boss, some of the peopletalking about we sure need a better school, boss." And if the local Negroes hadn't been causing any"trouble," the "benevolent" white man might nod and give them a school, or some jobs.
　　The white men belonging to the power structures in thousands of communities across America knowthat I'm right! They know that I am describing what has been the true pattern of "communications"between the "local whites of good-will" and the local Negroes. It has been a pattern created bydomineering, ego-ridden whites. Its characteristic design permitted the white man to feel "noble"about throwing crumbs to the black man, instead of feeling guilty about the local community's systemof cruelly exploiting Negroes.
　　But I want to tell you something. This pattern, this "system" that the white man created, of teachingNegroes to hide the truth from him behind a facade of grinning, "yessir-bossing," foot-shuffling andhead-scratching-that system has done the American white man more harm than an invading armywould do to him.
　　Why do I say this? Because all this has steadily helped this American white man to build up, deep inhis psyche, absolute conviction that he _is_ "superior." In how many, many communities have, thus,white men who didn't finish high school regarded condescendingly university-educated local Negro"leaders," principals of schools, teachers, doctors, other professionals?
　　The white man's system has been imposed upon non-white peoples all over the world. This is exactlythe reason why wherever people who are anything but white live in this world today, the white man'sgovernments are finding themselves in deeper and deeper trouble and peril.
　　Let's just face truth. Facts! Whether or not the white man of the world is able to face truth, and facts,about the true reasons for his troubles-that's what essentially will determine whether or not he willnow survive.
　　Today we are seeing this revolution of the non-white peoples, who just a few years ago would havefrozen in horror if the mighty white nations so much as lifted an eyebrow. What it is, simply, is thatblack and brown and red and yellow peoples have, after hundreds of years of exploitation andimposed "inferiority" and general misuse, become, finally, do-or-die sick and tired of the white man'sheel on their necks.
　　How can the white American government figure on selling "democracy" and "brotherhood" to nonwhite peoples-if they read and hear every day what's going on right here in America, and see thebetter-than-a-thousand-words photographs of the American white man denying "democracy" and"brotherhood" even to America's native-born non-whites? The world's non-whites know how thisNegro here has loved the American white man, and slaved for him, tended to him, nursed him. ThisNegro has jumped into uniform and gone off and died when this America was attacked by enemiesboth white and non-white. Such a faithful, loyal non-white as _this_-and _still_ America bombs him,and sets dogs on him, and turns fire hoses on him, and jails him by the thousands, and beats him bloody, and inflicts upon him all manner of other crimes.
　　Of course these things, known and refreshed every day for the rest of the world's non-whites, are avital factor in these burnings of ambassadors' limousines, these stonings, defilings, and wreckings ofembassies and legations, these shouts of"White man, go home!" these attacks on white Christian missionaries, and these bombings and tearingdown of flags.
　　Is it clear why I have said that the American white man's malignant superiority complex has done himmore harm than an invading army?
　　 The American black man should be focusing his every effort toward building his _own_ businesses,and decent homes for himself. As other ethnic groups have done, let the black people, whereverpossible, however possible, patronize their own kind, hire their own kind, and start in those ways tobuild up the black race's ability to do for itself. That's the only way the American black man is evergoing to get respect. One thing the white man never can give the black man is self-respect! The blackman never can become independent and recognized as a human being who is truly equal with otherhuman beings until he has what they have, and until he is doing for himself what others are doing forthemselves.
　　The black man in the ghettoes, for instance, has to start self-correcting his own material, moral, andspiritual defects and evils. The black man needs to start his own program to get rid of drunkenness,drug addiction, prostitution. The black man in America has to lift up his own sense of values.
　　Only a few thousands of Negroes, relatively a very tiny number, are taking any part in "integration."Here, again, it is those few bourgeois Negroes, rushing to throw away their little money in the whiteman's luxury hotels, his swanky nightclubs, and big, fine, exclusive restaurants. The white peoplepatronizing those places can afford it. But these Negroes you see in those places can't afford it,certainly most of them can't. Why, what does some Negro one installment payment away fromdisaster look like somewhere downtown out to dine, grinning at some headwaiter who has moremoney than the Negro? Those bourgeois Negroes out draping big tablecloth-sized napkins over theirknees and ordering quail under glass and stewed snails-why, Negroes don't even _like_ snails! Whatthey're doing is proving they're integrated.
　　If you want to get right down to the real outcome of this so-called "integration," what you've got toarrive at is intermarriage.
　　I'm right _with_ the Southern white man who believes that you can't have so-called "integration," atleast not for long, without intermarriage increasing. And what good is this for anyone? Let's again facereality. In a world as color-hostile as this, man or woman, black or white, what do they want with a mate of the other race?
　　Certainly white people have served enough notice of their hostility to any blacks in their families andneighborhoods. And the way most Negroes feel today, a mixed couple probably finds that blackfamilies, black communities, are even more hostile than the white ones. So what's bound to face"integrated" marriages, except being unwelcomed, unwanted, "misfits" in whichever world they try tolive in? What we arrive at is that "integration," socially, is no good for either side. "Integration,"ultimately, would destroy the white race . . . and destroy the black race.
　　The white man's "integrating" with black women has already changed the complexion andcharacteristics of the black race in America. What's been proved by the "blacks" whose complexionsare "whiter" than many "white" people? I'm told that there are in America today between two and fivemillion "white Negroes," who are "passing" in white society. Imagine their torture! Living in constantfear that some black person they've known might meet and expose them. Imagine every day living alie. _Imagine_ hearing their own white husbands, their own white wives, even their own whitechildren, talking about "those Negroes."I would doubt if anyone in America has heard Negroes more bitter against the white man than someof those I have heard. But I will tell you that, without any question, the _most_ bitter anti-whitediatribes that I have ever heard have come from "passing" Negroes, living as whites, among whites,exposed every day to what white people say among themselves regarding Negroes-things that arecognized Negro never would hear. Why, if there was a racial showdown, these Negroes "passing"within white circles would become the black side's most valuable "spy" and ally.
　　Europe's "brown babies," now young men and women who are starting to marry, and producefamilies of their own . . . have their experiences throughout their lives, scarred as racial freaks, provedanything positive for "integration"?
　　"Integration" is called "assimilation" if white ethnic groups alone are involved: it's fought against toothand nail by those who want their heritage preserved. Look at how the Irish threw the English out ofIreland. The Irish knew the English would engulf them. Look at the French-Canadians, fanaticallyfighting to keep their identity.
　　In fact, history's most tragic result of a mixed, therefore diluted and weakened, ethnic identity hasbeen experienced by a white ethnic group-the Jew in Germany.
　　He had made greater contributions to Germany than Germans themselves had. Jews had won overhalf of Germany's Nobel Prizes. Every culture in Germany was led by the Jew; he published thegreatest newspaper. Jews were the greatest artists, the greatest poets, composers, stage directors. Butthose Jews made a fatal mistake-assimilating.
　　From World War I to Hitler's rise, the Jews in Germany had been increasingly intermarrying. Manychanged their names and many took other religions. Their own Jewish religion, their own rich Jewish ethnic and cultural roots, they anesthetized, and cut off. . . until they began thinking of themselves as"Germans." And the next thing they knew, there was Hitler, rising to power from the beer halls-withhis emotional "Aryan master race" theory. And right at hand for a scapegoat was the self-weakened,self-deluded "German" Jew.
　　Most mysterious is how did those Jews-with all of their brilliant minds, with all of their power inevery aspect of Germany's affairs-how did those Jews stand almost as if mesmerized, watchingsomething which did not spring upon them overnight, but which was gradually developed-amonstrous plan for their own _murder_.
　　Their self-brainwashing had been so complete that not long after, in the gas chambers, a lot of themwere still gasping, "It can't be true!"If Hitler had conquered the world, as he meant to-that is a shuddery thought for every Jew alivetoday.
　　The Jew never will forget that lesson. Jewish intelligence eyes watch every neo-Nazi organization.
　　Right after the war, the Jews' Haganah mediating body stepped up the longtime negotiations with theBritish. But this time, the Stern gang was shooting the British. And this time the British acquiesced andhelped them to wrest Palestine away from the Arabs, the rightful owners, and then the Jews set upIsrael, their own country-the one thing that every race of man in the world respects, and understands.
　　 Not long ago, the black man in America was fed a dose of another form of the weakening, lulling anddeluding effects of so-called "integration." It was that "Farce on Washington," I call it.
　　The idea of a mass of blacks marching on Washington was originally the brainchild of theBrotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters' A. Philip Randolph. For twenty or more years the March onWashington idea had floated around among Negroes. And, spontaneously, suddenly now, that ideacaught on.
　　Overalled rural Southern Negroes, small town Negroes, Northern ghetto Negroes, even thousands ofpreviously Uncle Tom Negroes began talking "March!"Nothing since Joe Louis had so coalesced the masses of Negroes. Groups of Negroes were talking ofgetting to Washington any way they could-in rickety old cars, on buses, hitch-hiking-walking, even, ifthey had to. They envisioned thousands of black brothers converging together upon Washington-to liedown in the streets, on airport runways, on government lawns-demanding of the Congress and theWhite House some concrete civil rights action.
　　This was a national bitterness; militant, unorganized, and leaderless. Predominantly, it was youngNegroes, defiant of whatever might be the consequences, sick and tired of the black man's neck under the white man's heel.
　　The white man had plenty of good reasons for nervous worry. The right spark-some unpredictableemotional chemistry-could set off a black uprising. The government knew that thousands of milling,angry blacks not only could completely disrupt Washington-but they could erupt in Washington.
　　The White House speedily invited in the major civil rights Negro "leaders." They were asked to stopthe planned March. They truthfully said they hadn't begun it, they had no control over it-the idea wasnational, spontaneous, unorganized, and leaderless. In other words, it was a black powder keg.
　　Any student of how "integration" can weaken the black man's movement was about to observe amaster lesson.
　　The White House, with a fanfare of international publicity, "approved," "endorsed," and "welcomed" aMarch on Washington. The big civil rights organizations right at this time had been publiclysquabbling about donations. The _New York Times_ had broken the story. The N.A.A.C.P. hadcharged that other agencies' demonstrations, highly publicized, had attracted a major part of the civilrights donations-while the N.A.A.C.P. got left holding the bag, supplying costly bail and legal talentfor the other organizations' jailed demonstrators.
　　It was like a movie. The next scene was the "big six" civil rights Negro "leaders" meeting in New YorkCity with the white head of a big philanthropic agency. They were told that their money-wrangling inpublic was damaging their image. And a reported $800,000 was donated to a United Civil RightsLeadership council that was quickly organized by the "big six."Now, what had instantly achieved black unity? The white man's money. What string was attached tothe money? Advice. Not only was there this donation, but another comparable sum was promised, forsometime later on, after the March . . . obviously if all went well.
　　The original "angry" March on Washington was now about to be entirely changed.
　　Massive international publicity projected the "big six" as March on Washington leaders. It was news tothose angry grassroots Negroes steadily adding steam to their March plans. They probably assumedthat now those famous "leaders" were endorsing and joining them.
　　Invited next to join the March were four famous white public figures: one Catholic, one Jew, oneProtestant, and one labor boss.
　　The massive publicity now gently hinted that the "big ten" would "supervise" the March onWashington's "mood," and its "direction."The four white figures began nodding. The word spread fast among so-called "liberal" Catholics, Jews,Protestants, and laborites: it was "democratic" to join this black March.
　　 And suddenly, the previously March-nervous whites began announcing _they_ were going.
　　It was as if electrical current shot through the ranks of bourgeois Negroes-the very so-called "middleclass" and "upper-class" who had earlier been deploring the March on Washington talk by grass-rootsNegroes. But white people, now, were going to march. Why, some downtrodden, jobless, hungryNegro might have gotten trampled. Those "integration"-mad Negroes practically ran over each othertrying to find out where to sign up. The "angry blacks" March suddenly had been made chic. Suddenlyit had a Kentucky Derby image. For the status-seeker, it was a status symbol. "Were you _there_?" Youcan hear that right today.
　　It had become an outing, a picnic.
　　The morning of the March, any rickety carloads of angry, dusty, sweating small-town Negroes wouldhave gotten lost among the chartered jet planes, railroad cars, and air-conditioned buses. Whatoriginally was planned to be an angry riptide, one English newspaper aptly described now as "thegentle flood." Talk about "integrated"! It was like salt and pepper. And, by now, there wasn't a singlelogistics aspect uncontrolled.
　　The marchers had been instructed to bring no signs-signs were provided. They had been told to singone song: "We Shall Overcome." They had been told _how_ to arrive, _when_, _where_ to arrive,_where_ to assemble, when to _start_ marching, the _route_ to march. First-aid stations werestrategically located-even where to _faint_!
　　Yes, I was there. I observed that circus. Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing "WeShall Overcome . . . Suum Day . . ." while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very peoplethey were supposed to be angrily revolting against? Who ever heard of angry revolutionists swingingtheir bare feet together with their oppressor in lily-pad park pools, with gospels and guitars and "IHave, A Dream" speeches?
　　And the black masses in America were-and still are-having a nightmare.
　　These "angry revolutionists" even followed their final instructions: to leave early. With all of thosethousands upon thousands of "angry revolutionists," so few stayed over that the next morning theWashington hotel association reported a costly loss in empty rooms.
　　Hollywood couldn't have topped it.
　　In a subsequent press poll, not one Congressman or Senator with a previous record of opposition tocivil rights said he had changed his views. What did anyone expect? How was a one-day "integrated"picnic going to counter-influence these representatives of prejudice rooted deep in the psyche of theAmerican white man for four hundred years?
　　 The very fact that millions, black and white, believed in this monumental farce is another example ofhow much this country goes in for the surface glossing over, the escape ruse, surfaces, instead of trulydealing with its deep-rooted problems.
　　What that March on Washington did do was lull Negroes for a while. But inevitably, the black massesstarted realizing they had been smoothly hoaxed again by the white man. And, inevitably, the blackman's anger rekindled, deeper than ever, and there began bursting out in different cities, in the "long,hot summer" of 1964, unprecedented racial crises.
　　 About a month before the "Farce on Washington," the _New York Times_ reported me, according to itspoll conducted on college and university campuses, as "the second most sought after" speaker atcolleges and universities. The only speaker ahead of me was Senator Barry Goldwater.
　　I believe that what had generated such college popularity for me was Dr. Lincoln's book, _The BlackMuslims in America_. It had been made required reading in numerous college courses. Then a long,candid interview with me was carried by _Playboy_ magazine, whose circulation on college campusesis the biggest of any magazine's. And many students, having studied first the book and then the_Playboy_ interview, wanted to hear in person this so-called "fiery Black Muslim."When the _New York Times_ poll was published, I had spoken at well over fifty colleges anduniversities, like Brown, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Rutgers, in the Ivy League, and othersthroughout the country. Right now, I have invitations from Cornell, Princeton and probably a dozenothers, as soon as my time and their available dates can be scheduled together. Among Negroinstitutions, I had then been to Atlanta University and ClarkCollege down in Atlanta, to Howard University in Washington, D.C., and to a number of others withsmall student bodies.
　　Except for all-black audiences, I liked the college audiences best. The college sessions sometimes rantwo to four hours-they often ran overtime. Challenges, queries, and criticisms were fired at me by theusually objective and always alive and searching minds of undergraduate and graduate students, andtheir faculties. The college sessions never failed to be exhilarating. They never failed in helping me tofurther my own education. I never experienced one college session that didn't show me ways toimprove upon my presentation and defense of Mr. Muhammad's teachings. Sometimes in a panel ordebate appearance, I'd find a jam-packed audience to hear me, alone, facing six or eight student andfaculty scholars-heads of departments such as sociology, psychology, philosophy, history, andreligion, and each of them coming at me in his specialty.
　　At the outset, always I'd confront such panels with something such as: "Gentlemen, I finished theeighth grade in Mason, Michigan. My high school was the black ghetto of Roxbury, Massachusetts.
　　My college was in the streets of Harlem, and my master's was taken in prison. Mr. Muhammad has taught me that I never need fear any man's intellect who tries to defend or to justify the white man'scriminal record against the non-white man-especially the white man and the black man here in NorthAmerica."It was like being on a battlefield-with intellectual and philosophical bullets. It was an exciting battlingwith ideas. I got so I could feel my audiences' temperaments. I've talked with other public speakers;they agree that this ability is native to any person who has the "mass appeal" gift, who can get throughto and move people. It's a psychic radar. As a doctor, with his finger against a pulse, is able to feel theheart rate, when I am up there speaking, I can _feel_ the reaction to what I am saying.
　　I think I could be speaking blindfolded and after five minutes, I could tell you if sitting out therebefore me was an all-black or an all-white audience. Black audiences and white audiences feeldistinguishably different. Black audiences feel warmer, there is almost a musical rhythm, for me, evenin their silent response.
　　Question-and-answer periods are another area where, by now, again blindfolded, I can often tell youthe ethnic source of a question. The most easily recognizable of these to me are a Jew in any audiencesituation, and a bourgeois Negro in "integrated" audiences.
　　My clue to the Jew's question and challenges is that among all other ethnic groups, his expressedthinking, his expressed concerns, are the most subjective. And the Jew is usually hypersensitive. Imean, you can't even say "Jew" without him accusing you of anti-Semitism. I don't care what a Jew isprofessionally, doctor, merchant, housewife, student, or whatever-first he, or she, thinks Jew.
　　Now, of course I can understand the Jew's hypersensitivity. For two thousand years, religious andpersonal prejudices against Jews have been vented and exercised, as strong as white prejudices againstthe non-white. But I know that America's five and a half million Jews (two million of them areconcentrated in New York) look at it very practically, whether they know it or not: that all of thebigotry and hatred focused upon the black man keeps off the Jew a lot of heat that would be on himotherwise.
　　For an example of what I am talking about-in every black ghetto, Jews own the major businesses.
　　Every night the owners of those businesses go home with that black community's money, which helpsthe ghetto to stay poor. But I doubt that I have ever uttered this absolute truth before an audiencewithout being hotly challenged, and accused by a Jew of anti-Semitism. Why? I will bet that I havetold five hundred such challengers that Jews as a group would never watch some other minoritysystematically siphoning out their community's resources without doing something about it. I havetold them that if I tell the simple truth, it doesn't mean that I am anti-Semitic; it means merely that Iam anti-exploitation.
　　The white liberal may be a little taken aback to know that from all-Negro audiences I never have hadone challenge, never one question that defended the white man. That has been true even when a lot of those "black bourgeoisie" and "integration"-mad Negroes were among the blacks. All Negroes, amongthemselves, admit the white man's criminal record. They may not know as many details as I do, butthey know the general picture.
　　But, let me tell you something significant: This very same bourgeois Negro who, among Negroes,would never make a fool of himself in trying to defend the white man-watch that same Negro in amixed black and white audience, knowing he's overheard by his beloved "Mr. Charlie." Why, youshould hear those Negroes attack me, trying to justify, or forgive the white man's crimes! TheseNegroes are people who bring me nearest to breaking one of my principal rules, which is never to letmyself become over-emotional and angry. Why, sometimes I've felt I ought to jump down off thatstand and get _physical_ with some of those brainwashed white man's tools, parrots, puppets. At thecolleges, I've developed some stock put-downs for them: "You must be a law student, aren't you?"They have to say either yes, or no. And I say, "I thought you were. You defend this criminal white manharder than he defends his guilty self!" One particular university's "token-integrated" black Ph.D.
　　associate professor I never will forget; he got me so mad I couldn't see straight. As badly as our 22millions of educationally deprived black people need the help of any brains he has, there he waslooking like some fly in the buttermilk among white "colleagues"-and he was trying to _eat me up_!
　　He was ranting about what a "divisive demagogue" and what a "reverse racist" I was. I was rackingmy head, to spear that fool; finally I held up my hand, and he stopped. "Do you know what whiteracists call black Ph.D's?" He said something like, "I believe that I happen not to be aware of that"-youknow, one of these ultra-proper-talking Negroes. And I laid the word down on him, loud: "Nigger!" Speaking in these colleges and universities was good for the Nation of Islam, I would report to Mr.
　　Muhammad, because the devilish white man's best minds were developed and influenced in thecolleges and universities. But for some reason that I could never understand until much later, Mr.
　　Muhammad never really wanted me to speak at these colleges and universities.
　　I was to learn later, from Mr. Muhammad's own sons, that he was envious because he felt unequippedto speak at colleges himself. But nevertheless, in Mr. Muhammad's behalf at this time, I was findingthese highly intelligent audiences amazingly open-minded and objective in their receptions of the raw,naked truths that I would tell them:
　　"Time and time again, the black, the brown, the red, and the yellow races have witnessed and sufferedthe white man's small ability to understand the simple notes of the spirit. The white man seems tonedeaf to the total orchestration of humanity. Every day, his newspapers' front pages show us the worldthat he has created.
　　"God's wrathful judgment is close upon this white man stumbling and groping blindly in wickednessand evil and spiritual darkness.
　　"Look-remaining today are only two giant white nations, America and Russia, each of them with mistrustful, nervous satellites. America is propping up most of the remaining white world. TheFrench, the Belgians, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish and other white nations have weakenedsteadily as non-white Asians and Africans have recovered their lands.
　　"America is subsidizing what is left of the prestige and strength of the once mighty Britain. The sunhas set forever on that monocled, pith-helmeted resident colonialist, sipping tea with his delicate ladyin the non-white colonies being systematically robbed of every valuable resource. Britain's superfluousroyalty and nobility now exist by charging tourists to inspect the once baronial castles, and by sellingmemoirs, perfumes, autographs, titles, and even themselves.
　　"The whole world knows that the white man cannot survive another war. If either of the two giantwhite nations pushes the button, white civilization will die!
　　"And we see again that not ideologies, but race, and color, is what binds human beings. Is it accidentalthat as Red Chinese visit African and Asian countries, Russia and America draw steadily closer toeach other?
　　"The collective white man's history has left the non-white peoples no alternative, either, but to drawcloser to each other. Characteristically, as always, the devilish white man lacks the moral strength andcourage to cast off his arrogance. He wants, today, to 'buy' friends among the non-whites. He tries,characteristically, to cover up his past record. He does not possess the humility to admit his guilt, totry and atone for his crimes. The white man has perverted the simple message of love that the ProphetJesus lived and taught when He walked upon this earth."Audiences seemed surprised when I spoke about Jesus. I would explain that we Muslims believe inthe Prophet Jesus. He was one of the three most important Prophets of the religion of Islam, the othersbeing Muhammad and Moses. In Jerusalem there are Muslim shrines built to the Prophet Jesus. Iwould explain that it was our belief that Christianity did not perform what Christ taught. I neverfailed to cite that even Billy Graham, challenged in Africa, had himself made the distinction, "I believein Christ, not Christianity."I never will forget one little blonde co-ed after I had spoken at her New England college. She musthave caught the next plane behind that one I took to New York. She found the Muslim restaurant inHarlem. I just happened to be there when she came in. Her clothes, her carriage, her accent, all showedDeep South white breeding and money. At that college, I told how the antebellum white slavemastereven devilishly manipulated his own woman. He convinced her that she was "too pure" for his base"animal instincts." With this "noble" ruse, he conned his own wife to look away from his obviouspreference for the "animal" black woman. So the "delicate mistress" sat and watched the plantation'slittle mongrel-complexioned children, sired obviously by her father, her husband, her brothers, hersons. I said at that college that the guilt of American whites included their knowledge that in hatingNegroes, they were hating, they were rejecting, they were denying, their own blood.
　　Anyway, I'd never seen anyone I ever spoke before more affected than this little white college girl. She demanded, right up in my face, "Don't you believe there are any _good_ white people?" I didn't wantto hurt her feelings. I told her, "People's _deeds_ I believe in, Miss-not their words.""What can I _do_?" she exclaimed. I told her, "Nothing." She burst out crying, and ran out and upLenox Avenue and caught a taxi.
　　 Mr. Muhammad-each time I'd go to see him in Chicago, or in Phoenix-would warm me with hisexpressions of his approval and confidence in me.
　　He left me in charge of the Nation of Islam's affairs when he made an Omra pilgrimage to the HolyCity Mecca.
　　I believed so strongly in Mr. Muhammad that I would have hurled myself between him and anassassin.
　　A chance event brought crashing home to me that there was something-one thing-greater than myreverence for Mr. Muhammad.
　　It was the awesomeness of my reason to revere him.
　　I was the invited speaker at the Harvard Law School Forum. I happened to glance through a window.
　　Abruptly, I realized that I was looking in the direction of the apartment house that was my oldburglary gang's hideout.
　　It rocked me like a tidal wave. Scenes from my once depraved life lashed through my mind. _Living_like an animal; _thinking_ like an animal!
　　Awareness came surging up in me-how deeply the religion of Islam had reached down into the mudto lift me up, to save me from being what I inevitably would have been: a dead criminal in a grave, or,if still alive, a flint-hard, bitter, thirty-seven-year-old convict in some penitentiary, or insane asylum.
　　Or, at best, I would have been an old, fading Detroit Red, hustling, stealing enough for food andnarcotics, and myself being stalked as prey by cruelly ambitious younger hustlers such as Detroit Redhad been.
　　But Allah had blessed me to learn about the religion of Islam, which had enabled me to lift myself upfrom the muck and the mire of this rotting world.
　　And there I stood, the invited speaker, at Harvard.
　　A story that I had read in prison when I was reading a lot of Greek mythology flicked into my head.
　　 The boy Icarus. Do you remember the story?
　　Icarus' father made some wings that he fastened with wax. "Never fly but so high with these wings,"the father said. But soaring around, this way, that way, Icarus' flying pleased him so that he beganthinking he was flying on his own merit. Higher, he flew-higher-until the heat of the sun melted thewax holding those wings. And down came Icarus-tumbling.
　　Standing there by that Harvard window, I silently vowed to Allah that I never would forget that anywings I wore had been put on by the religion of Islam. That fact I never have forgotten . . . not for onesecond.
Chapter 16 Out
In nineteen sixty-one, Mr. Muhammad's condition grew suddenly worse.
　　As he talked with me when I visited him, when he talked with anyone, he would unpredictably begincoughing harder, and harder, until his body was wracked and jerking in agonies that were painful towatch, and Mr. Muhammad would have to take to his bed.
　　We among Mr. Muhammad's officials, and his family, kept the situation to ourselves, while we could.
　　Few other Muslims became aware of Mr. Muhammad's condition until there were last-minutecancellations of long-advertised personal appearances at some big Muslim rallies. Muslims knew thatonly something really serious would ever have stopped the Messenger from keeping his promise to bewith them at their rallies. Their questions had to be answered, and the news of our leader's illnessswiftly spread through the Nation of Islam.
　　Anyone not a Muslim could not conceive what the possible loss of Mr. Muhammad would have meantamong his followers. To us, the Nation of Islam was Mr. Muhammad. What bonded us into the bestorganization black Americans ever had was every Muslim's devout regard for Mr. Muhammad asblack America's moral, mental, and spiritual reformer.
　　Stated another way, we Muslims regarded ourselves as moral and mental and spiritual examples forother black Americans, because we followed the personal example of Mr. Muhammad. Blackcommunities discussed with respect how Muslims were suspended if they lied, gambled, cheated, orsmoked. For moral crimes, such as fornication or adultery, Mr. Muhammad personally would meteout sentences of from one to five years of "isolation," if not complete expulsion from the Nation. AndMr. Muhammad would punish his officials more readily than the newest convert in a mosque. He saidthat any defecting official betrayed both himself and his position as a leader and example for otherMuslims. For every Muslim, in his rejection of immoral temptation, the beacon was Mr. Muhammad.
　　All Muslims felt as one that without his light, we would all be in darkness.
　 As I have related, doctors recommended a dry climate to ease Mr. Muhammad's condition. Quicklywe found up for sale in Phoenix the home of the saxophone player, Louis Jordan. The Nation'streasury purchased the home, and Mr. Muhammad soon moved there.
　　Only by being two people could I have worked harder in the service of the Nation of Islam. I hadevery gratification that I wanted. I had helped bring about the progress and national impact such thatnone could call us liars when we called Mr. Muhammad the most powerful black man in America. Ihad helped Mr. Muhammad and his other ministers to revolutionize the American black man'sthinking, opening his eyes until he would never again look in the same fearful, worshipful way at thewhite man. I had participated in spreading the truths that had done so much to help the Americanblack man rid himself of the mirage that the white race was made up of "superior" beings. I had been apart of the tapping of something in the black secret soul.
　　If I harbored any personal disappointment whatsoever, it was that privately I was convinced that ourNation of Islam could be an even greater force in the American black man's overall struggle-if weengaged in more _action_. By that, I mean I thought privately that we should have amended, orrelaxed, our general non-engagement policy. I felt that, wherever black people committed themselves,in the Little Rocks and the Birminghams and other places, militantly disciplined Muslims should alsobe there-for all the world to see, and respect, and discuss.
　　It could be heard increasingly in the Negro communities: "Those Muslims _talk_ tough, but they never_do_ anything, unless somebody bothers Muslims." I moved around among outsiders more than mostother Muslim officials. I felt the very real potentiality that, considering the mercurial moods of theblack masses, this labeling of Muslims as "talk only" could see us, powerful as we were, one daysuddenly separated from the Negroes' front-line struggle.
　　But beyond that single personal concern, I couldn't have asked Allah to bless my efforts any more thanhe had. Islam in New York City was growing faster than anywhere in America. From the one tinymosque to which Mr. Muhammad had originally sent me, I had now built three of the Nation's mostpowerful and aggressive mosques-Harlem's Seven-A in Manhattan, Corona's Seven-B in Queens, andMosque Seven-C in Brooklyn. And on a national basis, I had either directly established, or I hadhelped to establish, most of the one hundred or more mosques in the fifty states. I was crisscrossingNorth America sometimes as often as four times a week. Often, what sleep I got was caught in the jetplanes. I was maintaining a marathon schedule of press, radio, television, and public-speakingcommitments. The only way that I could keep up with my job for Mr. Muhammad was by flying withthe wings that he had given me.
　　 As far back as 1961, when Mr. Muhammad's illness took that turn for the worse, I had heard chancenegative remarks concerning me. I had heard veiled implications. I had noticed other little evidencesof the envy and of the jealousy which Mr. Muhammad had prophesied. For example, it was being said that "Minister Malcolm is trying to take over the Nation," it was being said that I was "taking credit"for Mr. Muhammad's teaching, it was being said that I was trying to "build an empire" for myself. Itwas being said that I loved playing "coast-to-coast Mr. Big Shot."When I heard these things, actually, they didn't anger me. They helped me to re-steel my inner resolvethat such lies would never become true of me. I would always remember that Mr. Muhammad hadprophesied this envy and jealousy. This would help me to ignore it, because I knew that _he_ wouldunderstand if _he_ ever should hear such talk.
　　A frequent rumor among non-Muslims was "Malcolm X is making a pile of money." All Muslims atleast knew better than that. _Me_ making money? The F.B.I. and the C.I.A. and theI.R.S. all combined can't turn up a thing I got, beyond a car to drive and a seven-room house to live in.
　　(And by now the Nation of Islam is jealously and greedily trying to take away even that house.) I had_access_ to money. Yes! Elijah Muhammad would authorize for me any amount that I asked for. Buthe knew, as every Muslim official knew, that every nickel and dime I ever got was used to promotethe Nation of Islam.
　　My attitude toward money generated the only domestic quarrel that I have ever had with my belovedwife Betty. As our children increased in number, so did Betty's hints to me that I should put away_something_ for our family. But I refused, and finally we had this argument. I put my foot down. Iknew I had in Betty a wife who would sacrifice her life for me if such an occasion ever presented itselfto her, but still I told her that too many organizations had been destroyed by leaders who tried tobenefit personally, often goaded into it by their wives. We nearly broke up over this argument. Ifinally convinced Betty that if anything ever happened to me, the Nation of Islam would take care ofher for the rest of her life, and of our children until they were grown. I could never have been a biggerfool!
　　In every radio or television appearance, in every newspaper interview, I always made it crystal clearthat I was Mr. Muhammad's _representative_. Anyone who ever heard me make a public speechduring this time knows that at least once a minute I said, "The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches-"I would refuse to talk with any person who ever tried any so-called "joke" about my constant referenceto Mr. Muhammad. Whenever anyone said, or wrote, "Malcolm X, the number two Black Muslim-" Iwould recoil. I have called up reporters and radio and television newscasters long-distance and askedthem never to use that phrasing again, explaining to them: "_All_ Muslims are number two-after Mr.
　　Muhammad."My briefcase was stocked with Mr. Muhammad's photographs. I gave them to photographers whosnapped my picture. I would telephone editors asking them, "Please use Mr. Muhammad's pictureinstead of mine." When, to my joy, Mr. Muhammad agreed to grant interviews to white writers, Irarely spoke to a white writer, or a black one either, whom I didn't urge to visit Mr. Muhammad inperson in Chicago-"Get the truth from the Messenger in person"-and a number of them did go thereand meet and interview him.
　　 Both white people and Negroes-even including Muslims-would make me uncomfortable, alwaysgiving me so much credit for the steady progress that the Nation of Islam was making. "All praise isdue to Allah," I told everybody. "Anything creditable that I do is due to Mr. Elijah Muhammad."I believe that no man in the Nation of Islam could have gained the international prominence I gainedwith the wings Mr. Muhammad had put on me-plus having the freedom that he granted me to takeliberties and do things on my own-and still have remained as faithful and as selfless a servant to himas I was.
　　I would say that it was in 1962 when I began to notice that less and less about me appeared in ourNation's _Muhammad Speaks_. I learned that Mr. Muhammad's son, Herbert, now the paper'spublisher, had instructed that as little as possible be printed about me. In fact, there was more in theMuslim paper about integrationist Negro "leaders" than there was about me. I could read more aboutmyself in the European, Asian, and African press.
　　I am not griping about publicity for myself. I already had received more publicity than many worldpersonages. But I resented the fact that the Muslims' own newspaper denied them news of importantthings being done in their behalf, simply because it happened that I had done the things. I wasconducting rallies, trying to propagate Mr. Muhammad's teachings, and because of jealousy andnarrow-mindedness finally I got no coverage at all-for by now an order had been given to completelyblack me out of the newspaper. For instance, I spoke to eight thousand students at the University ofCalifornia, and the press there gave big coverage to what I said of the power and program of Mr.
　　Muhammad. But when I got to Chicago, expecting at least a favorable response and some coverage, Imet only a chilly reaction. The same thing happened when, in Harlem, I staged a rally that drew seventhousand people. At that time, Chicago headquarters was even discouraging me from staging largerallies. But the next week, I held another Harlem rally that was even bigger and more successful thanthe first one-and obviously this only increased the envy of the Chicago headquarters.
　　But I would put these things out of my mind, as they occurred.
　　At least, as much as I humanly could, I put them out of my mind. I am not trying to make myself seemright and noble. I am telling the truth. I _loved_ the Nation, and Mr. Muhammad. I _lived for_ theNation, and for Mr. Muhammad.
　　It made other Muslim officials jealous because my picture was often in the daily press. They wouldn'tremember that my picture was there because of my fervor in championing Mr. Muhammad. Theywouldn't simply reason that as vulnerable as the Nation of Islam was to distorted rumors and outrightlies, we needed nothing so little as to have our public spokesman constantly denying the rumors.
　　Common sense would have told any official that certainly Mr. Muhammad couldn't be running allover the country as his own spokesman. And whoever he appointed as his spokesman couldn't avoida lot of press focus.
　　 Whenever I caught any resentful feelings hanging on in my mind, I would be ashamed of myself,considering it a sign of weakness in myself. I knew that at least Mr. Muhammad knew that my life wastotally dedicated to representing him.
　　But during 1963,I couldn't help being very hypersensitive to my critics in high posts within ourNation. I quit selecting certain of my New York brothers and giving them money to go and laygroundwork for new mosques in other cities-because slighting remarks were being made about"Malcolm's ministers." In a time in America when it was of arch importance for a militant black voiceto reach mass audiences, _Life_ magazine wanted to do a personal story of me, and I refused. I refusedagain when a cover story was offered by _Newsweek_. I refused again when I could have been a gueston the top-rated "Meet the Press" television program. Each refusal was a general loss for the blackman, and, for the Nation of Islam, each refusal was a specific loss-and each refusal was made becauseof Chicago's attitude. There was jealousy because I had been requested to make these featuredappearances.
　　When a high-powered-rifle slug tore through the back of the N.A.A.C.P. Field Secretary Medgar Eversin Mississippi, I wanted to say the blunt truths that needed to be said. When a bomb was exploded ina Negro Christian church in Birmingham, Alabama, snuffing out the lives of those four beautiful littleblack girls, I made comments-but not what should have been said about the climate of hate that theAmerican white man was generating and nourishing. The more hate was permitted to lash out whenthere were ways it could have been checked, the more bold the hate became-until at last it was flaringout at even the white man's own kind, including his own leaders. In Dallas, Texas, for instance, thethen Vice President and Mrs. Johnson were vulgarly insulted. And the U.S. Ambassador to the UnitedNations, Adlai Stevenson, was spat upon and hit on the head by a white woman picket.
　　Mr. Muhammad made me the Nation's first National Minister. At a late 1963 rally in Philadelphia, Mr.
　　Muhammad, embracing me, said to that audience before us, "This is my most faithful, hard-workingminister. He will follow me until he dies."He had never paid such a compliment to any Muslim. No praise from any other earthly person couldhave meant more to me.
　　But this would be Mr. Muhammad's and my last public appearance together.
　　Not long before, I had been on the Jerry Williams radio program in Boston, when someone handed mean item hot off the Associated Press machine. I read that a chapter of the Louisiana Citizens Councilhad just offered a $10,000 reward for my death.
　　But the threat of death was much closer to me than somewhere in Louisiana.
　　What I am telling you is the truth. When I discovered who else wanted me dead, I am telling you-itnearly sent me to Bellevue.
　 In my twelve years as a Muslim minister, I had always taught so strongly on the moral issues thatmany Muslims accused me of being "and-woman." The very keel of my teaching, and my most bone-deep personal belief, was that Elijah Muhammad in every aspect of his existence was a symbol ofmoral, mental, and spiritual reform among the American black people. For twelve years, I had taughtthat within the entire Nation of Islam; my own transformation was the best example I knew of Mr.
　　Muhammad's power to reform black men's lives. From the time I entered prison until I married, abouttwelve years later, because of Mr. Muhammad's influence upon me, I had never touched a woman.
　　But around 1963, if anyone had noticed, I spoke less and less of religion. I taught social doctrine toMuslims, and current events, and politics. I stayed wholly off the subject of morality.
　　And the reason for this was that my faith had been shaken in a way that I can never fully describe. ForI had discovered Muslims had been betrayed by Elijah Muhammad himself.
　　I want to make this as brief as I can, only enough so that my position and my reactions will beunderstood. As to whether or not I should reveal this, there's no longer any need for any question inmy mind-for now the public knows. To make it concise, I will quote from one wire service story as itappeared in newspapers, and was reported over radio and television, across the United States:
　　"Los Angeles, July 3 (UPI)-Elijah Muhammad, 67-year-old leader of the Black Muslim movement,today faced paternity suits from two former secretaries who charged he fathered their four children. . .
　　. Both women are in their twenties. . . .Miss Rosary and Miss Williams charged they had intimacieswith Elijah Muhammad from 1957 until this year. Miss Rosary alleged he fathered her two childrenand said she was expecting a third child by him . . . the other plaintiff said he was the father of herdaughter. . . ."As far back as 1955, I had heard hints. But believe me when I tell you this: for me even to considerbelieving anything as insane-sounding as any slightest implication of any immoral behavior of Mr.
　　Muhammad-why, the very idea made me shake with fear.
　　And so my mind simply refused to accept anything so grotesque as adultery mentioned in the samebreath with Mr. Muhammad's name.
　　_Adultery_! Why, any Muslim guilty of adultery was summarily ousted in disgrace. One of theNation's most closely kept scandals was that a succession of the personal secretaries of Mr.
　　Muhammad had become pregnant. They were brought before Muslim courts and charged withadultery and they confessed. Humiliated before the general body, they received sentences of from oneto five years of "isolation." That meant they were to have no contact whatsoever with any otherMuslims.
　　 I don't think I could say anything which better testifies to my depth of faith in Mr. Muhammad thanthat I totally and absolutely rejected my own intelligence. I simply refused to believe.
　　I didn't want Allah to "burn my brain" as I felt the brain of my brother Reginald had been burned forharboring evil thoughts about Mr. Elijah Muhammad. The last time I had seen Reginald, one day hewalked into the Mosque Seven restaurant. I saw him coming in the door. I went and met him. I lookedinto my own brother's eyes; I told him he wasn't welcome among Muslims, and he turned around andleft, and I haven't seen him since. I did that to my own blood brother because, years before, Mr.
　　Muhammad had sentenced Reginald to "isolation" from all other Muslims-and I considered that I wasa Muslim before I was Reginald's brother.
　　No one in the world could have convinced me that Mr. Muhammad would betray the reverencebestowed upon him by all of the mosques full of poor, trusting Muslims nickeling and diming up tofaithfully support the Nation of Islam-when many of these faithful were scarcely able to pay their ownrents.
　　But by late 1962, I learned reliably that numerous Muslims were leaving Mosque Two in Chicago. Theugly rumor was spreading swiftly-even among non-Muslim Negroes. When I thought how the pressconstantly sought ways to discredit the Nation of Islam, I trembled to think of such a thing reachingthe ears of some newspaper reporter, either black or white.
　　I actually began to have nightmares . . . I saw _headlines_.
　　I was burdened with a leaden fear as I kept speaking engagements all over America. Any time areporter came anywhere near me, I could _hear_ him ask, "Is it true, Mr. Malcolm X, this report wehear, that . . ." And what was I going to say?
　　There was never any specific moment when I admitted the situation to myself. In the way that thehuman mind can do, somehow I slid over admitting to myself the ugly fact, even as I began dealingwith it.
　　Both in New York and Chicago, non-Muslims whom I knew began to tell me indirectly they hadheard-or they would ask me if I had heard. I would act as if I had no idea whatever of what they weretalking about-and I was grateful when they chose not to spell out what they knew. I went aroundknowing that I looked to them like a total fool. I felt like a total fool, out there every day preaching,and apparently not knowing what was going on right under my nose, in my own organization,involving the very man I was praising so. To look like a fool unearthed emotions I hadn't felt since myHarlem hustler days. The worst thing in the hustler's world was to be a dupe.
　　I will give you an example. Backstage at the Apollo Theater in Harlem one day, the comedian DickGregory looked at me. "Man," he said, "Muhammad's nothing but a . . ."-I can't say the word he used.
　　_Bam_! Just like that. My Muslim instincts said to attack Dick-but, instead, I felt weak and hollow. Ithink Dick sensed how upset I was and he let me get him off the subject. I knew Dick, a Chicagoan, was wise in the ways of the streets, and blunt-spoken. I wanted to plead with him not to say to anyoneelse what he had said to me-but I couldn't; it would have been my own admission.
　　I can't describe the torments I went through.
　　Always before, in any extremity, I had caught the first plane to Mr. Elijah Muhammad. He hadvirtually raised me from the dead. Everything I was that was creditable, he had made me. I felt that nomatter what, I could not let him down.
　　There was no one I could turn to with this problem, except Mr. Muhammad himself. Ultimately thathad to be the case. But first I went to Chicago to see Mr. Muhammad's second youngest son, WallaceMuhammad. I felt that Wallace was Mr. Muhammad's most strongly spiritual son, the son with themost objective outlook. Always, Wallace and I had shared an exceptional closeness and trust.
　　And Wallace knew, when he saw me, why I had come to see him. "I know," he said. I said I thoughtwe should rally to help his father. Wallace said he didn't feel that his father would welcome anyefforts to help him. I told myself that Wallace must be crazy.
　　Next, I broke the rule that no Muslim is supposed to have any contact with another Muslim in the"isolated" state. I looked up, and I talked with three of the former secretaries to Mr. Muhammad. Fromtheir own mouths, I heard their stories of who had fathered their children. And from their ownmouths I heard that Elijah Muhammad had told them I was the best, the greatest minister he ever had,but that someday I would leave him, turn against him-so I was "dangerous." I learned from theseformer secretaries of Mr. Muhammad that while he was praising me to my face, he was tearing meapart behind my back.
　　That deeply hurt me.
　　Every day, I was meeting the microphones, cameras, press reporters, and other commitments,including the Muslims of my own Mosque Seven. I felt almost out of my mind.
　　Finally, the thing crystallized for me. As long as I did nothing, I felt it was the same as being disloyal. Ifelt that as long as I sat down, I was not helping Mr. Muhammad-when somebody needed to bestanding up.
　　So one night I wrote to Mr. Muhammad about the poison being spread about him. He telephoned mein New York. He said that when he saw me he would discuss it.
　　I desperately wanted to find some way-some kind of a bridge-over which I was certain the Nation ofIslam could be saved from self-destruction. I had faith in the Nation: we weren't some group ofChristian Negroes, jumping and shouting and full of sins.
　　 I thought of one bridge that could be used if and when the shattering disclosure should becomepublic. Loyal Muslims could be taught that a man's accomplishments in his life outweigh his personal,human weaknesses. Wallace Muhammad helped me to review the Quran and the Bible fordocumentation. David's adultery with Bathsheba weighed less on history's scales, for instance, thanthe positive fact of David's killing Goliath. Thinking of Lot, we think not of incest, but of his saving thepeople from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Or, our image of Noah isn't of his gettingdrunk-but of his building the ark and teaching people to save themselves from the flood. We think ofMoses leading the Hebrews from bondage, not of Moses' adultery with the Ethiopian women. In all ofthe cases I reviewed, the positive outweighed the negative.
　　I began teaching in New York Mosque Seven that a man's accomplishments in his life outweighed hispersonal, human weaknesses. I taught that a person's good deeds outweigh his bad deeds. I nevermentioned the previously familiar subjects of adultery and fornication, and I never mentionedimmoral evils.
　　By some miracle, the adultery talk which was so widespread in Chicago seemed to only leak a little inBoston, Detroit, and New York. Apparently, it hadn't reached other mosques around the country atall. In Chicago, increasing numbers of Muslims were leaving Mosque Two, I heard, and many non-Muslims who had been sympathetic to the Nation were now outspokenly anti-Muslim. In February1963,I officiated at the University of Islam graduation exercises; when I introduced various membersof the Muhammad family, I could feel the cold chill toward them from the Muslims in the audience.
　　Elijah Muhammad had me fly to Phoenix to see him in April, 1963.
　　We embraced, as always-and almost immediately he took me outside, where we began to walk by hisswimming pool.
　　He was The Messenger of Allah. When I was a foul, vicious convict, so evil that other convicts hadcalled me Satan, this man had rescued me. He was the man who had trained me, who had treated meas if I were his own flesh and blood. He was the man who had given me wings-to go places, to dothings I otherwise never would have dreamed of. We walked, with me caught up in a whirlwind ofemotions.
　　"Well, son," Mr. Muhammad said, "what is on your mind?"Plainly, frankly, pulling no punches, I told Mr. Muhammad what was being said. And withoutwaiting for any response from him, I said that with his son Wallace's help I had found in the Quranand the Bible that which might be taught to Muslims-if it became necessary-as the fulfillment ofprophecy.
　　"Son, I'm not surprised," Elijah Muhammad said. "You always have had such a good understanding ofprophecy, and of spiritual things. You recognize that's what all of this is-prophecy. You have the kindof understanding that only an old man has.
　　 "I'm David," he said. "When you read about how David took another man's wife, I'm that David. Youread about Noah, who got drunk-that's me. You read about Lot, who went and laid up with his owndaughters. I have to fulfill all of those things." I remembered that when an epidemic is about to hit somewhere, that community's people areinoculated against exposure with some of the same germs that are anticipated-and this prepares themto resist the oncoming virus.
　　I decided I had better prepare six other East Coast Muslim officials whom I selected.
　　I told them. And then I told them why I had told them-that I felt they should not be caught by surpriseand shock if it became their job to teach the Muslims in their mosques the "fulfillment of prophecy." Ifound then that some had already heard it; one of them, Minister Louis X of Boston, as much as sevenmonths before. They had been living with the dilemma themselves.
　　I never dreamed that the Chicago Muslim officials were going to make it appear that I was throwinggasoline on the fire instead of water. I never dreamed that they were going to try to make it appearthat instead of inoculating against an epidemic, I had started it.
　　The stage in Chicago even then was being set for Muslims to shift their focus off the epidemic-andonto me.
　　Hating me was going to become the cause for people of shattered faith to rally around.
　　Non-Muslim Negroes who knew me well, and even some of the white reporters with whom I hadsome regular contact, were telling me, almost wherever I went, "Malcolm X, you're looking tired. Youneed a rest."They didn't know a fraction of it. Since I had been a Muslim, this was the first time any white peoplereally got to me in a personal way. I could tell that some of them were really honest and sincere. Oneof these, whose name I won't call-he might lose his job-said, "Malcolm X, the whites need your voiceworse than the Negroes." I remember so well his saying this because it prefaced the first time since Ibecame a Muslim that I had ever talked with any white man at any length about anything except theNation of Islam and the American black man's struggle today.
　　I can't remember how, or why, he somehow happened to mention the Dead Sea Scrolls. I came backwith something like, "Yes, those scrolls are going to take Jesus off the stained-glass windows and thefrescoes where he has been lily-white, and put Him back into the true mainstream of history whereJesus actually was non-white." The reporter was surprised, and I went on that the Dead Sea Scrollswere going to reaffirm that Jesus was a member of that brotherhood of Egyptian seers called the Essene-a fact already known from Philo, the famous Egyptian historian of Jesus' time. And thereporter and I got off on about two good hours of talking in the areas of archaeology, history, andreligion. It was so pleasant. I almost forgot the heavy worries on my mind-for that brief respite. Iremember we wound up agreeing that by the year 2000, every schoolchild will be taught the true colorof great men of antiquity.
　　 I've said that I expected headlines momentarily. I hadn't expected the kind which came.
　　No one needs to be reminded of who got assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
　　Within hours after the assassination-I am telling nothing but the truth-every Muslim minister receivedfrom Mr. Elijah Muhammad a directive-in fact, _two_ directives. Every minister was ordered to makeno remarks at all concerning the assassination. Mr. Muhammad instructed that if pressed forcomment, we should say: "No comment."During that three-day period where there was no other news to be heard except relating to themurdered President, Mr. Muhammad had a previously scheduled speaking engagement in New Yorkat the Manhattan Center. He cancelled his coming to speak, and as we were unable to get back themoney already paid for the rental of the center, Mr. Muhammad told me to speak in his stead. And soI spoke.
　　Many times since then, I've looked at the speech notes I used that day, which had been prepared atleast a week before the assassination. The tide of my speech was "God's Judgment of White America."It was on the theme, familiar to me, of "as you sow, so shall you reap," or how the hypocriticalAmerican white man was reaping what he had sowed.
　　The question-and-answer period opened, I suppose inevitably, with someone asking me, "What doyou think about President Kennedy's assassination? What is your opinion?"Without a second thought, I said what I honestly felt-that it was, as I saw it, a case of "the chickenscoming home to roost." I said that the hate in white men had not stopped with the killing ofdefenseless black people, but that hate, allowed to spread unchecked, finally had struck down thiscountry's Chief of State. I said it was the same thing as had happened with Medgar Evers, with PatriceLumumba, with Madame Nhu's husband.
　　The headlines and the news broadcasts promptly had it: "_Black Muslims' Malcolm X: 'Chickens ComeHome to Roost._'"It makes me feel weary to think of it all now. All over America, all over the world, some of the world'smost important personages were saying in various ways, and in far stronger ways than I did, that America's climate of hate had been responsible for the President's death. But when Malcolm X said thesame thing, it was ominous.
　　My regular monthly visit to Mr. Muhammad was due the next day. Somehow, on the plane, I expectedsomething. I've always had this strong intuition.
　　Mr. Muhammad and I embraced each other in greeting. I sensed some ingredient missing from hisusual amiability. And I was suddenly tense-to me also very significant. For years, I had prided myselfthat Mr. Muhammad and I were so close that I knew how he felt by how I felt. If he was nervous, Iwas nervous. If I was relaxed, then I knew he was relaxed. Now, I felt the tension. . . .
　　First we talked of other things, sitting in his living room. Then he asked me, "Did you see the papersthis morning?"I said, "Yes, sir, I did.""That was a very bad statement," he said. "The country loved this man. The whole country is inmourning. That was very ill-timed. A statement like that can make it hard on Muslims in general."And then, as if Mr. Muhammad's voice came from afar, I heard his words: "I'll have to silence you forthe next ninety days-so that the Muslims everywhere can be disassociated from the blunder."I was numb.
　　But I was a follower of Mr. Muhammad. Many times I had said to my own assistants that anyone in aposition to discipline others must be able to take disciplining himself.
　　I told Mr. Muhammad, "Sir, I agree with you, and I submit, one hundred per cent."I flew back to New York psychologically preparing myself to tell my Mosque Seven assistants that Ihad been suspended-or "silenced."But to my astonishment, upon arrival I learned that my assistants already had been informed.
　　What astonished me even more-a telegram had been sent to every New York City newspaper andradio and television station. It was the most quick and thorough publicity job that I had ever seen theChicago officials initiate.
　　Every telephone where I could possibly be reached was ringing. London. Paris. A.P., U.P.I. Everytelevision and radio network, and all of the newspapers were calling. I told them all, "I disobeyed Mr.
　　Muhammad. I submit completely to his wisdom. Yes, I expect to be speaking again after ninety days.""_Malcolm X Silenced_!" It was headlines.
　　 My first worry was that if a scandal broke for the Nation of Islam within the next ninety days, I wouldbe gagged when I could be the most experienced Muslim in dealing with the news media that wouldmake the most of any scandal within the Nation.
　　I learned next that my "silencing" was even more thorough than I had thought. I was not onlyforbidden to talk with the press, I was not even to teach in my own Mosque Seven.
　　Next, an announcement was made throughout the Nation of Islam that I would be reinstated withinninety days, "_if he submits_."This made me suspicious-for the first time. I had completely submitted. But, deliberately, Muslimswere being given the impression that I had rebelled.
　　I hadn't hustled in the streets for years for nothing. I knew when I was being set up.
　　Three days later, the first word came to me that a Mosque Seven official who had been one of my mostimmediate assistants was telling certain Mosque Seven brothers: "If you knew what the Minister did,you'd go out and kill him yourself."And then I knew. As any official in the Nation of Islam would instantly have known, any death-talkfor me could have been approved of-if not actually initiated-by only one man.
　　 My head felt like it was bleeding inside. I felt like my brain was damaged. I went to see Dr. Leona A.
　　Turner, who has been my family doctor for years, who practices in East Elmhurst, Long Island. I askedher to give me a brain examination.
　　She did examine me. She said I was under great strain-and I needed rest.
　　Cassius Clay and I are not together today. But always I must be grateful to him that at just this time,when he was in Miami training to fight Sonny Liston, Cassius invited me, Betty, and the children tocome there as his guests-as a sixth wedding anniversary present to Betty and me.
　　I had met Cassius Clay in Detroit in 1962. He and his brother Rudolph came into the Student'sLuncheonette next door to the Detroit Mosque where Elijah Muhammad was about to speak at a bigrally. Every Muslim present was impressed by the bearing and the obvious genuineness of thestriking, handsome pair of prizefighter brothers. Cassius came up and pumped my hand, introducinghimself as he later presented himself to the world, "I'm Cassius Clay." He acted as if I was supposed toknow who he was. So I acted as though I did. Up to that moment, though, I had never even heard ofhim. Ours were two entirely different worlds. In fact, Elijah Muhammad instructed us Muslimsagainst all forms of sports.
　　 As Elijah Muhammad spoke, the two Clay brothers practically led the applause, further impressingeveryone with their sincerity-since a Muslim rally was about the world's last place to seek fight fans.
　　Thereafter, now and then I heard how Cassius showed up in Muslim mosques and restaurants invarious cities. And if I happened to be speaking anywhere within reasonable distance of whereverCassius was, he would be present. I liked him. Some contagious quality about him made him one ofthe very few people I ever invited to my home. Betty liked him. Our children were crazy about him.
　　Cassius was simply a likeable, friendly, clean-cut, down-to-earth youngster. I noticed how alert he waseven in little details. I suspected that there was a plan in his public clowning. I suspected, and heconfirmed to me, that he was doing everything possible to con and "psyche" Sonny Liston into cominginto the ring angry, poorly trained, and overconfident, expecting another of his vaunted one-roundknockouts. Not only was Cassius receptive to advice, he solicited it. Primarily, I impressed upon himto what a great extent a public figure's success depends upon how alert and knowledgeable he is tothe true natures and to the true motives of all of the people who flock around him. I warned him aboutthe "foxes," his expression for the aggressive, cute young females who flocked after him; I told Cassiusthat instead of "foxes," they really were wolves.
　　This was Betty's first vacation since we had married. And our three girls romped and played with theheavyweight contender.
　　I don't know what I might have done if I had stayed in New York during that crucial time-besieged byinsistently ringing telephones, and by the press, and by all of the other people so anxious to gloat, tospeculate and to "commiserate."I was in a state of emotional shock. I was like someone who for twelve years had had an inseparable,beautiful marriage-and then suddenly one morning at breakfast the marriage partner had thrustacross the table some divorce papers.
　　I felt as though something in _nature_ had failed, like the sun, or the stars. It was that incredible aphenomenon to me-something too stupendous to conceive. I am not sparing myself. Around CassiusClay's fight camp, around the Hampton House Motel where my family was staying, I talked with myown wife, and with other people, and actually I was only mouthing words that really meant nothingto me. Whatever I was saying at any time was being handled by a small corner of my mind. The rest ofmy mind was filled with a parade of a thousand and one different scenes from the past twelve years . .
　　. scenes in the Muslim mosques . . . scenes with Mr. Muhammad . . . scenes with Mr. Muhammad'sfamily . . . scenes with Muslims, individually, as my audiences, and at our social gatherings . . . andscenes with the white man in audiences, and the press.
　　I walked, I talked, I functioned. At the Cassius Clay fight camp, I told the various sportswritersrepeatedly what I gradually had come to know within myself was a lie-that I would be reinstatedwithin ninety days. But I could not yet let myself psychologically face what I knew: that already theNation of Islam and I were physically divorced. Do you understand what I mean? A judge's signature on a piece of paper can grant to a couple a physical divorce-but for either of them, or maybe for bothof them, if they have been a very close marriage team, to actually become _psychologically_ divorcedfrom each other might take years.
　　But in the physical divorce, I could not evade the obvious strategy and plotting coming out of Chicagoto eliminate me from the Nation of Islam . . . if not from this world. And I felt that I perceived theanatomy of the plotting.
　　Any Muslim would have known that my "chickens coming home to roost" statement had been only anexcuse to put into action the plan for getting me out. And step one had been already taken: theMuslims were given the impression that I had rebelled against Mr. Muhammad. I could nowanticipate step two: I would remain "suspended" (and later I would be "isolated") indefinitely. Stepthree would be either to provoke some Muslim ignorant of the truth to take it upon himself to kill meas a "religious duty"-or to "isolate" me so that I would gradually disappear from the public scene.
　　The only person who knew was my wife. I never would have dreamed that I would ever depend somuch upon any woman for strength as I now leaned upon Betty. There was no exchange between us;Betty said nothing, being the caliber of wife that she is, with the depth of understanding that she has-but I could feel the envelopment of her comfort. I knew that she was as faithful a servant of Allah as Iwas, and I knew that whatever happened, she was with me.
　　The death talk was not my fear. Every second of my twelve years with Mr. Muhammad, I had beenready to lay down my life for him. The thing to me worse than death was the betrayal. I couldconceive death. I couldn't conceive betrayal-not of the loyalty which I had given to the Nation ofIslam, and to Mr. Muhammad. During the previous twelve years, if Mr. Muhammad had committedany civil crime punishable by death, I would have said and tried to prove that I did it-to save him-andI would have gone to the electric chair, as Mr. Muhammad's servant.
　　There as Cassius Clay's guest in Miami, I tried desperately to push my mind off my troubles and ontothe Nation's troubles. I still struggled to persuade myself that Mr. Muhammad had been fulfillingprophecy. Because I actually had believed that if Mr. Muhammad was not God, then he surely stoodnext to God.
　　What began to break my faith was that, try as I might, I couldn't hide, I couldn't evade, that Mr.
　　Muhammad, instead of facing what he had done before his followers, as a human weakness or asfulfillment of prophecy-which I sincerely believe that Muslims would have understood, or at leastthey would have accepted-Mr. Muhammad had, instead, been willing to hide, to cover up what hehad done.
　　That was my major blow.
　　That was how I first began to realize that I had believed in Mr. Muhammad more than he believed inhimself.
　　 And that was how, after twelve years of never thinking for as much as five minutes about myself, Ibecame able finally to muster the nerve, and the strength, to start facing the facts, to think for myself.
　　Briefly I left Florida to return Betty and the children to our Long Island home. I learned that theChicago Muslim officials were further displeased with me because of the newspaper reports of me inthe Cassius Clay camp. They felt that Cassius hadn't a prayer of a chance to win. They felt the Nationwould be embarrassed through my linking the Muslim image with him. (I don't know if the championtoday cares to remember that most newspapers in America were represented at the pre-fight camp-except _Muhammad Speaks_. Even though Cassius was a Muslim brother, the Muslim newspaperdidn't consider his fight worth covering.)I flew back to Miami feeling that it was Allah's intent for me to help Cassius prove Islam's superioritybefore the world-through proving that mind can win over brawn. I don't have to remind you of howpeople everywhere scoffed at Cassius Clay's chances of beating Listen.
　　This time, I brought from New York with me some photographs of Floyd Patterson and Sonny Listenin their fight camps, with white priests as their "spiritual advisors." Cassius Clay, being a Muslim,didn't need to be told how white Christianity had dealt with the American black man. ' "This fight isthe truth," I told Cassius. "It's the Cross and the Crescent fighting in a prize ring-for the first time. It's amodern Crusades-a Christian and a Muslim facing each other with television to beam it off Telstar forthe whole world to see what happens!" I told Cassius, "Do you think Allah has brought about all thisintending for you to leave the ring as anything but the champion?" (You may remember that at theweighing-in, Cassius was yelling such things as "It is prophesied for me to be successful! I cannot bebeaten!")Sonny Liston's handlers and advisors had him fighting harder to "integrate" than he was training tomeet Cassius. Liston finally had managed to rent a big, fine house over in a rich, wall-to-wall whitesection. To give you an idea, the owner of the neighboring house was the New York Yankees baseballclub owner, Dan Topping. In the early evenings, when Cassius and I would sometimes walk wherethe black people lived, those Negroes' mouths would hang open in surprise that he was among theminstead of whites as most black champions preferred. Again and again, Cassius startled those Negroes,telling them, "You're my own kind. I get my strength from being around my own black people."What Sonny Listen was about to meet, in fact, was one of the most awesome frights that ever canconfront any person-one who worships Allah, and who is completely without fear.
　　Among over eight thousand other seat holders in Miami's big Convention Hall, I received SeatNumber Seven. Seven has always been my favorite number. It has followed me throughout my life. Itook this to be Allah's message confirming to me that Cassius Clay was going to win. Along withCassius, I really was more worried about how his brother Rudolph was going to do, fighting his firstpro fight in the preliminaries.
　 While Rudolph was winning a four-round decision over a Florida Negro named "Chip" Johnson,Cassius stood at the rear of the auditorium watching calmly, dressed in a black tuxedo. After all of hismonths of antics, after the weighing-in act that Cassius had put on, this calmness should have tippedoff some of the sportswriters who were predicting Clay's slaughter.
　　Then Cassius disappeared, dressing to meet Listen. As we had agreed, I joined him in a silent prayerfor Allah's blessings. Finally, he and Listen were in their corners in the ring. I folded my arms andtried to appear the coolest man in the place, because a television camera can show you looking like afool yelling at a prizefight.
　　Except for whatever chemical it was that got into Cassius' eyes and blinded him temporarily in thefourth and fifth rounds, the fight went according to his plan. He evaded Liston's powerful punches.
　　The third round automatically began the tiring of the aging Listen, who was overconfidently trainedto go only two rounds. Then, desperate, Listen lost. The secret of one of fight history's greatest upsetswas that months before that night, Clay had out-thought Listen.
　　There probably never has been as quiet a new-champion party. The boyish king of the ring came overto my motel. He ate ice cream, drank milk, talked with football star Jimmy Brown and other friends,and some reporters. Sleepy, Cassius took a quick nap on my bed, then he went back home.
　　We had breakfast together the next morning, just before the press conference when Cassius calmlymade the announcement which burst into international headlines that he was a "Black Muslim."But let me tell you something about that. Cassius never announced himself a member of any "BlackMuslims." The press reporters made that out of what he told them, which was this: "I believe in thereligion of Islam, which means I believe there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Apostle.
　　This is the same religion that is believed in by over seven hundred million dark-skinned peoplesthroughout Africa and Asia."Nothing in all of the furor which followed was more ridiculous than Floyd Patterson announcing thatas a Catholic, he wanted to fight Cassius Clay-to save the heavyweight crown from being held by aMuslim. It was such a sad case of a brainwashed black Christian ready to do battle for the white man-who wants no part of him. Not three weeks later, the newspapers reported that in Yonkers, New York,Patterson was offering to sell his $140,000 house for a $20,000 loss. He had "integrated" into aneighborhood of whites who had made his life miserable. None were friendly. Their children calledhis children "niggers." One neighbor trained his dog to deface Patterson's property. Another erected afence to hide the Negroes from sight. "I tried, it just didn't work," Patterson told the press.
　　 The first direct order for my death was issued through a Mosque Seven official who previously hadbeen a close assistant. Another previously close assistant of mine was assigned to do the job. He was abrother with a knowledge of demolition; he was asked to wire my car to explode when I turned the ignition key. But this brother, it happened, had seen too much of my total loyalty to the Nation tocarry out his order. Instead, he came to me. I thanked him for my life. I told him what was really goingon in Chicago. He was stunned almost beyond belief.
　　This brother was close to others in the Mosque Seven circle who might subsequently be called upon toeliminate me. He said he would take it upon himself to enlighten each of them enough so that theywouldn't allow themselves to be used.
　　This first direct death-order was how, finally, I began to arrive at my psychological divorce from theNation of Islam.
　　I began to see, wherever I went-on the streets, in business places, on elevators, sidewalks, in passingcars-the faces of Muslims whom I knew, and I knew that any of them might be waiting theopportunity to try and put a bullet into me.
　　I was racking my brain. What was I going to do? My life was inseparably committed to the Americanblack man's struggle. I was generally regarded as a "leader." For years, I had attacked so many so-called "black leaders" for their shortcomings. Now, I had to honestly ask myself what I could offer,how I was genuinely qualified to help the black people win their struggle for human rights. I hadenough experience to know that in order to be a good organizer of anything which you expect tosucceed-including yourself-you must almost mathematically analyze cold facts.
　　I had, as one asset, I knew, an international image. No amount of money could have bought that. Iknew that if I said something newsworthy, people would read or hear of it, maybe even around theworld, depending upon what it was. More immediately, in New York City, where I would naturallybase any operation, I had a large, direct personal following of non-Muslims. This had been buildingup steadily ever since I had led Muslims in the dramatic protest to the police when our brother Hintonwas beaten up. Hundreds of Harlem Negroes had seen, and hundreds of thousands of them had laterheard how we had shown that almost anything could be accomplished by black men who would facethe white man without fear. All of Harlem had seen how from then on, the police gave Muslimsrespect. (This was during the time that the Deputy Chief Inspector at the 28th Precinct had said of me,"No one man should have that much power.")Over the ensuing years, I'd had various kinds of evidence that a high percentage of New York City'sblack people responded to what I said, including a great many who would not publicly say so. Forinstance, time and again when I spoke at street rallies, I would draw ten and twelve times as manypeople as most other so-called "Negro leaders." I knew that in any society, a true leader is one whoearns and deserves the following he enjoys. True followers are bestowed by themselves, out of theirown volition and emotions. I knew that the great lack of most of the big-named "Negro leaders" wastheir lack of any true rapport with the ghetto Negroes. How could they have rapport when they spentmost of their time "integrating" with white people? I knew that the ghetto people knew that I never leftthe ghetto in spirit, and I never left it physically any more than I had to. I had a ghetto instinct; forinstance, I could feel if tension was beyond normal in a ghetto audience. And I could speak and understand the ghetto's language. There was an example of this that always flew to my mind everytime I heard some of the "big name" Negro "leaders" declaring they "spoke for" the ghetto blackpeople.
　　After a Harlem street rally, one of these downtown "leaders" and I were talking when we wereapproached by a Harlem hustler. To my knowledge I'd never seen this hustler before; he said to me,approximately: "Hey, baby! I dig you holding this all-originals scene at the track . . . I'm going to lay avine under the Jew's balls for a dime-got to give you a play . . . Got the shorts out here trying to scuffleup on some bread . . . Well, my man, I'll get on, got to go peck a little, and cop me some z's-" And thehustler went on up Seventh Avenue.
　　I would never have given it another thought, except that this downtown "leader" was standing, staringafter that hustler, looking as if he'd just heard Sanskrit. He asked me what had been said, and I toldhim. The hustler had said he was aware that the Muslims were holding an all-black bazaar atRockland Palace, which is primarily a dancehall. The hustler intended to pawn a suit for ten dollars toattend and patronize the bazaar. He had very little money but he was trying hard to make some. Hewas going to eat, then he would get some sleep.
　　The point I am making is that, as a "leader," I could talk over the ABC, CBS, or NBC microphones, atHarvard or at Tuskegee; I could talk with the so-called "middle class" Negro and with the ghettoblacks (whom all the other leaders just talked _about_). And because I had been a hustler, I knewbetter than all whites knew, and better than nearly all of the black "leaders" knew, that actually themost dangerous black man in America was the ghetto hustler.
　　Why do I say this? The hustler, out there in the ghetto jungles, has less respect for the white powerstructure than any other Negro in North America. The ghetto hustler is internally restrained bynothing. He has no religion, no concept of morality, no civic responsibility, no fear-nothing. Tosurvive, he is out there constantly preying upon others, probing for any human weakness like a ferret.
　　The ghetto hustler is forever frustrated, restless, and anxious for some "action." Whatever heundertakes, he commits himself to it fully, absolutely.
　　What makes the ghetto hustler yet more dangerous is his "glamor" image to the school-dropout youthin the ghetto. These ghetto teen-agers see the hell caught by their parents struggling to get somewhere,or see that they have given up struggling in the prejudiced, intolerant white man's world. The ghettoteenagers make up their own minds they would rather be like the hustlers whom they see dressed"sharp" and flashing money and displaying no respect for anybody or anything. So the ghetto youthbecome attracted to the hustler worlds of dope, thievery, prostitution, and general crime andimmorality.
　　It scared me the first time I really saw the danger of these ghetto teen-agers if they are ever sparked toviolence. One sweltering summer afternoon, I attended a Harlem street rally which contained a lot ofthese teen-agers in the crowd. I had been invited by some "responsible" Negro leaders who normallynever spoke to me; I knew they had just used my name to help them draw a crowd. The more I thought about it on the way there, the hotter I got. And when I got on the stand, I just told that crowdin the street that I wasn't really wanted up there, that my name had been used-and I walked off thespeaker's stand.
　　Well, what did I want to do that for? Why, those young, teenage Negroes got upset, and startedmilling around and yelling, upsetting the older Negroes in the crowd. The first thing you know trafficwas blocked in four directions by a crowd whose mood quickly grew so ugly that I really gotapprehensive. I got up on top of a car and began waving my arms and yelling at them to quiet down.
　　They did quiet, and then I asked them to disperse-and they did.
　　This was when it began being said that I was America's only Negro who "could stop a race riot-or startone." I don't know if I could do either one. But I know one thing: it had taught me in a very fewminutes to have a whole lot of respect for the human combustion that is packed among the hustlersand their young admirers who live in the ghettoes where the Northern white man has sealed-off theNegro-away from whites-for a hundred years.
　　The "long hot summer" of 1964 in Harlem, in Rochester, and in other cities, has given an idea of whatcould happen-and that's all, only an idea. For all of those riots were kept contained within where theNegroes lived. You let any of these bitter, seething ghettoes all over America receive the right ignitingincident, and become really inflamed, and explode, and burst out of their boundaries into wherewhites live! In New York City, you let enraged blacks pour out of Harlem across Central Park and fandown the tunnels of Madison and Fifth and Lexington and Park Avenues. Or, take Chicago's SouthSide, an older, even worse slum-you let those Negroes swarm downtown. You let Washington, D.C.'sfestering blacks head down Pennsylvania Avenue. Detroit has already seen a peaceful massing ofmore than a _hundred thousand_ blacks-think about that. You name the city. Black social dynamite isin Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles . . . the black man's anger is there, fermenting.
　　 I've strayed off onto some of the incidents and situations which have taught me to respect the dangerin the ghettoes. I had been trying to explain how I honestly evaluated my own qualifications to beworthy of presenting myself as an independent "leader" among black men.
　　In the end, I reasoned that the decision already had been made for me. The ghetto masses already hadentrusted me with an image of leadership among them. I knew the ghetto instinctively extends thattrust only to one who had demonstrated that he would never sell them out to the white man. I notonly had no such intention-to sell out was not even in my nature.
　　I felt a challenge to plan, and build, an organization that could help to cure the black man in NorthAmerica of the sickness which has kept him under the white man's heel.
　　The black man in North America was mentally sick in his cooperative, sheeplike acceptance of thewhite man's culture.
　　 The black man in North America was spiritually sick because for centuries he had accepted the whiteman's Christianity-which asked the black so-called Christian to expect no true Brotherhood of Man,but to endure the cruelties of the white so-called Christians. Christianity had made black men fuzzy,nebulous, confused in their thinking. It had taught the black man to think if he had no shoes, and washungry, "we gonna get shoes and milk and honey and fish fries in Heaven."The black man in North America was economically sick and that was evident in one simple fact: as aconsumer, he got less than his share, and as a producer gave _least_. The black American today showsus the perfect parasite image-the black tick under the delusion that he is progressing because he rideson the udder of the fat, three-stomached cow that is white America. For instance, annually, the blackman spends over $3 billion for automobiles, but America contains hardly any franchised blackautomobile dealers. For instance, forty per cent of the expensive imported Scotch whisky consumed inAmerica goes down the throats of the status-sick black man; but the only black-owned distilleries arein bathtubs, or in the woods somewhere. Or for instance-a scandalous shame-in New York City, withover a million Negroes, there aren't twenty black-owned businesses employing over ten people. It'sbecause black men don't own and control their own community's retail establishments that they can'tstabilize their own community.
　　The black man in North America was sickest of all politically. He let the white man divide him intosuch foolishness as considering himself a black "Democrat," a black "Republican," a black"Conservative," or a black "Liberal" . . . when a ten-million black vote bloc could be the decidingbalance of power in American politics, because the white man's vote is almost always evenly divided.
　　The polls are one place where every black man could fight the black man's cause with dignity, andwith the power and the tools that the white man understands, and respects, and fears, and cooperateswith. Listen, let me tell you something! If a black bloc committee told Washington's worst "niggerhater," "We represent ten million votes," why, that "nigger-hater" would leap up: "Well, how _are_you? Come on _in_ here!" Why, if the Mississippi black man voted in a bloc, Eastland would pretendto be more liberal than Jacob Javits-or Eastland would not survive in his office. Why else is it thatracist politicians fight to keep black men from the polls?
　　Whenever any group can vote in a bloc, and decide the outcome of elections, and it _fails_ to do this,then that group is politically sick. Immigrants once made Tammany Hall the most powerful singleforce in American politics. In 1880, New York City's first Irish Catholic Mayor was elected and by 1960America had its first Irish Catholic President. America's black man, voting as a bloc, could wield aneven more powerful force.
　　U.S. politics is ruled by special-interest blocs and lobbies. What group has a more urgent specialinterest, what group needs a bloc, a lobby, more than the black man? Labor owns one of Washington'slargest non-government buildings-situated where they can literally watch the White House-and nopolitical move is made that doesn't involve how Labor feels about it. A lobby got Big Oil its depletionallowance. The farmer, through his lobby, is the most government-subsidized special-interest group in America today, because a million farmers vote, not as Democrats, or Republicans, liberals,conservatives, but as farmers.
　　Doctors have the best lobby in Washington. Their special-interest influence successfully fights theMedicare program that's wanted, and needed, by millions of other people. Why, there's a BeetGrowers' Lobby! A Wheat Lobby! A Cattle Lobby! A China Lobby! Little countries no one ever heardof have their Washington lobbies, representing their special interests.
　　The government has departments to deal with the special-interest groups that make themselves heardand felt. A Department of Agriculture cares for the fanners' needs. There is a Department of Health,Education and Welfare. There is a Department of the Interior-in which the Indians are included. Is thefarmer, the doctor, the Indian, the greatest problem in America today? No-it is the black man! Thereought to be a Pentagon-sized Washington department dealing with every segment of the black man'sproblems.
　　Twenty-two million black men! They have given America four hundred years of toil; they have bledand died in every battle since the Revolution; they were in America before the Pilgrims, and longbefore the mass immigrations-and they are still today at the bottom of everything!
　　Why, twenty-two million black people should tomorrow give a dollar apiece to build a skyscraperlobby building in Washington, D.C. Every morning, every legislator should receive a communicationabout what the black man in America expects and wants and needs. The demanding voice of the blacklobby should be in the ears of every legislator who votes on any issue.
　　The cornerstones of this country's operation are economic and political strength and power. The blackman doesn't have the economic strength-and it will take time for him to build it. But right now theAmerican black man has the political strength and power to change his destiny overnight.
　　 It was a big order-the organization I was creating in my mind, one which would help to challenge theAmerican black man to gain his human rights, and to cure his mental, spiritual, economic, andpolitical sicknesses. But if you ever intend to do anything worthwhile, you have to start with aworthwhile p
Chapter 17 Mecca
The pilgrimage to Mecca, known as Hajj, is a religious obligation that every orthodox Muslim fulfills,if humanly able, at least once in his or her lifetime.
　　The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the Ka'ba is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, makethe journey."Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon eachlean camel, they will come from every deep ravine."At one or another college or university, usually in the informal gatherings after I had spoken, perhapsa dozen generally white-complexioned people would come up to me, identifying themselves asArabian, Middle Eastern or North African Muslims who happened to be visiting, studying, or living inthe United States. They had said to me that, my white-indicting statements notwithstanding, they feltthat I was sincere in considering myself a Muslim-and they felt if I was exposed to what they alwayscalled "true Islam," I would "understand it, and embrace it." Automatically, as a follower of ElijahMuhammad, I had bridled whenever this was said.
　　But in the privacy of my own thoughts after several of these experiences, I did question myself: if onewas sincere in professing a religion, why should he balk at broadening his knowledge of that religion?
　　 Once in a conversation I broached this with Wallace Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad's son. He saidthat yes, certainly, a Muslim should seek to learn all that he could about Islam. I had always had ahigh opinion of Wallace Muhammad's opinion.
　　Those orthodox Muslims whom I had met, one after another, had urged me to meet and talk with aDr. Manmoud Youssef Shawarbi. He was described to me as an eminent, learned Muslim, aUniversity of Cairo graduate, a University of London Ph.D., a lecturer on Islam, a United Nationsadvisor and the author of many books. He was a full professor of the University of Cairo, on leavefrom there to be in New York as the Director of the Federation of Islamic Associations in the UnitedStates and Canada. Several times, driving in that part of town, I had resisted the impulse to drop in atthe F.I.A. building, a brown-stone at 1 Riverside Drive. Then one day Dr. Shawarbi and I wereintroduced by a newspaperman.
　　He was cordial. He said he had followed me in the press; I said I had been told of him, and we talkedfor fifteen or twenty minutes. We both had to leave to make appointments we had, when he droppedon me something whose logic never would get out of my head. He said, "No man has believedperfectly until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself."Then, there was my sister Ella herself. I couldn't get over what she had done. I've said before, this is a_strong_, big, black, Georgia-born woman. Her domineering ways had gotten her put out of theNation of Islam's Boston Mosque Eleven; they took her back, then she left on her own. Ella had startedstudying under Boston orthodox Muslims, then she founded a school where Arabic was taught! _She_couldn't speak it, she hired teachers who did. That's Ella! She deals in real estate, and _she_ wassaving up to make the pilgrimage. Nearly all night, we talked in her living room. She told me therewas no question about it; it was more important that I go. I thought about Ella the whole flight back toNew York. A _strong_ woman. She had broken the spirits of three husbands, more driving anddynamic than all of them combined. She had played a very significant role in my life. No other womanever was strong enough to point me in directions; I pointed women in directions. I had brought Ellainto Islam, and now she was financing me to Mecca.
　　Allah always gives you signs, when you are with Him, that He is with you.
　　When I applied for a visa to Mecca at the Saudi Arabian Consulate, the Saudi Ambassador told methat no Muslim converted in America could have a visa for the Hajj pilgrimage without the signedapproval of Dr. Manmoud Shawarbi. But that was only the beginning of the sign from Allah. When Itelephoned Dr. Shawarbi, he registered astonishment. "I was just going to get in touch with you," hesaid, "by all means come right over."When I got to his office, Dr. Shawarbi handed me the signed letter approving me to make the Hajj inMecca, and then a book. It was _The Eternal Message of Muhammad_ by Abd-Al-Rahman Azzam.
　　The author had just sent the copy of the book to be given to me, Dr. Shawarbi said, and he explained that this author was an Egyptian-born Saudi citizen, an international statesman, and one of the closestadvisors of Prince Faisal, the ruler of Arabia. "He has followed you in the press very closely." It washard for me to believe.
　　Dr. Shawarbi gave me the telephone number of his son, Muhammad Shawarbi, a student in Cairo, andalso the number of the author's son, Omar Azzam, who lived in Jedda, "your last stop before Mecca.
　　Call them both, by all means."I left New York quietly (little realizing that I was going to return noisily). Few people were told I wasleaving at all. I didn't want some State Department or other roadblocks put in my path at the lastminute. Only my wife, Betty, and my three girls and a few close associates came with me to KennedyInternational Airport. When the Lufthansa Airlines jet had taken off, my two seatrow mates and Iintroduced ourselves. Another sign! Both were Muslims, one was bound for Cairo, as I was, and theother was bound for Jedda, where I would be in a few days.
　　All the way to Frankfurt, Germany, my seatmates and I talked, or I read the book I had been given.
　　When we landed in Frankfurt, the brother bound for Jedda said his warm good-bye to me and theCairo-bound brother. We had a few hours' layover before we would take another plane to Cairo. Wedecided to go sightseeing in Frankfurt.
　　In the men's room there at the airport, I met the first American abroad who recognized me, a whitestudent from Rhode Island. He kept eyeing me, then he came over. "Are you X?" I laughed and said Iwas, I hadn't ever heard it that way. He exclaimed, "You can't be! Boy, I know no one will believe mewhen I tell them this!" He was attending school, he said, in France.
　　The brother Muslim and I both were struck by the cordial hospitality of the people in Frankfurt. Wewent into a lot of shops and stores, looking more than intending to buy anything. We'd walk in, anystore, every store, and it would be Hello! People who never saw you before, and knew you werestrangers. And the same cordiality when we left, without buying anything. In America, you walk in astore and spend a hundred dollars, and leave, and you're still a stranger. Both you and the clerks act asthough you're doing each other a favor. Europeans act more human, or humane, whichever the rightword is. My brother Muslim, who could speak enough German to get by, would explain that we wereMuslims, and I saw something I had already experienced when I was looked upon as a Muslim andnot as a Negro, right in America. People seeing you as a Muslim saw you as a human being and theyhad a different look, different talk, everything. In one Frankfurt store-a little shop, actually-thestorekeeper leaned over his counter to us and waved his hand, indicating the German people passingby: "This way one day, that way another day-" My Muslim brother explained to me that what hemeant was that the Germans would rise again.
　　Back at the Frankfurt airport, we took a United Arab Airlines plane on to Cairo. Throngs of people,obviously Muslims from everywhere, bound on the pilgrimage, were hugging and embracing. Theywere of all complexions, the whole atmosphere was of warmth and friendliness. The feeling hit methat there really wasn't any color problem here. The effect was as though I had just stepped out of a prison.
　　I had told my brother Muslim friend that I wanted to be a tourist in Cairo for a couple of days beforecontinuing to Jedda. He gave me his number and asked me to call him, as he wanted to put me with aparty of his friends, who could speak English, and would be going on the pilgrimage, and would behappy to look out for me.
　　So I spent two happy days sightseeing in Cairo. I was impressed by the modern schools, housingdevelopments for the masses, and the highways and the industrialization that I saw. I had read andheard that President Nasser's administration had built up one of the most highly industrializedcountries on the African continent. I believe what most surprised me was that in Cairo, automobileswere being manufactured, and also buses.
　　I had a good visit with Dr. Shawarbi's son, Muhammad Shawarbi, a nineteen-year-old, who wasstudying economics and political science at Cairo University. He told me that his father's dream wasto build a University of Islam in the United States.
　　The friendly people I met were astounded when they learned I was a Muslim-from America! Theyincluded an Egyptian scientist and his wife, also on their way to Mecca for the Hajj, who insisted I gowith them to dinner in a restaurant in Heliopolis, a suburb of Cairo. They were an extremely well-informed and intelligent couple. Egypt's rising industrialization was one of the reasons why theWestern powers were so anti-Egypt, it was showing other African countries what they should do, thescientist said. His wife asked me, "Why are people in the world starving when America has so muchsurplus food? What do they do, dump it in the ocean?" I told her, "Yes, but they put some of it in theholds of surplus ships, and in subsidized granaries and refrigerated space and let it stay there, with asmall army of caretakers, until it's unfit to eat. Then another army of disposal people get rid of it tomake space for the next surplus batch." She looked at me in something like disbelief. Probably shethought I was kidding. But the American taxpayer knows it's the truth. I didn't go on to tell her thatright in the United States, there are hungry people.
　　I telephoned my Muslim friend, as he had asked, and the Hajj party of his friends was waiting for me.
　　I made it eight of us, and they included a judge and an official of the Ministry of Education. Theyspoke English beautifully, and accepted me like a brother. I considered it another of Allah's signs, thatwherever I turned, someone was there to help me, to guide me.
　　 The literal meaning of Hajj in Arabic is to set out toward a definite objective. In Islamic law, it meansto set out for Ka'ba, the Sacred House, and to fulfill the pilgrimage rites. The Cairo airport was wherescores of Hajj groups were becoming Muhrim, pilgrims, upon entering the state of Ihram, theassumption of a spiritual and physical state of consecration. Upon advice, I arranged to leave in Cairoall of my luggage and four cameras, one a movie camera. I had bought in Cairo a small valise, just bigenough to carry one suit, shirt, a pair of underwear sets and a pair of shoes into Arabia. Driving to the airport with our Hajj group, I began to get nervous, knowing that from there in, it was going to bewatching others who knew what they were doing, and trying to do what they did.
　　Entering the state of Ihram, we took off our clothes and put on two white towels. One, the _Izar_, wasfolded around the loins. The other, the _Rida_, was thrown over the neck and shoulders, leaving theright shoulder and arm bare. A pair of simple sandals, the _na'l_, left the ankle-bones bare. Over the_Izar_ waist-wrapper, a money belt was worn, and a bag, something like a woman's big handbag,with a long strap, was for carrying the passport and other valuable papers, such as the letter I hadfrom Dr. Shawarbi.
　　Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jedda, was dressed this way. You could bea king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointedout to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently callingout "_Labbayka! Labbayka_!" (Here I come, O Lord!) The airport sounded with the din of _Muhrim_expressing their intention to perform the journey of the Hajj.
　　Planeloads of pilgrims were taking off every few minutes, but the airport was jammed with more, andtheir friends and relatives waiting to see them off. Those not going were asking others to pray forthem at Mecca. We were on our plane, in the air, when I learned for the first time that with the crush,there was not supposed to have been space for me, but strings had been pulled, and someone hadbeen put off because they didn't want to disappoint an American Muslim. I felt mingled emotions ofregret that I had inconvenienced and discomfited whoever was bumped off the plane for me, and,with that, an utter humility and gratefulness that I had been paid such an honor and respect.
　　Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, andmy kinky red hair-all together, brothers! All honoring the same God Allah, all in turn giving equalhonor to each other.
　　From some in our group, the word was spreading from seat to seat that I was a Muslim from America.
　　Faces turned, smiling toward me in greeting. A box lunch was passed out and as we ate that, the wordthat a Muslim from America was aboard got up into the cockpit.
　　The captain of the plane came back to meet me. He was an Egyptian, his complexion was darker thanmine; he could have walked in Harlem and no one would have given him a second glance. He wasdelighted to meet an American Muslim. When he invited me to visit the cockpit, I jumped at thechance.
　　The co-pilot was darker than he was. I can't tell you the feeling it gave me. I had never seen a blackman flying a jet. That instrument panel: no one ever could know what all of those dials meant! Both ofthe pilots were smiling at me, treating me with the same honor and respect I had received ever since Ileft America. I stood there looking through the glass at the sky ahead of us. In America, I had riddenin more planes than probably any other Negro, and I never had been invited up into the cockpit. Andthere I was, with two Muslim seatmates, one from Egypt, the other from Arabia, all of us bound for Mecca, with me up in the pilots' cabin. Brother, I _knew_ Allah was with me.
　　I got back to my seat. All of the way, about an hour's flight, we pilgrims were loudly crying out,"_Labbayka! Labbayka_!" The plane landed at Jedda. It's a seaport town on the Red Sea, the arrival ordisembarkation point for all pilgrims who come to Arabia to go to Mecca. Mecca is about forty milesto the east, inland.
　　The Jedda airport seemed even more crowded than Cairo's had been. Our party became anothershuffling unit in the shifting mass with every race on earth represented. Each party was making itsway toward the long line waiting to go through Customs. Before reaching Customs, each Hajj partywas assigned a _Mutawaf_, who would be responsible for transferring that party from Jedda to Mecca.
　　Some pilgrims cried "_Labbayka_!" Others, sometimes large groups, were chanting in unison a prayerthat I will translate, "I submit to no one but Thee, O Allah, I submit to no one but Thee. I submit toThee because Thou hast no partner. All praise and blessings come from Thee, and Thou art alone inThy kingdom." The essence of the prayer is the Oneness of God.
　　Only officials were not wearing the _Ihram_ garb, or the white skull caps, long, white, nightshirt-looking gown and the little slippers of the _Mutawaf_, those who guided each pilgrim party, and theirhelpers. In Arabic, an _mmmm_ sound before a verb makes a verbal noun, so "_Mu_tawaf" meant "theone who guides" the pilgrims on the "_Tawaf_," which is the circumam-bulation of the Ka'ba in Mecca.
　　I was nervous, shuffling in the center of our group in the line waiting to have our passports inspected.
　　I had an apprehensivefeeling. Look what I'm handing them. I'm in the Muslim world, right at The Fountain. I'm handingthem the American passport which signifies the exact opposite of what Islam stands for.
　　The judge in our group sensed my strain. He patted my shoulder. Love, humility, and truebrotherhood was almost a physical feeling wherever I turned. Then our group reached the clerks whoexamined each passport and suitcase carefully and nodded to the pilgrim to move on.
　　I was so nervous that when I turned the key in my bag, and it didn't work, I broke open the bag,fearing that they might think I had something in the bag that I shouldn't have. Then the clerk saw thatI was handing him an American passport. He held it, he looked at me and said something in Arabic.
　　My friends around me began speaking rapid Arabic, gesturing and pointing, trying to intercede forme. The judge asked me in English for my letter from Dr. Shawarbi, and he thrust it at the clerk, whoread it. He gave the letter back, protesting-I could tell that. An argument was going on, _about_ me. Ifelt like a stupid fool, unable to say a word, I couldn't even understand what was being said. But,finally, sadly, the judge turned to me.
　　I had to go before the _Mahgama Sharia_, he explained. It was the Muslim high court which examinedall possibly nonauthentic converts to the Islamic religion seeking to enter Mecca. It was absolute thatno non-Muslim could enter Mecca.
　　 My friends were going to have to go on to Mecca without me. They seemed stricken with concern forme. And _I_ was stricken. I found the words to tell them, "Don't worry, I'll be fine. Allah guides me."They said they would pray hourly in my behalf. The white-garbed _Mutawaf_ was urging them on, tokeep schedule in the airport's human crush. With all of us waving, I watched them go.
　　It was then about three in the morning, a Friday morning. I never had been in such a jammed mass ofpeople, but I never had felt more alone, and helpless, since I was a baby. Worse, Friday in the Muslimworld is a rough counterpart of Sunday in the Christian world. On Friday, all the members of aMuslim community gather, to pray together. The event is called _yawn al-jumu'a_-"the day ofgathering." It meant that no courts were held on Friday. I would have to wait until Saturday, at least.
　　An official beckoned a young Arab _Mutawaf's_ aide. In broken English, the official explained that Iwould be taken to a place right at the airport. My passport was kept at Customs. I wanted to object,because it is a traveler's first law never to get separated from his passport, but I didn't. In my wrappedtowels and sandals, I followed the aide in his skull cap, long white gown, and slippers. I guess wewere quite a sight. People passing us were speaking all kinds of languages. I couldn't speak anybody'slanguage. I was in bad shape.
　　Right outside the airport was a mosque, and above the airport was a huge, dormitory-like building,four tiers high. It was semi-dark, not long before dawn, and planes were regularly taking off andlanding, their landing lights sweeping the runways, or their wing and tail lights blinking in the sky.
　　Pilgrims from Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia, to mention some, were moving to and from thedormitory where I was being taken. I don't believe that motion picture cameras ever have filmed ahuman spectacle more colorful than my eyes took in. We reached the dormitory and began climbing,up to the fourth, top, tier, passing members of every race on earth. Chinese, Indonesians,Afghanistanians. Many, not yet changed into the _Ihram_ garb, still wore their national dress. It waslike pages out of the _National Geographic_ magazine.
　　My guide, on the fourth tier, gestured me into a compartment that contained about fifteen people.
　　Most lay curled up on their rugs asleep. I could tell that some were women, covered head and foot. Anold Russian Muslim and his wife were not asleep. They stared frankly at me. Two Egyptian Muslimsand a Persian roused and also stared as my guide moved us over into a comer. With gestures, heindicated that he would demonstrate to me the proper prayer ritual postures. Imagine, being a Muslimminister, a leader in Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, and not knowing the prayer ritual.
　　I tried to do what he did. I knew I wasn't doing it right. I could feel the other Muslims' eyes on me.
　　Western ankles won't do what Muslim ankles have done for a lifetime. Asians squat when they sit,Westerners sit upright in chairs. When my guide was down in a posture, I tried everything I could toget down as he was, but there I was, sticking up. After about an hour, my guide left, indicating that hewould return later.
　　I never even thought about sleeping. Watched by the Muslims, I kept practicing prayer posture. I refused to let myself think how ridiculous I must have looked tothem. After a while, though, I learned a lime trick that would let me get down closer to the floor. Butafter two or three days, my ankle was going to swell.
　　As the sleeping Muslims woke up, when dawn had broken, they almost instantly became aware of me,and we watched each other while they went about their business. I began to see what an importantrole the rug played in the overall cultural life of the Muslims. Each individual had a small prayer rug,and each man and wife, or large group, had a larger communal rug. These Muslims prayed on theirrugs there in the compartment. Then they spread a tablecloth over the rug and ate, so the rug becamethe dining room. Removing the dishes and cloth, they sat on the rug-a living room. Then they curl upand sleep on the rug-a bedroom. In that compartment, before I was to leave it, it dawned on me for thefirst time why the fence had paid such a high price for Oriental rugs when I had been a burglar inBoston. It was because so much intricate care was taken to weave fine rugs in countries where rugswere so culturally versatile. Later, in Mecca, I would see yet another use of the rug. When any kind ofdispute arose, someone who was respected highly and who was not involved would sit on a rug withthe disputers around him, which made the rug a courtroom. In other instances it was a classroom.
　　One of the Egyptian Muslims, particularly, kept watching me out of the corner of his eye. I smiled athim. He got up and came over to me. "Hel-lo-" he said. It sounded like the Gettysburg Address. Ibeamed at him, "Hello!" I asked his name. "Name? Name?" He was trying hard, but he didn't get it.
　　We tried some words on each other. I'd guess his English vocabulary spanned maybe twenty words.
　　Just enough to frustrate me. I was trying to get him to comprehend anything. "Sky." I'd point. He'dsmile. "Sky," I'd say again, gesturing for him to repeat it after me. He would. "Airplane . . . rug . . . foot.
　　. . sandal . . . eyes. . . ." Like that. Then an amazing thing happened. I was so glad I had somecommunication with a human being, I was just saying whatever came to mind. I said "Muhammad AliClay-" All of the Muslims listening lighted up like a Christmas tree. "You? You?" My friend waspointing at me. I shook my head, "No, no. Muhammad Ali Clay my friend-_friend_!" They halfunderstood me. Some of them didn't understand, and that's how it began to get around that I wasCassius Clay, world heavyweight champion. I was later to learn that apparently every man, womanand child in the Muslim world had heard how Sonny Liston (who in the Muslim world had the imageof a man-eating ogre) had been beaten in Goliath-David fashion by Cassius Clay, who then had toldthe world that his name was Muhammad Ali and his religion was Islam and Allah had given him hisvictory.
　　Establishing the rapport was the best thing that could have happened in the compartment. My beingan American Muslim changed the attitudes from merely watching me to wanting to look out for me.
　　Now, the others began smiling steadily. They came closer, they were frankly looking me up anddown. Inspecting me. Very friendly. I was like a man from Mars.
　　The _Mutawaf_'s aide returned, indicating that I should go with him. He pointed from our tier downat the mosque and I knew that he had come to take me to make the morning prayer, El Sobh, alwaysbefore sunrise. I followed him down, and we passed pilgrims by the thousands, babbling languages, everything but English. I was angry with myself for not having taken the time to learn more of theorthodox prayer rituals before leaving America. In Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, we hadn'tprayed in Arabic. About a dozen or more years before, when I was in prison, a member of theorthodox Muslim movement in Boston, named Abdul Hameed, had visited me and had later sent meprayers in Arabic. At that time, I had learned those prayers phonetically. But I hadn't used them since.
　　I made up my mind to let the guide do everything first and I would watch him. It wasn't hard to gethim to do things first. He wanted to anyway. Just outside the mosque there was a long trough withrows of faucets. Ablutions had to precede praying. I knew that. Even watching the _Mutawaf_'shelper, I didn't get it right. There's an exact way that an orthodox Muslim washes, and the exact way isvery important.
　　I followed him into the mosque, just a step behind, watching. He did his prostration, his head to theground. I did mine. "_Bi-smi-llahi-r-Rahmain-r-Rahim-_" ("In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, theMerciful-") All Muslim prayers began that way. After that, I may not have been mumbling the rightthing, but I was mumbling.
　　I don't mean to have any of this sound joking. It was far from a joke with me. No one who happenedto be watching could tell that I wasn't saying what the others said.
　　 After that Sunrise Prayer, my guide accompanied me back up to the fourth tier. By sign language, hesaid he would return within three hours, then he left.
　　Our tier gave an excellent daylight view of the whole airport area. I stood at the railing, watching.
　　Planes were landing and taking off like clockwork. Thousands upon thousands of people from all overthe world made colorful patterns of movement. I saw groups leaving for Mecca, in buses, trucks, cars.
　　I saw some setting out to walk the forty miles. I wished that I could start walking. At least, I knewhow to do that.
　　I was afraid to think what might lie ahead. Would I be rejected as a Mecca pilgrim? I wondered whatthe test would consist of, and when I would face the Muslim high court.
　　The Persian Muslim in our compartment came up to me at the rail. He greeted me, hesitantly,"Amer . . . American?" He indicated that he wanted me to come and have breakfast with him and hiswife, on their rug. I knew that it was an immense offer he was making. You don't have tea with aMuslim's wife. I didn't want to impose, I don't know if the Persian understood or not when I shook myhead and smiled, meaning "No, thanks." He brought me some tea and cookies, anyway. Until then, Ihadn't even thought about eating.
　　Others made gestures. They would just come up and smile and nod at me. My first friend, the onewho had spoken a little English, was gone. I didn't know it, but he was spreading the word of an American Muslim on the fourth tier. Traffic had begun to pick up, going past our compartment.
　　Muslims in the _Ihram_ garb, or still in their national dress, walked slowly past, smiling. It would goon for as long as I was there to be seen. But I hadn't yet learned that I was the attraction.
　　I have always been restless, and curious. The _Mutawaf_'s aide didn't return in the three hours he hadsaid, and that made me nervous. I feared that he had given up on me as beyond help. By then, too, Iwas really getting hungry. All of the Muslims in the compartment had offered me food, and I hadrefused. The trouble was, I have to admit it, at that point I didn't know if I could gofor their manner of eating. Everything was in one pot on the dining-room rug, and I saw them just fallright in, using their hands.
　　I kept standing at the tier railing observing the courtyard below, and I decided to explore a bit on myown. I went down to the first tier. I thought, then, that maybe I shouldn't get too far, someone mightcome for me. So I went back up to our compartment. In about forty-five minutes, I went back down. Iwent farther this time, feeling my way. I saw a little restaurant in the courtyard. I went straight inthere. It was jammed, and babbling with languages. Using gestures, I bought a whole roasted chickenand something like thick potato chips. I got back out in the courtyard and I tore up that chicken, usingmy hands. Muslims were doing the same thing all around me. I saw men at least seventy years oldbringing both legs up under them, until they made a human knot of themselves, eating with as muchaplomb and satisfaction as though they had been in a fine restaurant with waiters all over the place.
　　All ate as One, and slept as One. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the Oneness ofMan under One God.
　　I made, during the day, several trips up to the compartment and back out in the courtyard, each timeexploring a little further than before. Once, I nodded at two black men standing together. I nearlyshouted when one spoke to me in British-accented English. Before their party approached, ready toleave for Mecca, we were able to talk enough to exchange that I was American and they wereEthiopians. I was heartsick. I had found two English-speaking Muslims at last-and they were leaving.
　　The Ethiopians had both been schooled in Cairo, and they were living in Ryadh, the political capital ofArabia. I was later going to learn to my surprise that in Ethiopia, with eighteen million people, tenmillion are Muslims. Most people think Ethiopia is Christian. But only its government is Christian.
　　The West has always helped to keep the Christian government in power.
　　I had just said my Sunset Prayer, _El Maghrib_; I was lying on my cot in the fourth-tier compartment,feeling blue and alone, when out of the darkness came a sudden light!
　　It was actually a sudden thought. On one of my venturings in the yard full of activity below, I hadnoticed four men, officials, seated at a table with a telephone. Now, I thought about seeing them there,and with _telephone_, my mind flashed to the connection that Dr. Shawarbi in New York had givenme, the telephone number of the son of the author of the book which had been given to me. OmarAzzam lived right there in Jedda!
　　 In a matter of a few minutes, I was downstairs and rushing to where I had seen the four officials. Oneof them spoke functional English. I excitedly showed him the letter from Dr. Shawarbi. He read it.
　　Then he read it aloud to the other three officials. "A Muslim from America!" I could almost see itcapture their imaginations and curiosity. They were very impressed. I asked the English-speaking oneif he would please do me the favor of telephoning Dr. Omar Azzam at the number I had. He was gladto do it. He got someone on the phone and conversed in Arabic.
　　Dr. Omar Azzam came straight to the airport. With the four officials beaming, he wrung my hand inwelcome, a young, tall, powerfully built man. I'd say he was six foot three. He had an extremelypolished manner. In America, he. would have been called a white man, but-it struck me, hard andinstantly-from the way he acted, I had no _feeling_ of him being a white man. "Why didn't you callbefore?" he demanded of me. He showed some identification to the four officials, and he used theirphone. Speaking in Arabic, he was talking with some airport officials. "Come!" he said.
　　In something less than half an hour, he had gotten me released, my suitcase and passport had beenretrieved from Customs, and we were in Dr. Azzam's car, driving through the city of Jedda, with medressed in the _Ihram_ two towels and sandals. I was speechless at the man's attitude, and at my ownphysical feeling of no difference between us as human beings. I had heard for years of Muslimhospitality, but one couldn't quite imagine such warmth. I asked questions. Dr. Azzam was a Swiss-trained engineer. His field was city planning. The Saudi Arabian government had borrowed him fromthe United Nations to direct all of the reconstruction work being done on Arabian holy places. AndDr. Azzam's sister was the wife of Prince Faisal's son. I was in a car with the brother-in-law of the sonof the ruler of Arabia. Nor was that all that Allah had done. "My father will be so happy to meet you,"said Dr. Azzam. The author who had sent me the book!
　　I asked questions about his father. Abd-Al-Rahman Azzam was known as Azzam Pasha, or LordAzzam, until the Egyptian revolution, when President Nasser eliminated all "Lord" and "Noble" titles.
　　"He should be at my home when we get there," Dr. Azzam said. "He spends much time in New Yorkwith his United Nations work, and he has followed you with great interest."I was speechless.
　　It was early in the morning when we reached Dr. Azzam's home. His father was there, his father'sbrother, a chemist, and another friend-all up that early, waiting. Each of them embraced me as thoughI were a long-lost child. I had never seen these men before in my life, and they treated me so good! Iam going to tell you that I had never been so honored in my life, nor had I ever received such truehospitality.
　　A servant brought tea and coffee, and disappeared. I was urged to make myself comfortable. Nowomen were anywhere in view. In Arabia, you could easily think there were no females.
　　Dr. Abd-Al-Rahman Azzam dominated the conversation. Why hadn't I called before? They couldn'tunderstand why I hadn't. Was I comfortable? They seemed embarrassed that I had spent the time at the airport; that I had been delayed in getting to Mecca. No matter how I protested that I felt noinconvenience, that I was fine, they would not hear it. "You must rest," Dr. Azzam said. He went touse the telephone.
　　I didn't know what this distinguished man was doing. I had no dream. When I was told that I wouldbe brought back for dinner that evening, and that, meanwhile, I should get back in the car, how couldI have realized that I was about to see the epitome of Muslim hospitality?
　　Abd-Al-Rahman Azzam, when at home, lived in a suite at the Jedda Palace Hotel. Because I had cometo them with a letter from a friend, he was going to stay at his son's home, and let me use his suite,until I could get on to Mecca.
　　When I found out, there was no use protesting: I was in the suite; young Dr. Azzam was gone; therewas no one to protest to. The three-room suite had a bathroom that was as big as a double at the NewYork Hilton. It was suite number 214. There was even a porch outside, affording a beautiful view ofthe ancient Red Sea city.
　　There had never before been in my emotions such an impulse to pray-and I did, prostrating myself onthe living-room rug.
　　Nothing in either of my two careers as a black man in America had served to give me any idealistictendencies. My instincts automatically examined the reasons, the motives, of anyone who didanything they didn't have to do for me. Always in my life, if it was any white person, I could see aselfish motive.
　　But there in that hotel that morning, a telephone call and a few hours away from the cot on the fourth-floor tier of the dormitory, was one of the few times I had been so awed that I was totally withoutresistance. That white man-at least he would have been considered "white" in America-related toArabia's ruler, to whom he was a close advisor, truly an international man, with nothing in the worldto gain, had given up his suite to me, for my transient comfort. He had _nothing_ to gain. He didn'tneed me. He had everything. In fact, he had more to lose than gain. He had followed the Americanpress about me. If he did that, he knew there was only stigma attached to me. I was supposed to havehorns. I was a "racist." I was "anti-white"-and he from all appearances was white. I was supposed to bea criminal; not only that, but everyone was even accusing me of using his religion of Islam as a cloakfor my criminal practices and philosophies. Even if he had had some motive to use me, he knew that Iwas separated from Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, my "power base," according to thepress in America. The only organization that I had was just a few weeks old. I had no job. I had nomoney. Just to get over there, I had had to borrow money from my sister.
　　That morning was when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began toperceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily itdescribed attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions towardthe black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been.
　　That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men.
　　I should quote from my notebook here. I wrote this about noon, in the hotel: "My excitement, sittinghere, waiting to go before the Hajj Committee, is indescribable. My window faces to the sea westward.
　　The streets are filled with the incoming pilgrims from all over the world. The prayers are to Allah andverses from the Quran are on the lips of everyone. Never have I seen such a beautiful sight, norwitnessed such a scene, nor felt such an atmosphere. Although I am excited, I feel safe and secure,thousands of miles from the totally different life that I have known. Imagine that twenty-four hoursago, I was in the fourth-floor room over the airport, surrounded by people with whom I could notcommunicate, feeling uncertain about the future, and very lonely, and then _one_ phone call,following Dr. Shawarbi's instructions. I have met one of the most powerful men in the Muslim world.
　　I will soon sleep in his bed at the Jedda Palace. I know that I am surrounded by friends whosesincerity and religious zeal I can feel. I must pray again to thank Allah for this blessing, and I mustpray again that my wife and children back in America will always be blessed for their sacrifices, too."I did pray, two more prayers, as I had told my notebook. Then I slept for about four hours, until thetelephone rang. It was young Dr. Azzam. In another hour, he would pick me up to return me there fordinner. I tumbled words over one another, trying to express some of the thanks I felt for all of theiractions. He cut me off. "Ma sha'a-llah"-which means, "It is as Allah has pleased."I seized the opportunity to run down into the lobby, to see it again before Dr. Azzam arrived. When Iopened my door, just across the hall from me a man in some ceremonial dress, who obviously livedthere, was also headed downstairs, surrounded by attendants. I followed them down, then throughthe lobby. Outside, a small caravan of automobiles was wailing. My neighbor appeared through theJedda Palace Hotel's front entrance and people rushed and crowded him, kissing his hand. I found outwho he was: the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Later, in the hotel, I would have the opportunity to talkwith him for about a half-hour. He was a cordial man of great dignity. He was well up on worldaffairs, and even the latest events in America.
　　I will never forget the dinner at the Azzam home. I quote my notebook again: "I couldn't say in mymind that these were 'white' men. Why, the men acted as if they were brothers of mine, the elder Dr.
　　Azzam as if he were my father. His fatherly, scholarly speech. I _felt_ like he was my father. He was,you could tell, a highly skilled diplomat, with a broad range of mind. His knowledge was so worldly.
　　He was as current on world affairs as some people are to what's going on in their living room.
　　"The more we talked, the more his vast reservoir of knowledge and its variety seemed unlimited. Hespoke of the racial lineage of the descendants of Muhammad the Prophet, and he showed how theywere both black and white. He also pointed out how color, the complexities of color, and the problemsof color which exist in the Muslim world, exist only where, and to the extent that, that area of theMuslim world has been influenced by the West. He said that if one encountered any differences basedon attitude toward color, this directly reflected the degree of Western influence." I learned during dinner that while I was at the hotel, the Hajj Committee Court had been notifiedabout my case, and that in the morning I should be there. And I was.
　　The judge was Sheikh Muhammad Harkon. The Court was empty except for me and a sister fromIndia, formerly a Protestant, who had converted to Islam, and was, like me, trying to make the Hajj.
　　She was brown-skinned, with a small face that was mostly covered. Judge Harkon was a kind,impressive man. We talked. He asked me some questions, having to do with my sincerity. I answeredhim as truly as I could. He not only recognized me as a true Muslim, but he gave me two books, one inEnglish, the other in Arabic. He recorded my name in the Holy Register of true Muslims, and we wereready to part. He told me, "I hope you will become a great preacher of Islam in America." I said that Ishared that hope, and I would try to fulfill it.
　　The Azzam family were very elated that I was qualified and accepted to go to Mecca. I had lunch atthe Jedda Palace. Then I slept again for several hours, until the telephone awakened me.
　　It was Muhammad Abdul Azziz Maged, the Deputy Chief of Protocol for Prince Faisal. "A special carwill be waiting to take you to Mecca, right after your dinner," he told me. He advised me to eatheartily, as the Hajj rituals require plenty of strength.
　　I was beyond astonishment by then.
　　Two young Arabs accompanied me to Mecca. A well-lighted, modem turnpike highway made the tripeasy. Guards at intervals along the way took one look at the car, and the driver made a sign, and wewere passed through, never even having to slow down. I was, all at once, thrilled, important, humble,and thankful.
　　Mecca, when we entered, seemed as ancient as time itself. Our car slowed through the winding streets,lined by shops on both sides and with buses, cars, and trucks, and tens of thousands of pilgrims fromall over the earth were everywhere.
　　The car halted briefly at a place where a _Mutawaf_ was waiting for me. He wore the white skullcapand long nightshirt garb that I had seen at the airport. He was a short, dark-skinned Arab, namedMuhammad. He spoke no English whatever.
　　We parked near the Great Mosque. We performed our ablutions and entered. Pilgrims seemed to beon top of each other, there were so many, lying, sitting, sleeping, praying, walking.
　　My vocabulary cannot describe the new mosque that was being built around the Ka'ba. I was thrilledto realize that it was only one of the tremendous rebuilding tasks under the direction of young Dr.
　　Azzam, who had just been my host. The Great Mosque of Mecca, when it is finished, will surpass thearchitectural beauty of India's Taj Mahal.
　　 Carrying my sandals, I followed the _Mutawaf_. Then I saw the Ka'ba, a huge black stone house in themiddle of the Great Mosque. It was being circumambulated by thousands upon thousands of prayingpilgrims, both sexes, and every size, shape, color, and race in the world. I knew the prayer to beuttered when the pilgrim's eyes first perceive the Ka'ba. Translated, it is "O God, You are peace, andpeace derives from You. So greet us, O Lord, with peace." Upon entering the Mosque, the pilgrimshould try to kiss the Ka'ba if possible, but if the crowds prevent him getting that close, he touches it,and if the crowds prevent that, he raises his hand and cries out "Takbir!" ("God is great!") I could notget within yards. "Takbir!"My feeling there in the House of God was a numbness. My _Mutawaf_ led me in the crowd ofpraying, chanting pilgrims, moving seven times around the Ka'ba. Some were bent and wizened withage; it was a sight that stamped itself on the brain. I saw incapacitated pilgrims being carried byothers. Faces were enraptured in their faith. The seventh time around, I prayed two _Rak'a_,prostrating myself, my head on the floor. The first prostration, I prayed the Quran verse "Say He isGod, the one and only"; the second prostration: "Say O you who are unbelievers, I worship not thatwhich you worship. . . ."As I prostrated, the _Mutawaf_ fended pilgrims off to keep me from being trampled.
　　The _Mutawaf_ and I next drank water from the well of Zem Zem. Then we ran between the two hills,Safa and Marwa, where Hajar wandered over the same earth searching for water for her child Ishmael.
　　Three separate times, after that, I visited the Great Mosque and circumambulated the Ka'ba. The nextday we set out after sunrise toward Mount Arafat, thousands of us, crying in unison: "Labbayka!
　　Labbayka!" and "Allah Akbar!" Mecca is surrounded by the crudest-looking mountains I have everseen; they seem to be made of the slag from a blast furnace. No vegetation is on them at all. Arrivingabout noon, we prayed and chanted from noon until sunset, and the _asr_ (afternoon) and _Maghrib_(sunset) special prayers were performed.
　　Finally, we lifted our hands in prayer and thanksgiving, repeating Allah's words: "There is no God butAllah. He has no partner. His are authority and praise. Good emanates from Him, and He has powerover all things."Standing on Mount Arafat had concluded the essential rites of being a pilgrim to Mecca. No one whomissed it could consider himself a pilgrim.
　　The _Ihram_ had ended. We cast the traditional seven stones at the devil. Some had their hair andbeards cut. I decided that I was going to let my beard remain. I wondered what my wife Betty, and ourlittle daughters, were going to say when they saw me with a beard, when I got back to New York.
　　New York seemed a million miles away. I hadn't seen a newspaper that I could read since I left NewYork. I had no idea what was happening there. A Negro rifle club that had been in existence for overtwelve years in Harlem had been "discovered" by the police; it was being trumpeted that I was"behind it." Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam had a lawsuit going against me, to force me and my family to vacate the house in which we lived on Long Island.
　　The major press, radio, and television media in America had representatives in Cairo hunting all over,trying to locate me, to interview me about the furor in New York that I had allegedly caused-when Iknew nothing about any of it.
　　I only knew what I had left in America, and how it contrasted with what I had found in the Muslimworld. About twenty of us Muslims who had finished the Hajj were sitting in a huge tent on MountArafat. As a Muslim from America, I was the center of attention. They asked me what about the Hajjhad impressed me the most. One of the several who spoke English asked; they translated my answersfor the others. My answer to that question was not the one they expected, but it drove home my point.
　　I said, "The _brotherhood_! The people of all races, colors, from all over the world coming together as_one_! It has proved to me the power of the One God."It may have been out of taste, but that gave me an opportunity, and I used it, to preach them a quicklittle sermon on America's racism, and its evils.
　　I could tell the impact of this upon them. They had been aware that the plight of the black man inAmerica was "bad," but they had not been aware that it was inhuman, that it was a psychologicalcastration. These people from elsewhere around the world were shocked. As Muslims, they had a verytender heart for all unfortunates, and very sensitive feelings for truth and justice. And in everything Isaid to them, as long as we talked, they were aware of the yardstick that I was using to measureeverything-that to me the earth's most explosive and pernicious evil is racism, the inability of God'screatures to live as One, especially in the Western world.
　　 I have reflected since that the letter I finally sat down to compose had been subconsciously shapingitself in my mind.
　　The _color-blindness_ of the Muslim world's religious society and the _color-blindness_ of the Muslimworld's human society: these two influences had each day been making a greater impact, and anincreasing persuasion against my previous way of thinking.
　　The first letter was, of course, to my wife, Betty. I never had a moment's question that Betty, afterinitial amazement, would change her thinking to join mine. I had known a thousand reassurances thatBetty's faith in me was total. I knew that she would see what I had seen-that in the land of Muhammadand the land of Abraham, I had been blessed by Allah with a new insight into the true religion ofIslam, and a better understanding of America's entire racial dilemma.
　　After the letter to my wife, I wrote next essentially the same letter to my sister Ella. And I knew where Ella would stand. She had been saving to make the pilgrimage to Mecca herself.
　　I wrote to Dr. Shawarbi, whose belief in my sincerity had enabled me to get a passport to Mecca.
　　All through the night, I copied similar long letters for others who were very close to me. Among themwas Elijah Muhammad's son Wallace Muhammad, who had expressed to me his conviction that theonly possible salvation for the Nation of Islam would be its accepting and projecting a betterunderstanding of Orthodox Islam.
　　And I wrote to my loyal assistants at my newly formed Muslim Mosque, Inc. in Harlem, with a noteappended, asking that my letter be duplicated and distributed to the press.
　　I knew that when my letter became public knowledge back in America, many would be astounded-loved ones, friends, and enemies alike. And no less astounded would be millions whom I did notknow-who had gained during my twelve years with Elijah Muhammad a "hate" image of Malcolm X.
　　Even I was myself astounded. But there was precedent in my life for this letter. My whole life hadbeen a chronology of-_changes_.
　　Here is what I wrote . . . from my heart:
　　"Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood asis practiced by people of all colors and races here in this Ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham,Muhammad, and all the other prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterlyspeechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people _of all colors_.
　　"I have been blessed to visit the Holy City of Mecca. I have made my seven circuits around the Ka'ba,led by a young _Mutawaf_ named Muhammad. I drank water from the well of Zem Zem. I ran seventimes back and forth between the hills of Mt. Al-Safa and Al-Marwah. I have prayed in the ancient cityof Mina, and I have prayed on Mt. Arafat.
　　"There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying aspirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never couldexist between the white and the non-white.
　　"America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society therace problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten withpeople who in America would have been considered 'white'-but the 'white' attitude was removedfrom their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen _sincere_ and _true_ brotherhoodpracticed by all colors together, irrespective of their color.
　　"You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to _re-arrange_ much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to _tossaside_ some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firmconvictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as newexperience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to theflexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.
　　"During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk fromthe same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)-while praying to the same God-withfellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whoseskin was the whitest of white. And in the _words_ and in the _actions_ and in the _deeds_ of the'white' Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria,Sudan, and Ghana.
　　"We were _truly_ all the same (brothers)-because their belief in one God had removed the 'white' fromtheir _minds_, the 'white' from their _behavior_, and the 'white' from their _attitude_.
　　"I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps,too, they could accept _in reality_ the Oneness of Man-and cease to measure, and hinder, and harmothers in terms of their 'differences' in color.
　　"With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called 'Christian' white American heartshould be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be intime to save America from imminent disaster-the same destruction brought upon Germany by racismthat eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.
　　"Each hour here in the Holy Land enables me to have greater spiritual insights into what is happeningin America between black and white. The American Negro never can be blamed for his racialanimosities-he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the American whites.
　　But as racism leads America up the suicide path, I do believe, from the experiences that I have hadwith them, that the whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and universities, will see thehandwriting on the wall and many of them will turn to the _spiritual_ path of _truth_-the _only_ wayleft to America to ward off the disaster that racism inevitably must lead to.
　　"Never have I been so highly honored. Never have I been made to feel more humble and unworthy.
　　Who would believe the blessings that have been heaped upon an _American Negro_? A few nightsago, a man who would be called in America a 'white' man, a United Nations diplomat, an ambassador,a companion of kings, gave me _his_ hotel suite, _his_ bed. By this man, His Excellency Prince Faisal,who rules this Holy Land, was made aware of my presence here in Jedda. The very next morning,Prince Faisal's son, in person, informed me that by the will and decree of his esteemed father, I was tobe a State Guest.
　　"The Deputy Chief of Protocol himself took me before the Hajj Court. His Holiness Sheikh Muhammad Harkon himself okayed my visit to Mecca. His Holiness gave me two books on Islam,with his personal seal and autograph, and he told me that he prayed that I would be a successfulpreacher of Islam in America. A car, a driver, and a guide, have been placed at my disposal, making itpossible for me to travel about this Holy Land almost at will. The government provides air-conditioned quarters and servants in each city that I visit. Never would I have even thought ofdreaming that I would ever be a recipient of such honors-honors that in America would be bestowedupon a King-not a Negro.
　　"All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the Worlds.
　　"Sincerely,"El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz"(Malcolm X)"
Chapter 18 El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
Prince Faisal, the absolute ruler of Arabia, had made me a guest of the State. Among the courtesiesand privileges which this brought to me, especially-shamelessly-I relished the chauffeured car whichtoured me around in Mecca with the chauffeur-guide pointing out sights of particular significance.
　　Some of the Holy City looked as ancient as time itself. Other parts of it resembled a modern Miamisuburb. I cannot describe with what feelings I actually pressed my hands against the earth where thegreat Prophets had trod four thousand years before,"The Muslim from America" excited everywhere the most intense curiosity and interest. I wasmistaken time and again for Cassius Clay. A local newspaper had printed a photograph of Cassiusand me together at the United Nations. Through my chauffeur-guide-interpreter I was asked scores ofquestions about Cassius. Even children knew of him, and loved him there in the Muslim world. Bypopular demand, the cinemas throughout Africa and Asia had shown his fight. At that moment inyoung Cassius' career, he had captured the imagination and the support of the entire dark world.
　　My car took me to participate in special prayers at Mt. Arafat, and at Mina. The roads offered thewildest drives that I had ever known: nightmare traffic, brakes squealing, skidding cars, and hornsblowing. (I believe that all of the driving in the Holy Land is done in the name of Allah.) I had begunto learn the prayers in Arabic; now, my biggest prayer difficulty was physical. The unaccustomedprayer posture had caused my big toe to swell, and it pained me.
　　But the Muslim world's customs no longer seemed strange to me. My hands now readily plucked upfood from a common dish shared with brother Muslims; I was drinking without hesitation from thesame glass as others; I was washing from the same little pitcher of water; and sleeping with eight or ten others on a mat in the open. I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overheadI lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land-every color,and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike-all snored in the same language.
　　I'll bet that in the parts of the Holy Land that I visited a million bottles of soft drinks were consumed-and ten million cigarettes must have been smoked. Particularly the Arab Muslims smoked constantly,even on the Hajj pilgrimage itself. The smoking evil wasn't invented in Prophet Muhammad's days-ifit had been, I believe he would have banned it.
　　It was the largest Hajj in history, I was later told. Kasem Gulek, of the Turkish Parliament, beamingwith pride, informed me that from Turkey alone over six hundred buses-over fifty thousand Muslims-had made the pilgrimage. I told him that I dreamed to see the day when shiploads and planeloads ofAmerican Muslims would come to Mecca for the Hajj.
　　There was a color pattern in the huge crowds. Once I happened to notice this, I closely observed itthereafter. Being from America made me intensely sensitive to matters of color. I saw that people wholooked alike drew together and most of the time stayed together. This was entirely voluntary; therebeing no other reason for it. But Africans were with Africans. Pakistanis were with Pakistanis. And soon. I tucked it into my mind that when I returned home I would tell Americans this observation; thatwhere true brotherhood existed among all colors, where no one felt segregated, where there was no"superiority" complex, no "inferiority" complex-then voluntarily, naturally, people of the same kindfelt drawn together by that which they had in common.
　　It is my intention that by the time of my next Hajj pilgrimage, I will have at least a working vocabularyof Arabic. In my ignorant, crippled condition in the Holy Land, I had been lucky to have met patientfriends who enabled me to talk by interpreting for me. Never before in my life had I felt so deaf anddumb as during the times when no interpreter was with me to tell me what was being said around me,or about me, or even _to_ me, by other Muslims-before they learned that "the Muslim from America"knew only a few prayers in Arabic and, beyond that, he could only nod and smile.
　　Behind my nods and smiles, though, I was doing some American-type thinking and reflection. I sawthat Islam's conversions around the world could double and triple if the colorfulness and the truespiritualness of the Hajj pilgrimage were properly advertised and communicated to the outside world.
　　I saw that the Arabs are poor at understanding the psychology of non-Arabs and the importance ofpublic relations. The Arabs said "_insha Allah_" ("God willing")-then they waited for converts. Evenby this means, Islam was on the march, but I knew that with improved public relations methods thenumber of new converts turning to Allah could be turned into millions.
　　Constantly, wherever I went, I was asked questions about America's racial discrimination. Even withmy background, I was astonished at the degree to which the major single image of America seemed tobe discrimination.
　　In a hundred different conversations in the Holy Land with Muslims high and low, and from around the world-and, later, when I got to Black Africa-I don't have to tell you never once did I bite mytongue or miss a single opportunity to tell the truth about the crimes, the evils and the indignities thatare suffered by the black man in America. Through my interpreter, I lost no opportunity to advertisethe American black man's real plight. I preached it on the mountain at Arafat, I preached it in the busylobby of the Jedda Palace Hotel. I would point at one after another-to bring it closer to home; "You . . .
　　you . . . you-because of your dark skin, in America you, too, would be called 'Negro.' You could bebombed and shot and cattle-prodded and fire-hosed and beaten because of your complexions."As some of the poorest pilgrims heard me preach, so did some of the Holy World's most importantpersonages. I talked at length with the blue-eyed, blond-haired Hussein Amini, Grand Mufti ofJerusalem. We were introduced on Mt. Arafat by Kasem Gulick of the Turkish Parliament. Both werelearned men; both were especially well-read on America. Kasem Gulick asked me why I had brokenwith Elijah Muhammad. I said that I preferred not to elaborate upon our differences, in the interests ofpreserving the American black man's unity. They both understood and accepted that.
　　I talked with the Mayor of Mecca, Sheikh Abdullah Eraif, who when he was a journalist had criticizedthe methods of the Mecca municipality-and Prince Faisal made him the Mayor, to see if he could doany better. Everyone generally acknowledged that Sheikh Eraif was doing fine. A filmed feature "TheMuslim From America" was made by Ahmed Horyallah and his partner Essid Muhammad of Tunis'
　　television station. In America once, in Chicago, Ahmed Horyallah had interviewed Elijah Muhammad.
　　The lobby of the Jedda Palace Hotel offered me frequent sizable informal audiences of important menfrom many different countries who were curious to hear the "American Muslim." I met many Africanswho had either spent some time in America, or who had heard other Africans' testimony aboutAmerica's treatment of the black man. I remember how before one large audience, one cabinetminister from Black Africa (he knew more about world-wide current events than anyone else I've evermet) told of his occasionally traveling in the United States, North and South, deliberately not wearinghis national dress. Just recalling the indignities he had met as a black man seemed to expose some rawnerve in this highly educated, dignified official. His eyes blazed in his passionate anger, his handshacked the air: "Why is the American black man so complacent about being trampled upon? Whydoesn't the American black man _fight_ to be a human being?"A Sudanese high official hugged me, "You champion the American black people!" An Indian officialwept in his compassion "for my brothers in your land." I reflected many, many times to myself uponhow the American Negro has been entirely brainwashed from ever seeing or thinking of himself, as heshould, as a part of the non-white peoples of the world. The American Negro has no conception of thehundreds of millions of other non-whites' concern for him: he has no conception of their feeling ofbrotherhood for and with him.
　　It was there in the Holy Land, and later in Africa, that I formed a conviction which I have had eversince-that a topmost requisite for any Negro leader in America ought to be extensive traveling in thenon-white lands on this earth, and the travel should include many conferences with the ranking menof those lands. I guarantee that any honest, open-minded Negro leader would return home with more effective thinking about alternative avenues to solutions of the American black man's problem. Aboveall, the Negro leaders would find that many non-white officials of the highest standing, especiallyAfricans, would tell them-privately-that they would be glad to throw their weight behind the Negrocause, in the United Nations, and in other ways. But these officials understandably feel that the Negroin America is so confused and divided that he doesn't himself know what his cause is. Again, it wasmainly Africans who variously expressed to me that no one would wish to be embarrassed trying tohelp a brother who shows no evidence that he wants that help-and who seems to refuse to cooperatein his own interests.
　　The American black "leader's" most critical problem is lack of imagination! His thinking, his strategies,if any, are always limited, at least basically, to only that which is either advised, or approved by thewhite man. And the first thing the American power structure doesn't want any Negroes to start isthinking _internationally_.
　　I think the single worst mistake of the American black organizations, and their leaders, is that theyhave failed to establish direct brotherhood lines of communication between the independent nationsof Africa and the American black people. Why, every day, the black African heads of state should bereceiving direct accounts of the latest developments in the American black man's struggles-instead ofthe U.S. State Department's releases to Africans which always imply that the American black man'sstruggle is being "solved."Two American authors, best-sellers in the Holy Land, had helped to spread and intensify the concernfor the American black man. James Baldwin's books, translated, had made a tremendous impact, ashad the book _Black Like Me_, by John Griffin. If you're unfamiliar with that book, it tells how thewhite man Griffin blackened his skin and spent two months traveling as a Negro about America; thenGriffin wrote of the experiences that he met. "A frightening experience!" I heard exclaimed many timesby people in the Holy World who had read the popular book. But I never heard it without openingtheir thinking further: "Well, if it was a frightening experience for him as nothing but a make-believeNegro for sixty days-then you think about what _real_ Negroes in America have gone through forfour hundred years."One honor that came to me, I had prayed for: His Eminence, Prince Faisal, invited me to a personalaudience with him.
　　As I entered the room, tall, handsome Prince Faisal came from behind his desk. I never will forget thereflection I had at that instant, that here was one of the world's most important men, and yet with hisdignity one saw clearly his sincere humility. He indicated for me a chair opposite from his. Ourinterpreter was the Deputy Chief of Protocol, Muhammad Abdul Azziz Maged, an Egyptian-bornArab, who looked like a Harlem Negro.
　　Prince Faisal impatiently gestured when I began stumbling for words trying to express my gratitudefor the great honor he had paid me in making me a guest of the State. It was only Muslim hospitalityto another Muslim, he explained, and I was an unusual Muslim from America. He asked me to understand above all that whatever he had done had been his pleasure, with no other motiveswhatever.
　　A gliding servant served a choice of two kinds of tea as Prince Faisal talked. His son, MuhammadFaisal, had "met" me on American television while attending a Northern California university. PrinceFaisal had read Egyptian writers' articles about the American "Black Muslims." "If what these writerssay is true, the Black Muslims have the wrong Islam," he said. I explained my role of the previoustwelve years, of helping to organize and to build the Nation of Islam. I said that my purpose formaking the Hajj was to get an understanding of true Islam. "That is good," Prince Faisal said, pointingout that there was an abundance of English-translation literature about Islam-so that there was noexcuse for ignorance, and no reason for sincere people to allow themselves to be misled.
　　 The last of April, 1964, I flew to Beirut, the seaport capital of Lebanon. A part of me, I left behind in theHoly City of Mecca. And, in turn, I took away with me-forever-a part of Mecca.
　　I was on my way, now, to Nigeria, then Ghana. But some friends I had made in the Holy Land hadurged and insisted that I make some stops en route and I had agreed. For example, it had beenarranged that I would first stop and address the faculty and the students at the American Universityof Beirut.
　　In Beirut's Palm Beach Hotel, I luxuriated in my first long sleep since I had left America. Then, I wentwalking-fresh from weeks in the Holy Land: immediately my attention was struck by the mannerismsand attire of the Lebanese women. In the Holy Land, there had been the very modest, very feminineArabian women-and there was this sudden contrast of the half-French, half-Arab Lebanese womenwho projected in their dress and street manners more liberty, more boldness. I saw clearly the obviousEuropean influence upon the Lebanese culture. It showed me how any country's moral strength, or itsmoral weakness, is quickly measurable by the street attire and attitude of its women-especially itsyoung women. Wherever the spiritual values have been submerged, if not destroyed, by an emphasisupon the material things, invariably, the women reflect it. Witness the women, both young and old, inAmerica-where scarcely any moral values are left. There seems in most countries to be either oneextreme or the other. Truly a paradise could exist wherever material progress and spiritual valuescould be properly balanced.
　　I spoke at the University of Beirut the truth of the American black man's condition. I've previouslymade the comment that any experienced public speaker can feel his audience's reactions. As I spoke, Ifelt the subjective and defensive reactions of the American white students present-but gradually theirhostilities lessened as I continued to present the unassailable facts. But the students of Africanheritage-well, I'll _never_ get over how the African displays his emotions.
　　Later, with astonishment, I heard that the American press carried stories that my Beirut speech causeda "riot." What kind of a riot? I don't know how any reporter, in good conscience, could have cabled that across the ocean. The Beirut _Daily Star_ front-page report of my speech mentioned no "riot"because there was none. When I was done, the African students all but besieged me for autographs;some of them even hugged me. Never have even American Negro audiences accepted me as I havebeen accepted time and again by the less inhibited, more down-to-earth Africans.
　　From Beirut, I flew back to Cairo, and there I took a train to Alexandria, Egypt. I kept my camera busyduring each brief stopover. Finally I was on a plane to Nigeria.
　　During the six-hour flight, when I was not talking with the pilot (who had been a 1960 Olympicsswimmer), I sat with a passionately political African. He almost shouted in his fervor. "When peopleare in a stagnant state, and are being brought out of it, there is no _time_ for voting!" His central themewas that no new African nation, trying to decolonize itself, needed any political system that wouldpermit division and bickering. "The people don't know what the vote means! It is the job of theenlightened leaders to raise the people's intellect."In Lagos, I was greeted by Professor Essien-Udom of the Ibadan University. We were both happy tosee each other. We had met in the United States as he had researched the Nation of Islam for his book,_Black Nationalism_. At his home, that evening, a dinner was held in my honor, attended by otherprofessors and professional people. As we ate, a young doctor asked me if I knew that New YorkCity's press was highly upset about a recent killing in Harlem of a white woman-for which, accordingto the press, many were blaming me at least indirectly. An elderly white couple who owned a Harlemclothing store had been attacked by several young Negroes, and the wife was stabbed to death. Someof these young Negroes, apprehended by the police, had described themselves as belonging to anorganization they called "Blood Brothers." These youths, allegedly, had said or implied that they wereaffiliated with "Black Muslims" who had split away from the Nation of Islam to join up with me.
　　I told the dinner guests that it was my first word of any of it, but that I was not surprised whenviolence happened in any of America's ghettoes where black men had been living packed like animalsand treated like lepers. I said that the charge against me was typical white man scapegoat-seeking-thatwhenever something white men disliked happened in the black community, typically white publicattention was directed not at the cause, but at a selected scapegoat.
　　As for the "Blood Brothers," I said I considered all Negroes to be my blood brothers. I said that thewhite man's efforts to make my name poison actually succeeded only in making millions of blackpeople regard me like Joe Louis.
　　Speaking in the Ibadan University's Trenchard Hall, I urged that Africa's independent nations neededto see the necessity of helping to bring the Afro-American's case before the United Nations. I said thatjust as the American Jew is in political, economic, and cultural harmony with world Jewry, I wasconvinced that it was time for all Afro-Americans to join the world's Pan-Africanists. I said thatphysically we Afro-Americans might remain in America, fighting for our Constitutional rights, butthat philosophically and culturally we Afro-Americans badly needed to "return" to Africa-and todevelop a working unity in the framework of Pan-Africanism.
　　 Young Africans asked me politically sharper questions than one hears from most American adults.
　　Then an astonishing thing happened when one old West Indian stood and began attacking me-forattacking America. "Shut up! Shut up!" students yelled, booing, and hissing. The old West Indian triedto express defiance of them, and in a sudden rush a group of students sprang up and were after him.
　　He barely escaped ahead of them. I never saw anything like it. Screaming at him, they ran him off thecampus. (Later, I found out that the old West Indian was married to a white woman, and he wastrying to get a job in some white-influenced agency which had put him up to challenge me. Then, Iunderstood his problem.)This wasn't the last time I'd see the Africans' almost fanatic expression of their political emotions.
　　Afterward, in the Students' Union, I was plied with questions, and I was made an honorary member ofthe Nigerian Muslim Students' Society. Right here in my wallet is my card: "Alhadji Malcolm X.
　　Registration No. M-138." With the membership, I was given a new name: "Omowale." It means, in theYoruba language, "the son who has come home." I meant it when I told them I had never received amore treasured honor.
　　Six hundred members of the Peace Corps were in Nigeria, I learned. Some white Peace Corpsmembers who talked with me were openly embarrassed at the guilt of their race in America. Amongthe twenty Negro Peace Corpsmen I talked with, a very impressive fellow to me was Larry Jackson, aMorgan StateCollege graduate from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who had joined the Peace Corps in 1962.
　　I made Nigerian radio and television program appearances. When I remember seeing black menoperating their _own_ communications agencies, a thrill still runs up my spine. The reporters whointerviewed me included an American Negro from _Newsweek_ magazine-his name was Williams.
　　Traveling through Africa, he had recently interviewed Prime Minister Nkrumah.
　　Talking with me privately, one group of Nigerian officials told me how skillfully the U.S. InformationAgency sought to spread among Africans the impression that American Negroes were steadilyadvancing, and that the race problem soon would be solved. One high official told me, "Our informedleaders and many, many others know otherwise." He said that behind the "diplomatic front" of everyAfrican U.N. official was recognition of the white man's gigantic duplicity and conspiracy to keep theworld's peoples of African heritage separated-both physically and ideologically-from each other.
　　"In your land, how many black people think about it that South and Central and North Americacontain over _eighty million_ people of African descent?" he asked me.
　　"The world's course will change the day the African-heritage peoples come together as brothers!"I never had heard that kind of global black thinking from any black man in America.
　　 From Lagos, Nigeria, I flew on to Accra, Ghana.
　　I think that nowhere is the black continent's wealth and the natural beauty of its people richer than inGhana, which is so proudly the very fountainhead of Pan-Africanism.
　　I stepped off the plane into a jarring note. A red-faced American white man recognized me; he had thenerve to come up grabbing my hand and telling me in a molasses drawl that he was from Alabama,and then he invited me to his home for dinner!
　　My hotel's dining room, when I went to breakfast, was full of more of those whites-discussing Africa'suntapped wealth as though the African waiters had no ears. It nearly ruined my meal, thinking how inAmerica they sicked police dogs on black people, and threw bombs in black churches, while blockingthe doors of their white churches-and now, once again in the land where their forefathers had stolenblacks and thrown them into slavery, was that white man.
　　Right there at my Ghanaian breakfast table was where I made up my mind that as long as I was inAfrica, every time I opened my mouth, I was going to make things hot for that white man, grinningthrough his teeth wanting to exploit Africa again-it had been her human wealth the last time, now hewanted Africa's mineral wealth.
　　And I knew that my reacting as I did presented no conflict with the convictions of brotherhood whichI had gained in the Holy Land. The Muslims of "white" complexions who had changed my opinionswere men who had showed me that they practiced genuine brotherhood. And I knew that anyAmerican white man with a genuine brotherhood for a black man was hard to find, no matter howmuch he grinned.
　　The author Julian Mayfield seemed to be the leader of Ghana's little colony of Afro-Americanexpatriates. When I telephoned Mayfield, in what seemed no time at all I was sitting in his homesurrounded by about forty black American expatriates; they had been waiting for my arrival. Therewere business and professional people, such as the militant former Brooklynites Dr. and Mrs. RobertE. Lee, both of them dentists, who had given up their United States' citizenship. Such others as AliceWindom, Maya Angelou Make, Victoria Garvin, and Leslie Lacy had even formed a "Malcolm XCommittee" to guide me through a whirlwind calendar of appearances and social events.
　　In my briefcase here are some of the African press stories which had appeared when it was learnedthat I was en route:
　　"Malcolm X's name is almost as familiar to Ghanaians as the Southern dogs, fire hoses, cattle prods,people sticks, and the ugly, hate-contorted white faces. . . .""Malcolm X's decision to enter the mainstream of the struggle heralds a hopeful sign on thesickeningly dismal scene of brutalized, non-violent, passive resistance. . . ." "An extremely important fact is that Malcolm X is the first Afro-American leader of national standingto make an independent trip to Africa since Dr. Du Bois came to Ghana. This may be the beginning ofa new phase in our struggle. Let's make sure we don't give it less thought than the State Department isdoubtless giving it right now."And another: "Malcolm X is one of our most significant and militant leaders. We are in a battle. Effortswill be made to malign and discredit him. . . ."I simply couldn't believe this kind of reception five thousand miles from America! The officials of thepress had even arranged to pay my hotel expenses, and they would hear no objection that I made.
　　They included T. D. Baffoe, the Editor-in-Chief of the _Ghanaian Times_; G. T. Anim, the ManagingDirector of the Ghana News Agency; Kofi Batsa, the Editor of _Spark_ and the Secretary-General ofthe Pan-African Union of Journalists; and Mr. Cameron Duodu; and others. I could only thank themall. Then, during the beautiful dinner which had been prepared by Julian Mayfield's pretty PuertoRican wife, Ana Livia (she was in charge of Accra's district health program), I was plied withquestions by the eagerly interested black expatriates from America who had returned to MotherAfrica.
　　I can only wish that every American black man could have shared my ears, my eyes, and my emotionsthroughout the round of engagements which had been made for me in Ghana. And my point in sayingthis is not the reception that I personally received as an individual of whom they had heard, but it wasthe reception tendered to me as the symbol of the militant American black man, as I had the honor tobe regarded.
　　At a jam-packed press club conference, I believe the very first question was why had I split with ElijahMuhammad and the Nation of Islam. The Africans had heard such rumors as that Elijah Muhammadhad built a palace in Arizona. I straightened out that falsehood, and I avoided any criticism. I said thatour disagreement had been in terms of political direction and involvement in the extra-religiousstruggle for human rights. I said I respected the Nation of Islam for its having been a psychologicallyrevitalizing movement and a source of moral and social reform, and that Elijah Muhammad'sinfluence upon the American black man had been basic.
　　I stressed to the assembled press the need for mutual communication and support between theAfricans and Afro-Americans whose struggles were interlocked. I remember that in the pressconference, I used the word "Negro," and I was firmly corrected. "The word is not favored here, Mr.
　　Malcolm X. The term Afro-American has greater meaning, and dignity." I sincerely apologized. I don'tthink that I said "Negro" again as long as I was in Africa. I said that the 22 million Afro-Americans inthe United States could become for Africa a great positive force-while, in turn, the African nationscould and should exert positive force at diplomatic levels against America's racial discrimination. Isaid, "All of Africa unites in opposition to South Africa's apartheid, and to the oppression in thePortuguese territories. But you waste your time if you don't realize that Verwoerd and Salazar, andBritain and France, never could last a day if it were not for United States support. So until you expose the man in Washington, D.C., you haven't accomplished anything."I knew that the State Department's G. Mennen Williams was officially visiting in Africa. I said, "Takemy word for it-you be suspicious of all these American officials who come to Africa grinning in yourfaces when they don't grin in ours back home." I told them that my own father was murdered bywhites in the state of Michigan where G. Mennen Williams once was the Governor.
　　I was honored at the Ghana Club, by more press representatives and dignitaries. I was the guest at thehome of the late black American author Richard Wright's daughter, beautiful, slender, soft-voicedJulia, whose young French husband publishes a Ghanaian paper. Later, in Paris, I was to meet RichardWright's widow, Ellen, and a younger daughter, Rachel.
　　I talked with Ambassadors, at their embassies. The Algerian Ambassador impressed me as a man whowas dedicated totally to militancy, and to world revolution, as the way to solve the problems of theworld's oppressed masses. His perspective was attuned not just to Algerians, but to include the Afro-Americans and all others anywhere who were oppressed. The Chinese Ambassador, Mr. Huang Ha, amost perceptive, and also most militant man, focused upon the efforts of the West to divide Africansfrom the peoples of African heritage elsewhere. The Nigerian Ambassador was deeply concernedabout the Afro-Americans' plight in America. He had personal knowledge of their suffering, havinglived and studied in Washington, D.C. Similarly, the most sympathetic Mali Ambassador had been inNew York at the United Nations. I breakfasted with Dr. Makonnen of British Guiana. We discussedthe need for the type of Pan-African unity that would also include the Afro-Americans. And I had atalk in depth about Afro-American problems with Nana Nketsia, the Ghanaian Minister of Culture.
　　Once when I returned to my hotel, a New York City call was waiting for me from Mai Goode of theAmerican Broadcasting Company. Over the telephone Mai Goode asked me questions that I answeredfor his beeping tape recorder, about the "Blood Brothers" in Harlem, the rifle clubs for Negroes, andother subjects with which I was being kept identified in the American press.
　　In the University of Ghana's Great Hall, I addressed the largest audience that I would in Africa-mostlyAfricans, but also numerous whites. Before this audience, I tried my best to demolish the false imageof American race relations that I knew was spread by the U.S. Information Agency. I tried to impressupon them all the true picture of the Afro-American's plight at the hands of the white man. I workedon those whites there in the audience:
　　"I've never _seen_ so many whites so nice to so many blacks as you white people here in Africa. InAmerica, Afro-Americans are struggling for integration. They should come here-to Africa-and seehow you grin at Africans. You've really got integration here. But can you tell the Africans that inAmerica you grin at the black people? No, you can't! And you don't honestly like these Africans anybetter, either-but what you _do_ like is the _minerals_ Africa has under her soil. . . ."Those whites out in the audience turned pink and red. They knew I was telling the truth. "I'm not anti-American, and I didn't come here to _condemn_ America-I want to make that very clear!" I told them.
　　 "I came here to tell the truth-and if the _truth_ condemns America, then she stands condemned!"One evening I met most of the officials in Ghana-all of those with whom I had previously talked, andmore-at a party that was given for me by the Honorable Kofi Baako, the Ghanaian Minister of Defense,and the Leader of the National Assembly. I was told that this was the first time such an honor wasaccorded to a foreigner since Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois had come to Ghana. There was music, dancing, andfine Ghanaian food. Several persons at the party were laughing among themselves, saying that at anearlier party that day, U.S. Ambassador Mahomey was knocking himself out being exceptionallyfriendly and jovial. Some thought that he was making a strong effort to counteract the truth aboutAmerica that I was telling every chance I got.
　　Then an invitation came to me which exceeded my wildest dream. I would never have imagined that Iwould actually have an opportunity to address the members of the Ghanaian Parliament!
　　I made my remarks brief-but I made them strong: "How can you condemn Portugal and South Africawhile our black people in America are being bitten by dogs and beaten with clubs?" I said I felt certainthat the only reason black Africans-our black brothers-could be so silent about what happened inAmerica was that they had been misinformed by the American government's propaganda agencies.
　　At the end of my talk, I heard "Yes! We support the Afro-American . . . morally, physically, materiallyif necessary!"In Ghana-or in all of black Africa-my highest single honor was an audience at the Castle withOsagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkru-mah.
　　Before seeing him, I was searched most thoroughly. I respected the type of security the Ghanaianserect around their leader. It gave me that much more respect for independent black men. Then, as Ientered Dr. Nkramah's long office, he came out from behind his desk at the far end. Dr. Nkrumahwore ordinary dress, his hand was extended and a smile was on his sensitive face. I pumped his hand.
　　We sat on a couch and talked. I knew that he was particularly well-informed on the Afro-American'splight, as for years he had lived and studied in America. We discussed the unity of Africans andpeoples of African descent. We agreed that Pan-Africanism was the key also to the problems of thoseof African heritage. I could feel the warm, likeable and very down-to-earth qualities of Dr. Nkrumah.
　　My time with him was up all too soon. I promised faithfully that when I returned to the United States,I would relay to Afro-Americans his personal warm regards.
　　That afternoon, thirty-nine miles away in Winneba, I spoke at the Kwame Nkrumah IdeologicalInstitute-where two hundred students were being trained to carry forward Ghana's intellectualrevolution, and here again occurred one of those astounding demonstrations of the young African'spolitical fervor. After I had spoken, during the question-and-answer period, some young Afro-American stood up, whom none there seemed to know. "I am an American Negro," he announcedhimself. Vaguely, he defended the American white man. The African students booed and harassedhim. Then instantly when the meeting was over, they cornered this fellow with verbal abuse, "Are you an agent of Rockefeller?" . . ."Stop corrupting our children!" (The fellow had turned out to be a localsecondary school teacher, placed in the job by an American agency.). . ."Come to this Institute for someorientation!" Temporarily, a teacher rescued the fellow-but then the students rushed him and drovehim away, shouting, "Stooge!" . . ."C.I.A." . . ."American agent!"Chinese Ambassador and Mrs. Huang Hua gave a state dinner in my honor. The guests included theCuban and the Algerian ambassadors, and also it was here that I met Mrs. W. E. B. Du Bois. After theexcellent dinner, three films were shown. One, a color film, depicted the People's Republic of China incelebration of its Fourteenth Anniversary. Prominently shown in this film was the militant formerNorth Carolina Afro-American Robert Williams, who has since taken refuge in Cuba after hisadvocacy that the American black people should take up arms to defend and protect themselves. Thesecond film focused upon the Chinese people's support for the Afro-American struggle. ChairmanMao Tse-tung was shown delivering his statement of that support, and the film offered sickeningmoments of graphic white brutality-police and civilian-to Afro-Americans who were demonstrating invarious U.S. cities, seeking civil rights. And the final film was a dramatic presentation of the AlgerianRevolution.
　　The "Malcolm X Committee" rushed me from the Chinese Embassy dinner to where a soiree in myhonor had already begun at the Press Club. It was my first sight of Ghanaians dancing the high-life. Ahigh and merry time was being had by everyone, and I was pressed to make a short speech. I stressedagain the need for unity between Africans and Afro-Americans. I cried out of my heart, "Now, dance!
　　Sing! But as you do-rememberMandela, remember Sobokwe! Remember Lumumba in his grave! Remember South Africans now injail!"I said, "You wonder why _I_ don't dance? Because I want you to remember twenty-two million Afro-Americans in the U.S.!"But I sure felt like dancing! The Ghanaians performed the high-life as if possessed. One pretty Africangirl sang "Blue Moon" like Sarah Vaughan. Sometimes the band sounded like Milt Jackson, sometimeslike Charlie Parker.
　　The next morning, a Saturday, I heard that Cassius Clay and his entourage had arrived. There was ahuge reception for him at the airport. I thought that if Cassius and I happened to meet, it would likelyprove embarrassing for Cassius, since he had elected to remain with Elijah Muhammad's version ofIslam. I would not have been embarrassed, but I knew that Cassius would have been forbidden toassociate with me. I knew that Cassius knew I had been with him, and for him, and believed in him,when those who later embraced him felt that he had no chance. I decided to avoid Cassius so as not toput him on the spot.
　　A luncheon was given for me that afternoon by the Nigerian High Commissioner, His ExcellencyAlhadji Isa Wall, a short, bespectacled, extremely warm and friendly man who had lived in Washington, D.C. for two years. After lunch, His Excellency spoke to the guests of his Americanencounters with discrimination, and of friendships he had made with Afro-Americans, and hereaffirmed the bonds between Africans and Afro-Americans.
　　His Excellency held up before the luncheon guests a large and handsome issue of an Americanmagazine, _Horizon_; it was opened to an article about the Nation of Islam, written by Dr. MorroeBerger of Princeton University. One full page was a photograph of me; the opposite full page was abeautiful color illustration of a black royal Nigerian Muslim, stalwart and handsome, of hundreds ofyears ago.
　　"When I look at these photographs, I know these two people are one," said His Excellency. "The onlydifference is in their attire-and one was born in America and the other in Africa.
　　"So to let everyone know that I believe we are brothers, I am going to give to Alhadji Malcolm X a robelike that worn by the Nigerian in this photo."I was overwhelmed by the splendor of the beautiful blue robe and the orange turban which HisExcellency then presented to me. I bent over so that he, a short man, could properly arrange the turbanon my head. His Excellency Alhadji Isa Wali also presented me with a two-volume translation of theHoly Quran. After this unforgettable luncheon, Mrs. Shirley Graham Du Bois drove me to her home,so that I could see and photograph the home where her famed late husband, Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, hadspent his last days. Mrs. Du Bois, a writer, was the Director of Ghanaian television, which wasplanned for educational purposes. When Dr. Du Bois had come to Ghana, she told me, Dr. Nkrumahhad set up the aging great militant Afro-American scholar like a king, giving to Dr. Du Boiseverything he could wish for. Mrs. Du Bois told me that when Dr. Du Bois was failing fast, Dr.
　　Nkrumah had visited, and the two men had said good-bye, both knowing that one's death was near-and Dr. Nkrumah had gone away in tears.
　　My final Ghanaian social event was a beautiful party in my honor given by His Excellency Mr.
　　Armando Entralgo Gonzalez, the Cuban Ambassador to Ghana. The next morning-it was Sunday-the"Malcolm X Committee" was waiting at my hotel, to accompany me to the airport. As we left the hotel,we met Cassius Clay with some of his entourage, returning from his morning walk. Cassiusmomentarily seemed uncertain-then he spoke, something almost monosyllabic, like "How are you?" Itflashed through my mind how close we had been before the fight that had changed the course of hislife. I replied that I was fine-something like that-and that I hoped he was, which I sincerely meant.
　　Later on, I sent Cassius a message by wire, saying that I hoped that he would realize how much hewas loved by Muslims wherever they were; and that he would not let anyone use him and maneuverhim into saying and doing things to tarnish his image.
　　The "Malcolm X Committee" and I were exchanging goodbyes at the Accra airport when a smallmotorcade of _five Ambassadors_ arrived-to see me off! I no longer had any words.
　　In the plane, bound for Monrovia, Liberia, to spend a day, I knew that after what I had experienced in the Holy Land, the second most indelible memory I would carry back to America would be the Africaseething with serious awareness of itself, and of Africa's wealth, and of her power, and of her destinedrole in the world.
　　From Monrovia, I flew to Dakar, Senegal. The Senegalese in the airport, hearing about the Muslimfrom America, stood in line to shake my hand, and I signed many autographs. "Our people can't speakArabic, but we have Islam in our hearts," said one Senegalese. I told them that exactly described theirfellow Afro-American Muslims.
　　From Dakar, I flew to Morocco, where I spent a day sightseeing. I visited the famous Casbah, theghetto which had resulted when the ruling white French wouldn't let the dark-skinned natives intocertain areas of Casablanca. Thousands upon thousands of the subjugated natives were crowded intothe ghetto, in the same way that Harlem, in New York City, became America's Casbah.
　　It was Tuesday, May 19, 1964-my thirty-ninth birthday-when I arrived in Algiers. A lot of water hadgone under the bridge in those years. In some ways, I had had more experiences than a dozen men.
　　The taxi driver, while taking me to the Hotel Aletti, described the atrocities the French had committed,and personal measures that he had taken to get even. I walked around Algiers, hearing rank-and-fileexpressions of hatred for America for supporting the oppressors of the Algerians. They were truerevolutionists, not afraid of death. They had, for so long, faced death.
　　 The Pan American jet which took me home-it was Flight 115-landed at New York's Kennedy AirTerminal on May 21, at 4:25 in the afternoon. We passengers filed off the plane and toward Customs.
　　When I saw the crowd of fifty or sixty reporters and photographers, I honestly wondered whatcelebrity I had been on the plane with.
　　But I was the "villain" they had come to meet.
　　In Harlem especially, and also in some other U.S. cities, the 1964 long, hot summer's predictedexplosions had begun. Article after article in the white man's press had cast me as a symbol-if not acausative agent-of the "revolt" and of the "violence" of the American black man, wherever it hadsprung up.
　　In the biggest press conference that I had ever experienced anywhere, the camera bulbs flashed, andthe reporters fired questions.
　　"Mr. Malcolm X, what about those 'Blood Brothers,' reportedly affiliated with your organization,reportedly trained for violence, who have killed innocent white people?" . . ."Mr. Malcolm X, whatabout your comment that Negroes should form rifle clubs? . . ."I answered the questions. I knew I was back in America again, hearing the subjective, scapegoat seeking questions of the white man. New York white youth were killing victims; that was a"sociological" problem. But when black youth killed somebody, the power structure was looking tohang somebody. When black men had been lynched or otherwise murdered in cold blood, it wasalways said, "Things will get better. "When whites had rifles in their homes, the Constitution gavethem the right to protect their home and themselves. But when black people even spoke of havingrifles in their homes, that was "ominous."I slipped in on the reporters something they hadn't been expecting. I said that the American black manneeded to quit thinking what the white man had taught him-which was that the black man had noalternative except to beg for his so-called "civil rights." I said that the American black man needed torecognize that he had a strong, airtight case to take the United States before the United Nations on aformal accusation of "denial of human rights"-and that if Angola and South Africa were precedentcases, then there would be no easy way that the U.S. could escape being censured, right on its ownhome ground.
　　Just as I had known, the press wanted to get me off that subject. I was asked about my "Letter FromMecca"-I was all set with a speech regarding that:
　　"I hope that once and for all my Hajj to the Holy City of Mecca has established our Muslim Mosque'sauthentic religious affiliation with the 750 million Muslims of the orthodox Islamic World. And I_know_ once and for all that the Black Africans look upon America's 22 million blacks as long-lost_brothers_! They _love_ us! They _study_ our struggle for freedom! They were so _happy_ to hearhow we are awakening from our long sleep-after so-called 'Christian' white America had taught us tobe _ashamed_ of our African brothers and homeland!
　　"Yes-I wrote a letter from Mecca. You're asking me 'Didn't you say that now you accept white men asbrothers?' Well, my answer is that in the Muslim World, I saw, I felt, and I wrote home how mythinking was broadened! Just as I wrote, I shared true, brotherly love with many white-complexionedMuslims who never gave a single thought to the race, or to the complexion, of another Muslim.
　　"My pilgrimage broadened my scope. It blessed me with a new insight. In two weeks in the HolyLand, I saw what I never had seen in thirty-nine years here in America. I saw all _races_, all _colors_,blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans-in _true_ brotherhood! In unity! Living as one!
　　Worshiping as one! No segregationists-no liberals; they would not have known how to interpret themeaning of those words.
　　"In the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I never will be guilty of thatagain-as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable of beingbrotherly toward a black man. The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all whitepeople is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.
　　"Yes, I have been convinced that _some_ American whites do want to help cure the rampant racismwhich is on the path to _destroying_ this country!
　　 "It was in the Holy World that my attitude was changed, by what I experienced there, and by what Iwitnessed there, in terms of brotherhood-not just brotherhood toward me, but brotherhood betweenall men, of all nationalities and complexions, who were there. And now that I am back in America, myattitude here concerning white people has to be governed by what my black brothers and I experiencehere, and what we witness here-in terms of brotherhood. The _problem_ here in America is that wemeet such a small minority of individual so-called 'good,' or 'brotherly' white people. Here in theUnited States, notwithstanding those few 'good' white people, it is the _collective_ 150 million whitepeople whom the _collective_ 22 million black people have to deal with!
　　"Why, here in America, the seeds of racism are so deeply rooted in the white people collectively, theirbelief that they are 'superior' in some way is so deeply rooted, that these things are in the nationalwhite subconsciousness. Many whites are even actually unaware of their own racism, until they facesome test, and then their racism emerges in one form or another.
　　"Listen! The white man's racism toward the black man here in America is what has got him in suchtrouble all over this world, with other non-white peoples. The white man can't separate himself fromthe stigma that he automatically feels about anyone, no matter who, who is not his color. And the nonwhite peoples of the world are sick of the condescending white man! That's why you've got all of thistrouble in places like Viet Nam. Or right here in the Western Hemisphere-probably 100 million peopleof African descent are divided against each other, taught by the white man to hate and to mistrusteach other. In the West Indies, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, all of South America, Central America! All ofthose lands are full of people with African blood! On the African continent, even, the white man hasmaneuvered to divide the black African from the brown Arab, to divide the so-called 'ChristianAfrican' from the Muslim African. Can you imagine what can happen, what would certainly happen,if all of these African-heritage peoples ever _realize_ their blood bonds, if they ever realize they allhave a common goal-if they ever _unite_?"The press was glad to get rid of me that day. I believe that the black brothers whom I had just recentlyleft in Africa would have felt that I did the subject justice. Nearly through the night, my telephone athome kept ringing. My black brothers and sisters around New York and in some other cities werecalling to congratulate me on what they had heard on the radio and television news broadcasts, andpeople, mostly white, were wanting to know if I would speak here or there.
　　The next day I was in my car driving along the freeway when at a red light another car pulledalongside. A white woman was driving and on the passenger's side, next to me, was a white man.
　　"_Malcolm X_!" he called out-and when I looked, he stuck his hand out of his car, across at me,grinning. "Do you mind shaking hands with a white man?" Imagine that! Just as the traffic light turnedgreen, I told him, "I don't mind shaking hands with human beings. Are you one?"
Chapter 19 I Must Be Honest
 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.
Epilogue Alex haley
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
Ossie Davis On Malcolm X
[Mr. Davis wrote the following in response to a magazine editor's question: Why did you eulogizeMalcolm X?] You are not the only person curious to know why I would eulogize a man like MalcolmX. Many who know and respect me have written letters. Of these letters I am proudest of those from asixth-grade class of young white boys and girls who asked me to explain. I appreciate your giving methis chance to do so.
　　You may anticipate my defense somewhat by considering the following fact: no Negro has yet askedme that question. (My pastor in Grace Baptist Church where I teach Sunday School preached a sermonabout Malcolm in which he called him a "giant in a sick world.") Every one of the many letters I gotfrom my own people lauded Malcolm as a man, and commended me for having spoken at his funeral.
　　At the same time-and this is important-most of them took special pains to disagree with much or all ofwhat Malcolm said and what he stood for. That is, with one singing exception, they all, every last,black, glory-hugging one of them, knew that Malcolm-whatever else he was or was not-_Malcolm wasa man_!
　　White folks do not need anybody to remind them that they are men. We do! This was his oneincontrovertible benefit to his people.
　　Protocol and common sense require that Negroes stand back and let the white man speak up for us,defend us, and lead us from behind the scene in our fight. This is the essence of Negro politics. ButMalcolm said to hell with that! Get up off your knees and fight your own battles. That's the way to winback your self-respect. That's the way to make the white man respect you. And if he won't let you livelike a man, he certainly can't keep you from dying like one!
　　Malcolm, as you can see, was refreshing excitement; he scared hell out of the rest of us, bred as we areto caution, to hypocrisy in the presence of white folks, to the smile that never fades. Malcolm knewthat every white man in America profits directly or indirectly from his position vis-a-vis Negroes,profits from racism even though he does not practice it or believe in it.
　　He also knew that every Negro who did not challenge on the spot every instance of racism, overt orcovert, committed against him and his people, who chose instead to swallow his spit and go onsmiling, was an Uncle Tom and a traitor, without balls or guts, or any other commonly accepted aspects of manhood!
　　Now, we knew all these things as well as Malcolm did, but we also knew what happened to peoplewho stick their necks out and say them. And if all the lies we tell ourselves by way of extenuationwere put into print, it would constitute one of the great chapters in the history of man's justifiablecowardice in the face of other men.
　　But Malcolm kept snatching our lies away. He kept shouting the painful truth we whites and blacksdid not want to hear from all the housetops. And he wouldn't stop for love nor money.
　　You can imagine what a howling, shocking nuisance this man was to both Negroes and whites. OnceMalcolm fastened on you, you could not escape. He was one of the most fascinating and charmingmen I have ever met, and never hesitated to take his attractiveness and beat you to death with it. Yethis irritation, though painful to us, was most salutary. He would make you angry as hell, but hewould also make you proud. It was impossible to remain defensive and apologetic about being aNegro in his presence. He wouldn't let you. And you always left his presence with the sneakysuspicion that maybe, after all, you _were_ a man!
　　But in explaining Malcolm, let me take care not to explain him away. He had been a criminal, anaddict, a pimp, and a prisoner; a racist, and a hater, he had really believed the white man was a devil.
　　But all this had changed. Two days before his death, in commenting to Gordon Parks about his pastlife he said: "That was a mad scene. The sickness and madness of those days! I'm glad to be free ofthem."And Malcolm was free. No one who knew him before and after his trip to Mecca could doubt that hehad completely abandoned racism, separatism, and hatred. But he had not abandoned his shock-effectstatements, his bristling agitation for immediate freedom in this country not only for blacks, but foreverybody. And most of all, in the area of race relations, he still delighted in twisting the white man'stail, and in making Uncle Toms, compromisers and accommodationists-I deliberately include myself-thoroughly ashamed of the urbane and smiling hypocrisy we practice merely to exist in a worldwhose values we both envy and despise.
　　But even had Malcolm not changed, he would still have been a relevant figure on the American scene,standing in relation as he does, to the "responsible" civil rights leaders, just about where John Brownstood in relation to the "responsible abolitionists in the fight against slavery. Almost all disagreed withBrown's mad and fanatical tactics which led him foolishly to attack a Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry,to lose two sons there, and later to be hanged for treason.
　　Yet today the world, and especially the Negro people, proclaim Brown not a traitor, but a hero and amartyr in a noble cause So in future, I will not be surprised if men come to see that Malcolm X was,within his own limitations, and in his own inimitable style, also a martyr in that cause.
　　But there is much controversy still about this most controversial American, and I am content to wait for history to make the final decision.
　　But in personal judgment, there is no appeal from instinct. I knew the man personally, and howevermuch I disagreed with him, I never doubted that Malcolm X, even when he was wrong, was alwaysthat rarest thing in the world among us Negroes: a true man. And if to protect my relations with themany good white folk who make it possible for me to earn a fairly good living in the entertainmentindustry, I was too chicken, too cautious, to admit that fact when he was alive, I thought at least thatnow when all the white folks are safe from him at last, I could be honest with myself enough to lift myhat for one final salute to that brave, black, ironic gallantry, which was his style and hallmark, thatshocking _zing_ of fire-and-be-damned-to-you, so absolutely absent in every other Negro man I know,which brought him, too soon, to his death.
　　 Alex Haley is the world-renowned author of _Roots_, which has sold six million hardcover copies andhas been translated into thirty languages. He is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National BookAward. Alex Haley died, at the age of seventy, in February 1992.