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[music]

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Who taught you to hate the color of your skin?

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Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair?

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Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose, and the shape of your lips?

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Who taught you to hate yourself, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?

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Who taught you to hate your own kind?

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Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to

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So much so that you don't want to be around each other?

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You know. Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself

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who taught you to hate being what God made you.

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Most of us, blacks, or negroes as he called us,

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really thought we were free,

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without being aware that in our subconscious, all those chains we thought had been struck off were still there

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And there were many ways, where what really motivated us

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was our desire to be loved by the white man.

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Malcolm meant to lance that sense of inferiority.

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He knew it would be painful.

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He knew that people could kill you because of it,

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but he dared to take that risk.

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He was saying something, over and above that of any other leader of that day.

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While the other leaders were begging for entry into the house of their oppressor,

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he was telling you to build your own house.

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He expelled fear for African Americans.

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He said "I will speak out loud what you've been thinking"

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and he said "You'll see, people will hear, and it will not do anything to us, necessarily, ok?

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But I will not speak it for the masses of people."

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When he said it in a very strong fashion, in this very manly fashion, in this fashion that says,

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"I am not afraid to say what you've been thinking all these years,"

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that's why we loved him.

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He said it out loud, not behind closed doors,

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He took on America for us.

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And I, for one, as a Muslim believe that the white man is intelligent enough.

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If he were made to realize how Black people really feel

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and how fed up we are without that old compromising sweet talk

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Why, you're the one who make it hard for yourself.

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The white man believes you when you go through with that old sweet talk

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'cause you've been sweet talking him ever since he brought you here

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Stop sweet talking him!

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Tell him how you feel!

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Tell him how, what kind of hell you've been catching, and let him know that if he's not ready to clean his house up, if he's not ready to clean his house up,

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he shouldn't have a house. [crowd: That's right!] It should catch on fire, and burn down...

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[applause]

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[drums and music]

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On these Harlem street corners, for most of this century, Black people have celebrated their culture,

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and argued the question of race in America.

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It was here that Malcolm first joined the street orators who gave voice to Harlem's hope, and its anger.

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I've taught nationalism, and that means that I want to go out of this white man's country, because integration will never happen

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You will never, as long as you live,

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integrate into the white men's system

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A hundred and twenty-fifth street and Seventh Avenue was

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the center of activity among the black street orators.

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When Malcolm arrived, technically he had no corner.

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So he established his base, you might say, in front of Elder Michaux's bookstore.

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When Malcolm would ascent the little platform, he didn't, he couldn't talk for the first four, five minutes.

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The people would be making such a praise-shout to him

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and he would stand there, taking his due.

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and then he would open his mouth.

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They call Mr. Muhammad a hate-teacher

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because he makes you hate dope and alcohol.

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They call Mr. Muhammad a black supremacist

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because he teaches you and me not only that we are as good as the white man,

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but better than the white man.

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Yes, better than the white man.

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You are better than the white man

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and that's not saying anything.

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That's not saying, you know we're just as equal with him.

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Who is he to be equal with?

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You look at his skin

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You can't compare your skin with his skin,

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Why your skin look like gold beside his skin.

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There was a time when we used to drool in the mouth over white people.

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We thought they were pretty 'cause we were blind, we were dumb.

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We couldn't see them as they are.

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But since the honorable Elijah Muhammad has come and taught us the religion of Islam,

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which have cleaned us up, and made us so we can see for ourselves

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now we can see that old pale thing to look exactly as he look

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nothing but an old, pale thing.

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I came away from that rally feeling that with him

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once you heard him speak,

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you never went back to where you were before.

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You had to, even if you kept your position you had to rethink it.

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We weren't accustomed to being told that we were devils

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and that we were oppressors up here in our wonderful northern cities.

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He was speaking for a silent mass of black people

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and sang it out front on the devil's own airwaves, and that was an act of war.

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When he came off the stage, I jumped off the island,

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walked up to him, and of course when I got to him the bodyguards,

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you know, moved in front, and he just pushed them away.

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And I went in front of him and extended my hand,

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and said "I liked some of what you said. I didn't agree with what, all that you said, but I liked some of what you said"

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And he looked at me, held my hand in a very gentle fashion and says

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"One day you will, Sister. One day you will, Sister", and he smiled.

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To make his message clear, Malcolm used his own life as a lesson for all black Americans.

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He preached it in fables and parables

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and later, in writing his autobiography with Alex Haley,

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he sought some control over how his life would be interpreted in the future.

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I would be rather taken by a statement he would make of himself

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He would say "I am a part of all I have met"

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and by that he meant that all the things he had done in his earlier life had exposed him to things

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and taught him skills of one or another sort,

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all of which had synthesized into the Malcolm who became the spokesman for the Nation of Islam.

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You were born in Omaha, is that right?

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Yes sir

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And you left, your familiy left Omaha when you were about one year old?

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I imagine about a year old.

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Why did they leave Omaha?

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Well, to my understanding, the Ku Klux Klan burned down one of their homes in Omaha

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There's a lot of Ku Klux Klan

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They made your family feel very unhappy, I'm sure.

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Well, insecure, if not unhappy.

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So you must have a somewhat prejudiced point of view,

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a personally prejudiced point of view

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In other words, you cannot look at this in a broad, academic sort of way, really, can you?

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I think that's incorrect, because despite the fact that that happened in Omaha

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and then when we moved to Lansing, Michigan,our home was burned down again

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in fact my father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan,

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and despite all of that, no one was more thoroughly integrated with whites than I

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No one has lived more so in the society of whites than I.

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We were the only black children in the neighborhood

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but on the back of our property we had a wooded area,

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so the white kids would all come over to our house and they'd go back and play in the woods.

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So Malcolm would say "Well let's go play Robin Hood"

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Well, so we'd go back there to play Robin Wood

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Robin Hood was Malcolm.

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and these white kids would go along with it.

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Malcolm said he was the lightest skinned of the seven children born to Earl and Louise Little,

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a reminder, he said, of the white man who had raped his mother's mother.

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In 1929, when Malcolm was four years old, his father, a carpenter and preacher,

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moved the family to Lansing, Michigan.

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Lansing was a small town and the west side was the side of town that blacks lived on.

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Malcolm and his family lived outside of the city

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and they had a four-acre parcel with a small house on it,

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so they were sort of considered as farmers.

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Three months after the Littles moved in, white neighbors took legal action to evict them.

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A county judge ruled that the farm property was restricted to whites only.

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But Earl Little refused to move.

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Here in Michigan, Ku Klux Klan membership was at least 70,000, five times more than in Mississippi.

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For Malcolm's family, white hostility was a fact of life.

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Everybody was asleep in our house and all of a sudden, we heard a big boom.

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And when we woke up, fire was everywhere and everybody was running into the walls and into each other, you know.

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Well, what I recall about that was my mother telling us to,

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"Get up, get up, get up, the house is on fire," and to get out. That's what I actually recall.

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I could hear my mother yelling, I hear my father yelling.

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And so they made sure they got us all rounded up and got us out.

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The house burned down to the ground. No firewagon came, nothing, and we were burned out.

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Malcolm's father, Earl Little, accused local whites of setting the fire.

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The police accused Earl and arrested him on suspicion of arson. The charges were later dropped.

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In the city where we grew up, whites could refer to us as "those uppity niggers," or,

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"those smart niggers that live out south of town."

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In those days, whenever a white person referred to you as a "smart nigger," that was their way of saying, "This is a nigger you have to watch because he's not dumb."

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My father was independent. He didn't want anybody to feed him.

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He wanted to raise his own food. He didn't want anybody to exercise authority over his children.

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He wanted to exercise the authority, and he did.

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He was always speaking in terms of Marcus Garvey's way of thinking and trying to get black people to organize themselves,

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not to cause any trouble, but just to do, to work in unity with each other

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toward improving their conditions.

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But in those days if you did that, you were still considered a troublemaker.

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In the 1920's Marcus Garvey,

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a black nationalist, preached that black Americans should build a nation independent of white society.

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With membership in the hundreds of thousands, Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association sought closer ties with African countries.

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The UNIA had its own flag, its own national anthem and an African legion pledged to defend black people at home and abroad.

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The U.S. Bureau of Investigation labeled Garvey, "one of the prominent Negro agitators."

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The federal government deported him in 1927, but Malcolm's parents remained Garveyites.

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Earl recruited new members.

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Louise wrote for the Garvey newspaper.

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My mother is the one who would read to us the Garvey paper, which was called The Negro World.

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and she also would talk to us about ourselves as being independent.

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We shouldn't be calling ourself "Negroes," or "niggers" and that we were black people

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and that we should be proud to call ourself black people.

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What is your real name?

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Malcolm. Malcolm X.

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Is that your legal name?

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As far as I'm concerned, it's my legal name.

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Would you mind telling me what your father's last name was?

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My father didn't know his last name.

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My father got his last name from his grandfather and his grandfather got it from his grandfather who got it from the slavemaster.

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The real names of our people were destroyed

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Well, was there any

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during slavery.

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Was there any line, any point in the genealogy of your family when you did have to use a last name and if so, what was it?

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The last name of my forefathers

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Yes?

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was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves,

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and then the name of the slavemaster was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today and refuse to

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You mean, you won't even tell me what your father's supposed last name was or gifted last name was?

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I never acknowledge it whatsoever.

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September 1931

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Malcolm was six years old when his mother had a premonition.

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We were all at the house and we had dinner, supper together.

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And my mother was holding Wesley, who was my youngest brother.

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And she may have been nursing him, 'cause she was at the table, and she fell asleep,

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nursing, holding the baby.

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And my father had gotten up and went in the bedroom to clean up and to go down and collect money.

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And she woke up and she said, "Earl, Earl, don't go downtown."

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She says, "If you go, you won't come back."

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That night around 11 o'clock, Earl Little was found in an isolated area outside Lansing,

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his body almost cut in two by the wheels of a streetcar.

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The police reported Earl Little's death an accident.

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There was a cloud over that whole issue because, at the time,

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it was perceived that rather than an accident with a streetcar that Earl Little had really been pushed under the wheels of the streetcar.

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As a matter of fact,

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I remember hearing just that language,

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that he was probably pushed under the wheels of that streetcar.

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And my father's death caused a great

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great shock in the family,

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because he was the power.

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He was the strength.

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We were organized,

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we were a structured family.

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When I'd get out of school,

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when we got out of school, me and my brothers and sisters,

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we'd come right home and go to work

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in the garden, clean up the chicken shed and get ready for the night,

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and get up in the morning and all this.

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We'd pump the water and bring it in the house and all this.

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This was while Dad was alive,

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because to not do this brought the consequences of a whipping.

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So we were disciplined.

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And then after my father got killed

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and my mother's inability to run as fast as I could run or Malcolm

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enabled us to get away with a lot of things

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we wouldn't have tried to get away with.

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So we got looser and looser.

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Louise Little struggled to raise her seven children through the years of the Great Depression.

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She's reduced to where she has no income.

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She'd try to get -- she got jobs.

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She was a proud lady.

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She had a lot of pride.

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She sold. She crocheted gloves for people.

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She did a lot of things not to be dependent solely on welfare.

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She didn't like them telling her what she could do and what she couldn't do.

232
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And this is one of the main things that devastated her more than anything else.

233
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As time went by, you could see she was wearing down.

234
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[music]

235
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For seven years, as Malcolm grew into adolescence,

236
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his mother slowly withdrew from her family.

237
00:18:35,109 --> 00:18:38,619
Two days before Christmas, 1938,

238
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Louise Little was diagnosed as paranoid and was sent to Kalamazoo State Hospital.

239
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And when I came home from school one day and she wasn't there,

240
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I can remember being empty 'cause my mother had never left us.

241
00:18:58,304 --> 00:19:01,472
And I felt, you know, the pain of her being gone every day,

242
00:19:01,472 --> 00:19:04,208
and it was only going to be a couple of weeks,

243
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you know.

244
00:19:05,187 --> 00:19:08,393
She was going to get better and come right back home.

245
00:19:08,393 --> 00:19:12,848
And it turned into years.

246
00:19:12,848 --> 00:19:20,830
Louise Little would remain at Kalamazoo for the next 26 years.

247
00:19:20,830 --> 00:19:25,620
The 13-year-old Malcolm watched as the court split up his family,

248
00:19:25,620 --> 00:19:29,888
assigning the younger children to foster homes in Lansing

249
00:19:29,888 --> 00:19:38,257
and sending him to a white community 10 miles away.

250
00:19:38,257 --> 00:19:39,838
In the past,

251
00:19:39,838 --> 00:19:45,140
the greatest weapon the white man has had has been his ability to divide and conquer.

252
00:19:45,140 --> 00:19:49,617
If I take my hand and slap you,

253
00:19:49,617 --> 00:19:51,068
you don't even feel it.

254
00:19:51,068 --> 00:19:55,991
It might sting you because these digits are separated.

255
00:19:55,991 --> 00:20:03,662
But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together.

256
00:20:03,662 --> 00:20:08,128
He was a man who, in the eighth grade in Michigan

257
00:20:08,128 --> 00:20:12,892
a school where I think he was the only black in his class and one of the very few in the school

258
00:20:12,892 --> 00:20:16,625
had been an outstanding straight-A student,

259
00:20:16,625 --> 00:20:17,181
you know,

260
00:20:17,181 --> 00:20:19,599
who had been in fact the president of his class,

261
00:20:19,599 --> 00:20:22,405
and all the others were white in the eighth grade.

262
00:20:22,405 --> 00:20:26,194
Obviously, he had to be exceptional to be those things.

263
00:20:26,194 --> 00:20:33,159
And then you had the Malcolm who had left school and who had gone to Roxbury, Massachusetts

264
00:20:33,159 --> 00:20:39,480
where he had gotten his first exposure to what might loosely be called "hustling."

265
00:20:39,480 --> 00:21:04,562
[music]

266
00:21:04,562 --> 00:21:09,466
I called myself little hustler up in Roxbury in those days.

267
00:21:09,466 --> 00:21:11,685
And this particular day, you know,

268
00:21:11,685 --> 00:21:17,202
Malcolm X had come into Boston and he had on his zoot suit with the wide-brim hat

269
00:21:17,202 --> 00:21:21,983
with the long, three-quarter-length coat with the chain that went down to your ankles.

270
00:21:21,983 --> 00:21:31,864
I don't know, the last time I recall, Cab Callowy used that outfit for his stage uniform.

271
00:21:31,864 --> 00:21:33,676
Now, when Malcolm left Lansing,

272
00:21:33,676 --> 00:21:36,186
he had nothing but a old square suit on

273
00:21:36,186 --> 00:21:37,069
"white man's suit,"

274
00:21:37,069 --> 00:21:38,865
as I call it.

275
00:21:38,865 --> 00:21:41,168
When he came back from Boston, oh Lord,

276
00:21:41,168 --> 00:21:44,567
Malcolm had a zoot suit on and a wide-brim hat

277
00:21:44,567 --> 00:21:47,065
and a chain from his hat down onto his lapel

278
00:21:47,065 --> 00:21:49,666
and he was the talk of the town.

279
00:21:49,666 --> 00:21:53,402
Everybody was talking about Malcolm.

280
00:21:53,402 --> 00:21:57,647
[music]

281
00:21:57,647 --> 00:22:01,226
And then when he was dancing on the floor and he was floating around,

282
00:22:01,226 --> 00:22:04,094
those pants were like he was a floating balloon,

283
00:22:04,094 --> 00:22:07,006
with -- that coat was like a wing.

284
00:22:07,006 --> 00:22:11,762
The way he'd be dancing and flying around with the big, 10-gallon hat on and the chain flinging.

285
00:22:11,762 --> 00:22:11,763
And this used to really shake up the girls.

286
00:22:11,763 --> 00:22:11,763
[music and singing]

287
00:22:28,634 --> 00:22:29,815
In Boston, they called him "New York Red.

288
00:22:29,815 --> 00:22:31,856
In New York, they called him "Detroit Red."

289
00:22:31,856 --> 00:22:34,512
He had his hair crockonoed, "conked," you know.

290
00:22:34,512 --> 00:22:38,334
It was red and he had pictures of him and Billie Holiday

291
00:22:38,334 --> 00:22:46,367
and all these people at the time out there who were just being made known to the rest of the black world.

292
00:22:46,367 --> 00:22:54,704
Malcolm worked the kitchen crew on the New Haven Railroad between Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C.

293
00:22:54,704 --> 00:23:06,228
In 1942, he moved to Harlem and at age 17 began traveling in a world of after-hour clubs and small-time hustlers.

294
00:23:06,228 --> 00:23:08,522
He reached a point where he said,

295
00:23:08,522 --> 00:23:15,815
"You'll never make it on these janitor jobs and selling sandwiches on these trains and shining shoes and stuff like that."

296
00:23:15,815 --> 00:23:18,176
He says, "You never will get anywhere."

297
00:23:18,176 --> 00:23:22,878
Well, he had the reputation as being a hustler and he was a street person,

298
00:23:22,878 --> 00:23:25,012
but he wasn't a hustler.

299
00:23:25,012 --> 00:23:28,070
He was a con man, yeah, a con artist.

300
00:23:28,070 --> 00:23:30,741
They called him an artist.

301
00:23:30,741 --> 00:23:34,109
When the white folks came out at night and they wanted black women,

302
00:23:34,109 --> 00:23:35,463
he could arrange for them to get them.

303
00:23:35,463 --> 00:23:38,087
If they wanted bootleg whiskey, he knew where to get it.

304
00:23:38,087 --> 00:23:41,089
If they wanted drugs, he knew where to get it.

305
00:23:41,089 --> 00:23:45,954
He made it possible that he knew what they wanted and he knew where to get it

306
00:23:45,954 --> 00:23:49,423
and he would be in the middle where he could make a profit off of it.

307
00:23:49,423 --> 00:23:53,124
And this is the way he started doing.

308
00:23:53,124 --> 00:23:54,621
Looking back at that time,

309
00:23:54,621 --> 00:23:57,794
Malcolm said only three things worried him

310
00:23:57,794 --> 00:24:02,863
jail, a job and the Army.

311
00:24:02,863 --> 00:24:04,724
To avoid serving in World War II,

312
00:24:04,724 --> 00:24:10,840
he told his draft board that he wanted to organize black soldiers to kill whites.

313
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:17,939
He was judged unfit for the military.

314
00:24:17,939 --> 00:24:22,117
Malcolm's gambling and drugs and Harlem nightlife were expensive.

315
00:24:22,117 --> 00:24:26,560
He had already been arrested twice for petty crimes.

316
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:29,589
When he moved back to Boston in 1945,

317
00:24:29,589 --> 00:24:34,368
he organized a gang to burglarize homes of prominent families.

318
00:24:34,368 --> 00:24:37,969
The other gang members included his friend Malcolm Jarvis,

319
00:24:37,969 --> 00:24:42,848
his white girlfriend, Bea, and two other white women.

320
00:24:42,848 --> 00:24:47,204
This girl knew that these people were down in Florida at that time of the year,

321
00:24:47,204 --> 00:24:48,086
there was nobody home,

322
00:24:48,086 --> 00:24:52,649
so we broke into the house and we'd get some of their valuables and Malcolm would

323
00:24:52,649 --> 00:24:54,929
take most of the stuff and pawn it and get money

324
00:24:54,929 --> 00:24:56,589
for his gambling habit.

325
00:24:56,589 --> 00:25:00,000
After two weeks of doing this,

326
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,443
that's when the ??? when he made the mistake

327
00:25:02,443 --> 00:25:07,112
of going to the pawn shop to retrieve a watch worth over a thousand dollars that came out of

328
00:25:07,112 --> 00:25:13,170
one of the houses and that's when he was arrested by three policemen.

329
00:25:13,170 --> 00:25:19,034
Malcolm Little, Malcolm Jarvis and the three women were charged with breaking and entering.

330
00:25:19,034 --> 00:25:22,189
The fact that two black men were with white women became

331
00:25:22,189 --> 00:25:25,107
an issue in the court.

332
00:25:25,107 --> 00:25:32,351
Malcolm was definitely involved with two white women and this is what made the case so powerful.

333
00:25:32,351 --> 00:25:36,007
So outrageous.

334
00:25:36,007 --> 00:25:42,396
The women testified that Malcolm had forced them to participate in the burglaries.

335
00:25:42,396 --> 00:25:49,519
The two men received a maximum sentence: eight to ten years in state prison.

336
00:25:49,519 --> 00:25:53,694
When they sentenced us, I went out of my mind.

337
00:25:53,694 --> 00:25:58,140
I reached up and grabbed the bars of the cage and I shook them, almost shook them right up off the floor

338
00:25:58,140 --> 00:26:00,161
and I hollered at the judge and I said to him,

339
00:26:00,161 --> 00:26:03,675
"you might as well kill me as to give me ten years in jail."

340
00:26:03,675 --> 00:26:09,100
Well, I was what you call a mad negro, I was one.

341
00:26:09,100 --> 00:26:11,307
And I knew what I saw was real.

342
00:26:11,307 --> 00:26:12,895
???

343
00:26:12,895 --> 00:26:22,947
I knew that when they laughed all together, they were laughing, look what we did, we doing it to the negro.

344
00:26:22,947 --> 00:26:30,138
Then they had the unintimidated gall to ask the girls before they took them out of there to press charges

345
00:26:30,138 --> 00:26:36,421
against us for rape. The girls wouldn't do it.

346
00:26:36,421 --> 00:26:41,654
Malcolm Little was twenty years old, facing eight to ten years in state prison.

347
00:26:41,654 --> 00:26:47,324
He had wandered far from the Garvey pride and independence his parents had preached.

348
00:26:47,324 --> 00:26:56,346
He was now prisoner number 22843.

349
00:26:56,346 --> 00:27:01,696
To have once been a criminal is no disgrace.

350
00:27:01,696 --> 00:27:05,816
To remain a criminal is the disgrace.

351
00:27:05,816 --> 00:27:10,333
I formerly was a criminal. I formerly was in prison.

352
00:27:10,333 --> 00:27:15,243
I'm not ashamed of that. You never can use that over my head,

353
00:27:15,243 --> 00:27:19,423
and he's using the wrong stick. I don't feel that stick.

354
00:27:19,423 --> 00:27:26,560
[cheering and applause]

355
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:32,129
They charged Jesus with sedition. Didn't they do that?

356
00:27:32,129 --> 00:27:40,864
They said he was against Caesar. They said he was discriminating because he told his disciples

357
00:27:40,864 --> 00:27:49,453
"go not the way of the gentiles, but rather go to the lost sheep. Go to the people who don't know who they are,

358
00:27:49,453 --> 00:27:55,220
who are lost from the knowledge of themselves and who are strangers in a land that is not theirs. Go to those people. Go

359
00:27:55,220 --> 00:28:04,843
to the slaves. Go to the second-class citizens. Go to the ones who are suffering the brunt of Caesar's brutality."

360
00:28:04,843 --> 00:28:11,725
And if Jesus were here in America today, he wouldn't be going to the white man. The white man is the oppressor.

361
00:28:11,725 --> 00:28:17,449
He would be going to the oppressed. He would be going to the humble. He would be going to the lowly.

362
00:28:17,449 --> 00:28:20,473
He would be going to the rejected and the despised.

363
00:28:20,473 --> 00:28:35,042
He would be going to the so-called American negro.

364
00:28:35,042 --> 00:28:43,170
Behind prison walls, Malcolm hustled bets, fed his drug habit and argued against the existence of God.

365
00:28:43,170 --> 00:28:47,138
The men in the cellblock called him Satan.

366
00:28:47,138 --> 00:28:56,405
But at the same time, encouraged by an older black inmate, Malcolm began reading and taking English courses.

367
00:28:56,405 --> 00:29:06,945
Malcolm described vividly prison life that he was in effect lonely and limited, but had plans for

368
00:29:06,945 --> 00:29:12,654
he was going to do a lot of reading and he certainly

369
00:29:12,654 --> 00:29:14,426
did a lot of writing.

370
00:29:14,426 --> 00:29:20,799
Because I think there were times when he probably wrote to me every week.

371
00:29:20,799 --> 00:29:26,051
During the second year in prison, his brothers and sisters wrote to him about what they called

372
00:29:26,051 --> 00:29:29,330
the natural religion for the black man,

373
00:29:29,330 --> 00:29:35,808
a religion that taught that black people were the original people, that God was black and

374
00:29:35,808 --> 00:29:38,596
was called Allah.

375
00:29:38,596 --> 00:29:43,432
They told Malcolm they were now a part of the Nation of Islam, followers of the honorable

376
00:29:43,432 --> 00:29:49,172
Elijah Mohammad, the messenger of Allah.

377
00:29:49,172 --> 00:29:58,522
I think Islam is one of the greatest religions of all time for our people in America. The so-called American

378
00:29:58,522 --> 00:30:12,679
negro have to be completely reeducated and Islam gives them that qualification, that he can feel proud and

379
00:30:12,679 --> 00:30:18,749
does not feel ashamed to be called a black man.

380
00:30:18,749 --> 00:30:25,953
I came into the Muslim movement in 1947 and, um

381
00:30:25,953 --> 00:30:29,787
then started bringing my brothers and sisters in.

382
00:30:29,787 --> 00:30:34,974
When we already had been indoctrinated with Marcus Garvey's philosophy, so they didn't

383
00:30:34,974 --> 00:30:39,043
have anything to do with convincing us that we were black

384
00:30:39,043 --> 00:30:40,621
and should be proud.

385
00:30:40,621 --> 00:30:43,987
We were already that when we came in.

386
00:30:43,987 --> 00:30:47,373
So I wrote to Malcolm and told him about...

387
00:30:47,373 --> 00:30:54,109
I said to him if he would believe in Allah that he would get out of prison. And that's all I wrote because I know

388
00:30:54,109 --> 00:31:01,061
he had very low tolerance for religion and I didn't intend to lose that tolerance.

389
00:31:01,061 --> 00:31:05,752
Malcolm's brothers and sisters wrote the young prisoner that black people in America

390
00:31:05,752 --> 00:31:11,545
were part of a lost tribe, soon to be delivered out of bondage.

391
00:31:11,545 --> 00:31:17,888
And that whites, according to Elijah Mohammad, were a race of devils whose domination on Earth was

392
00:31:17,888 --> 00:31:21,371
about to end.

393
00:31:21,371 --> 00:31:27,778
At first, he liked every bit of it, except one thing he couldn't understand and that was the part they were teaching

394
00:31:27,778 --> 00:31:31,258
about the white man being the devil.

395
00:31:31,258 --> 00:31:33,874
Malcolm wrote to Elijah Mohammad. Elijah Mohammad

396
00:31:33,874 --> 00:31:38,692
answered and when he answered, he would cite a portion of scripture.

397
00:31:38,692 --> 00:31:46,984
And then he gave him the key. He said the key... the Bible is the book that everything that takes place in that Bible

398
00:31:46,984 --> 00:31:48,392
is on this Earth.

399
00:31:48,392 --> 00:31:53,875
So you don't have to die to go to hell, you can catch hell while you're living. And the white man is the one that's

400
00:31:53,875 --> 00:32:01,359
putting that hell on you. Well, that's a very convincing teaching, especially when you're using the white

401
00:32:01,359 --> 00:32:05,383
man's history to corroborate this.

402
00:32:05,383 --> 00:32:13,663
Malcolm began reading history, philosophy and religion. The writings of W.E.B Du Bois,

403
00:32:13,663 --> 00:32:21,889
Shakespeare, Socrates, the fables of Aesop, the lives of Gandhi and Nat Turner.

404
00:32:21,889 --> 00:32:29,609
And he finds all this history of how white Christians lynched black Christians, white Christians were the ones who were

405
00:32:29,609 --> 00:32:33,499
involved in the slave trade -- those were Christians.

406
00:32:33,499 --> 00:32:40,123
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

407
00:32:40,123 --> 00:32:50,200
on this earth, it has to be the white man.

408
00:32:50,200 --> 00:33:00,324
Elijah Mohammad told Malcolm to submit to Allah. But for Malcolm, submission would always be difficult.

409
00:33:00,324 --> 00:33:11,387
It took a week before he could force himself to bow in prayer.

410
00:33:11,387 --> 00:33:17,629
Later, to help spread the teachings of Elijah Mohammad, Malcolm joined the prison debate team, competing

411
00:33:17,629 --> 00:33:22,846
against visiting college teams from Harvard and MIT.

412
00:33:22,846 --> 00:33:25,910
That's when Malcolm's name and fame started spreading

413
00:33:25,910 --> 00:33:28,664
amongst the prison population. And that's when the

414
00:33:28,664 --> 00:33:31,905
population started to grow at the debating classes. Most of

415
00:33:31,905 --> 00:33:36,330
the fellows used to come over out of curiosity just to hear him speak.

416
00:33:36,330 --> 00:33:43,810
In 1950, Malcolm wrote to the governor demanding the right to practice the Muslim religion in prison.

417
00:33:43,810 --> 00:33:53,458
His letters would later end up in FBI files. The Bureau had been keeping a close watch on the nation of Islam since

418
00:33:53,458 --> 00:34:02,554
the late 1930s. Malcolm, considered a troublemaker, was denied an early parole.

419
00:34:02,554 --> 00:34:09,667
He was not eligible to be let out at that time because he'd be a threat to society.

420
00:34:09,667 --> 00:34:16,810
They considered him dangerous, knowledge-wise and otherwise, religious-wise. He would've been like a

421
00:34:16,810 --> 00:34:22,600
rotten apple in the barrel of a thousand. He was gonna spoil many.

422
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:33,250
On August 7, 1952, after six and a half years in prison, Malcolm was released. Within a month, he was accepted into

423
00:34:33,250 --> 00:34:41,781
the Nation of Islam. Malcolm Little had become Malcolm X.

424
00:34:41,781 --> 00:34:45,265
How did you happen to join the Muslim movement?

425
00:34:45,265 --> 00:34:54,536
I was in prison. I was a very wayward criminal, backward, illiterate, uneducated, whatever other negative characteristics you can think of...

426
00:34:54,536 --> 00:35:01,121
type of person until I heard the teachings of the honorable Elijah Mohammad. And because of the impact that it had

427
00:35:01,121 --> 00:35:08,334
upon me in giving me a desire to reform myself and rehabilitate myself for the first time in my life. And also being

428
00:35:08,334 --> 00:35:15,440
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

429
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:21,363
the religious teachings of the honorable Elijah Mohammad, immediately, it instilled within me such a high degree of racial

430
00:35:21,363 --> 00:35:28,250
pride and racial dignity that I wanted to be somebody and I realized that I couldn't be anybody by begging the white man

431
00:35:28,250 --> 00:35:35,328
for what he had, but that I had to get out here and try and do something for myself or make something out of myself.

432
00:35:35,328 --> 00:35:47,570
The first time I recall seeing Malcolm was at the home of my father, Elijah Mohammad. I saw a thin man, tall man, young

433
00:35:47,570 --> 00:35:54,574
man, reddish face. If he was just meeting you, the first thing you would get from him is a smile.

434
00:35:54,574 --> 00:35:58,000
He said "this is Wallace" and I smiled

435
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:05,262
at him, I was happy to see him because I had heard about him too and he said the messenger's son, the messenger's son.

436
00:36:05,262 --> 00:36:12,009
And he was just so excited about the messenger, really, it wasn't just seeing Wallace. It was seeing the

437
00:36:12,009 --> 00:36:14,584
messenger's son.

438
00:36:14,584 --> 00:36:20,067
When Malcolm came out, he was full of fire. He had gotten so full of fire that he got out at the right time and the right

439
00:36:20,067 --> 00:36:28,442
place so he could expound. He came to Detroit, he was surprised to find there were such few people in this powerful teaching in his mind.

440
00:36:28,442 --> 00:36:34,742
And he says, "I'm surprised that you are sitting here and so many empty seats." He said "every time you come out here,"

441
00:36:34,742 --> 00:36:37,152
he said "this place should be full."

442
00:36:37,152 --> 00:36:40,706
And that excited the honorable Elijah Mohammad.

443
00:36:40,706 --> 00:36:48,490
In the early 1950s, the Nation of Islam was unknown in most black communities. Total membership was believed to be

444
00:36:48,490 --> 00:36:51,373
no more than four hundred people.

445
00:36:51,373 --> 00:36:56,144
Malcolm was sent on the road to spread the message.

446
00:36:56,144 --> 00:37:04,685
Within two years, he helped organize temples in Boston, Hartford and Philadelphia.

447
00:37:04,685 --> 00:37:11,223
Elijah Mohammad then named Malcolm minister of the most important temple on the East Coast,

448
00:37:11,223 --> 00:37:15,430
Harlem's temple number seven.

449
00:37:15,430 --> 00:37:18,805
Mr. Mohammad knew that Malcolm had the experience and

450
00:37:18,805 --> 00:37:23,742
he knew New York and he also knew that he was the kind

451
00:37:23,742 --> 00:37:33,103
of man, complexion, height, speech and carriage, all has to be taken into consideration when you select a man

452
00:37:33,103 --> 00:37:37,862
to send before the people. Plus, this is an international city.

453
00:37:37,862 --> 00:37:42,037
You got to have your best in New York and this is why

454
00:37:42,037 --> 00:37:46,872
Mr. Mohammad selected him.

455
00:37:46,872 --> 00:37:50,062
[soft applause]

456
00:37:50,062 --> 00:37:56,507
In 1955, when Elijah Mohammad visited the New York temple, it was to inspect the work of the

457
00:37:56,507 --> 00:38:09,033
ambitious and outspoken young minister who had transformed tiny storefronts along the East Coast into a congregation of thousands.

458
00:38:09,033 --> 00:38:19,131
Malcolm X and Elijah Mohammad's message made a whole lot of people feel whole again, human being again,

459
00:38:19,131 --> 00:38:24,005
some of them came out and found a new meaning to their

460
00:38:24,005 --> 00:38:28,174
manhood and their womanhood. Had Elijah Mohammad

461
00:38:28,174 --> 00:38:40,536
tried to introduce an orthodox form of Arab-oriented Islam, I doubt if he would have attracted five hundred people.

462
00:38:40,536 --> 00:38:52,090
But he introduced a form of Islam that could communicate with the people he had to deal with.

463
00:38:52,090 --> 00:39:01,330
He was the king to those who had no king and he was the messiah to those some people thought unworthy

464
00:39:01,330 --> 00:39:07,639
of a messiah.

465
00:39:07,639 --> 00:39:14,318
The teachings of ??? honorable Elijah Mohammad is like nothing I have ever taken, it's a medicine.

466
00:39:14,318 --> 00:39:15,301
Right, that's right.

467
00:39:15,301 --> 00:39:18,261
You're seeing the medicine that has cured me of all my ills.

468
00:39:18,261 --> 00:39:19,046
That's right.

469
00:39:19,046 --> 00:39:21,253
'Cause I was a sick man.

470
00:39:21,253 --> 00:39:25,649
And when I embraced the teachings of the honorable Elijah Mohammad, these teachings cured me of these ills.

471
00:39:25,649 --> 00:39:28,102
I'm a well man now. And I feel good.

472
00:39:28,102 --> 00:39:32,213
That's right, as long as you stay with the doctor, you'll continue to feel good.

473
00:39:32,213 --> 00:39:34,328
Yes sir.

474
00:39:34,328 --> 00:39:36,295
What about you, brother? How do you feel about the honorable Elijah Mohammad?

475
00:39:36,295 --> 00:39:44,496
Honorable Elijah Mohammad is trying to teach all our original people they are in bad shape. Honorable Elijah

476
00:39:44,496 --> 00:39:46,801
Mohammad trying to wake 'em up.

477
00:39:46,801 --> 00:39:50,123
[music]

478
00:39:50,123 --> 00:39:54,021
Inside Muslim temples, no white people were allowed.

479
00:39:54,021 --> 00:40:06,668
Members worked to build a self-sufficient community founded on strict rules and absolute obedience.

480
00:40:06,668 --> 00:40:14,412
The Nation set up Muslim schools for its children, teaching mathematics, science, history and Arabic.

481
00:40:14,412 --> 00:40:20,773
[all in chorus] We're the original man. The original man is the ??? black man.

482
00:40:20,773 --> 00:40:27,796
[indistinct] on the Planet Earth.

483
00:40:27,796 --> 00:40:34,872
Muslim women studied nutrition, child-rearing and guidelines on how to care for their husbands.

484
00:40:34,872 --> 00:40:46,309
Muslim men studied parental responsibility, history and religion.

485
00:40:46,309 --> 00:40:54,028
The elite corps, called the Fruit of Islam, was trained in hand-to-hand combat and was expected to protect

486
00:40:54,028 --> 00:41:01,893
the temples and to punish any members who spoke out against the messenger.

487
00:41:01,893 --> 00:41:08,072
I was surprised when I went into some... a couple of the Muslim families. The faith that they had

488
00:41:08,072 --> 00:41:17,591
in Elijah Mohammad and in Malcolm... I asked one father, I said, "suppose your son came home one day and told you

489
00:41:17,591 --> 00:41:20,612
that he was renouncing the Muslim religion?"

490
00:41:20,612 --> 00:41:25,823
And he said "I would turn him from my door. I would never allow him in again."

491
00:41:25,823 --> 00:41:30,982
So I asked Malcolm about that. He says, "he meant it. And he would do it."

492
00:41:30,982 --> 00:41:35,401
I says, "not worry about what happened to his son?"

493
00:41:35,401 --> 00:41:43,835
"No, he wouldn't worry about what happened to him. His allegiance is with Elijah Mohammad."

494
00:41:43,835 --> 00:41:51,191
To help expand the Nation of Islam, Malcolm created a newspaper, Muhammad Speaks,

495
00:41:51,191 --> 00:41:56,453
and persuaded other black newspapers to carry the messenger's weekly column.

496
00:41:56,453 --> 00:42:04,233
His strength was, once he believed in a thing, he would give everything he had to it, all of his energies.

497
00:42:04,233 --> 00:42:06,976
He'd work, he would become a workaholic.

498
00:42:06,976 --> 00:42:09,127
He worked day and night for it.

499
00:42:09,127 --> 00:42:16,147
He only required around four hours' sleep and many times wouldn't get that. And you just kind of wonder

500
00:42:16,147 --> 00:42:19,631
how can anybody keep up that kind of a pace? But he did it,

501
00:42:19,631 --> 00:42:27,343
day in and day out. Plus on top of that, he's reading. He's reading papers, keeping up what the news is,

502
00:42:27,343 --> 00:42:34,289
he's just a person that's tuned into life in such a way that

503
00:42:34,289 --> 00:42:38,988
he doesn't miss too much of it.

504
00:42:38,988 --> 00:42:46,478
At age 32, after devoting five years to building the Nation, he sought the approval of Elijah Mohammad to marry

505
00:42:46,478 --> 00:42:53,282
sister Betty X, a college-educated member of Harlem's temple number seven.

506
00:42:53,282 --> 00:43:02,889
In the years that followed, the demands of his ministry allowed little time for his growing family.

507
00:43:02,889 --> 00:43:14,438
He sometimes, if I could catch him, would have to read to the children. They would always want the story read again

508
00:43:14,438 --> 00:43:21,289
so that they would really just wait until he was on the last page and say "read it again."

509
00:43:21,289 --> 00:43:29,169
"Read it again, read it again," you know, and so that he started giving the books different endings.

510
00:43:29,169 --> 00:43:38,276
He had a beautiful sense of humor, especially when he was kidding me about pork and whacking me on the back

511
00:43:38,276 --> 00:43:48,586
and saying that "you're a decent human being, smart historian, I'm going to give you 99 as a human being and

512
00:43:48,586 --> 00:43:54,191
you stop eating pork I'm going to give you 100."

513
00:43:54,191 --> 00:44:02,371
Had a beautiful sense of humor, plus the fact that when you got to know him, he was kind of shy.

514
00:44:02,371 --> 00:44:07,135
[jazzy music]

515
00:44:07,135 --> 00:44:11,318
Malcolm was now in the Nation of Islam's inner circle,

516
00:44:11,318 --> 00:44:15,432
Elijah Muhammad's most visible representative.

517
00:44:15,432 --> 00:44:18,406
He had the Messenger's confidence, and the loyalty

518
00:44:18,406 --> 00:44:21,174
of thousands of Muslims.

519
00:44:21,174 --> 00:44:24,603
In a sense, Malcolm had found a father.

520
00:44:24,603 --> 00:44:30,485
Elijah Muhammad had found another son.

521
00:44:30,485 --> 00:44:33,752
[faint sirens]

522
00:44:33,752 --> 00:44:36,801
On an April night in 1957,

523
00:44:36,801 --> 00:44:40,761
a Muslim Brother was beaten by New York City police.

524
00:44:40,761 --> 00:44:45,099
His skull fractured, Johnson Hinton lay in a back room

525
00:44:45,099 --> 00:44:47,701
of a Harlem police station.

526
00:44:47,701 --> 00:44:50,436
When word spread that Hinton was dying,

527
00:44:50,436 --> 00:44:54,367
Malcolm ordered the Muslims into the streets.

528
00:44:54,367 --> 00:44:58,331
Other Harlem residents joined them.

529
00:44:58,331 --> 00:45:05,905
The community had endured a long history of police brutality;

530
00:45:05,905 --> 00:45:10,410
many considered the police an occupying force.

531
00:45:10,410 --> 00:45:16,480
28th Precinct was notorious for their prejudice.

532
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:19,253
Naturally, when the people saw us come out there,

533
00:45:19,253 --> 00:45:23,689
that was the first time that anyone had marched

534
00:45:23,689 --> 00:45:26,255
on the 28th Precinct in protest of something

535
00:45:26,255 --> 00:45:28,724
that they felt that wasn't right.

536
00:45:28,724 --> 00:45:32,367
I don't know what would have happened in Harlem

537
00:45:32,367 --> 00:45:36,118
that night, because the atmosphere was not . . .

538
00:45:36,118 --> 00:45:39,788
It was, I think the word they use is "charged"?

539
00:45:39,788 --> 00:45:43,206
Well, this atmosphere was explosive.

540
00:45:43,206 --> 00:45:46,089
Malcolm demanded medical treatment for Hinton.

541
00:45:46,089 --> 00:45:49,167
After a long negotiation, police agreed

542
00:45:49,167 --> 00:45:52,786
to send the prisoner to Harlem Hospital.

543
00:45:52,786 --> 00:45:56,867
But even then, the Muslims refused to disperse.

544
00:45:56,867 --> 00:46:02,845
There's a sergeant - he came out and tried to chase the Muslims

545
00:46:02,845 --> 00:46:05,053
who were standing across the street.

546
00:46:05,053 --> 00:46:07,389
And Malcolm came out and told him, "You can't do that."

547
00:46:07,389 --> 00:46:09,874
He said, "They're not gonna move for you."

548
00:46:09,874 --> 00:46:12,768
Malcolm said: "I'll get rid of...I'll send them away".

549
00:46:12,768 --> 00:46:17,153
He went out to the front of the station on the first step and he just waived his hand

550
00:46:17,153 --> 00:46:21,492
and the people walked away.

551
00:46:21,492 --> 00:46:25,418
A police commissioner on the scene, remarked

552
00:46:25,418 --> 00:46:29,657
"That's too much power for one man to have!"

553
00:46:29,657 --> 00:46:38,514
Malcolm will later take New york City to court and win the largest police brutality settlement in the city's history.

554
00:46:38,514 --> 00:46:48,622
They realized that anytime a person could wave his hand and have a large number of people automatically move away

555
00:46:48,622 --> 00:46:53,662
without any conversation, that by the same token that the same man

556
00:46:53,662 --> 00:46:59,687
could wave his hand and those people to create some kind of disturbance if he wanted to.

557
00:46:59,687 --> 00:47:02,446
I believe from that point on the police department and

558
00:47:02,446 --> 00:47:06,828
and the political people in New York City began to realize

559
00:47:06,828 --> 00:47:11,735
they had a significant force in the city to deal with.

560
00:47:11,735 --> 00:47:19,774
Good evening, I'm Mike Wallace. Last week on Newsbeat,

561
00:47:19,774 --> 00:47:25,153
our 6:30 news program here on Channel 13, we presented a five-part series which we called

562
00:47:25,153 --> 00:47:30,298
"The Hate That Hate Produced," a study of the rise of black racism,

563
00:47:30,298 --> 00:47:36,166
of a call for black supremacy among a small but growing segment of the American Negro population.

564
00:47:36,166 --> 00:47:43,507
MALCOLM X: "We have come to hear and to see the greatest and the wisest and most..."

565
00:47:43,507 --> 00:47:50,580
This 1959 documentary was the first television portrayal of the internal activities of the Nation of Islam.

566
00:47:50,580 --> 00:47:53,986
Malcolm saw the television program as an opportunity.

567
00:47:53,986 --> 00:47:57,513
Elijah Muhammad was against it.

568
00:47:57,513 --> 00:48:01,563
Mr. Muhammad told Malcolm no, it wasn't going to do any good.

569
00:48:01,563 --> 00:48:04,215
All it would do is hurt us, in our work, in what we were trying to do.

570
00:48:04,215 --> 00:48:08,426
Malcolm wasn't satisfied.

571
00:48:08,426 --> 00:48:15,053
He didn't insist, but he continued to ask Mr. Muhammad

572
00:48:15,053 --> 00:48:20,963
could he do it. Mr. Muhammad reluctantly agreed.

573
00:48:20,963 --> 00:48:26,458
MALCOLM X: "I charge the white man with being the greatest liar on earth.

574
00:48:26,458 --> 00:48:30,271
I charge the white man, ladies and gentleman of the jury,

575
00:48:30,271 --> 00:48:32,931
with being the greatest murderer on the earth.

576
00:48:32,931 --> 00:48:37,116
I have charged the white man with being the greatest adulterer on earth."

577
00:48:37,116 --> 00:48:39,817
Here was the auditorium overflowing -

578
00:48:39,817 --> 00:48:42,999
thousands of people -- about an organization

579
00:48:42,999 --> 00:48:46,503
I knew nothing about?

580
00:48:46,503 --> 00:48:50,032
I found it difficult to credit when I saw it.

581
00:48:50,032 --> 00:48:52,225
And of course, when we put it on the air,

582
00:48:52,225 --> 00:48:58,297
New Yorkers -- 'cause that's all who saw it -we’re stunned that this...

583
00:48:58,297 --> 00:49:01,211
-- there was this organization, the Black Muslims, about which

584
00:49:01,211 --> 00:49:05,002
white New Yorkers simply knew nothing!

585
00:49:05,002 --> 00:49:08,966
Minister Malcolm X as he addressed a non-Muslim audience.

586
00:49:08,966 --> 00:49:18,923
MALCOLM X: "How could so few white people rule so many black people?

587
00:49:18,923 --> 00:49:21,436
This is the thing you should want to know.

588
00:49:21,436 --> 00:49:27,821
How could so few -- the white man today will tell you that thousands of years ago

589
00:49:27,821 --> 00:49:31,309
the black man in Africa was living in palaces,

590
00:49:31,309 --> 00:49:34,441
the black man was wearing silk,

591
00:49:34,441 --> 00:49:38,598
the black man in Africa was cooking and seasoning his food.

592
00:49:38,598 --> 00:49:42,500
The black man in Africa had mastered the arts and sciences.

593
00:49:42,500 --> 00:49:45,497
He knew the course of the stars in the universe

594
00:49:45,497 --> 00:49:49,515
before the man up in Europe knew that the earth wasn't flat.

595
00:49:49,515 --> 00:49:51,462
Is that right or wrong?"

596
00:49:51,462 --> 00:49:56,654
I was amazed at his capacity to communicate

597
00:49:56,654 --> 00:49:59,566
and at the naked honesty with which

598
00:49:59,566 --> 00:50:02,301
he expressed his feelings about black people, about white people.

599
00:50:02,301 --> 00:50:05,993
He scared me - I'm sure he intended to -

600
00:50:05,993 --> 00:50:10,203
but certainly after I saw him in "The Hate That Hate Produced",

601
00:50:10,203 --> 00:50:14,080
I know that- I knew that I would never forget this man.

602
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:20,558
When I first saw Malcolm on a television, he scared me also.

603
00:50:20,558 --> 00:50:23,323
Immediately the family said, "Turn off that television.

604
00:50:23,323 --> 00:50:26,848
That man is saying stuff you ain't supposed to hear,"

605
00:50:26,848 --> 00:50:29,426
so of course we did!

606
00:50:29,426 --> 00:50:33,264
But always-- you know when the sun comes in the window

607
00:50:33,264 --> 00:50:37,924
and you kind of jump up to get it, to close the blinds or pull down the shade,

608
00:50:37,924 --> 00:50:41,003
but before you do that, the sun comes in?

609
00:50:41,003 --> 00:50:45,895
Well, before each time we'd turn the television off, a little sun came in.

610
00:50:45,895 --> 00:50:51,031
While the documentary helped bring in new converts,

611
00:50:51,031 --> 00:50:55,429
the racial views of the Nation of Islam shocked white America

612
00:50:55,429 --> 00:50:58,659
and many in the black community.

613
00:50:58,659 --> 00:51:09,725
Preaching of racial hatred and racial advantage and the bigotry involved is a bad thing whether it's colored or white.

614
00:51:09,725 --> 00:51:13,219
For years, the NAACP has been opposed

615
00:51:13,219 --> 00:51:17,707
to white extremists preaching hatred of Negro people

616
00:51:17,707 --> 00:51:21,584
and we are equally opposed to Negro extremists

617
00:51:21,584 --> 00:51:26,721
preaching against white people simply for the sake of whiteness.

618
00:51:26,721 --> 00:51:29,553
Most in the civil rights movement believed that

619
00:51:29,553 --> 00:51:34,972
integration was the way to solve America's racial problems,

620
00:51:34,972 --> 00:51:37,181
but Malcolm preached that black people

621
00:51:37,181 --> 00:51:42,626
were able to solve their own problems without the help of whites.

622
00:51:42,626 --> 00:51:49,448
At a time when black Americans began identifying with freedom movements in Africa and Latin America,

623
00:51:49,448 --> 00:51:55,675
Malcolm developed alliances with revolutionary leaders from around the world.

624
00:51:55,675 --> 00:52:03,821
He encouraged black Americans to see themselves not as a minority but as a part of a world majority.

625
00:52:03,821 --> 00:52:08,785
The rise of African nations

626
00:52:08,785 --> 00:52:18,316
concurrent with the spread of the Nation of Islam and the civil rights movement

627
00:52:18,316 --> 00:52:24,772
gave black America a burst of pride over and above

628
00:52:24,772 --> 00:52:32,293
anything they had had since the decline of the movement of Marcus Garvey.

629
00:53:03,628 --> 00:53:06,063
MALCOLM X: "They're passing the basket through the crowd

630
00:53:06,063 --> 00:53:09,878
and I think everybody standing here should put one dollar in that basket.

631
00:53:09,878 --> 00:53:12,041
Don't you think you should? Sure!

632
00:53:12,041 --> 00:53:14,374
These are freedom dollars, Brother!

633
00:53:14,374 --> 00:53:16,575
We're not asking you to give us some money to make us rich.

634
00:53:16,575 --> 00:53:24,032
We put our businesses-- the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has set up more businesses than any black man in America".

635
00:53:24,032 --> 00:53:27,290
The Nation of Islam, with its interlocking corporations

636
00:53:27,290 --> 00:53:32,444
was now reputed to be the largest black-owned business empire in the United States.

637
00:53:32,444 --> 00:53:38,537
The Nation of Islam, during the early '60s,

638
00:53:38,537 --> 00:53:42,731
was perhaps enjoying its best days.

639
00:53:42,731 --> 00:53:46,160
We were opening restaurants and grocery stores

640
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:49,999
and seeing Muhammad SPEAKS paper compete with other black papers.

641
00:53:49,999 --> 00:53:54,314
We were seeing Malcolm on television kind of frequently.

642
00:53:54,314 --> 00:54:00,246
We were proud of him. In our opinion, he was doing an excellent job of representing

643
00:54:00,246 --> 00:54:04,066
the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.

644
00:54:04,066 --> 00:54:06,802
We were seeing the Fruit of Islam now

645
00:54:06,802 --> 00:54:11,563
not just going through exercises in some small facilities,

646
00:54:11,563 --> 00:54:14,162
but we were seeing them in great numbers,

647
00:54:14,162 --> 00:54:21,815
hundreds of them on the streets of big cities like Chicago and New York and Los Angeles.

648
00:54:21,815 --> 00:54:29,774
My view of the Fruit of Islam was that these were the absolute baddest, cleanest brothers I had ever seen in my life.

649
00:54:29,774 --> 00:54:32,376
There was some bad blood, you know what I'm saying?

650
00:54:32,376 --> 00:54:38,383
I mean, you did not mess with the FOI! When they came out on the street, people would say, "Uh, er, yes, sir, uh-huh."

651
00:54:38,383 --> 00:54:43,365
The growing presence of the Fruit of Islam attracted police attention.

652
00:54:43,365 --> 00:54:48,348
There were increasing numbers of confrontations and arrests.

653
00:54:48,348 --> 00:54:53,831
Malcolm warned that members of the FOI would always obey the law,

654
00:54:53,831 --> 00:54:58,044
but would also defend themselves if attacked.

655
00:54:58,044 --> 00:55:05,695
In cities across America, police agencies were determined to contain the Black Muslims.

656
00:55:05,695 --> 00:55:13,564
It was only a matter of time before the two forces would again collide.

657
00:55:13,564 --> 00:55:19,766
Los Angeles, California

658
00:55:19,766 --> 00:55:31,077
On a spring night in 1962, another confrontation.

659
00:55:31,077 --> 00:55:37,292
It began as a stop-and-search of Muslim men delivering dry cleaning.

660
00:55:37,292 --> 00:55:42,937
It ended with a full police assault on the Muslim temple.

661
00:55:42,937 --> 00:55:49,839
This time eight men were shot, one police officer and seven Muslims.

662
00:55:49,839 --> 00:55:54,802
Temple secretary Ronald Stokes was dead at the scene.

663
00:55:54,802 --> 00:56:03,014
I arrived at the mosque in Los Angeles after the shooting took place,

664
00:56:03,014 --> 00:56:07,303
and there was great sadness amongst the people, you know...

665
00:56:07,303 --> 00:56:11,095
Malcolm was walking back and forth, shaking his head saying

666
00:56:11,095 --> 00:56:12,976
"They're going to pay for it, they're going to pay for it,

667
00:56:12,976 --> 00:56:16,584
they're going to pay for it, they're going to pay for it!"

668
00:56:16,584 --> 00:56:21,959
If anyone breaks into our temples, we were to defend the temple with our life.

669
00:56:21,959 --> 00:56:26,629
The temple is sacred and those brothers, they acted on what they were taught.

670
00:56:26,629 --> 00:56:33,606
And I'm sure that anyone seeing police break into a church would be outraged.

671
00:56:33,606 --> 00:56:35,102
Mayor SAM YORTY, Los Angeles:

672
00:56:35,102 --> 00:56:37,891
"This didn't come as a great surprise to us, the fact that

673
00:56:37,891 --> 00:56:45,027
they would resist our police officers and cause trouble because we have been watching this group for a long time

674
00:56:45,027 --> 00:56:50,940
and I think Chief Parker warned some time ago that we might have trouble with them."

675
00:56:50,940 --> 00:56:56,800
The Los Angeles Times reported the incident as a Muslim riot and "a wild gunfight",

676
00:56:56,800 --> 00:57:05,144
but it was never proven that any of the guns fired belonged to the Muslims.

677
00:57:05,144 --> 00:57:11,188
Malcolm called for churches and civil rights organizations to form a united front

678
00:57:11,188 --> 00:57:17,430
with the Muslims against police brutality.

679
00:57:17,430 --> 00:57:22,718
MALCOLM X: Let us remember that we are not brutalized because we are Baptists.

680
00:57:22,718 --> 00:57:25,733
We're not brutalized because we are Methodists.

681
00:57:25,733 --> 00:57:28,524
We're not brutalized because we're Muslims.

682
00:57:28,524 --> 00:57:31,963
We're not brutalized because we are Catholics.

683
00:57:31,963 --> 00:57:40,522
We're brutalized because we are black people in America."

684
00:57:40,522 --> 00:57:43,823
I'm telling you they came out of those cars

685
00:57:43,823 --> 00:57:47,383
and we have enough witnesses to hang them

686
00:57:47,383 --> 00:57:49,669
with their guns smoking.

687
00:57:49,669 --> 00:57:52,466
Chief Parker knows this, Mayor Yorty knows this

688
00:57:52,466 --> 00:57:56,336
and every police official in the city knows that!

689
00:57:56,336 --> 00:57:59,329
They didn't fire now warning shots in the air.

690
00:57:59,329 --> 00:58:10,522
They fired warning shots point-blank at innocent, unarmed defenseless Negroes.

691
00:58:10,522 --> 00:58:16,257
As I say two of the brothers were shot in the back.

692
00:58:16,257 --> 00:58:22,361
Another was shot in the shoulder.

693
00:58:22,361 --> 00:58:25,850
Another was shot- two of them were shot -

694
00:58:25,850 --> 00:58:32,334
excuse the expression -- through the penis.

695
00:58:32,334 --> 00:58:37,138
Let me tell you something and I'll tell you why you say

696
00:58:37,138 --> 00:58:40,153
we hate white people. We don't hate anybody.

697
00:58:40,153 --> 00:58:48,237
We love our people so much they think we hate the ones who are inflicting injustice against them."

698
00:58:48,237 --> 00:59:03,191
Patrolman Donald Weese, the officer who killed Ronald Stokes, testified

699
00:59:03,191 --> 00:59:10,602
that he knew Stokes was unarmed, but that Stokes had raised his hands in a menacing way.

700
00:59:10,602 --> 00:59:19,687
The all-white coroner's jury deliberated 23 minutes and found the death a justifiable homicide.

701
00:59:19,687 --> 00:59:24,918
Fourteen Muslims were then ordered to stand trial on assault charges.

702
00:59:24,918 --> 00:59:30,889
Eleven would be found guilty and sentenced to prison.

703
00:59:30,889 --> 00:59:33,782
We were people that said, "Never be the aggressor,

704
00:59:33,782 --> 00:59:38,691
but if someone attack you, we do not teach you to turn the other cheek."

705
00:59:38,691 --> 00:59:42,293
There were Muslims who were not from the East Coast,

706
00:59:42,293 --> 00:59:47,942
but from other parts of the country that was actually ready to go out there

707
00:59:47,942 --> 00:59:53,127
and kill those police officers,

708
00:59:53,127 --> 00:59:58,344
even though they may have been killed in the process of doing it.

709
00:59:58,344 --> 01:00:13,467
But that's how strong the attitude of Muslims was against those brothers just being shot like that.

710
01:00:13,467 --> 01:00:19,303
The conflict at the Los Angeles mosque brought to the surface

711
01:00:19,303 --> 01:00:24,405
the growing differences between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad.

712
01:00:24,405 --> 01:00:29,009
The Messenger insisted Allah would avenge Stokes' death,

713
01:00:29,009 --> 01:00:33,490
but Malcolm demanded justice in the courts.

714
01:00:33,490 --> 01:00:35,722
MALCOLM X: If it were possible for them to get a fair trial,

715
01:00:35,722 --> 01:00:38,250
there would be no necessity for trial at all.

716
01:00:38,250 --> 01:00:40,304
These are the victims of police bullets,

717
01:00:40,304 --> 01:00:43,196
and you don't take the victim in court as a criminal.

718
01:00:43,196 --> 01:00:45,624
You take the one shot the victim in court.

719
01:00:45,624 --> 01:00:49,986
And it is the police who should be on trial here in Los Angeles."

720
01:00:49,986 --> 01:00:54,859
Malcolm began to talk less and less about God was going to get rid of the Caucasians

721
01:00:54,859 --> 01:00:57,412
and he began to talk about how we was going to be able to

722
01:00:57,412 --> 01:01:01,039
bring them to justice and make them guilty and that,

723
01:01:01,039 --> 01:01:05,458
"They are guilty according to the law of the land," which was not our argument at all.

724
01:01:05,458 --> 01:01:08,963
Our argument was that we were a divine people and that we would be protected

725
01:01:08,963 --> 01:01:12,443
and finally delivered, put in the seat of authority by Allah.

726
01:01:12,443 --> 01:01:15,505
That was our teaching at that time!

727
01:01:15,505 --> 01:01:19,021
To avoid further confrontations with city authorities,

728
01:01:19,021 --> 01:01:24,129
Elijah Muhammad summoned Malcolm to a meeting at the Messenger's home.

729
01:01:24,129 --> 01:01:27,381
And Elijah Muhammad told him very definitely,

730
01:01:27,381 --> 01:01:33,287
"If you had reacted the way you should have reacted,

731
01:01:33,287 --> 01:01:39,937
if you had more faith in Allah, Ronald Stokes would be alive."

732
01:01:39,937 --> 01:01:41,378
And that was it.

733
01:01:41,378 --> 01:01:44,504
He really gave him enough upbraiding.

734
01:01:44,504 --> 01:01:48,082
And Malcolm said nothing about it, "Well, there was nothing we could do,"

735
01:01:48,082 --> 01:01:52,633
or anything of that sort. He just listened.

736
01:01:52,633 --> 01:01:55,417
Mr. Muhammad told him-- he said,

737
01:01:55,417 --> 01:01:57,557
"That's one man that we lost.

738
01:01:57,557 --> 01:02:00,808
I never did tell you that we weren't going to lose anyone,

739
01:02:00,808 --> 01:02:04,124
but that's the way it is when you're building a nation."

740
01:02:04,124 --> 01:02:10,785
He said, "They were wrong, but if I send my followers out there

741
01:02:10,785 --> 01:02:14,365
to do battle with those people in L.A.,

742
01:02:14,365 --> 01:02:17,393
either undercover or on top of the cover,

743
01:02:17,393 --> 01:02:21,656
they will get slaughtered, and I'm not going to do that."

744
01:02:21,656 --> 01:02:25,211
And Malcolm didn't like that.

745
01:02:25,211 --> 01:02:30,120
Malcolm had always said, "Muslims don't back down."

746
01:02:30,120 --> 01:02:35,677
In Harlem, he now had to explain what happened in Los Angeles.

747
01:02:35,677 --> 01:02:38,354
MALCOLM X: Ronald Stokes was not the least

748
01:02:38,354 --> 01:02:41,363
among the followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,

749
01:02:41,363 --> 01:02:45,147
he was one of the highest. He was the secretary of our Los Angeles mosque,

750
01:02:45,147 --> 01:02:49,284
and as we explained in that rally on May, many of you thought

751
01:02:49,284 --> 01:02:54,501
we should go right on out then and make war on the white man.

752
01:02:54,501 --> 01:02:57,649
You wanted to do it yourself, didn't you?"

753
01:02:57,649 --> 01:02:58,801
AUDIENCE: Yes!

754
01:02:58,801 --> 01:02:59,998
MALCOLM X: Didn't you?

755
01:02:59,998 --> 01:03:00,923
AUDIENCE: Yes!

756
01:03:00,923 --> 01:03:02,122
MALCOLM X: You wanted some action then, didn't you?

757
01:03:02,122 --> 01:03:03,750
AUDIENCE: Yes!

758
01:03:03,750 --> 01:03:05,952
MALCOLM X: 'Cause you don't like the idea of white people shooting black people down, do you?

759
01:03:05,952 --> 01:03:07,121
AUDIENCE: No!

760
01:03:07,121 --> 01:03:08,898
MALCOLM X: And you're ready to do something about it, aren't you?

761
01:03:08,898 --> 01:03:09,871
AUDIENCE: Yes!

762
01:03:09,871 --> 01:03:14,331
MALCOLM X: We know you are, and the white man should be thankful that

763
01:03:14,331 --> 01:03:17,866
God has given the Honorable Elijah Muhammad the control over his followers

764
01:03:17,866 --> 01:03:20,867
that he has so that they can play it cool,

765
01:03:20,867 --> 01:03:26,638
calm and collected and leave it in the hands of God."

766
01:03:26,638 --> 01:03:30,970
In the months following the Los Angeles incident,

767
01:03:30,970 --> 01:03:34,071
Malcolm's faith in the Messenger was further tested

768
01:03:34,071 --> 01:03:40,199
by rumors about Elijah Muhammad's private life.

769
01:03:40,199 --> 01:03:44,763
Once a month, he would go to Chicago to take money to Elijah Muhammad,

770
01:03:44,763 --> 01:03:51,205
and he would always go to the side door.

771
01:03:51,205 --> 01:03:55,835
And this particular day,when he got to the side door,

772
01:03:55,835 --> 01:04:00,550
there were three young ladies where they were knocking and bamming on the door

773
01:04:00,550 --> 01:04:07,789
"Open the door, open the door. We need money for food. Our children don't have have this or that or the other."

774
01:04:07,789 --> 01:04:14,446
He immediately felt that, number one, he didn't belong there.

775
01:04:14,446 --> 01:04:17,604
Malcolm had long dismissed stories that Elijah Muhammad

776
01:04:17,604 --> 01:04:21,843
had fathered eight children with six of his secretaries.

777
01:04:21,843 --> 01:04:27,927
Now he approached the Messenger's son Wallace to confirm what he had seen.

778
01:04:27,927 --> 01:04:29,711
So I told him yes. I say,

779
01:04:29,711 --> 01:04:31,562
"I know of-- I know about that."

780
01:04:31,562 --> 01:04:35,032
I say, "You can see things, but you don't want to see it,

781
01:04:35,032 --> 01:04:37,436
so you just blot it out in your mind."

782
01:04:37,436 --> 01:04:42,833
I say, "I'm aware of secretaries having that kind of relationship with my father,

783
01:04:42,833 --> 01:04:44,369
being there with their children."

784
01:04:44,369 --> 01:04:47,915
I say, "I've seen him take their children and somewhere in my conscience

785
01:04:47,915 --> 01:04:51,342
I'm sure it was registering that that was his family,

786
01:04:51,342 --> 01:04:54,403
but I never accepted it to deal with it in my mind.

787
01:04:54,403 --> 01:04:58,647
Never did I accept to deal with it in my mind."

788
01:04:58,647 --> 01:05:06,840
Officials in the nation accused Wallace Muhammad of starting rumors and conspiring against his father.

789
01:05:06,840 --> 01:05:13,702
The charge that I gave Malcolm information on my father's domestic situation is true,

790
01:05:13,702 --> 01:05:19,568
but only after Malcolm had already told me that he witnessed that situation."

791
01:05:19,568 --> 01:05:25,589
MALCOLM X: It gives me great pleasure and an honor and a privilege at this time to introduce to you

792
01:05:25,589 --> 01:05:30,283
and present to you the Messenger of Allah, your and my beloved leader and teacher,

793
01:05:30,283 --> 01:05:33,104
the Most Honorable and Humble Elijah Muhammad."

794
01:05:33,104 --> 01:05:35,204
Malcolm had submitted himself to Elijah Muhammad

795
01:05:35,204 --> 01:05:43,294
as his spiritual leader and never tried to see anything else.

796
01:05:43,294 --> 01:05:46,905
And the things that he tried to put into practice himself

797
01:05:46,905 --> 01:05:52,309
he thought were being also being practiced by his leader.

798
01:05:52,309 --> 01:05:54,966
And when he found it differently,

799
01:05:54,966 --> 01:05:58,373
it just took all the wind out his sails."

800
01:05:58,373 --> 01:06:03,678
In public, the two men continued to embrace.

801
01:06:03,678 --> 01:06:07,543
In private, suspicion had replaced faith.

802
01:06:07,543 --> 01:06:13,772
Their relationship was further complicated by Elijah Muhammad's failing health.

803
01:06:13,772 --> 01:06:17,556
Malcolm's popularity naturally grew.

804
01:06:17,556 --> 01:06:21,129
Number one, Mr. Muhammad was sick, he had bronchitis,

805
01:06:21,129 --> 01:06:30,487
so Mr. Muhammad, he only went to large public meetings maybe once a year, twice a year.

806
01:06:30,487 --> 01:06:36,722
That was it. All the rest of the time, Malcolm was going everywhere.

807
01:06:36,722 --> 01:06:40,641
It was Malcolm who sparked the growth of the Nation all over the country.

808
01:06:40,641 --> 01:06:41,717
He was in demand.

809
01:06:41,717 --> 01:06:46,592
Nobody was asking for Elijah Muhammad to speak, they were asking for Malcolm to speak.

810
01:06:46,592 --> 01:06:51,574
And naturally, Malcolm got more involved with the civil rights struggle

811
01:06:51,574 --> 01:06:56,517
and his argument became more an argument that you would expect from someone

812
01:06:56,517 --> 01:07:05,195
who was in the civil rights struggle than you would for someone who was following the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

813
01:07:05,195 --> 01:07:24,519
The '60s showed us the white man in the image that the Nation of Islam had cast him in,

814
01:07:24,519 --> 01:07:29,485
in the image of brutal person, you know, turning the dogs out on demonstrators,

815
01:07:29,485 --> 01:07:31,970
using the fire hoses.

816
01:07:31,970 --> 01:07:41,298
So all this helped the Nation of Islam's charge against the white race

817
01:07:41,298 --> 01:07:48,330
and made it possible for the Nation of Islam's spokesman, for the E.Muhammed's spokesman, Malcolm X,

818
01:07:48,330 --> 01:07:54,490
to get the press, to get the camera on him

819
01:07:54,490 --> 01:08:03,623
and to state what he had confidence in that was an alternative, and that was seperation.

820
01:08:03,623 --> 01:08:10,850
As Muslims, we believe that separation is the best way and the only sensible way,

821
01:08:10,850 --> 01:08:12,787
not integration,

822
01:08:12,787 --> 01:08:19,572
but on the other hand, when we see our people being brutalized by white bigots, white racists,

823
01:08:19,572 --> 01:08:24,137
we think that they are foolish

824
01:08:24,137 --> 01:08:27,657
to allow themselves to be beaten and brutalized

825
01:08:27,657 --> 01:08:31,758
and do nothing whatsoever to protect themselves.

826
01:08:31,758 --> 01:08:36,090
If a dog is biting a black man, the black man should kill the dog,

827
01:08:36,090 --> 01:08:40,796
whether the dog is a police dog or a hound dog or any kind of dog.

828
01:08:40,796 --> 01:08:45,481
If a dog is fixed on a black man when that black man is doing nothing but

829
01:08:45,481 --> 01:08:50,755
trying to take advantage of what the government says is supposed to be his,

830
01:08:50,755 --> 01:08:52,749
then that black man should kill that dog or

831
01:08:52,749 --> 01:08:57,715
any two-legged dog who sets the dog on him.

832
01:08:57,715 --> 01:09:02,030
When Malcolm talks all the Muslim ministers talk,

833
01:09:02,030 --> 01:09:06,567
they articulate for all the Negro people who hear them,

834
01:09:06,567 --> 01:09:11,063
who listen to them, they articulate their suffering,

835
01:09:11,063 --> 01:09:15,215
the suffering which has been in this country so long denied.

836
01:09:15,215 --> 01:09:18,300
That's Malcolm's great authority over any of his audiences.

837
01:09:18,300 --> 01:09:21,402
He corroborates their reality.

838
01:09:21,402 --> 01:09:25,491
I was probably about 14 years old

839
01:09:25,491 --> 01:09:33,058
and I was involved in demonstrations at this construction site.

840
01:09:33,058 --> 01:09:39,593
The community was demanding integration of the workforce.

841
01:09:39,593 --> 01:09:45,401
We realized that Malcolm had come to watch the demonstration.

842
01:09:45,401 --> 01:09:50,005
When my shift changed, I went across the street to talk to Malcolm.

843
01:09:50,005 --> 01:09:53,744
We had quite an argument that morning,

844
01:09:53,744 --> 01:09:59,054
and he tried to explain to me what was wrong with my

845
01:09:59,054 --> 01:10:03,372
laying down on the ground in front of a cement truck.

846
01:10:03,372 --> 01:10:09,547
And Malcolm said if these are people who could lynch black people,

847
01:10:09,547 --> 01:10:15,457
murder black children, enslave people, why couldn't they run over somebody

848
01:10:15,457 --> 01:10:18,027
with a truck? And he said,

849
01:10:18,027 --> 01:10:20,847
"Oh, they'd say it was an accident!"

850
01:10:20,847 --> 01:10:26,659
He'd say, 'Oops, my foot slipped,' but you'd be just as dead."

851
01:10:26,659 --> 01:10:32,027
And when he left and I turned around to go back across the street,

852
01:10:32,027 --> 01:10:34,448
I went back and I got on the picket line,

853
01:10:34,448 --> 01:10:39,755
but I never laid down in the street in front of a truck again.

854
01:10:39,755 --> 01:10:44,612
We were sitting across the street at the Shabazz Frosti Kreem and

855
01:10:44,612 --> 01:10:47,959
talking about race relations in America,

856
01:10:47,959 --> 01:10:51,991
and Malcolm at one point said, "OK, what's your solution?"

857
01:10:51,991 --> 01:10:54,284
And I don't-- he was not asking me for advice,

858
01:10:54,284 --> 01:10:59,346
he was-- he just wanted to sort of put me on the spot for a moment, I think.

859
01:10:59,346 --> 01:11:03,880
And I was, at the time, under the spell of Dr. King

860
01:11:03,880 --> 01:11:07,701
and his notion of the beloved society which would be colorblind,

861
01:11:07,701 --> 01:11:11,779
in which color would not be a disability for anybody

862
01:11:11,779 --> 01:11:16,142
it would disappear, but it wouldn't be a disability.

863
01:11:16,142 --> 01:11:19,593
and Malcolm just kind of looked back at me and said

864
01:11:19,593 --> 01:11:23,189
"You're dreaming. I haven't got time for dreams."

865
01:11:23,189 --> 01:11:28,288
KENNETH CLARKE: The goal of Dr. King is full equality

866
01:11:28,288 --> 01:11:29,265
MALCOLM X: No!

867
01:11:29,265 --> 01:11:31,476
KENNETH CLARK: -- and full rights of citizenship for Negroes.

868
01:11:31,476 --> 01:11:34,507
MALCOLM X: The goal of Dr. Martin Luther King is to give Negroes a chance

869
01:11:34,507 --> 01:11:39,738
to sit in a segregated restaurant beside the same white man who had brutalized them for 400 years.

870
01:11:39,738 --> 01:11:42,664
The goal of Dr. Martin Luther King is to get Negroes

871
01:11:42,664 --> 01:11:46,516
to forgive the people who have brutalized them for 400 years

872
01:11:46,516 --> 01:11:50,997
by lulling them to sleep and making them forgetting what those whites have done to them.

873
01:11:50,997 --> 01:11:56,009
But the masses of black people in America today don't go for what Martin Luther King is putting down.

874
01:11:56,009 --> 01:11:58,799
As you said in one of your articles, it's psychologically insecure

875
01:11:58,799 --> 01:12:01,125
or something of that sort, I forget how you put it.

876
01:12:01,125 --> 01:12:03,615
But you didn't endorse what Martin Luther King was doing yourself.

877
01:12:03,615 --> 01:12:09,029
KENNETH CLARKE: I do not reject his goals of full integration and full equality rights for American citizens.

878
01:12:09,029 --> 01:12:11,449
Do you reject these goals?

879
01:12:11,449 --> 01:12:13,735
MALCOLM X: If you don't think that he's walking on the right road,

880
01:12:13,735 --> 01:12:16,414
I'm quite sure you don't agree that he'll get to the right place!"

881
01:12:16,414 --> 01:12:22,059
We were aware or felt that it was somewhat dangerous to be too closely associated to Malcolm.

882
01:12:22,059 --> 01:12:25,890
He was saying some pretty rough things, particularly about whites,

883
01:12:25,890 --> 01:12:30,939
and those of us who wanted to keep peace with the white world - some of us,

884
01:12:30,939 --> 01:12:37,168
had our jobs out in the white community - we didn't really want to get too close to Malcolm.

885
01:12:37,168 --> 01:12:42,549
KENNETH CLARKE: It has been suggested also that this movement preaches a gospel of violence, that...

886
01:12:42,549 --> 01:12:46,582
MALCOLM X: No, the black people in this country have been the victims of violence

887
01:12:46,582 --> 01:12:49,804
at the hands of the white man for 400 years,

888
01:12:49,804 --> 01:12:52,623
and following the ignorant Negro preachers,

889
01:12:52,623 --> 01:12:57,947
we have thought that it was godlike to turn the other cheek to the brute that was brutalizing us.

890
01:12:57,947 --> 01:13:01,254
And today, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is showing black people in this country

891
01:13:01,254 --> 01:13:05,453
that just as the white man and every other person on this earth has god-given rights -

892
01:13:05,453 --> 01:13:10,851
natural rights, civil rights, any kind of rights that you can think of when it comes to defending himself -

893
01:13:10,851 --> 01:13:17,819
black people should have -- we should have the right to defend ourselves also.

894
01:13:17,819 --> 01:13:31,656
In August 1963, 250,000 Americans gathered for the march on Washington.

895
01:13:31,671 --> 01:13:38,350
Malcolm came to us. He told us the story about the march on Washington.

896
01:13:38,350 --> 01:13:43,637
And one thing I can say about Malcolm, anytime he told us something, he could back it up.

897
01:13:43,637 --> 01:13:46,357
He had a article and he brought the

898
01:13:46,357 --> 01:13:49,098
he said, "I'm going to tell you. I know what I'm talking about."

899
01:13:49,098 --> 01:13:52,378
He says, "Who pays the bills for civil rights?"

900
01:13:52,378 --> 01:13:55,748
And he said, "The angels are white."

901
01:13:55,748 --> 01:13:59,816
And what he went on to say was, "You have to fight your battles,

902
01:13:59,816 --> 01:14:02,469
and it started in the street.

903
01:14:02,469 --> 01:14:08,038
But once you let them become integrated, it gets cool."

904
01:14:08,038 --> 01:14:11,853
And then he relates it to a cup of coffee that is hot and as soon as...your water...

905
01:14:11,853 --> 01:14:14,898
put the milk in it, it cools down.

906
01:14:14,898 --> 01:14:18,475
And these analogies Malcolm used sometimes were funny,

907
01:14:18,475 --> 01:14:23,684
but they got home, they hit home.

908
01:14:37,680 --> 01:14:38,562
GLORIA RICHARDSON, Southern Civil Rights Leader

909
01:14:38,562 --> 01:14:44,460
Most of the people that we were organizing had heard also of Malcolm X and that-

910
01:14:44,460 --> 01:14:48,055
and respected him and listened to him.

911
01:14:48,208 --> 01:14:51,773
And, you know, any time that he was going to be on,

912
01:14:51,881 --> 01:14:55,565
they made a effort to hear those speeches

913
01:14:55,657 --> 01:15:04,328
and felt that he indeed understood what their problems were and that they needed to be fought against and,

914
01:15:06,991 --> 01:15:08,340
I suppose, not always nonviolently.

915
01:15:08,418 --> 01:15:10,518
Nineteen days after the march on Washington,

916
01:15:10,594 --> 01:15:13,047
a bomb blew apart the Sunday school of the 16th Street Baptist Church

917
01:15:13,109 --> 01:15:15,063
in Birmingham, Alabama.

918
01:15:18,294 --> 01:15:22,759
Twenty people were injured. Four little girls were killed.

919
01:15:29,080 --> 01:15:33,215
Here you're talking about bombing a church and killing four little girls,

920
01:15:33,215 --> 01:15:40,782
and the feeling of anger and not being able to do something or not doing something was

921
01:15:40,782 --> 01:15:43,601
I remember was tremendous.

922
01:15:43,601 --> 01:15:46,478
A lot of us sort of became dissatisfied,

923
01:15:46,478 --> 01:15:49,672
because - and Malcolm really became somewhat dissatisfied -

924
01:15:49,672 --> 01:15:50,942
-he never spoke of it

925
01:15:50,942 --> 01:15:56,572
that we weren't doing anything to help the...

926
01:15:56,572 --> 01:16:03,192
-our people who were being brutalized by the whites

927
01:16:03,192 --> 01:16:07,704
and the police during the civil rights movement.

928
01:16:07,704 --> 01:16:16,085
We felt that we should have gotten involved.

929
01:16:29,452 --> 01:16:33,192
MALCOLM X: One white man named Lincoln supposedly fought the civil war to

930
01:16:33,192 --> 01:16:36,012
solve the race problem and the problem is still here.

931
01:16:36,012 --> 01:16:38,055
And then another white man named Kennedy came along,

932
01:16:38,055 --> 01:16:40,989
running for president, and told Negroes what all he was going to do for them

933
01:16:40,989 --> 01:16:43,462
if they voted for him, and they voted for him 80 percent,

934
01:16:43,462 --> 01:16:46,667
and he's been in office now for three years and the problem is still here.

935
01:16:46,667 --> 01:16:49,688
When police dogs were biting black women and black children and black babies

936
01:16:49,688 --> 01:16:51,277
in Birmingham, Alabama,

937
01:16:51,277 --> 01:16:56,950
that Kennedy talked about what he couldn't do because no federal law had been violated,

938
01:16:56,950 --> 01:17:00,264
and as soon as the Negroes exploded and began to protect themselves

939
01:17:00,264 --> 01:17:02,566
got the best of the crackers in Birmingham,

940
01:17:02,566 --> 01:17:04,134
then Kennedy sent for troops.

941
01:17:04,134 --> 01:17:05,707
And there was no... he used...

942
01:17:05,707 --> 01:17:08,793
he didn't have any new law when he sent for the troops

943
01:17:08,793 --> 01:17:12,365
when the Negroes erupted than he had at the time when whites were erupting.

944
01:17:12,365 --> 01:17:16,196
So we are within our rights and with justice

945
01:17:16,196 --> 01:17:22,312
with justification, when we express doubt concerning the ability of the white man

946
01:17:22,312 --> 01:17:27,565
to solve our problem and also when we express doubt concerning his integrity,

947
01:17:27,565 --> 01:17:30,662
concerning his sincerity, because you will have to confess

948
01:17:30,662 --> 01:17:33,074
that the problem has been around here for a long time

949
01:17:33,074 --> 01:17:35,880
and whites have been saying the same thing about it for the past 100 years

950
01:17:35,880 --> 01:17:40,047
and it's no nearer a solution today than it was a hundred years ago.

951
01:17:40,047 --> 01:17:42,325
Well, he was changed,

952
01:17:42,325 --> 01:17:50,724
changed from religious talks to nationalistic talk to the point where I told him

953
01:17:50,724 --> 01:17:55,603
(meaning Malcolm) that I listened to him when he first started

954
01:17:55,603 --> 01:18:01,869
and I listened to him now and that I hear a change.

955
01:18:01,869 --> 01:18:04,447
He say, "What kind of change you mean?"

956
01:18:04,447 --> 01:18:09,342
I say, "Well, your talks when you first started out, you know,

957
01:18:09,342 --> 01:18:14,773
caused me to have chills when you speak because of the truth that you were saying.

958
01:18:14,773 --> 01:18:17,755
But now I don't feel that anymore."

959
01:18:17,755 --> 01:18:20,326
He told his answer to me, he said, "Well," he said,

960
01:18:20,326 --> 01:18:23,875
"maybe you have lost your religious or your spirit."

961
01:18:23,875 --> 01:18:30,038
I say, "Well, maybe I have, but I'm just letting you know what I feel."

962
01:18:30,038 --> 01:18:36,617
After a while, we began to notice that there were some rumblings from the family,

963
01:18:36,617 --> 01:18:38,756
from Elijah Muhammad's family.

964
01:18:38,756 --> 01:18:41,960
Every now and then there'd be little things they would say

965
01:18:41,960 --> 01:18:48,405
that let you know that they got a problem with Malcolm rising up before the public like he's doing,

966
01:18:48,405 --> 01:18:53,491
because everybody's beginning to recognize him now as the spokesman.

967
01:18:53,491 --> 01:18:57,674
All right, the spokesman might be all right, but at the same time

968
01:18:57,674 --> 01:19:02,353
he's getting the publicity this and the media's got him.

969
01:19:02,353 --> 01:19:06,524
Everybody is Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm X, Malcolm X,

970
01:19:06,524 --> 01:19:12,289
and you only hear-- you starting to hear Elijah Muhammed's name less and less.

971
01:19:12,289 --> 01:19:18,476
Malcolm believed he could handle the jealousies within the Nation of Islam,

972
01:19:18,476 --> 01:19:28,710
but tensions between him and the Messenger would come to a head in late November 1963.

973
01:19:28,710 --> 01:19:31,621
So we were sitting in the restaurant drinking coffee,

974
01:19:31,621 --> 01:19:35,891
having this meeting and the captain of the mosque, Joseph,

975
01:19:35,891 --> 01:19:39,094
got a telephone call from his wife.

976
01:19:39,094 --> 01:19:47,709
And Joseph got up and went to a phone booth, took the call, and he came back to the table looking visibly shocked.

977
01:19:47,709 --> 01:19:56,340
And he said that his wife has just told him that Kennedy had been shot.

978
01:19:56,340 --> 01:20:01,236
Malcolm sent somebody to get a radio out of the back and we plugged in the radio and

979
01:20:01,236 --> 01:20:07,574
listened and the announcer was saying,

980
01:20:07,574 --> 01:20:13,849
"To repeat, we're confirming that the President has been shot in Dallas, Texas

981
01:20:13,849 --> 01:20:18,119
and at this point, we don't know how serious it is."

982
01:20:18,119 --> 01:20:24,902
And Malcolm said-- immediately, he said, "That devil is dead."

983
01:20:24,902 --> 01:20:31,039
John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.

984
01:20:31,039 --> 01:20:34,803
Mr. Muhammad had his son call Malcolm.

985
01:20:34,803 --> 01:20:40,718
He said, "Brother Minister Malcolm, my father told me to tell you -

986
01:20:40,718 --> 01:20:43,849
and we're calling all over the country -

987
01:20:43,849 --> 01:20:50,413
that John F. Kennedy was assassinated and that we should not say anything

988
01:20:50,413 --> 01:20:52,968
in a derogatory way whatsoever

989
01:20:52,968 --> 01:21:00,167
because the man is the President of the United States and that people love him."

990
01:21:00,167 --> 01:21:05,380
The Muslims had scheduled a rally at the Manhattan Center in New York City.

991
01:21:05,380 --> 01:21:11,444
The day of the rally, the Messenger called Malcolm to remind him to teach the spiritual side

992
01:21:11,444 --> 01:21:15,996
and avoid saying anything about the President's death.


993
01:21:15,996 --> 01:21:18,934
But he was clearly nervous about what he might say!

994
01:21:18,934 --> 01:21:22,806
He spoke from a prepared speech,

995
01:21:22,806 --> 01:21:26,202
never specifically mentioned Kennedy

996
01:21:26,202 --> 01:21:33,020
but then, as if quoting desaster

997
01:21:33,020 --> 01:21:37,129
he opened the floor up to questions.

998
01:21:37,129 --> 01:21:42,911
Normally he would speak but won't ask for questions and answers. But this day, he asked for questions and answers!

999
01:21:42,911 --> 01:21:52,998
And he went in this litany, comparing other leaders around the world

1000
01:21:52,998 --> 01:22:01,015
who had somehow suffered at the hands of the United States government or its agents