I Never Had It Made (20 page)

I will never forget the fantastic scene of Governor Rockefeller's ordeal as he endured what must have been three minutes of hysterical abuse and booing which interrupted his fighting statement which the convention managers had managed to delay until the wee hours of the morning. Since the telecast was coming from the West Coast, that meant that many people in other sections of the country, because of the time differential, would be in their beds. I don't think he has ever stood taller than that night when he refused to be silenced until he had had his say.

It was a terrible hour for the relatively few black delegates who were present. Distinguished in their communities, identified with the cause of Republicanism, an extremely unpopular cause among blacks, they had been served notice that the party they had fought for considered them just another bunch of “niggers.” They had no real standing in the convention, no clout. They were unimportant and ignored. One bigot from one of the Deep South states actually threw acid on a black delegate's suit jacket and burned it. Another one, from the Alabama delegation where I was standing at the time of the Rockefeller speech, turned on me menacingly while I was shouting “C'mon Rocky” as the governor stood his ground. He started up in his seat as if to come after me. His wife grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Turn him loose, lady, turn him loose,” I shouted.

I was ready for him. I wanted him badly, but luckily for him he obeyed his wife.

I had been very active on that convention floor. I was one of those trying to help bring about a united front among the black delegates in the hope of thwarting the Goldwater drive. George Parker had courageously challenged Goldwater in vain and Edward Brooke had lent his uncompromising sincerity to the convention. I sat in with them after the nomination as they agonized about what they should do. Some were for walking out of the convention and even out of the party. Others felt that, as gloomy as things looked, the wisest idea was to remain within the party and fight. Throughout the convention, I had been interviewed several times on network television. When I was asked my opinion of Barry Goldwater, I gave it. I said I thought he was a bigot. I added that he was not as important as the forces behind him. I was genuinely concerned, for instance, about Republican National Committee Chairman William Miller, slated to become the Vice Presidential candidate. Bill Miller could have become the Agnew of his day if he had been elected. He was a man who apparently believed you never said a decent thing in political campaigning if you could think of a way to be nasty, insinuating, and abrasive. What with the columns I had written about Goldwater,
The Saturday Evening Post
article, and the television and radio interview, I had achieved a great deal of publicity about the way I felt about Goldwater.

Although I know it is the way of politicians to forget their differences and unify around the victor, it disgusted me to see how quickly the various anti-Goldwater GOP kingpins got converted. Richard Nixon, who hadn't really fought Goldwater and had in fact been an ally, naturally became one of his most staunch supporters. You could expect that. Governor Romney, who had fought the Goldwater concept so vigorously, got religion. The convert who aroused the most cynical feelings in my mind was Governor William Scranton. When Governor Rockefeller had withdrawn from the race, during the primaries, Rockefeller supporters turned to Scranton because he had become the governor's choice. At the request of the governor I had a meeting with Scranton in his beautiful home in Pennsylvania.

Governor Scranton welcomed me graciously, introduced me to his family, and conducted me to a veranda where we sat and sipped iced tea. The governor pledged that he was going to put up a terrific fight against Goldwater. He expressed his gratitude for Governor Rockefeller's support and for my agreeing to come to see him. For at least ten minutes he orated about Barry Goldwater, what a threat Goldwaterism was to the country and the party. I didn't ask him for it, but he gave his solemn oath that even if Goldwater won the nomination, he, Bill Scranton, could never conceivably, under any circumstances, support him. Even if he wanted to, which he said he didn't, it would be political suicide in his state for him to join a Goldwater bandwagon. He was unequivocal about this, and months later, when I saw on television how quickly Governor Scranton pledged his loyalty to nominee Goldwater, how eagerly he engaged in some of the most revolting high-level white Uncle Tomism I've ever seen—fawning on Goldwater and vigorously campaigning for him around the country—I had to wonder if this was, indeed, the same man who had very nearly sworn on a Bible that he never could do what he was doing.

In marked contrast to the Scranton flip-flop, there were some Republicans who proved themselves true to their principles, party loyalty not withstanding. Senator Jacob Javits stated flatly that he could not support Goldwater; Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, who had sounded off early about the Goldwater threat, announced that he would be running his own campaign in the same state where Bill Scranton had had a change of heart. Scott, whom I had admired for years because of his liberal words and legislation, took his chance of letting it be known he was snubbing the head of his party's national ticket. As for Governor Rockefeller, while he did not publicly reject Goldwater, it was no secret that he didn't break his back to try to help elect him. No doubt, the Senator and his campaign manager, Bill Miller, made things more comfortable for the governor symbolically to go fishing by not going down on their hands and knees to beg for his participation. There was a great business of calling unity meetings of
all
prominent Republicans. Unity, it appeared, meant to Goldwater and Miller, “Let's cooperate. You do it my way.”

Apparently, I was one of the preconvention opposition who Senator Goldwater thought he could unify into his campaign. Although I had let it be widely known that I intended to do all I could for LBJ, Candidate Goldwater sent me an invitation early in August to come to Washington to have breakfast with him. He suggested that I really didn't know him well enough to condemn him and that he felt we might be able to learn something from each other.

Some people will say I should have accepted that invitation. I did not reject it in hasty anger. My instinct simply told me immediately that the only way the Senator could sell me on his candidacy was if he repudiated the John Birchers, the dirty campaign tactics of Bill Miller who was his running mate, and some of the basic standards he and his crowd had set. I knew he wasn't about to do all that simply to get my support.

I resolved that I should not allow myself to get boxed into the image of being a hothead, unwilling, for no good reason, to talk things over. Consequently, I released the text of my reply to the Goldwater invitation to the press. In that letter I told the Senator I was releasing my reply to the national press. The letter said in part:

 

You say to me that you are interested in breaking bread with me and discussing your views on civil rights. Senator, on pain of appearing facetious, I must relate to you a rather well-known story regarding the noted musician, Louis Armstrong, who was once asked to explain jazz. “If you have to ask,” Mr. Armstrong replied, “you wouldn't understand.”

What are you going to tell me, Senator Goldwater, which you cannot or do not choose to tell the country—or which you could not have told the convention which you controlled so rigidly that it booed Nelson Rockefeller, a distinguished fellow-Republican?

What are you going to say about extremism now? You called for it and the answer came in the thudding feet and the crashing store windows and the Molotov cocktails and the crack of police bullets and the clubbing of heads and the hate and the violence and the fear which electrified Harlem and Rochester and Jersey. I am solidly committed to the peaceful, non-violent mass action of the Negro people in pursuit of long-overdue justice. But I am just as much opposed to the extremism of Negro rioters and Negro hoodlums as I am to the sheeted Klan, to the sinister Birchers, to the insidious citizens' Councils.

If, in view of these questions, which I raise in absolute sincerity and conviction, you still think a meeting between us would be fruitful, I am available at your convenience.

 

My letter to the Senator did not receive any response from him. It did get a response from many people who read it in the newspapers. The fan mail ran about half and half, with some people giving me a hard time for not accepting Senator Goldwater's invitation and others declaring that I had told him off.

I joined the national headquarters of Republicans for Johnson, based in New York, and accepted speaking assignments whenever I could to tell black and white and mixed audiences how deeply I felt that Goldwater must be overwhelmingly repudiated. It was during the Johnson-Goldwater campaign that I had one of my confrontations with the articulate, eyebrow-raising William Buckley, owner of
National Review
magazine and star of the controversial
Firing Line
television show.

I was booked on a television Conservatism panel which included Bill Buckley, Shelley Winters, and myself. When my friends and family learned I had consented to participate, they were aghast.

“Send a telegram and say you can't make it,” one friend told me. “Bill Buckley will destroy you. He really knows how to make people look foolish.”

I was glad to receive these warnings. I didn't have the slightest intention of backing out, although I already had a healthy respect for Buckley's craft as a debater. The apprehensions of my friends made me create an advance strategy which I otherwise might not have employed. I lifted it strictly out of my sports background. When you know that you are going to face a tough, tricky opponent, you don't let him get the first lick. Jump him before he can do anything and stay on him, keeping him on the defensive. Never let up and you rattle him effectively. When the show opened up—before Buckley could get into his devastating act of using snide remarks, big words, and the superior manner—I lit right into him with the charge that many influential Goldwaterites were racists. Shelley Winters piled in behind me, and Buckley scarcely got a chance to collect his considerable wit. A man who prides himself on coming out of verbal battle cool, smiling, and victorious, he lost his calm, became snappish and irritated, and, when the show was over and everyone else was shaking hands, got up and strode angrily out of the studio.

It was a small victory, but an important one for me. There didn't seem to be much to win in those days on the political scene but I have always believed in fighting, even if only to keep the negative forces back. That is why I had some measure of satisfaction in helping Johnson win in '64.

XVI

Differences with Malcolm X

A
lthough I had disagreed with Malcolm intensely on many issues before he fell from grace within Elijah Muhammad's official family, I rated him as articulate, incredibly sharp, and intelligent. Despite our differences, I realized that he projected a great image for young black kids who needed virile black males to emulate. Because he had been in prison, had associated with whores and dope addicts, and had come out of it to prove that people can rise from the depths, Malcolm had a strong appeal for youngsters that lasted far beyond his death.

Malcolm attacked so-called moderate blacks as well as “the white man devil.” Late in 1963 both Malcolm and Adam Clayton Powell blasted Dr. Ralph Bunche, the dedicated Undersecretary to the United Nations. Adam sneered publicly that Dr. Bunche had failed to speak out on racial issues, and Malcolm accused the distinguished black international diplomat of making statements to please whites. He described Dr. Bunche as a man who was not free to talk “because of the job the white man gave him.”

I was outraged. I considered Ralph Bunche one of the finest men in this country. I was fed up with people who did not really understand or appreciate him and who insinuated that he was an “Uncle Tom.” I wrote in my syndicated column that Malcolm and Adam were leaders who talked one hell of a civil rights fight, but who, in recent years, had done very little to back up their statements. I accused them of making speeches and taking positions to gain sensational headlines.

I expressed my deep respect for Dr. Bunche and said that in spite of holding a job that obligated him to remain aloof from the internal problems of the United States, Dr. Bunche had—on a number of occasions—let the world know his intense personal feelings about racial prejudice in the United States.

I pointed out that it had been a long time since blacks had heard from Congressman Powell in a real crisis. “When we have heard from him, it has usually been in the form of some grandstand publicity—a conscious barrage of wild promises that the Congressman failed to keep.”

The column ended by saying that Dr. Bunche, notwithstanding his diplomatic ties, had made forthright statements during the Martin Luther King–Birmingham crisis and we had heard nothing about that from Adam or Malcolm. Dr. Bunche attended the Medgar Evers funeral in Jackson, Mississippi, and joined other leaders in that tense and dangerous city in a statement of denunciation of the murder. Adam and Malcolm were not there.

Malcolm responded to the column by letter. Below are excerpts from it:

DEAR GOOD FRIEND JACKIE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON:

You became a great baseball player after your white boss (Mr. Rickey) lifted you to the major leagues. You proved that your white boss had chosen the “right” Negro by getting plenty of hits, stealing plenty of bases, winning many games and bringing much money through the gates and into the pockets of your white boss.

You let yourself be used by the whites even in those days against your own kind. You let them sic you on Paul Robeson.

You let them use you to destroy Paul Robeson. You let your white boss send you before a congressional hearing in Washington D.C. (the capital of Segregationville) to dispute and condemn Paul Robeson, because he had these guilty American whites frightened silly.

In your recent column you also accused me and Dr. Powell of misleading our people. Aren't you the same ex-baseball player who tried to “mislead” Negroes into Nixon's camp during the last presidential election?

You stay as far away from the Negro community as you can get, and you never take an interest in anything in the Negro community until the white man himself takes an interest in it. You, yourself, would never shake my hand until you saw some of your white friends shaking it.

If whites were to murder me for the religious philosophy that I represent and stand for, I would die KNOWING that it was at the hands of OPEN ENEMIES OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE!

I replied to Malcolm, saying I would cherish his reply and that I was honored to be placed in the distinguished company of Dr. Bunche whom he had also attacked. I wrote, in part:

 

I am proud of my associations with the men you chose to call my “white bosses.” I am also proud that so many others whom you would undoubtedly label as “white bosses,” marched with us to Washington and have been and are now working with our leaders to help achieve equality in America.

I will not dignify your attempted slur against my appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee some years back. All I can say is that if I were called upon to defend my country today, I would gladly do so. Nor do I hide behind any coat-tails as you do when caught in one of your numerous outlandish statements. Your usual “out” is to duck responsibility by stating: “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says. . . .”

Personally, I reject your racist views. I reject your dream of a separate state.

I do not do things to please “white bosses” or “black agitators” unless they are the things which please me. You say I have never shown my appreciation to the Negro masses. I assume that is why NAACP branches all over the country constantly invite me to address them and this is the reason the NAACP gave me its highest award, the Springarn Medal.

You mouth a big and bitter battle, Malcolm, but it is noticeable that your militancy is mainly expressed in Harlem where it is safe. I have always contended for your right—as for that of every American—to say and think and believe what you choose. I just happen to believe you are supporting and advocating policies which could not possibly interest the masses. Thank God for our Dr. Bunche, our Roy Wilkins, our Dr. King and Mr. Randolph.

The column and letter-writing duel was only one of several encounters between Malcolm and me. Even when I sharply disagreed with what I thought was his philosophy of hatred and his taunting of other leaders who disagreed with him, I consistently gave him credit as a man who said what he believed. When we clashed, Malcolm stuck to his guns and I to mine. Many of the statements he made about the problems faced by our people and the immorality of the white power structure were naked truth. It was in our approach to solutions that we differed radically.

The 1965 assassination of Malcolm was a tragedy of the first order. Word that he had been killed by a hail of bullets came to me while we were vacationing and playing golf in Miami. A lot of blue went out of the sky and some warmth from the sun when the sinister news came. Death had not taken Malcolm unaware. As Dr. King later predicted his own slaying, Malcolm, in his last days, had warned the country that his days were numbered.

Minister Elijah Muhammad had “suspended” Malcolm for saying that white America's “Chickens had come home to roost” in the slaying of President Kennedy. For months after his suspension Malcolm worked to organize his own movement. He was disillusioned with the Muslim hierarchy and openly stated that he had been misled by the man to whom he had so consistently pledged allegiance, Elijah Muhammad. His death was deeply tragic because Malcolm, toward the close of his life, had seemed to be groping for and stumbling into a new religion, a different point of view. His travels in Africa convinced him that the chart to freedom for black America lay not in the setting up of a segregated state within America's borders, not in an approach of hate and violence, but in a grand, international coalition with African brothers. His travels in Mecca turned him sharply from the narrow view that all nonblacks were enemies. He had begun to see that it was possible to make strong alliances around the globe—white alliances as well as black—in order to solve common problems.

Malcolm made his hajj, which is what the historic pilgrimage to Mecca is called, after his banishment from the world of Elijah Muhammad. In a remarkable letter from that part of the world, the man who had so often been accused of hating all whites and who had consistently castigated people of pale skin in harsh language revealed an astounding change. He says in his book:

 

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 not know—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 had been 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 as is 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 utterly speechless 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. There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonde to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.

America needs to understand Islam because this is the one religion that erases the race problem from its society. During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)—while praying to the same God—with fellow Muslims whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond and whose skin 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 brothers. If white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man. . . .

This was a powerful tribute and testimony to the power of the practice of brotherhood for real brotherhood in action. And a revealing spiritual close-up of a man who had grown to such bigness that he could feel the healing and cleansing power of a new vision. He had the strength to confess himself mistaken and misguided. It was ironic that, just as he seemed rising to the crest of a new and inspired leadership, Malcolm was struck down, ostensibly by the hands of blacks. His murderers quieted his voice but clothed him in martyrdom and deepened his influence. In death Malcolm became larger than he had been in life.