Malcolm X (54 page)

Farrakhan later came to interpret Malcolm’s split with the Nation of Islam in somewhat unusual terms: he believed that Elijah Muhammad had been testing Malcolm for leadership, and that he had failed that test. But by the time of their final meeting, Louis had already been chosen by Muhammad as Malcolm’s replacement speaker for the 1964 Saviour's Day, and the Boston minister was clearly being groomed to assume a significant leadership role, probably Malcolm’s. If his mentor had failed a test, it would be one that he himself would soon pass. He also believed that Muhammad’s impregnation of Evelyn Williams was a major source of Malcolm’s anger. After learning about the pregnancy, Farrakhan recalled, “Malcolm began speaking less and less about the teachings [of Elijah Muhammad and] became more and more political.”

On their last outing together, Farrakhan remembered, they cruised the city late into the night in Malcolm’s automobile.

He told me of his love for Evelyn and he was going to bring her to New York. I said, “Brother, please don’t do that, you would really hurt Betty if you did that.” I said, “It’s best that you leave Evelyn where she is.” We had that type of conversation. And he sat with me and he said, “Brother, my enemies will one day be your enemies.” He named people that I would have to look out for in the Nation. And then he said these words to me: “I wish it was you being an example for me, rather than me being an example for you.” That’s the last conversation that I held with my brother.

Malcolm not only foresaw Louis taking his place as the major national spokesman of the Nation, he predicted the hatred and hostility of Captain Joseph, Raymond Sharrieff, and other NOI leaders toward him. But what Farrakhan could not have anticipated was that, in little more than a decade, he too would be cast out.

Late in the evening of March 6, an audiotaped broadcast of an Elijah Muhammad address was aired on WWRL radio in New York City as well as on a Chicago radio station. Muhammad’s immediate purpose was to secure Cassius Clay’s continued allegiance. In doing so, he would take away Malcolm’s last chip. “This Clay name has no divine meaning,” Muhammad announced. “I hope he will accept being called by a better name. Muhammad Ali is what I will give to him as long as he believes in Allah and follows me.” Malcolm heard Muhammad’s address over his car radio and was stunned. Malcolm’s response was “That’s a political move! He did it to prevent him from coming with me.” NOI representatives were already meeting with Ali at the Hotel Theresa. Among the prized items they promised to deliver him was a wife, and if he desired, it could be one of the Messenger's own granddaughters. Malcolm had actually discouraged Ali from leaving the Nation, perhaps thinking the young boxer might be more inclined to join him if he wasn’t pressured. Within a few days, Ali chose to side with Muhammad. In an interview with Alex Haley, he admitted that one factor in his calculation was fear. “You don’t just buck Mr. Muhammad and get away with it,” he told Haley, and of Malcolm he said, “I don’t want to talk about him no more.” On March 10, the
New York Times
reported that “the twenty-two-year-old heavyweight champion indicated that he would remain with the Black Muslim sect headed by Elijah Muhammad and would not join with Malcolm X.ʺ By March 21, the
Pittsburgh Courier
announced that “the all-out efforts of Malcolm X . . . to ‘sell’ himself, and a brand new program, the ‘Black Mosque’ to heavyweight boxing champion Cassius X Clay, has completely failed.”

Malcolm’s entire life seemed to be spinning out of control. On March 6 he was pulled over by the police while speeding over New York’s Triborough Bridge and given a ticket. The day before, he had received a letter from Muhammad, indicating that he was suspended indefinitely. This, combined with Muhammad Ali’s siding with Muhammad, left Malcolm stranded. His monthly household stipend would be cut off. Speaker's fees from colleges and public lectures could provide a modest stream of revenue, and he could draw a bit more of his book advance from Doubleday if necessary, but he could not afford to delay his decision to break from the organization any longer.

On March 8 he drove to the home of
New York Times
reporter M. S. Handler, and in the presence of Handler's wife, announced his decision to leave the Nation. Handler's story, “Malcolm X Splits with Muhammad,” appeared the following day. Initially, he went out of his way to avoid confrontation with the Nation of Islam. “I want it clearly understood that my advice to all Muslims is that they stay in the Nation of Islam under the spiritual guidance of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” he declared. “It is not my desire to encourage any of them to follow me.” Malcolm suggested that his departure from the sect was inspired by a desire to help promote the Nation’s agenda. “I have reached the conclusion that I can best spread Mr. Muhammad’s message by staying out of the Nation of Islam and continuing to work on my own among America’s 22 million non-Muslim Negroes.” He offered an olive branch to his critics in the civil rights movement, affirming his commitment “to cooperate in local civil rights actions in the South and elsewhere.” To secular black nationalists and independent activists, he declared his support for building “a politically oriented black nationalist party” that would “seek to convert the Negro population from nonviolence to active self-defense against white supremacists in all parts of the country.” Mindful of his need for funds, he also announced, “I shall also accept all important speaking engagements at colleges and universities.”

If Malcolm had left matters there, Muhammad and the NOI officials might not have retaliated with the degree of viciousness they did. But much like his “chickens” comment, he was incapable of pulling himself back from the brink. When Handler inquired about the reasons for his departure, the minister replied, “Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly. This is what happened.” Malcolm accused the Nation of Islam of restricting his political independence and involvement inside the civil rights movement. “It is going to be different now,” he vowed. “I’m going to join in the fight wherever Negroes ask for my help.” These comments almost certainly guaranteed an escalation of polemical, and possibly physical, attacks against him.

Malcolm may have discouraged members from leaving the Nation, in part, to reduce the level of criticism against him. But from a practical standpoint, it was clear that he had not thought things through, because many members were already in the process of leaving. First, there was a cadre of lieutenants and confidants—James 67X Warden, Charles 37X Morris (also called Charles Kenyatta), Anas Luqman, Reuben X Francis, and many others—who were leaving the Nation primarily out of personal loyalty to Malcolm. Because of their past extensive involvement in the sect—for example, their knowledge of the pipe squads’ brutal activities—their lives were also in jeopardy. Another group included NOI members who were disgusted by the diatribes against Malcolm that they had heard at Mosque No. 7 and the restaurant for several months, and who believed that the minister should have been afforded his right to defend himself before the entire congregation. After Malcolm’s ouster, there was a handful of Original People, perhaps a dozen, who bravely defended their former minister inside the mosque. It is impossible to know exactly how many Muslims left Mosque No. 7 in March and April during the controversy over Malcolm, but it is likely that no more than two hundred members in good standing quit the sect: less than 5 percent of all mosque congregants.

Some of those who left to join Malcolm were longtime members. But a surprising number were new converts who knew little about the sources of tension between the NOI's rival factions. One of these was William 64X George. William had been an inmate at Rikers Island when another prisoner recruited him to the Nation. In June 1963, he formally joined Mosque No. 7. He quit the Nation for two major reasons. In early 1964 the NOI began making increased demands on FOI members to sell thousands of
Muhammad Speaks
. William was instructed to sell a minimum of 150 copies each week, representing hundreds of dollars. Second, he was concerned about the threatening talk led by Captain Joseph and Mosque No. 7’s acting minister, James 3X Shabazz, describing Malcolm as a “hypocrite, and that he should be killed.” In April, William left the sect and would soon join Malcolm’s group, becoming one of his key security men.

On March 9, Malcolm and a small cadre of supporters held a meeting at 23-11 Ninety-seventh Street in Queens. It was decided to incorporate under the name Muslim Mosque, Incorporated (MMI), with Malcolm, journalist Earl Grant, and James 67X elected as its trustees to serve until the first Sunday of March 1965, at which time a second election would be held. Muslim Mosque, Inc., was designed to offer African-American Muslims a spiritual alternative to the Nation of Islam. James, who had been designated as MMI's vice president, had advised Malcolm to encourage “those who are in the mosque to stay in the mosque” at MMI's initial press conference, which would be held on March 12. James later estimated that the core of MMI's dedicated activists had never been larger than fifty, all of whom had been former NOI members. But the act of incorporating MMI, viewed from the NOI, was seen as a deliberate provocation. Later that day, Malcolm did several interviews, including one with reporter Joe Durso of New York’s WNDT, Channel 13. On March 10, Malcolm received a certified letter from the Nation, requesting that he and his family vacate their East Elmhurst, Queens, home. One month later, Maceo X, Mosque No. 7’s secretary, would file a lawsuit in Queens Civil Court to have Malcolm evicted.

On March 11, Malcolm sent a telegram to Elijah Muhammad, outlining some of the reasons for his public departure. The contents were published in the
Amsterdam News
along with an interview with Malcolm. He also held a press conference at the Park Sheraton hotel in Manhattan the next morning. There, before a group of reporters and supporters, he read his March 11 telegram, again explaining his reasons for leaving the Nation. Malcolm stated that his new headquarters would be at the Hotel Theresa and he revealed his intention to open a new mosque. Sympathetic whites could donate funds to assist his new movement, but they would never be permitted to join because “when whites join an organization they usually take control of it.” Although he had pledged to cooperate with civil rights groups, much of his language at the conference seemed to revel in apocalyptic violence. “Negroes on the mass level,” he predicted, were now ready to start “self-defense” efforts, rejecting nonviolence as a strategy. “There will be more violence than ever this year. . . . White people will be shocked when they discover that the passive little Negro they had known turns out to be a roaring lion. The whites had better understand this while there is still time.”

The press conference was a disaster at nearly every level. Somehow Malcolm had raised the money to rent the posh Tapestry Suite at the Sheraton, but it left MMI without financial resources. Handler's follow-up article in the
Times
mentioned that despite Malcolm’s earlier statement “that he would not seek to take members away from Elijah Muhammad’s movement,” there was every indication that he intended to launch a rival organization. And to civil rights leaders still committed to racial integration and nonviolence, Malcolm’s predictions of blood in the streets reconfirmed his reputation for nihilism and violence. Instead of broadening his potential base, his immediate actions following his break from Muhammad only isolated him further.

It is highly unlikely that Malcolm consulted Betty about his decision to leave the Nation; he still saw her largely as a passive observer. “I never had a moment’s question that Betty, after initial amazement, would change her thinking to join mine,” Malcolm would later explain. As he made grand pronouncements of his intentions, his wife worried about practical problems. A fourth child was well on the way. How would their household survive financially? Betty feared, correctly, that they would soon be evicted from their home. She also detected her husband’s ambivalence about Elijah Muhammad and the Nation—throughout most of March he continued to praise the Nation of Islam’s program. “The final cord,” Betty would later observe, “had yet to be broken.”

CHAPTER 11

An Epiphany in the Hajj

March 12-May 21, 1964

 

 

 

M
alcolm’s departure from the Nation of Islam coincided with one of the most intense periods of the civil rights struggle, a time at which the fragile unity that had made possible the great efforts in Montgomery and Birmingham was showing signs of strain. The arguments between radicals like John Lewis and more mainstream black leaders like King and Ralph Abernathy had not abated, and as long-desired goals finally came within sight, they had the peculiar effect of further splintering the movement. The success of the March on Washington in 1963 should have consolidated King’s power, yet almost immediately afterward many black leaders sought to move away from marches and public protests toward working to directly influence Democratic Party politics. The legislation for the long-awaited Civil Rights Act had reached the Senate by the end of 1963, yet two months later the deadlock forced by recalcitrant Southern senators gave no hint of breaking. As the weeks, and then months, wore on, frustration mounted, exacerbated by the backlash to the increasing American military action in Vietnam.