Wer hat Euch beigebracht Eure Hautfarbe zu hassen?
Wer hat Euch beigebracht die Beschaffenheit Eurer Haare zu hassen?
Wer hat Euch beigebracht die Form Eurer Nase zu hassen? Und die Form Eurer Lippen?
Wer hat Euch beigebracht Euch selbst von Kopf bis Fuss zu hassen?
Wer hat Euch beigebracht Euer eigenes Volk zu hassen?
Wer hat Euch beigebracht die Rasse der Ihr angehöft zu hassen?
Und zwar so sehr, dass Ihr nicht unter Euer Gleichen sein wollt?
Bevor ihr fragt, ob Mr. Muhammad Hass lehrt, solltet Ihr Euch fragen
wer Euch beigebracht hat das zu hassen, was Gott aus Euch gemacht hat.
Die meisten von uns Schwarzen, oder "Negros" wie sie uns nannten, glaubten wirklich wir wären frei.
Ohne zu merken, dass in unserem Unterbewusstsein die Ketten die wir los zu sein glaubten, immer noch da waren.
Das Bedürfnis vom Weissen Mann anerkannt zu werden trieb uns in viellerlei Hinsicht an.
Malcolm wollte diese Wahrnehmung der Minderwertigkeit bekämpfen.
Er wusste, dass es mühevoll sein würde und dass manche Leute einen töten würden um das zu verhindern,
aber er wagte es dieses Risiko auf sich zu nehmen.
Er sagte etwas, das über Jenes was andere Anführer zu jener Zeit meinten hinausging.
Während die anderen Anführer um Einlass in das Haus ihrer Unterdrücker bettelten, sagte er dir ein eigenes Haus zu bauen.
Er vertrieb die Furcht der Afro-Amerikaner und sagte: "Ich werde laut aussprechen was wir uns denken."
Ihr werdet sehen, die Leute werden davon hören und uns nicht unbedingt was antun.
Aber ich spreche nicht für die Massen."
Er sagte das auf eine starke, männliche Art die aussagte:
"Ich habe keine Angst davor das auszusprechen was wir uns all die Jahre nur gedacht haben."
Deshalb liebten wir ihn. Er sagte es offen, nicht hinter verschlossenen Türen.
Er hat sich für uns mit Amerika angelegt.
Und ich jedenfalls, als Muslim, glaube, dass der Weisse Mann klug genug ist.
Wenn wir ihm verständlich machen könnten was die Schwarzen wirklich denken
und wie satt wir es haben, ganz ohne kontraproduktiven Schmeicheleien.
Nun, ihr macht es euch ja selbst schwer.
Der Weisse Mann glaubt Euch die Schmeicheleien, weil ihr ihm schmeichelt seit er Euch hierhergebracht hat.
Hört auf damit.
Sagt ihm was Ihr denkt! Sagt ihm in welcher Hölle Ihr euch befindet.
Dass er kein Haus haben sollte, wenn er es nicht in Ordnung bringen kann.
Es sollte Feuer fangen und verbrennen.
Schon fast das ganze Jahrhundert haben die Schwarzen in diesen Strassen in Harlem ihre Kultur gefeiert.
und die Rassenfrage in Amerika diskutiert.
Hier reihte sich Malcolm zum ersten Mal bei den Strassen-Rednern ein, die den Hoffnungen und dem Zorn von Harlem eine Stimme liehen.
Ich lehrte Nationalismus und will raus aus dem Land des Weissen Mannes,
denn Integration wird nie stattfinden.
So lange Ihr lebt werdet Ihr euch nicht ins System des Weissen Mannes integrieren können!
125te Strasse und 7te Avenue. was das Zentrum der Aktivitäten der Strassen-Redner. <<
Als Malcolm dazu stiess hatte er eigentlich keinen Standort.
Also etablierte er seinen Platz vor dem Buchgeschäft von Elder Michaux.
Als Malcolm die kleine Plattform bestieg, kam er für die ersten vier oder fünf Minuten gar nicht zum sprechen.
Die Leute überfhäuften ihn mit Lob und er stand da und -->genoss <--?? was ihm gebührte. The people would be making such a ??? shout to him. And he was standing, taking his due.
And then he would open his mouth.
They call Mr. Muhammed a hate teacher. Because he makes you hate dope and alcohol.
They call Mr. Muhammed a black surpremacist, because he teaches you and me not only that
we are as good as the white man, but better than the white man.
You are better than the white man.
And that's not saying anything. You don't ?? to be equal to him. Who is he to be equal with?
Look as his skin. You can't compare your skin with his skin, while your skin looks like gold beside his skin.
There was a time when we used to drool in the mouth over white people.
We thought that they ??? and that we were ??? We were dumb.
We couldn't see them as they are.
Since the honorable Elijah Muhammed has come and taught us the religion of islam ?? clean us up
and ?? so we can see for ourselves. Now we can see ?? pale things to look exactly as we look.
Nothing but an old pale thing/face ??
I came away from that rally feeling that with him, once you heard him speak you never went back
to where you were before. Even if you kept your position you had to re-think it.
We weren't accustomed of being told that we were devils and that we were oppressors up here in our northern ???
He was speaking for a silent mass of black people.
And saying it out front on the devils own airwaves.
And that was an acto of war.
When he came off the stage I jumped off the ???, walked up to him
and of course when I got to him the Bodyguards moved in front.
And he just pushed them away and I went in front of him, extended my hand
and said: "I like some of what you said. I didn't agree with all what you said, but
I liked some of what you said."
He looked at me, held my hand in a very gentle fasion and said: "One day you will, siter". And he smiled.
To make his message clear, Malcolm used his own life as a lesson to all black americans.
He preched it in fables and parables. And later in writing his autobiography with Alex Haley,
he sought some control in how his life would be interpreted in the future.
I would be rather ??? taken by a statement that he made of himself.
He would say: "I am a part of all I admit." And by that he meant that all the things
he had done in his earlier life had exposed him to things, that taught him skills of ???
...all of which had synthesized ??? into the Malcolm who became the spokesman for the
Nation of Islam.
You were born in Omaha, is that right? - Yes sir.
And your family left Omaha when you were about one year old? ???
I imagine about a year old.
Why did they leave Omaha? - To my understanding the Ku Klux Klan burned down one of their homes in Omaha.
This made your family very unhappy I'm sure. - Well, insecure if not unhappy.
So you must have a somewhat prejudiced POV, a personally prejudiced POV.
You cannot look at this in a broad academic sort of way. - I think this ain't correct.
Because despite the fact that that happened in Ohama and then when we moved to
Lansing, Michigan our home was burned down again. My father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan.
And despite all of that no one was more thoroughly integrated with whites than I.
No one had lived more so in the society with whites than I.
We were the only black children in the neighbourhood.
On the back of our property we had a wooded area.
So the white kids would all come to our house and they'd go back and play in the woods.
So Malcolm would say: "Let's go play Robin Hood." So we would go back there and play
Robin Hood and Robin Hood was Malcolm.
And these white kids ???.
Malcolm said he was the lightest skinned of the seven children born to Earl and Louis Little.
A reminder, he said, of the white man who had raped his mothers mother.
In 1929, when Malcolm was 4 years old his father, a carpenter and preacher moved the family
to Lansing Michigan.
Lansing was a small town and the west side was the side of town the blacks lived on.
Malcolm and his family lived outside of the city.
And they had a four acre parcel with a small house on it.
So they were sort of considered as farmers.
Three months after the Littles moved in white neighbours took legal action to evict them.
A county judge ruled that the farm property was restricted to whites only.
But Earl Little refused to move.
Here in Michigan, Klu Klux Klan Membership was at least 7.000.
Five times more than in Mississippi.
For Malcolms family white hostility was a fact of life.
Everybody was asleep in our house and all of a sudden we heard a big boom.
And when we woke up fire was everywhere.
And everybody was running into the walls and into each other, you know?
What I recall about that was my mother telling us: "Get up, get up, get up! The house is on fire! Get out!"
That's what I actually recall.
I could hear my mother yelling, I could hear my father yelling.
And so they made sure they got us all rounded up and got us out.
The house burned down to the ground. No fire wagon came. Nothing. We were burned out.
Malcolms father Earl Little accused local whites of setting the fire. The police accuse Earl and
arrested him on suspicion on arson. The charges were later dropped.
In the city where we grew up whites would refer to us as "Those uppity Niggers" or
"Those smart Niggers who live outside of town."
In those days whenever a white person refered to you as a "Smart Nigger" that was their way
of saying a "Nigger you have to watch" because he's not dumb.
My father was independent. He didn't want anybody to feed him.
He wanted to raise his own food. He didn't want anybody to exercise authority over his children.
He wanted to exercise the authority and he did.
He was always speaking in terms of Marcus Garvey's way of thinking and trying to get black
people to organize themselves. Not to cause any trouble but just to work in unity with each other
toward improving their conditions.
But in those days if you did that you were still considered a trouble maker.
In the 1920's Marcus Garvey, a black nationalist preached that black americans should build a nation
independent of white society.
With memberships in the hundreds of thousands Garvey's "Universal Negro Improvement
Association" sought closer ties with african countries.
The UNIA had its own flag, its own National Anthem and and african legioun pledged to
defend black people at home and abroad.
The US Bureau of Investigation labeled Garvey one of the prominent Negro agitators.
The federal government deported him in 1927 but Malcolm's parents remained Garvey-ans.
Earl recruited new members, Louise wrote for the Garvey newspaper.
My mother was the one who would read to us the Garvey paper which was called "The Negro world".
And she also would talk to us about ourselves being independent ???.
We shouldn't be calling ourselves Negros or Niggers and that we were black people.
That we should be proud to call ourselves black people.
What is your real name? - Maclolm X. Is that your legal name? - As far as I'm
concerned it is my legal name.
Would you mind telling me what your fathers last name was=
My father didn't know his last name. My father got his last name from his grandfather and his
grandfather got it from his grandfather who got it from the slave master.
The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery - Was there any line, any point
in the genealogy of your family when you did have to use the last name, and if so, what was it?
The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America
and made slaves and then the name of their slavemaster was given which we refuse. We reject
that name today... - You mean you won't even tell me what your fathers
supposed last name was or gifted last name was?
I never acknowledge it whatsoever.
September 1931. Malcolm was six years old when his mother had a premonition.
We were all in the house and had dinner, supper together.
And my mother was holding Wesley, who was my youngest brother.
And she ??? nursing him 'cause when she fell asleep nursing, holding the baby ???
My father had gotten up and went into the bedroom ??? to clean up and to go down
and collect money.
And she woke up and she said: "Earl, don't go downtown! If you go you won't come back."
That night around 11 o'clock Earl Little was found in an isolated area outside Lansing.
His body almost cut in to by the wheels of a streetcar.
The police reported Earl Littles death an accident.
There was a cloud over that whole issue, because at that time there was perceive that rather
than an accident with a streetcar that Rev. Little had really been pushed under the wheels of
the streetcar. As a matter of fact I remember hearing just that language, that he was probably pushed.
under the wheels of that street car.
My fathers death caused great, great shock in the family, because he was the power. He was the strenght.
We were an organized and structured family. When we got out of school, me and my brothers
and sisters we'd come right home and go to work.
In the garden, clean the chicken shed and get ready for the night.
And get up in the morning and all of this. We'd pump the water and bring in the house.
This was ??? dad was alive. Because to not do this brought the consequences of a whipping.
So we were disciplined.
And than after my father got killed and my mothers inability to run as fast as I could run
or Malcolm enabled us to get away with a lot of things we wouldn't even have tried get away with.
So we got looser and looser.
Louise Little struggled to raise her seven children through the years of gread depression.
She was reduced to where shehad no income. She tried get jobs ???
She was a proud lady. She had a lot of pride.
She sold. She ?? people. She did alot of things not to be dependent sorely on welfare.
She didn't like them telling her but she could ???
And this is one of the main things that devestated her more than anything else.
As time whent by you could see she was wearing down.
For seven years as Malcolm grew into adolescents his mother slowly withdrew from her family.
Two days vefore christmas 1938, Louise Little was diagonosed as paranoid and was sent to
Kalamazoo State Hospital.
When I came home from school one day and she wasn't there. I can remember feeling empty
'cause my mother would never left us. ???
And I felt the pain of her being gone everyday and it was only gonna be a couple of weeks.
She was gonna get better and come right back home. And it turned into years.
Louise Little would remain in Kalamazoo for the next 26 years.
The 13 year old Malcolm watched as the court split up his family.
Assigning the younger children to foster homes in Lansing and sending him to a white community
ten miles away.
In the past the greatest weapon the white man has had has been his ability to devide and
conquer.
When I take my hand and slap you, you don't even feel it. It might sting you because this digits are seperated.
But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together.
He was a man who in the eight grade in Michigan, a school where I think he was the only black
in his class and one of the very few in the school have been an outstanding straight A student.
You know who had been incited ??? president of his class.
And all the others were white in the eight grade and obviously he had to be exceptional to
be those things.
And then you had the Malcolm who had left school and who had gone to Roxbury, Massachusetts
where he had gotten his first exposure to what might loosely ??? be told hustling.
I called myself a little Hustler up in Roxbury in those days.
And this particular day ??? Malcolm X had come into Buscity???, had on his zoot suit with the wide
??? had with the long 3/4 lenght coat ?? with the chain that went down to your ankles.
The last time I recall, Cab Calloway used that outfit for his stage uniform.
When Malcolm left Lansing he had nothing but an old square suit on. White man suit as I call it.
When he came back from Boston, oh Lord, Malcolm had a zoot suit on him and a wide brim hat with
a chain from his hat down to his lapel. He was the top of the town. Everybody was talking
about Malcolm.
When he was dancing on the floor, and he was floating around those pants ??? like he was a floating balloon.
And that coat was like a wing. The way he'd be dancing ??? flying around with that big ???.
And this used to really shake up the girls.
In Boston they called him "New York Red" in New York they called him "Detroid Red".
?????????
And he had pictures of him and Billy Holiday and all these people of that time out there.
Who were just being made known to the rest of the black world.
Malcolm works the kitchen crew on the New Haven Railroad between Boston, New York
and Washington DC.
In 1942 he moved to Harlem and at age 17 began travelling in a world of ??? after hour clubs and small time hustlers.
He had reached a point at where he said: "You'll never make it on this janitory jobs and selling
sandwiches on these trains and shining shoes and stuff like that. You never will get anywhere."
He had the reputation of being a hustler.
That he was a street person but he was a hustler.
He was a con man.????
When the white folks ??? came out at night and they wanted black women, he could arrange for
them to get them. If they wanted bootleg-whiskey he knew where to get it. If they wanted drugs he knew where to get it.
He made it possilbe. He knew what they wanted and he knew where to get it and he would be
in the middle where he could make a profit off of it. And this is the way he started doing it.
Looking back at that time, Malcolm said: "Only three things worried him.
Jail, a job and the army.
To avoid derving in WW2 he told his draft board that he wanted to organize black soldiers to
kill whites.
He was judged unfit for the military.
Malcolms gambling and drugs and Harlems night life were expensive.
He had already been arrested twice for petty crimes.
When he moved back to Austin back in 1945 he organized a gang to burglurise homes of prominent families.
The other gang members included his friend Malcolm Jarvis, his white girlfriend B. and
two other white women.
This girl knew that these people were down to Florida that time of the year. There was nobody
home, so we broke into the house and we'd get some of their valuables and Malcolm would take
most of the stuff and pawn it and get money for his gambling habit.
After two weeks of doing this that's when the case broke ??? when he made the mistake of going to
the pawn shop to retrieve a watch with over a thousand dollars that came out of one of
the houses. That's when he was arrested by three police men.
Malcolm Little, Malcolm Jarvis and the three women were charged with breaking and entering.
The fact that two black men were with white women becaome an issue in the court.
Malcolm was definitely involved with two white women and this is what made the case so
powerful. So outrages.
The women testified that Malcolm had forced them to participate in the burglaries.
The two men received the maximum sentence. 8-10 years in state prison.
When they sentenced us, I went out of my mind. I reached up and grabbed the bars of the cage and
I shook them, almost shook them right up off the floor, and I hollered at the judge. And I said to him,
"You might as well kill me as to give me 10 years in jail."
Well, I was they call a mad negro. I was one.
And I knew what I saw was real. I knew there wasn't anything funny about it.
I knew that when they laughed all together they were laughing: "Look what we did. We doing it to the Negro."
Then they had the unintimitadet gall
to ask the girls, before they took them out of there, to press charges against us for rape.
The girls wouldn't do it.
Malcolm Little was 20 years old, facing 8-10 years in state prison.
He had wandered far from the Garvey pride and independence his parents had preached.
He was now prisoner number 22843.
To have once been a criminal is no disgrace.
To remain a criminal is the disgrace.
I formerly was a criminal. I formerly was in prison.
I'm not ashamed of that. You never can use that over my head, and he is using the wrong stick.
I don't feel that stick.
They charged Jesus with sedition.
Didn't they do that?
They said he was against Cesar.
They said he was discriminating because he told his desciples, :
"Go not the way of the gentiles, but rather go to the lost sheep.
Got to the people who don't know who they are. Who are lost from the knowledge of themselves.
And who are strangers in a land that is not theirs.
Go to those people! Go to the slaves! Go to the second class citizens!
Go to the ones who are suffering the wrath of Cesars brutality!
And if Jesus were here in america today he wouldn't be going to the white man.
The white man is the oppressor! He would be going to the oppressed. He would be going to
the humble. He would be going to the ???. He would be going to the rejected and the despised.
He would be going to the so called american negro.
Prison 1946
Behind prison walls Malcolm hustled bets, fed his drug habit and argued against the exiscante of god.
The men in his cell block called him "Satan".
But at the same time encouraged by an older black inmate, Malcolm began reading and taking
english courses.
Malcolm described vividly prison life.
That he was in effect lonely and limited ???
but had plans for....He was going to do a lot of reading.
And he certainly did a lot of writing, because I think there were times when he probably
wrote me every week.
During the second year in prison his brothers and sisters wrote to him about what they
called "The natural religion for the black man".
A religion that taught that black people were the original people.
That god was black and was called Allah.
They told Malcolm that they were now a part of the Nation of Islam.
Followers of the honorable Elijah Muhammed, the messenger of Allah.
I think Islam is one of the greatest religion of all time for all people of america.
The so called american negro have to be completely re-educated.
And Islam gives him that qualification that he can feel proud and does not feel ashamed to be
called a black man.
I came into the muslim movement in 1947. And then started to bring my brothers and sisters in.
We already had been indoctrinated with americas ??? philosophy.
So they didn't have anything to do wiht convincing us about we were black and should be proud,
we were already that when we came in.
So I wrote to Malcolm and told him about...I said to him: "If you will believe in Allah,
that he would get out of prison.
And that's all I wrote because I know that he had very low tolerance for religion and I didn'T
intend to use that tolerance.
Malcolm's brothers and sisters wrote the young prisoner that black people in america were
part of a lost tribe. Soon to be delivered out of bondage. And that whites, according to
Elijah Muhammed - were a race of devils whose domination on earth was about to end.
At first he liked every bit of it except one thing he couldn't understand.
And that was the part that we were teaching about the white man being the devil.
Malcolm wrote to Elijah Muhammed. And Elijah Muhammed answered.
And when he answered he would recite the part of ??? scripture.
And then he gave him the key. He said the key the bible is this book, that everything that takes
place in this bible is on this earth.
So you don't have to die to go to hell, you can catch ??? hell while you are living.
And the white man is the one that is putting the hell on you.
Well, that's a very convincing teaching, especiall when you use the white mans history to
coraborate this.
Malcolm began reading history, philosophy and religion. The writing of D.E.B Debois, Shakespeare, Sokrates, The Fables of ???, The lives
of Gandhi and Ned Turner.
And he finds all this history of how white christians lynched black christians.
White christians were the once who were involved in the slave trade. Those were christians.
So Malcolm began to see this and then he began to study it himself and prove that if there is such
a thing as a real devil on this earth it has to be the white man.
Elijah Muhammed told Malcolm to submit to Allah.
But for Malcolm submission would always be difficult.
It took a week before he could force himself to bow in prayer.
Later, to help spread the teachings of Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm joined the prison debate team.
Competing about visiting college teams from harvard and MIT.
That's when Malcolms name and fame started to spread amongst the prison population.
And, as the population started to grow at the debating classes, most of the fellas used to
come over out of curiosity, just to hear him speak.
In 1950 Malcolm wrote to the Governor demanding the right to practice the muslim religion in prison.
His letters would later end up in FBI files.
The Bureau had been keeping a close watch on the Nation of Islam since the late 1930s.
Malcolm considered a trouble maker, was denied an early parole.
He was not eligible to be led out at that time because he had been a threat to society.
They considered him dangerous.
Knowledge-wise and otherwise, religious-wise.
He would have been like a rotten appel in a box full of a thousand. He was gonna spoil many.
On August 7th 1952, after six and a half years in prison Malcolm was released.
Within a month he was accepted into the nation of islam.
Malcolm Little had become Malcolm X.
How did you happen to join the muslim movement?
I was in prison. I was a very wayward criminal, backward, illiterate, uneducated and whatever
other negative characteristics you could think of, type of person.
Until I heard the teachings of the honorable Elijah Muhammed. And because of the impact that it
had upon me, in giving me a desire to reform myself and rehabilitate myself for the first time
in my life. Also to be able to see the effect that it had upon others. This is what made me accept it.
And I noticed that after being exposed to the religious teachings of the honorable
Elijah Muhammed immediately it instilled within me such a high degree of racial pride and racial
dignity that I wanted to be somebody.
And I realized that I couldn't be somebody by begging the white man for what he had.
But that I had to get out of here and try to do something for myself or make somethign out
of myself.
The first time that I recalled seeing Malcolm was at the home of my father, honorable Elijah Muhammed.
And I saw a thin ?? man, tall man, young man, ???. He was just meeting you, the first thing
you would get from him was a smile.
He said: "This is Wallace!"
And I smiled at him. I was happy to see him because I had heard of him too.
And he said: "The messengers son." And he was so excited about the messenger.
Really it wasn't just seeing Wallace, it was seeing the messengers son.
When Malcolm came out he was just so full of fire. He had gotten so full of fire, that he got out at the right time at
the right place so could expound ???.
He came to Detroit, he was surprised to find there was such few people.
??? powerful deity in his mind.
And he says: "I'm surprised that you are sitting here and so many empty seats.
Everytime you come out here this place should be full.
And that excited the honorable Elijah Muhammed.
In the early 1950s the Nation of Islam was unknown in most black communities.
Total membership was believed to be no more than 400 people.
Malcolm was sent on the road to spread the message.
Within two years he helped organize temples in Boston, Hartford and Philadelphia.
Elijah Muhammed then named Malcolm Minister of the most important temple on the east coast.
Harlems temple number 7.
Mr. Muhammed knew that Malcolm had experience. That he knew New York.
He also knew, that he was that kind of men - complexion, height, speech and courage - all has
to be taken into consideration, when you select a man to stand before the people.
Plus, this is an international city.
You got to have your best in New York. And
this is why Mr. Muhammed selected him.
In 1955, when Elijah Muhammed visited the New York temple it was to inspect the work of the
ambitioned and outspoken minister, who had transformed tiny storefronts along the east coast
into a congregation of thousands.
Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammeds massage made a whole lot of people feel whole again.
Human being again.
Some of them came out and found a new meaning to their manhood and their womanhood.
Had Elijah Muhammed tried to introduced an orthodox form of ??? oriented islam,
I doubt if he would've attracted 500 people.
But he introduced a form of islam that could communicate with the people he had to deal with.
He was the king to those who had no king.
He was the messiah to those some people thought unworthy of a messiah.
The ??? thing is that Elijah Mudammed is like nothing I have ever taken. Like some medicine.
You see. A medicine that has cured me of all my ???. I was a sick man.
When I embraced the teachings of honorable Elijah Muhammed, these teachings cured me
of decease. I'm a well man now. I feel good.
As long as you stay with the doctor you continue to be good - Yes sir.
What about you? How do feel about the honorable Elijah Muhamed? - Honorable Elijah Muhammed
is trying to teach all of ??? people they are ???. - Go ahead brother. - Elijah Muhammed tries to wake them up.
Inside muslim temples no white people were allowed.
Members worked to build a self sufficiant community.
Thounded on strict rules and absolute obedience.
The nation set up muslim schools for its children.
Teaching mathematics, sciene, history and arabic.
"Who is the original man?"
"The original man is the ??? black man"
"The makers of all?? and the king of planet earth"
Muslim women studied nutrition, child bearing and guidlines on how to care about their husband.
Muslim man studied parental responsibility, history and religion.
The elite core, called "The fruit of Islam" was trained in hand to hand combat and was
expected to protect the temples and to punish any members who spoke out against the messanger.
I was surprised when I went to some of the muslim families. The faith that they had in the
Elijah Muhammed and in Malcolm.
I asked one father: "Suppose your son came home one day and told you that he renounced the muslim
religion."
He said: "I would turn him from my door and I would never allow him in again."
So I asked Malcolm. He said: "He meant it and he would do it."
I said: "Not worry about what would happen to his son?"
"No, he wouldn't worry about what would happen to him. His allegiance is to Elijah Muhammed.
To help expand the Nation of Islam Malcolm created a newspaper: "Muhammed speaks".
And persuaded other black newspapers to carry the messengers weekly column.
His strenght was, once he believed in a thing he would give anything he had to it. All of his energy.
He'd become a workaholic. He'd work day and night for it.
He only required around 4 hours of sleep.
And many times he wouldn't even get that.
Than you just kind of wonder: "How can anybody keep up that kind of ???". But he did it.
Day in and day out.
Plus, on top of that he's reading. He's reading papers, keeping up with what the news is.
He's just a person that's too ??? to life in such a way.
That he doesn't miss too much of it.
At age 32, after devoting 5 years to building the Nation, he sought the approval of Elijah Muhammed
to merry sister Betty X. A college edubated member of Harlems temple number 7.
In the years that followed the demands of his ministry allowed little time for his growing family.
He sometime, if I could catch up, he would have to read to the children. They would always want
the story read again. So that they would really just wait that he was on the last page and say: "Read it again."
He started giving the books different endings.
He had a beautiful sense of humor. Especially if he was kidding me about pork.
????
You're a decent human being, smart historian. I give you 99 as a human being and you stop eating
pork I gonna give you a hundred.
A beautiful sense of humor plus the fact that when you got to know him he was kinda shy.
Malcolm was now in the nation of islams inner circle.
Elijah Muhammeds most visible represantitive.
He had the messengers confidence and the loyalty of thousands of muslims.
In a sense Malcolm had found a father. Elijah Muhammed had found another son.
God's Angry Men tangle with police.
Riot threat as cops beat moslem.
On an april night in 1957 a muslim brother was beaten by New York City police.
His skull fractured, Johnson Hanton lay in a backroom of a Harlem police station.
When word spread that Hanton was dying Malcolm ordered the muslims into the streets.
Other Harlem residents joined them.
The community had endured a long history of police brutality.
Many considered the police an occupying force.
18th precinct was notorious for their prejudice.
??????
That was the first time that anyone had marched on to 28th precinct in protest to something that
they felt wasn't right.
I don't know what would have happened in Harlelm that night because the atmosphere was
not... I think the word to use is charged. Well, this atmosphere was explosive.
Malcolm demande medical treatment for Hinton.
After a long negotiation police agreed to send the prisoner to Harlem hospital.
But even then the muslims diffused to disperse.
This seargant came out and tried to chase ??? the muslims who were standing across the street.
And Malcolm came out and told him: "You can't do that. They're not gonna move for you. I'll send them away."
He went out to the front of the station on the first step and just waved his hand and the people walked away.
A police commissioner on the scene remarked: "That's too much power for one man to have."
Malcolm would later take New York city to court and win the largest police brutality settlement
in the cities history.
They realized that anytime a person could wave his hand and have a large number of people
automatically move away without any conversation, that by the same token that same
man could wave his hand and cause those people to create some kind of disturbance if he wanted to.
I believe from that point on the police department and the political people in New York City realized
that they had a significant force in the city to deal with.
The hate that hate produced.
Good evening I'm Mike Wallace.
Last week on news beat our 6:30 news program on January 13, we presented a five part series
which we called the hate that hate produced.
The study of the rise of black racism.
Of a call for black supremacy among a small but growing segment of the american negro population.
We have come to here??? and to see the greatest and wisest and most ...
This 1959 documentary was the first television portrayal of the internal activities of the
nation of Islam.
Malcolm saw the television program as an opportunity. Elijah Muhammed was against it.
Mr. Muhammed told malcolm no. It wasn't gonna do any good.
All it would do is hurt us. ??? we were trying to do.
Malcolm wasn't satisfied. He didn't insist but he continued to ask Mr. Muhammed, could he do it.
Mr. Muhammed reluctantly agreed.
"The Trial," Nation of Islam Play. - I charge the white man with being the greates liar on earth.
"The Trial," Nation of Islam Play. - I charge the white man, ladies and gentlemen of
the jury with being the greatest murder on earth.
I charge the white man of being the greatest adultere on earth, so therefor...
Here was this auditorium overflowing. Thousands of people about ??? an organization
I knew nothing about. I found it difficult to critic when I saw it.
And of course when we put it on the air, New Yorkers - cause that's all that saw it - were stunned.
There was this organisation, "The Black Muslims", about which white New Yorkers simply knew nothing.
Minister Malcolm X, as he addresses a non-muslim audience.
How could so few white people rule so many black people? This is the thing you should wanna know.
How could so few...The white man today will tell you that thousands of years ago, the black man
in africa was living in palaces.
The black man in africa was wearing silk.
The black man in africa was cooking and seasoning his food.
The black man in africa had mastered arts and the sciences.
He knew the course of the stars in the universe before the man up in Europe knew that the earth
wasn't flat.
Is that right or wrong?
I was amazed at his ??? to communicate. And at the naked honesty with which he expressed his
feelings about black people or the white people.
He scared me. I'm sure he intended to. But certainly??? after I saw him in The hat that hate produced
I knew that I would never forget this man.
When I first saw Malcolm on the television, he scared me also. ???
turn off that television. That man is saying stuff you aint supposed to hear.
So of course we did. But always, you know when the sun comes into the window and you jump up
to get it, to close the blinds or pull down the shades, but before you do that the sun comes in?
Well, before each time we turned the televition off a little sun came in.
While the documentary helped bring in new converts, the racial views of the Naition of Islam
shocked white america and many in the black community.
Preaching of racial hatred and racial advantage and the bigotry involved is a bad thing
wheter it's colored or white. For years the NAAPD has been opposed to white extremists preaching
hatred of nagro people and we are equally opposed of negro extremists preaching against
white people simple for the sake of whiteness.
Most in the civil rights movement believed that integration was the way to solve americas racial problems.
But Malcolm preached that black people were able to solve their own problems without the help of whites.
At a time when black americans began to identify with freedom movements in africa and latin america,
Malcolm developed alliances with revolutionary leaders from around the world.
He encouraged to see themselves not as a minority but as a part of a world majority.
The riots ??? of african nations ??? with the spread with the nation of islam.
And the civil rights movement. Gave black america a burst of pride.over and above anything we had had.
since the decline of the movement of Marcus Garvin.
will ??? wipe away our tears. That's the benifit of our unity.
They are passing the basket through the crowd and I think anybody standing here should put
one dollar in that basket. Don't you think you should? Sure, this are freedom dollars, brothers.
We're not asking you to give us some money to make us rich, we put up business. The honorable
Elijah Muhammed had set up more business than any black man in america.
The Nation Of Islam with its interlocking corporations was now reputed to be the largest
black owned business empire in the united states.
The Nation of Islam, during the early 60s was perhaps enjoying its best days.
We were opening restaurants and grocery stores and seen the Muhammed speaks paper compete
with other black papers.
We've seen Malcolm on television kind of frequently. We were proud of him. In our opinion
he was doing an excellent job of representing the honorable Elijah Muhammed and the Nation of Islam.
We were seeing the Fruit of Islam not just exercising in some small facilities but seeing them
great numbers, hundreds of them, on the streets of big cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.
My view on the Fruit of Islam was that these were the absolute baddest, cleanest brothers
that I had seen in my life.
There was some bad blood, you don't understand? I mean you did not mess with FOI. When they came
out in the street people would say: "Yes sir!".
The growing presence of the Fruit of Islam attracted police attention. There were increasing
numbers of confrontations and arrests.
Malcolm warned that members of the FOI would always obey the law, but would also defend
themselves if attacked.
In cities across america police agencies were determined to contain the black muslims.
It was only a matter of time until the two forces would again collide.
On a spring night in 1962 another confrontation.
It began as a stop and search of muslim men delivering dry cleaning.
It ended with a full police assault on the muslim temple.
This time 8 men were shot. 1 Police officer and 7 muslims.
Temple secretary Ronald Stokes was dead at the scene.
I arrived at the mosque in Los Angeles after the shootin took place.
There was great sadness amongst people.
Malcolm was walking back and forth shaking his head: "They're gonna pay for it."
If anyone would break into our temples we would defend it with our lives. The temple was sacred.
And those brothers, they acted on what they were taught. And I'm sure that anyone seeing police
break into a church would be outraged.
This didn't cause us a great surprise to us, the fact that they would resist our police officers and
cause trouble because we have been watching this group for a long time and Chief Parker
warned some time ago that we might have trouble with them.
Muslims riot. Kultist killed, policeman shot.
The Los Angeles times reported the insident as a muslim riot and a wild gun fight.
Four Wounded, 26 taken into custody; two officers beaten.
Muslims shoot, beat police in wild gunfight. But it was never proven that any of the guns fired
Muslims shoot, beat police in wild gunfight. belonged to the muslims.
Malcolm called for churches and civil rights organisations to form a united fund with the
muslims against police brutality.
Let us remember that we are not brutalised because we are baptist.
We are not brutalised because we're methodists,
We are not brutalised because we're muslims,
we are not brutalised because we're catholic.
We are brutalised because we are black people in america.
I'm telling you they came out of those cars and we have enough witnesses to hang them.
With their guns smoking. Chief Parker knows this, Mayor ??? knows this and every police official in the city knows that.
They didn't fire no warning shots in the air. They fired warning shots point blank at innocent,
unarmed, defenseless negroes.
Cause I say, two of the brothers were shot in the back.
Another was shot in the shoulder.
Two of them was shot - excuse the expression - through the penis.
Let me tell you something. You say, we hate white people? We don't hate anybody.
We love our own people so much they think we hate the ones who are inflicting injustice against them.
Coroner's INquest 1962
Patrolman Donald Wease, the officer who killed Ronald Stokes testified that he knew Stokes
was unarmed but that Stokes had raised his hand in a menacing way.
The all white coroners jury deliberated 22 minutes and found the death a justifiable homicide.
14 muslims were then ordered to stand trial on assault charges.
11 would be found guilty and sentenced to prison.
We were people that sayin ???: "Never be the aggressor but if someone attacks you, we do
not teach you to turn the other cheek."
There were muslims who were not from the east coast, but from other parts of the country, that
would actually ?? to go out there and kill those police officers even though they may have
been killed in the process of doing it. But that's how strong the attitude of muslims was
against those brothers just being shot like that.
Muhammad speakes: Court sets murdere free!"
The conflict of the Los Angeles mosque brought to the surface the growing differences between
Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammed.
The messenger insisted Allah would evange Stokes death, but Malcolm demanded justice
in the courts.
Would it have been possible for them to get a fair trial ther would be no necessity for a trial at all.
These are the victims of police bullets and you don't take the victims to court as a criminal.
You take the one who shot the victim to court. And it is the police who should be on trial here in Los Angeles.
Malcolm began to talk less and less about god is going to get rid of the caucasian.
And he began to talk about how we were gonna be able to bring him to justice.
And make them guilty and that they are not guilty according to the law of the land. ???
That was not our argument at all. Our argument was that we were devine people and that
we would be protected and finally delivered. Put into the seat of authority by Allah.
That was our teaching at that time.
To avoid further confrontations with city authorities, Elijah Muhammed summoned
Malcolm to a meeting at the messengers home.
Elijah Muhammed told him very definitely: "If you had reacted the way you should have reacted,
have had more faith in Allah, Ronald Stokes would be alive."
That was it. ???
And Malcolm said ????
He just listened.
Mr. Muhammed told him: "That's one man that we lost. I never did tell you that we were going to
lose anyone. But that's the way it is when you build an alligience???
He said: "They were wrong. But if I send my followers out there to do battle with those people
in an alley??, undercover or on top of the cover, they will get slaughtered and I'm not gonna do that.
And Malcolm didn't like that.
Malcolm had always said: "Muslims don't back down." In Harlem he had now to explain
what happened in Los Angeles.
Ronald Stokes was not the least ??? among the followers of the honorable Elijah Muhammed.
He was one of the highest.
He was the secretary of our Los Angeles mosque.
And as we explained ??? on me, many of you thought that we should go right on out then,
and make war on the white man.
You wanted to do it yourself didn't you?
Didn't you?
You wanted some action then, didn't you?
Cause you don't like the idea of white people shooting black people down, do you?
And you're ready to do something about it? Aren't you?
We know you are and the white man should be thankful that god has given the honorable
Elijah Muhammed the control over his followers that he has.
Told him to play it ??? cool, calm and collected.
And leave it in the hands of god.
In the months following the Los Angeles insident, Malcolms faiths in the messenger were further
tested by rumors about Elijah Muhammed private life.
Once a months he would go to Chicago to take money to Elijah Mohammed.
And he would always go to the side door.
And on this particular day, when he got to the side door there were three young ladies and they were
knocking and banging on the door: "Open the doodr, open the door! We need money for food,
our children don't have this or the other."
He immediately felt that, number one he didn't belong there.
Malcolm had long dismissed stories that Elijah Muhammed had fathered eight children with
six of his secretaries. Now he approached the messengers son Wallace to confirm what he had
seen.
So I told him: "Yes, I know about that. You can see things but you don't wanna see it, so you just
block it out of your mind. I'm aware of secretaries having some kind of reletiaonship with my
father. ??? with their children. I've seen him take that children and somewhere in my consciousness
I was sure I was ??? that that was his family, but I never accepted it to deal with it in my mind.
Never did I accept it to deal with it in my mind.
Officials in the nation accused Wallace Muhammed of starting rumors and
conspiring against his father.
The charge that I gave Malcolm information on my fathers domestic situation is true but only after
Malcolm had already told me that he witnessed that sitiuation.
It gives me great pleasure and an honor and ??? at this time to introduce to you and present to you
the messenger of Allah, your admired and beloved ??? teacher, the most honorable and humble
Elijah Muhammed.
Malcolm had submitted himself to Elijah Muhammed as his spiritual leader.
He never tried to see anything else.
And the things that he tried to put into practice himself, he thought were also being practiced
by his leader.
And when he found out differently, it just took all of the wind out of his sails.
In public the two men continued to embrace. In private suspicion had replaced faith.
The relationship was further complicated by Elijah Muhammeds failing health.
Malcolms popularity vastly improved.
Number one, Mr. Muhammed was thinking he had bronchitis. So Mr. Muhammed went to ??? public meetings
maybe once, twice a year. That's it. And the rest of the time Malcolm was going everywhere.
It was Malcolm who sparked the growth of the Nation all over the country.
He was in demand. Nobody was asking for Elijah Muhammed to speak, they were asking for
Malcolm to speak. And naturally Malcolm got more involved with the civil rights struggle.
And his argument became more an argument that you would expect from someone who was in the
civil rights struggle, then you would from someone who was following the honorable Elijah Muhammed.
The 60s showed us the white man in an image that the Nation of Islam had cast him in.
In the image of a brutal person, you know. Turning the dogs out on the demonstrators.
Using the fire hoses. All this helped the Nation of Islam charge against the white race.
And made it possible for the Nation of Islams spokesman, Malcolm X, to get the press, to get
the camera on him and to state what he had confidence in, that was an alternative,
and that was seperation.
As muslims we believe that seperation is the best way, and the only sensible way. Not integration.
But on the other hand, when we see our people being brutalized by white bigots, white racists,
we think that they are foolish to allow themselves to be beaten and brutalized and do nothing
whatsoever to protect themselves.
If a dog is biting a black man the black man should kill the dog.
Wheter if that dog is a police dog, a hound dog or any kind of dog. If a dog is ?? on a black man
when that black man is doing nothing but trying to take advantage of what the government says is
supposedly his than that black man should kill that dog or any two legged dog who ??? the dog on him.
When Malcolm talks, ??? talk, ?? articulate for all the negro people who hear them, who listen to him.
??????
That's Malolm's great authority over any of his audiences. He ??? their reality.
I was probably about 14 years old and I was involved in a demonstration at this construction site.
The community was demanding integration of the work force.
We realized that Malsolm had come to watch the demonstration, when my shift changed I ran
across the street to talk to Malcolm. We had quite an argument that morning.
And he tried to explain to me what was wrong with my laying down on the ground in front of a cement truck.
And Malcolm said if these are people who could lynch black people, murder black children,
enslave black people, why couldn't they run over somebody with a truck?
And he said: "They'd say it was an accident. Oops, my foot slipped, but you'd be "
just as dead." And when he left and I turned around to go back across the street. I went back
and I got on the picket line, but I never laid down on the street in front of a truck again.
We were sitting across this table at the ????, talking about race relations in america and
Malcolm at one point said okay, what's your solution and he was not asking me for advice.
He just of wanted to put me on the spot for a moment.
I was at the time under the spell of Dr. King and his notion of the beloved society which
would be colorblind and in which color would not be a disability for anybody.
Malcolm was kind of looking back at me and said: "You're dreaming. I haven't got time for dreams."
The goal of Dr. King is full equality...- No. -
...and full rights citizenship for negroes.
The goal of Dr. Martin Luther King is to give Negroes a chance to sit in a segregated
restaurant beside the same white man who had brutalized them for 400 years.
The goal of Dr. Martin Luther KIng is to get Negroes to forgive the people who have
brutalized them for 400 years by lulling??? them to sleep and making him forget what
that whites had done to them. But the masses of black people in america today don't go for
what Dr. Martin Luther KIng is puttin down. You said in one of your articles, his psychologically insecure
or something like this. However you put it. But you didn't endorse what Martin Luther King was doing yourself.
I do not reject his goals of full integration and full equality rights for american citizens, do you reject...
If you don't think he's walking on the right road I'm quite sure you don't agree that he'll head to
the right place.
We were aware, or felt that it was somewhat dangerous to be too closely associated
to Malcolm. He was saying some pretty rough things, particularly about whites.
Those of us who wanted to keep peace with the white world, some of us had our jobs in the
white community. We didn't really get too close to Malcolm.
It has been suggested also that this movement teaches a gospel of violence, that...
No, the black people in this country have been the victims of violence by the hands of the
white man for 400 years. And following the ignorant negro preachers, we had thought
it was godlike to turn the other cheek to the brute that was brutalizing us.
And today the honorable Elijah Muhammed has shown black people in this country that
just as the white man and every other person on this earth has god given rights, natural rights,
civil rights. Any kind of rights that you can think of when it comes to defending hiself.
Black people should have the right to defend themselves also.
In August 1963, 250.000 americans for the march on Washington.
Malcolm came to us. He told us the story about the ????.
One thing I can say about Malcolm: Anytime he told us something he could back it up.
He had a ???? and he ??? said, I'm gonna tell you.
I know what I'm talking about.
He says, who pays the bills for civil rights?
???????
You have to fight your battles. And it started in the street, but once you let them become integrated
????
and than he relates it to a cup of coffee that is hot and as soon as you water it, put the milk in it cools down.
And these analogies Malcolm used sometimes were funny, but they hit home.
KIng: ?????
Most of the people that we were organizing had also heard of Malcolm X,
and respected him and listened to him and anytime that he was going to be on
they made an effort to hear those speeches.
And felt that he indeed understood what their problems were and that they needed to
be fought against.
And I suppose not always non-violently.
Nineteen days after the march of Washington a bomb blew apart the sunday school
of the 16th street baptist church in Bur???, Alabama.
20 people were insured.
4 little girls were killed.
Here we're talking about bombing a church and killing 4 little girls.
And the feeling of anger and not being able to do something or not doing something was
tremendous.
A lot of us sort of became desatisfied.
Because sort of became desatisfied.
He never spoke of it,??? that we were doing anything to help our people.
Who'd been brutalized by the whites and the police during the civil rights movement.
We felt that we should have gotten involved.
One white man named Lincoln supposedly fought the civil war to solve the race problem and
the problem is still here. And then another white man named Kennedy
came along running for President and told negroes what all he was going to do
for them and they voted for him 80%. He's been in office now for three years and the problem
is still here.
When police dogs were biting black women and black children and black babies in Birmingham, Alabama
that Kennedy talked about what he couldn't do becasue no federal law had been violated and
as soon as the negroes exploded and began to protect themselves and got the best of the crackers
in Birmingham, then Kennedy sent for the troops.
He didn't have any new law when he sent for the troops when the negroes errupted, than he had at
the time when the whites had errupted. So we are within our rights, and with justification, when we
express doubt concerning the ability of the white man to solve our problem.
And also when we express doubt concerning his integrity, concerning his sincerity.
Because will have to confess that the problem has been around for a long time and whites
had been saying the same thing about it for the past hundred years and is no nearer
to the solution today than a hundred years ago.
Well, he has changed.
Changed from religious talk to ??? talk.
To the point where I told him (Malcolm), that I listened to him when he first started
and I listen to him now.
And I hear a change. He says: "What kind of change do you mean?"
I say: "Well, your talks when you first started out caused me to have chills when you speak.
Because of the truth of what you were saying. But now I don't feel that anymore."
He told his answer to me: "Maybe you have lost your religion or your spirit"
I said: "Well, maybe I have, but I'm just letting you know how I feel."
After a while we began to notice that there were some rumblings ?? from Elijah Muhammeds family.
Every now and then there'd be little things they would say to let you know that they got
a problem with Malcolm rising up before the public like he's doing, because everybody had
began to recognize him now as the spokesman.
"Spokesman" might be alright, but at the same time he's getting the public (s attention),
the media has got him. Everybody is all "Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm X"
You're hearing Elijah Muhammeds name less and less.
Malcolm believed he could handle the jealousies within the Nation of Islam.
But tentions between him and the messenger would come to a head???
in late November in 1963.
We're sittin in the restaurant, drinking coffee, having this meeting and the captain of the mosque,
Joseph, got a telephone call from his wife. He got up and went to the phone booth, took the call
and he came back to the table looking visibly shocked.
He said, that his wife had just told him that Kennedy had been shot.
Malcolm sent somebody to get a radio out of the back and plugged in the radio and listened.
And the announcer was saying: "To repeat. We're confirming that the president has been shot
in Dallas, Texas. At this point we don't know how serious it is."
And Malcolm said immediately: "That devil is dead".
John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Mr. Muhammed and his son called Malcolm and said:
"Brother Minister Malcolm? My father told me to tell you and we're calling all over the country, that
John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
And that we should not say anything in a degradory way whatsoever, because the
man was the president of the united states.
And that people loved him."
The muslims had schedules a rallye at the manhattan center in new york city.
The day of the rallye the messenger called Malcolm to remind him to teach the
spiritual side and avoid saying anything about the president's death.
But he was clearly nervois about what he might say. He spoke from a prepared speech.
Never specifically mentioned Kennedy.
But then as if ??? courting desaster,
he opened the floor up for questions.
Normally he would speak ?????
But this day he asked for questions and answer.
He went into this litany, comparing other leaders around the world who had somehow sufferd
at the hand of the United States Government and his agents and how this compared to what
just happened to Kennedy.
And he said: "Patrice Lamumba died and his wife became a widow, his people had their leader cut down
and the US Government had been involved in doing that."
And he went through a ??? of these always winding up with the involvement of the
United States Government.
So that the final point when you do those kind of things all around the world you set up an
situation, an atmosphere, an environment in the world and sooner or later those chickens
come home to roost.
When he ??? I was really took ???. I didn't understand that.
And he answered the question: "Well, I know I'll get in trouble for this, but as far as I'm concerned
it's a case of the chickens coming home to roost."
??? John Ali, the National Secretary was there. That's how Mr. Muhammed got the news so fast.
This ??? is from messenger Elijah Muhammed, the ??? muslim from america.
Mr. Malcolm ?? addressed in a public meeting at ?? center in New York City on Sunday, December 1st,
did not speak for the muslims when he made comments of the ??? death of the president, John F. Kennedy.
He was speaking for himself and not muslims in general. And Mr. Malcolm has been
suspended from public speaking for the time being.
Muhammad on President Kennedy: Nation Still Mourns Death
While the Nation of Islam publicly ??? for the slayed president, the leadership announced
the silencing of Malcolm X for 90 days.
He was to give no speeches and to have no contect with the press.
We were doing alot of Kennedy Stories and therer was going to be a little one talking about
Malcolm having been suspended.
I was expecting to pick up the phone and I'd get a quote and that would be it.
This case he hold me on the phone for longer than I expected.
And he sounded upset, he sounded worried and it was the first time I ever sensed vulnerabilty
in this guy who I've always been accustomed to ??? think of as an extremely strong man.
Will censure of Malcolm X lead to split in muslims?
Newspapers predicted a power struggle within the nation of islam.
It was later learned the FBI fed stories to local reporters in an attempt to deepen the rift
between Malacolm and Elijah Muhammed.
Malcolm, isolated and exhausted, accepted an invitation to Miami.
Where young heavy weight conteder Cassius Clay was training for his championship bout against Sunny Liston.
??? member of the nation, Clay had been visiting muslim temples for two years and
had asked malcolm to help him mentally prepare for the fight against Liston.
Well going to Florida for my family was honeymoon. My parents refered to it as a honeymoon.
Of course its significance of us going as a family was a much stronger and meaningful for them.
For us it was just an opportunity to be with each other.
But as my mother and father talked about it it was the first time in their real life as a marital union.
that they had time for themselves.
Malcolm offered to bring Cassius Clay into the Nation of Islam in exchange for his own
reinstatement.
But the nations hirarchy ignored Malcolms offer.
LIke most of america they saw the young boxer as a loud mouth with little chance of
beating Lister.
As Malcolm watched from ring side the young Clay wore down the older champion.
At the beginning of the 7th round a batted Liston could not come out of his corner.
Clay had become the new heavy weight champion of the world.
??? poetry on number seven.
He wanted to go to heaven, so I took him ???.