Malcolm X (28 page)
Authors: Clayborne Carson
I. | In talking about problems here, how about the Birmingham situation? I understand the Muslim approach would have been different to that particular situation. |
M. | We don't force ourselves upon people where we are not wanted, but anybody who sics their dog on us is nothing but a dog who will sic his dog on you, and anybody who sics a dog on children and babies is nothing but a dog himself. |
I. | Would Muslims have struck back on this occasion? |
M. | I think you will find a Muslim never attacks anyone, but that Muslim is within his God-given right to retaliate against anyone who attacks him. He is never to be the aggressor, but the Holy Koran teaches us to fight against those who fight against us. |
I. | History has proven itself down through the years that in a situation like this that when you strike back you tend to start a riot. |
M. | No, you can't call a man defending his home a rioter. You can't call a man who is defending his babies and his children and his women, a rioter. You call the rioter the one who is attackingâthose white people down there, who are policemen in uniform. The law itself is what is attacking our people and that law in Alabama could never attack black people unless the Federal Government of the United States condones it, and it is not the crackers in the South who are responsible for this ⦠it is the President, the Attorney General, the Senators and the Congressmen and the Cabinet and the Supreme Court who are responsible for it. |
I. | Dr. King's approach in Birmingham has been one of nonviolence. |
M. | His approach has been one of an Uncle Tom. |
I. | We have seen as the results of the talks they have had in the past couple days where there have been some results. |
M. | You can't call it results when someone has bitten your babies and your women and your children and you are to sit down and compromise with them and negotiate with them and then have to pay your way out of prison. |
I. | We are not talking about the past now. We are talking about what has been provided for the Negro in the Birmingham area for the future. |
M. | Nothing has been provided for the Negro in the future in the Birmingham area. They have been given promises that they will be able to sit down and drink some coffee with some crackers in a cracker restaurantâdesegregated lunch counters. Now, what kind of advancement is that. They still don't have a job. |
I. | How do you feel about mixing of the races? |
M. | We are one hundred percent against inter-marriage and the mixing of the races. |
I. | How do you account for the mixing of the races within your own membership? |
M. | What do you mean within our own membership? |
I. | Some of the members that you have are not full-blood Negroes. |
M. | This did not come through inter-marriage. This came when the white man owned our people during slavery. He was able to take advantage of our women at will. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were the property of the white man. |
I. | ⦠How do you feel about the efforts of the NAACP insofar as improving the relationship is concerned, the advancement of the Negro and so forth? |
M. | The NAACP has done a job according to its own understanding. I imagine it was effective in its day. But we are living in a new day now and the black people on the scene now aren't willing to wait around here for a white man to make up his mind that we are human beings. The whites |
I. | One final question, Mr. MALCOLM X, why the use of the “X”? |
M. | X stands for the unknown, and if a Chinese were to walk in here with the name of Patrick Murphy you would think he was crazy because Patrick Murphy is an Irish name, a white man's name, and a Chinaman is a yellow man and has no business with a white man's name. And as a yellow man has no business with a white man's name, I don't see how these black people can walk around here calling themselves Murphy, Johnson and Bunche and Powell, which are actually white people's names. So the Honorable ELIJAH MUHAMMAD teaches us that during slavery the white man named us after himself to specify us as his property, and when we wake up and turn back toward the education of Islam and become Muslims, we give him back his name, we give him back his religion, we give him back his flag and everything else that goes with it. |
TRUE COPY
September 19, 1963
Mr. J. Edgar Hoover
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington, D. C.
Dear Mr. Hoover:
Are we doing anything to curb the activities of Black Muslim leader “Malcolm X”?
Aren't his ideas somewhat on a parallel with those of Adolph Hitler?
Isn't “Malcolm X” in the category of traitors to our country in
that what he is advocating in black supremacy is the same as plotting to overthrow our government?
Why isn't this hate-full man stopped now before it's too late?
[BUREAU DELETION]
September 23, 1963
Dear [BUREAU DELETION]
Your letter of September 19, 1963, with enclosure, has been received.
I am unable to answer your specific inquiry due to the confidential nature of our files. I would like to assure you, however, that the FBI is carrying out its responsibilities in the internal security field with the same dispatch and thoroughness which have characterized our investigations in the past.
Sincerely yours,
John Edgar Hoover
Director
NOTE: Correspondent is not identifiable in Bureau files.
[BUREAU DELETION]
Report of: [BUREAU DELETION] b7C New York Date: 11/15/63 | Office: New York, |
Field Office File No.: 105-8999 | Bureau file No.: 100-399321 |
Title: MALCOLM K. LITTLE | Â |
Character: INTERNAL SECURITY - NATION OF ISLAM | Â |
Synopsis:
Subject continues to reside 23-13 97th Street, East Elmhurst, Queens, NY, and is Minister of Muhammad's Mosque No. 7,
NYC, and is also a national representative of the NOI. Subject served as an Interim Minister of the NOI in Washington, D. C, from April to 10/63. Since 8/26/63, a new regular minister has been placed in charge of the NOI in Philadelphia, Pa., and subject is no longer in charge of the NOI there. Subject's NOI activity and speeches at NYC and around the U.S. set forth. Sources report animosity between subject and members of ELIJAH MUHAMMAD's family has apparently quieted down. Subject's public appearances, statements and activities around the U.S. including those dealing with the racial situation, set out. Subject reported to be in contact with representative of SIERRA LEONE Mission to the UN.
Animosity Between Subject and
the Family of ELIJAH MUHAMMAD
On several dates during March, April and May, 1963, [BUREAU DELETION] advised that there continued to be a feeling of hostility and resentment between subject and members of ELIJAH MUHAMMAD's family.
According to [BUREAU DELETION] this animosity was particularly aggravated by an article which appeared in an April edition of the
New York Times
to the effect that subject overshadowed ELUAH MUHAMMAD, and was taking over the NOI from ELIJAH who was ill.
In May, 1963, [BUREAU DELETION] advised that this animosity has apparently quieted down during this month since subject had written an apologetic letter to ELIJAH MUHAMMAD and ELIJAH had told subject that they should not be divided but should work together.
Statements and Activities Relative
to Racial Matters
The May 15, 1963 edition of the
New York Herald Tribune
contained an article datelined Birmingham, Alabama, which indicated that JEREMIAH X, a black Muslim from Atlanta, was in Birmingham observing the racial trouble there. JEREMIAH X condemned MARTIN LUTHER KING's non-violent movement
and he claimed that subject was coming to Birmingham to hold mass rallies there.
[BUREAU DELETION] by a Special Agent (SA) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), it was determined that subject did not plan on going to Birmingham as indicated in the above article. It was further determined that subject had not been ordered to Birmingham by ELIJAH MUHAMMAD or specifically invited there by JEREMIAH X, the head of the NOI in that area.
The May 17, 1963 edition of the
New York Times
contained an article datelined Washington, D. C, May 16, 1963, which reflected that subject attacked President KENNEDY for the manner in which he dealt with the Birmingham racial crisis. Subject claimed that President KENNEDY's statement to Alabama editors in a recent meeting with them, that failure of the non-violent movement for Negro rights might spur Negro extremist groups such as the black Muslims, indicated that President KENNEDY did not want Negroes treated right because it was right, but because the world was watching.
The May 25, 1963 edition of the
New York Amsterdam News
contained an article which reflected that in an interview with subject at Washington, D. C, subject had attacked MARTIN LUTHER KING, JACKIE ROBINSON, and FLOYD PATTERSON as unwitting tools of white liberals. Subject claimed that the lesson of Birmingham is that “Negroes have lost their fear of the white man's reprisals and will react today with violence, if provoked.”
On June 13, 1963, [BUREAU DELETION] advised that subject had been instructed by ELIJAH MUHAMMAD not to take part or assist the NAACP or any other Negro organization in their demonstrations for civil rights.
On [BUREAU DELETION] 1963, [BUREAU DELETION] advised that in subject's speech at the NOI Bazaar held at the Boston Arena, Boston, Massachusetts, on August 17, 1963, subject had informed the audience that ELIJAH MUHAMMAD and the NOI are in no way supporting or participating in the March on Washington being held by civil rights groups in Washington, D. C, on August 28, 1963. During this speech subject
warned that the March would probably end in a bloodbath, and no Negro should be foolish enough to participate.
At an FOI meeting held in MUHAMMAD's Mosque No. 7, New York City, on August 19, 1963, subject informed those in attendance that any members of the NOI who participated in the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, would be given ninety days out of the mosque. Subject further stated that if any member belonged to a union which required them to participate in the March, they had better “get sick.”