dark-blue sedan stops at the

AHEAVY,
curb on Seventh Avenue where a
small group of men, women and children stands in sullen silence around a
pile of shabby furniture-the worldly
possessions of a family without a home.
36

The scene is a familiar one for that part of

Harlem where poverty has forced thousands of human beings to co-exist with
evictions, hunger and rats. It is as familiar and hated as the patrols of White
rookie cops who casually saunter by,

their billy clubs twirling with suggestive

ease.
At the sight of the driver, the expressions of hopeless rage on the faces of the
little crowd melt into broad, deferential
smiles. "Salaam aleikum, Brother MalEBONY February 1993

colm." "Salaam aleikum."

With a wide, good-natured grin that
bares a flawless set of large teeth, the
reddish complexioned, scholarly looking man behind the wheel returns the
Muslim greeting. With deep-set, penetrating eyes behind a pair of hornrimmed glasses he surveys the familiar
scene. His voice sounds reassuring as he
reminds the people to attend "a very important meeting tonight." After another
exchange of"salaams," he pulls from the
curb and is soon swallowed up by the
dense traffic and the glare of the sun.
Around the nation, the name Malcolm X triggers mixed emotions, but
among the dispossessed masses of Harlem, it inspires devotion and hope.
Since his ouster from the Black Muslim
cult early this year-ostensibly for calling President Kennedy's assassination a
case of "chickens coming home to
roost" -he has pitted his own prestige
against that of his former chief, Elijah
Muhammad, in building a following of
his own. In the process, he has ripped
the Black Muslim movement into two
hostile camps whose bloody encounters
have become the order of the day.
Purged from the No. 2 spot he used to
occupy in the Black Muslim hierarchy,
he is now reaching for higher stakesparticipation in the Black revolt.
The entry of the firebrand advocate of
bloody retaliation into the rights struggle which, as far as Blacks are concerned, has been largely non-violent, is
viewed by many Blacks and Whites with
grave concern. But in Harlem's tenements, where the pacific voice of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. is but a whisper,
the new power bid of Malcolm X is welcome news.
Minutes after leaving the eviction
site, Brother Malcolm-as he prefers to
be called-turns up at a small restaurant
on West 135th Street. There is nothing
about his ingratiatingly polite demeanor,
or his loose-jointed six-foot-three fra~e
to betray that it is he who suggests taking
on Mississippi's Ku Klux Klan with
armed guerrillas. His impeccable seersucker suit and brief case make him a
dead ringer for an up-and-coming attorney, certainly not for a man about to enter a revolt.
With gangling, yet purposeful strides,
Brother Malcolm walks to the rear of the
narrow room where he joins a Black reporter. Between sips of coffee and incessant doodling he ponders the reporter's
questions, then lets loose with a barrage
of replies.
"Is it true," the reporter wants to
know, "that since your recent pilgrimage
to Mecca you no longer hold to your earEBONY February 1993

lier belief that all Whites are evil?"

Malcolm X looks thoughtfully at his
large expressive hands. "True-my trip
to Mecca has opened my eyes. I no
longer subscribe to racism. I have adjusted my thinking to the point where I
believe Whites are human beings-as
long as this is borne out by their humane
attitude toward Negroes."
"Were you serious when you proposed to send armed guerrillas into Mississippi to protect civil rights workers?"
"Dead serious. We will not only send
them to Mississippi, but to any place
where Black people's lives are threatened by White bigots. As far as I am concerned, Mississippi is anywhere south of
the Canadian border."
"How do you ihtend to carry out these
plans?"
"With my new Organization of AfroAmerican Unity, a non-religious and
non-sectarian group organized to unite
Afro-Americans for a constructive pro-

my growing influence and my objections

to a breakdown of morality." He refers to
the paternity suits filed by two women
in Los Angeles against 67-year-old Elijah
Muhammad in which they charge the
cult leader with having fathered their
children while working for him as secretaries.
"What future do you foresee for the
Black Muslim movement?"
"None. The only thing that held the
movement together was the image of
morality reflected by Mr. Muhammad."
Malcolm X pointedly omits "the honorable," a standard prefix in his references
to his former chief before the break.
"The Black Muslim movement will
crumble," he continues, "because the
organization is held together by coercion, by a Gestapo-type police force
within its own ranks."
Malcolm looks at his wrist watch and
rises. The interview has come to an end.
Paradoxically, despite the flood of pronouncements that pours from his lips,
Malcolm X has remained an enigma to
the public, perhaps even to himself Is
he a charlatan or savior, an opportunist
or sincere leader dedicated to the liberation of his race? Is he a genius or a slickster with a gift for eloquence? Is his
power real or imagined by a sensationmongering press? Almost everybody
ventures to guess, but nobody really
Street corner lecture by Black nationalist is followed with rapt attention by group of Malcolm X adknows.
mirers. When one asked about his views on the White backlash, Malcolm X sneered: "Let it
To gauge Malcolm X, the man, recome; if it does, it will unleash a Black backlash that will escalate to international proportions."
quires an intimate knowledge of the
forces that shaped him-klan brutality,
lence. The benign expression vanishes hunger, slums, alcohol, dope, prostituMALCOLM X Continued
gram toward attainment of human and his eyes become fierce. "We don't tion and, finally, rehabilitation through
rights."
advocate violence, but non-violent tac- Elijah Muhammad's message of a pro"How strong, would you say, is your tics based solely on morality can only Black Allah. Above all, it calls for an acsucceed when you are dealing with a ba- quaintance with the Black Muslim
group at this point?"
Again that ingratiating smile. 'Tm not sically moral people," he explains. ''A movement which he helped create and
saying. You know, the strongest part of man who oppresses another man be- which, in turn, created him. It is that
the tree is the root. Once you expose the cause of his color is not moral. It is the group of people whose misery has
root, the tree dies. You never expose duty of every Afro-American to protect caused them to accept the rigid discihimself against mass murderers, plines laid down by Elijah Muhammad
your strength."
''A.re you prepared to cooperate with bombers, lynchers, floggers, brutalizers in order to escape the frustrations inherand exploiters. If the government is un- ent in being Black in White, race-conother civil rights groups?"
"We will cooperate with any group able or unwilling to protect us, we re- scious U.S.A. Their utopian goal of
serve our right as citizens to defend our- building a separate state within the
that is for Black."
"Will you accept White members in selves by whatever means necessary. A boundaries of the United States has
man with a rifle or club can only be drawn condescending smiles from both
your new organization?"
Malcolm X stiffens. "Definitely not." stopped by a person armed with a rifle or Whites and integration-minded Blacks
Then, after a characteristic tuck at a club." The last two sentences are accom- alike. But their militant assertion to enstray whisker in his reddish-blond panied by a staccato of thrusts with his gage the "White devils" in a mortal batmoustache, he adds: "If John Brown ballpoint pen.
tle if attacked has not. It has made
"Is it true that you were ousted by the Whites uneasy and struck a chord of emwere still alive, we might accept him.
But I'm definitely not interested in non- Black Muslims because of disparaging pathy among Blacks throughout the naviolent Whites or non-violent Blacks. If remarks about President Kennedy's as- tion in all walks of life.
you show me a non-violent Negro, I'll sassination?"
The man who became the most artic"That wasn't the reason at all. I was ulate proponent of this militancy, who
show you a Negro whose reflexes don't
work, one who needs psychiatric care." quoted out of context, but I have made for 12 years spread Elijah Muhammad's
Now the reporter wants to know stronger statements before and nobody incendiary prophecy of doom for the
whether Malcolm X suggests using vio- objected. The real reason was jealousy of White race and salvation for Blacks, is
38

EBONY February 1993

Continued on Page 40

At Brookdale Hospital Center nursery in Brooklyn,

Malcolm and his wife, Betty, take a peek at
their newly born daughter Lumumbah. At top,
bedside chat with his convalescing wife offers
Black leader a brief respite from his 15-hour a
day organizing routine.

MALCOLM X

Continued

Malcolm X. He was born 39 years ago in

Omaha, Neb., and given the name Malcolm Little. His father, the Rev. Earl Little, an obscure Baptist preacher, spent
more time recruiting followers for
Marcus Garvey's back-to-Africa movement than for Jesus Christ. There were
10 children (six boys and four girls) in the
Little clan.
Malcolm's opinion of "White devils"
was formed early in life, partially by
events that occurred even before he was
born. "My father was the color of this,''
he recalls, pointing to his Black shoes,
40

"and my mother, whose mother was

raped by a White man, was light enough
to pass for White. I hate every drop of
White blood in me because it is the
blood of a rapist."
He had hardly learned to walk when
he heard his mother's vivid accounts of
being victimized by the Ku Klux Klan.
"My father was away on an organizing
trip and my mother was pregnant with
me when klansmen on horseback came
looking for him in the middle of the
night. Before they left, they smashed
every window in our house."
The Rev. Little took the klan's "hint,"
and as soon as Malcolm was born, he
moved with his family to Milwaukee,
Wis., and resumed his organizing activities. Before long he had made enough
enemies among Whites to find it advisable to skip town again. This time, the
Littles moved to Lansing, Mich., into an
all-White neighborhood. "We hadn't
lived there a year," Malcolm remembers, "when our home was burned to the
ground. Luckily we got out." The worst
was yet to come. Two years after the fire,
the Rev. Little was found bludgeoned to
death under a street car. The killing,
Malcolm says, was officially listed as a
traffic accident. "I was only six years at
the time, but I had already learned that
being a Negro in this country was a liability."
When he was 11 years old, Malcolm,
"dizzy from hunger most of the time"
ran away from home. Already, the major
portion of his formal education-most of
it in an all-White country school-was a
matter of the past. He tramped to Mason, Mich., where he moved in with a
sympathetic Black family. "Soon I was
wayward and on the way to reform
school," he recalls. But fate intervened
in the form of a "White devil" in the

guise of a kind lady, the director of the

detention home to which he had been
sent. "That woman liked me and let me
stay in her home with her family," Malcolm says. "But she liked me like one
likes a canary or chihuahua-not like a
human being." Tired of being a White
woman's "mascot," little Malcolm
skipped town. Somehow, he made it to
the Boston home of a half-sister, who
promptly enrolled him in the eighth
grade of an all-boys school. "In those
days," says Malcolm, "I was very interested in little girls. So when I looked
around in my class and all I saw was
boys, I just walked out. I haven't been
back to school since."
Malcolm began to roam the streets of
Boston, finally landed a job on the railroad by putting up his age. He was 15
years old at the time, but "looked big
and old enough to pass for 21." Starting
as a handyman in the commissary, he
eventually advanced to fourth cook-"a
euphemism for dishwasher." In that capacity he made runs on the Colonial between Boston and Washington, D. C.,
and later on the Yankee Clipper to New
York. The cooks and waiters he met on
his runs took a liking to the lanky, sandyhaired youth and treated him like a peer.
"That grew me up real fast," says Malcolm, "because in those days, railroad
men were about the hippest people in
town." During stops in New York, he
discovered and explored a strange and
fascinating world-Harlem. "Within a
year on the road I had grown so wild that
waiters made bets that I wouldn't live
another year," he says.
Frequently neglecting his duties, he
was fired from his job. He no longer
needed or, for that matter, wanted one,
because now he was a "man with connections" on the way to the big time.
The "big time" was night clubs, bars and
dance halls and his "connections" were
barkeeps, waiters, street walkers, dope
peddlers and pimps. ''Anywhere there
was a dance," he says, "I was there. I
practically lived in night clubs." At 18
Malcolm Little had become "Big Red."
His philosophy at the time: "The only
thing that is wrong is what you are
caught doing wrong."
Although Harlem remained his regular beat, he still traveled a great deal,
using his void railroad pass instead of
money. "I could jive any train conductor
into letting me on," he says. "I had a jungle mind and everything I did was done
by instinct to survive."
He started smoking reefers and finally
sold them. His "jungle mind" did not let
him stop there. "I knew all the important and respected White people down-

EBONY February 1993

Continued on Page 42

MALCOLM X

Returning to his modest East

Elmhurst (Queens, N.Y.)
home (above), Black nationalist plays with his daughters (I. to r.) Quibillah, 3,
Attalah, 5, and Ilyasha, 2.
In background is a portrait
of Ghana President Kwame
Nkrumah. Below, Black
leader mans hand-powered
lawnmower to give his
backyard lawn a muchneeded clipping "before my
neighbors are talking about
me." Modest eight-room
home, which Black Muslims provided for their former minister as a
"parsonage," has become
center of unsettled court
dispute because of Malcolm's refusal to vacate it.

Continued

town. They used to come to Harlem to

get their kicks. Most of them wanted Negro women and to get high; I got them
whatever they wanted. I used to sell
Black women to White men and White
women to Black men," he admits. Sensing the status value of"having" a White
woman in those days, he made sure to
keep a liberal supply for himself "My respect for White people-particularly
White women-dropped lower and
lower as I watched how they carried on.
Black women had to get drunk to do
what White women did sober."
Toward the end of 1945, Malcolm
went to Boston. There, easy money, and
with it his luck, ran out. "I needed some
cash real bad," he remembers, "so I
went to work with my integrated burglar
gang, including a woman. One day, I
took an expensive, stolen gold watch to a
jewelry store to have the crystal repaired. When I went to pick it up, there
was a cop waiting for me to arrest me. I
always carried a gun, but something told
me not to use it. That saved my life, for
as we reached the street, I saw that the
place was surrounded by cops. Had I
used the gun, I would never have left
that store alive."
Malcolm was convicted for burglary
and got eight to ten years in the Charlestown State Prison in Boston. When the
judge sentenced him, he recalls, he
cracked: "This will teach you to stay
away from White girls." It not only
taught him to stay away from White
girls, but from White people, period.
After a year in Charlestown State, he
was transferred to the Concord (Mass.)
Reformatory and, after another year, to
the Norfolk (Mass.) Prison Colony. Even
in prison, he continued to stay "high" on
dope and booze. "You know," he says,
"you can get anything in prison that you
can get in the streets if you know how to
operate." A cum l.aude graduate of Harlem's vice dens, Malcolm knew "how to
operate." The person he credits with
helping him "come down and get out of
the fog bag I was in" was a fellow prisoner-an atheist intellectual. "At the
time, the extent of my reading was cowboy books," Malcolm admits. "This guy
started me reading serious books-you
know, books with intellectual vitamins."
Soon Malcolm became the most frequent visitor to the prison library, devouring volume after volume, from
Shakespeare to Hegel and Kant. He
beefed up his reading with correspondence courses in English and German
and by attending prison school, a facility
most prisoners patronized merely to
break the monotony of the cell. But Malebruary l 993

Continued on Page 44

Vigilant about possible attacks by "assassins," Harlem leader keeps automatic carbine with full double
clip of ammunition ready for action in his home. "I have taught my wife to use one," he says, "and
instructed her to fire on anyone- White, Black or Yellow- who tries to force his way inside."

MALCOLM X Continued
colm was a serious student. "Language
became an obsession with me," he remembers. "I began to realize the meaning and the power of words."
While in jail, Malcolm kept corresponding with his brothers, Philbert and
Reginald. Both had become converts of
Elijah Muhammad's Black Muslim cult.
His eldest brother, Reginald, wrote him
44

that if he ever wanted to get out of jail,

he should "stop smoking and eating
hog." Having always looked up to his
brother, Malcolm took his advice .
Within a year, after serving 77 monthsj u s t seven months short of seven
years-Malcolm was paroled.
The year was 1952 and Malcolm went
to Detroit to live with Philbert and Reginald. Eventually he, too, joined the

Black Muslims at Detroit Mosque No. 1.

Like all practicing Black Muslims,
Malcolm shed his "slave name," Little,
and substituted it with an "X" (for exslave). Along with his name, he shed his
vices-alcohol, nicotine, dope, women
and "hog." Obediently he prayed five
times daily facing Mecca and observed
Elijah Muhammad's dictates of keeping
"a clean body, a clean mind , clean
speech and a clean home." The transformation was complete. The "Christian
sinner" Malcolm Little alias Big Red had
become the ascetic Black Muslim Malcolm X.
"When I joined, I don't think there
were more than 400 Black Muslims in
the entire country-most of them older
people," Malcolm X maintains. "At that
time, Mr. Muhammad stayed pretty
much in the background. Many of the
brothers couldn't even pronounce his
name. Instead of revering him, they all
prayed for the return of Wallace Fard (an
itinerate silk peddler who started the
movement in 1932 and mysteriously disappeared in 1934)."
Malcolm X changed all that. " Mr.
Muhammad agreed to let me present
him as the prophet and messenger of Allah . I personally believed in Mr.
Muhammad because my brother Reginald believed in him and I believed in
Reginald. Soon the people I talked to
believed in Mr. Muhammad, too."
For 12 years, Malcolm X talked, honing his natural gift for oratory and debate
to the keenness of a switchblade knife.
Aided by a computer-like brain that can
store and recall at will volumes of encyclopaedic facts, he slashed at White
racism, taking on everyone from "Uncle
Tom Negroes:' to the U.S. Government.
Wherever he talked, new Black Muslim
temples sprang up while already existing ones increased their memberships.
To be sure, not all of his converts comprehended his mystic teachings of Black
Islam, but his provocative demands for
"back pay for 400 years of slave labor"
made sense to all.
Today, many of his explosive statements have been modified. He even
concedes that his one-time perennial target-the NAACP-" is doing some
good. " He makes it abundantly clear
that he still hates, but says that his hatred is now confined to those who hate
Blacks. Until put to a real test, the true
intentions of Malcolm X-like the man
himself-will remain shrouded in speculation and mystery. Only one thing is
clear: neither the Black Muslim movement without him, nor the Civil Rights
Movement with him will ever be the
same.
EBONY Februa ry 1993