0:00:01.833,0:00:31.044 [music] 0:00:31.044,0:00:34.526 Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? 0:00:34.526,0:00:38.461 Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? 0:00:38.461,0:00:43.473 Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose, and the shape of your lips? 0:00:43.473,0:00:49.461 Who taught you to hate yourself, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? 0:00:49.461,0:00:52.357 Who taught you to hate your own kind? 0:00:52.357,0:00:55.720 Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to 0:00:55.720,0:00:59.222 So much so that you don't want to be around each other 0:00:59.222,0:01:05.135 You know. Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself 0:01:05.135,0:01:11.386 who taught you to hate being what God made you. 0:01:11.386,0:01:14.755 Most of us, blacks, or negroes as he called us, 0:01:14.755,0:01:16.890 really thought we were free, 0:01:16.890,0:01:24.710 without being aware that in our subconscious, all those chains we thought had been struck off were still there 0:01:24.710,0:01:30.463 And there were many ways, where what really motivated us 0:01:30.463,0:01:35.694 was our desire to be loved by the white man. 0:01:35.694,0:01:39.445 Malcolm meant to lance that sense of inferiority. 0:01:39.445,0:01:40.442 He knew it would be painful. 0:01:40.442,0:01:42.594 He knew that people could kill you because of it, 0:01:42.594,0:01:50.235 but he dared to take that risk. 0:01:50.235,0:01:58.515 He was saying something, over and above that of any other leader of that day 0:01:58.515,0:02:05.073 While the other leaders were begging for entry into the house of their oppressor, 0:02:05.073,0:02:10.545 he was telling you to build your own house. 0:02:10.545,0:02:13.779 He expelled fear for African Americans. 0:02:13.779,0:02:16.459 He said "I will speak out loud what you've been thinking" 0:02:16.459,0:02:21.829 and he said "You'll see, people will hear, and it will not do anything to us, necessarily, ok? 0:02:21.829,0:02:25.001 But I will not speak it for the masses of people." 0:02:25.001,0:02:30.886 When he said it in a very strong fashion, in this very manly fashion, in this fashion that says, 0:02:30.886,0:02:34.239 "I am not afraid to say what you've been thinking all these years." 0:02:34.239,0:02:36.150 That's why we loved him 0:02:36.150,0:02:38.853 He said it out loud, not behind closed doors, 0:02:38.853,0:02:43.624 He took on America for us. 0:02:43.624,0:02:49.026 And I, for one, as a Muslim believe that the white man is intelligent enough. 0:02:49.026,0:02:53.689 If he were made to realize how Black people really feel 0:02:53.689,0:02:58.110 and how fed up we are without that old compromising sweet talk 0:02:58.110,0:03:00.903 Why, you're the one who make it hard for yourself. 0:03:00.903,0:03:03.922 The white man believes you when you go through with that old sweet talk 0:03:03.922,0:03:07.039 'cause you've been sweet talking to him ever since he brought you here 0:03:07.039,0:03:08.670 Stop sweet talking him! 0:03:08.670,0:03:10.453 Tell him how you feel! 0:03:10.453,0:03:23.652 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, 0:03:23.652,0:03:30.863 He shouldn't have a house. It should catch on fire, and burn down... 0:03:30.863,0:03:39.340 [applause] 0:03:39.340,0:03:51.162 [drums and music] 0:03:51.162,0:03:56.916 On these Harlem street corners, for most of this century, Black people have celebrated their culture, 0:03:56.916,0:04:02.114 and argued the question of race in America. 0:04:02.114,0:04:09.610 It was here that Malcolm first joined the street orators who gave voice to Harlem's hope, and its anger. 0:04:09.610,0:04:20.294 I've taught nationalism, and that means that I want to go out of this white man's country, because integration will never happen 0:04:20.294,0:04:23.738 You will never, as long as you live, 0:04:23.738,0:04:29.470 integrate into the white men's system 0:04:29.470,0:04:31.982 A hundred and twenty-fifth street and Seventh Avenue was 0:04:31.982,0:04:38.758 the center of activity among the black street orators. 0:04:38.758,0:04:42.613 When Malcolm arrived, technically he had no corner. 0:04:42.613,0:04:51.935 So he established his base, you might say, in front of Elder Michaux's bookstore. 0:04:51.935,0:05:09.314 When Malcolm would ascent the little platform, he didn't, he couldn't talk for the first four, five minutes. 0:05:09.314,0:05:15.750 The people would be making such a praise-shout to him 0:05:15.750,0:05:20.425 and he would stand there, taking his due. 0:05:20.425,0:05:24.518 and then he would open his mouth. 0:05:24.518,0:05:28.661 They call Mr. Muhammad a hate-teacher 0:05:28.661,0:05:32.295 because he makes you hate dope and alcohol. 0:05:32.295,0:05:36.088 They call Mr. Muhammad a black supremacist 0:05:36.088,0:05:40.075 because he teaches you and me not only that we are as good as the white man, 0:05:40.075,0:05:44.970 but better than the white man. 0:05:44.970,0:05:47.854 Yes, better than the white man. 0:05:47.854,0:05:49.875 You are better than the white man 0:05:49.875,0:05:51.905 and that's not saying anything. 0:05:51.905,0:05:55.091 That's not saying, you know we're just as equal with him. 0:05:55.091,0:05:57.585 Who is he to be equal with? 0:05:57.585,0:05:59.136 You look at his skin 0:05:59.136,0:06:01.626 You can't compare your skin with his skin, 0:06:01.626,0:06:09.493 Why your skin look like gold beside his skin. 0:06:09.493,0:06:13.417 There was a time when we used to drool in the mouth over white people. 0:06:13.417,0:06:17.576 We thought they were pretty 'cause we were blind, we were dumb. 0:06:17.576,0:06:19.716 We couldn't see them as they are. 0:06:19.716,0:06:24.563 But since the honorable Elijah Muhammad has come and taught us the religion of Islam, 0:06:24.563,0:06:28.808 which have cleaned us up, and made us so we can see for ourselves 0:06:28.808,0:06:33.532 now we can see that old pale thing to look exactly as he look 0:06:33.532,0:06:40.960 nothing but an old, pale thing. 0:06:40.960,0:06:43.997 I came away from that rally feeling that with him 0:06:43.997,0:06:45.968 once you heard him speak, 0:06:45.968,0:06:50.811 you never went back to where you were before. 0:06:50.811,0:06:56.654 You had to, even if you kept your position you had to rethink it. 0:06:56.654,0:06:58.763 We weren't accustomed to being told that we were devils 0:06:58.763,0:07:04.095 and that we were oppressors up here in our wonderful northern cities. 0:07:04.095,0:07:09.210 He was speaking for a silent mass of black people 0:07:09.210,0:07:18.524 and sang it out front on the devil's own airwaves, and that was an act of war. 0:07:18.524,0:07:22.486 When he came off the stage, I jumped off the island, 0:07:22.486,0:07:27.095 walked up to him, and of course when I got to him the bodyguards, 0:07:27.095,0:07:30.654 you know, moved in front, and he just pushed them away. 0:07:30.654,0:07:33.266 And I went in front of him and extended my hand, 0:07:33.266,0:07:41.742 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" 0:07:41.742,0:07:45.609 And he looked at me, held my hand in a very gentle fashion and says 0:07:45.609,0:07:52.943 "One day you will, Sister. One day you will, Sister", and he smiled. 0:07:52.943,0:07:58.529 To make his message clear, Malcolm used his own life as a lesson for all black Americans. 0:07:58.529,0:08:04.029 He preached it in fables and parables 0:08:04.029,0:08:07.264 and later, in writing his autobiography with Alex Haley, 0:08:07.264,0:08:13.962 he sought some control over how his life would be interpreted in the future. 0:08:13.962,0:08:19.027 I would be rather taken by a statement he would make of himself 0:08:19.027,0:08:21.959 He would say "I am a part of all I have met" 0:08:21.959,0:08:27.945 and by that he meant that all the things he had done in his earlier life had exposed him to things 0:08:27.945,0:08:31.016 and taught him skills of one or another sort, 0:08:31.016,0:08:39.692 all of which had synthesized into the Malcolm who became the spokesman for the Nation of Islam. 0:08:39.692,0:08:41.432 You were born in Omaha, is that right? 0:08:41.432,0:08:42.026 Yes sir 0:08:42.026,0:08:44.861 And you left, your familiy left Omaha when you were about one year old? 0:08:44.861,0:08:46.477 I imagine about a year old. 0:08:46.477,0:08:47.746 Why did they leave Omaha? 0:08:47.746,0:08:54.649 Well, to my understanding, the Ku Klux Klan burned down one of their homes in Omaha 0:08:54.649,0:08:55.605 There's a lot of Ku Klux Klan 0:08:55.605,0:08:57.585 They made your family feel very unhappy, I'm sure. 0:08:57.585,0:08:59.496 Well, insecure, if not unhappy. 0:08:59.496,0:09:01.446 So you must have a somewhat prejudiced point of view, 0:09:01.446,0:09:02.894 a personally prejudiced point of view 0:09:02.894,0:09:07.123 In other words, you cannot look at this in a broad, academic sort of way, really, can you? 0:09:07.123,0:09:10.334 I think that's incorrect, because despite the fact that that happened in Omaha 0:09:10.334,0:09:13.734 and then when we moved to Lansing, Michigan,our home was burned down again 0:09:13.734,0:09:15.942 in fact my father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan, 0:09:15.942,0:09:21.000 and despite all of that, no one was more thoroughly integrated with whites than I 0:09:21.000,0:09:24.606 No one has lived more so in the society of whites than I. 0:09:24.606,0:09:28.369 We were the only black children in the neighborhood 0:09:28.369,0:09:33.041 but on the back of our property we had a wooded area, 0:09:33.041,0:09:36.620 so the white kids would all come over to our house and they'd go back and play in the woods. 0:09:36.620,0:09:39.786 So Malcolm would say "Well let's go play Robin Hood" 0:09:39.786,0:09:43.622 Well, so we'd go back there to play Robin Wood 0:09:43.622,0:09:47.108 Robin Hood was Malcolm. 0:09:47.108,0:09:53.154 and these white kids would go along with it. 0:09:53.154,0:09:59.038 Malcolm said he was the lightest skinned of the seven children born to Earl and Louise Little, 0:09:59.038,0:10:09.705 a reminder, he said, of the white man who had raped his mother's mother. 0:10:09.705,0:10:15.291 In 1929, when Malcolm was four years old, his father, a carpenter and preacher, 0:10:15.291,0:10:21.388 moved the family to Lansing, Michigan. 0:10:21.388,0:10:28.926 Lansing was a small town and the west side was the side of town that blacks lived on. 0:10:28.926,0:10:34.992 Malcolm and his family lived outside of the city 0:10:34.992,0:10:40.046 and they had a four-acre parcel with a small house on it, 0:10:40.046,0:10:46.244 so they were sort of considered as farmers. 0:10:46.244,0:10:54.351 Three months after the Littles moved in, white neighbors took legal action to evict them. 0:10:54.351,0:10:59.784 A county judge ruled that the farm property was restricted to whites only. 0:10:59.784,0:11:06.701 But Earl Little refused to move. 0:11:06.701,0:11:14.592 Here in Michigan, Ku Klux Klan membership was at least 70,000, five times more than in Mississippi. 0:11:14.592,0:11:22.233 For Malcolm's family, white hostility was a fact of life. 0:11:22.233,0:11:30.330 Everybody was asleep in our house and all of a sudden, we heard a big boom. 0:11:30.330,0:11:38.661 And when we woke up, fire was everywhere and everybody was running into the walls and into each other, you know. 0:11:38.661,0:11:42.224 Well, what I recall about that was my mother telling us to, 0:11:42.224,0:11:48.122 "Get up, get up, get up, the house is on fire," and to get out. That's what I actually recall. 0:11:48.122,0:11:51.492 I could hear my mother yelling, I hear my father yelling. 0:11:51.492,0:11:56.561 And so they made sure they got us all rounded up and got us out. 0:11:56.561,0:12:02.846 The house burned down to the ground. No firewagon came, nothing, and we were burned out. 0:12:02.846,0:12:09.382 Malcolm's father, Earl Little, accused local whites of setting the fire. 0:12:09.382,0:12:17.748 The police accused Earl and arrested him on suspicion of arson. The charges were later dropped. 0:12:17.748,0:12:22.681 In the city where we grew up, whites could refer to us as "those uppity niggers," or, 0:12:22.681,0:12:27.162 "those smart niggers that live out south of town." 0:12:27.162,0:12:35.456 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." 0:12:35.456,0:12:41.724 My father was independent. He didn't want anybody to feed him. 0:12:41.724,0:12:46.778 He wanted to raise his own food. He didn't want anybody to exercise authority over his children. 0:12:46.778,0:12:51.022 He wanted to exercise the authority, and he did. 0:12:51.022,0:12:58.864 He was always speaking in terms of Marcus Garvey's way of thinking and trying to get black people to organize themselves, 0:12:58.864,0:13:04.334 not to cause any trouble, but just to do, to work in unity with each other 0:13:04.334,0:13:08.073 toward improving their conditions. 0:13:08.073,0:13:15.566 But in those days if you did that, you were still considered a troublemaker. 0:13:15.566,0:13:18.207 In the 1920's Marcus Garvey, 0:13:18.207,0:13:25.965 a black nationalist, preached that black Americans should build a nation independent of white society. 0:13:25.965,0:13:35.575 With membership in the hundreds of thousands, Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association sought closer ties with African countries. 0:13:35.575,0:13:49.124 The UNIA had its own flag, its own national anthem and an African legion pledged to defend black people at home and abroad. 0:13:49.124,0:13:56.590 The U.S. Bureau of Investigation labeled Garvey, "one of the prominent Negro agitators." 0:13:56.590,0:14:04.514 The federal government deported him in 1927, but Malcolm's parents remained Garveyites. 0:14:04.514,0:14:06.829 Earl recruited new members. 0:14:06.829,0:14:13.004 Louise wrote for the Garvey newspaper. 0:14:13.004,0:14:18.469 My mother is the one who would read to us the Garvey paper, which was called The Negro World. 0:14:18.469,0:14:22.901 and she also would talk to us about ourselves as being independent. 0:14:22.901,0:14:28.808 We shouldn't be calling ourself "Negroes," or "niggers" and that we were black people 0:14:28.808,0:14:33.260 and that we should be proud to call ourself black people. 0:14:33.260,0:14:34.807 What is your real name? 0:14:34.807,0:14:36.734 Malcolm. Malcolm X. 0:14:36.734,0:14:38.137 Is that your legal name? 0:14:38.137,0:14:40.150 As far as I'm concerned, it's my legal name. 0:14:40.150,0:14:42.907 Would you mind telling me what your father's last name was? 0:14:42.907,0:14:44.898 My father didn't know his last name. 0:14:44.898,0:14:50.930 My father got his last name from his grandfather and his grandfather got it from his grandfather who got it from the slavemaster. 0:14:50.930,0:14:53.404 The real names of our people were destroyed 0:14:53.404,0:14:54.290 Well, was there any 0:14:54.290,0:14:55.544 during slavery. 0:14:55.544,0:15:03.710 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? 0:15:03.710,0:15:05.846 The last name of my forefathers 0:15:05.846,0:15:06.405 Yes? 0:15:06.405,0:15:09.910 was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, 0:15:09.910,0:15:16.284 and then the name of the slavemaster was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today and refuse to 0:15:16.284,0:15:22.356 You mean, you won't even tell me what your father's supposed last name was or gifted last name was? 0:15:22.356,0:15:29.054 I never acknowledge it whatsoever. 0:15:29.054,0:15:32.442 September 1931 0:15:32.442,0:15:38.990 Malcolm was six years old when his mother had a premonition. 0:15:38.990,0:15:42.699 We were all at the house and we had dinner, supper together. 0:15:42.699,0:15:46.683 And my mother was holding Wesley, who was my youngest brother. 0:15:46.683,0:15:50.698 And she may have been nursing him, 'cause she was at the table, and she fell asleep, 0:15:50.698,0:15:52.689 nursing, holding the baby. 0:15:52.689,0:15:57.864 And my father had gotten up and went in the bedroom to clean up and to go down and collect money. 0:15:57.864,0:16:02.463 And she woke up and she said, "Earl, Earl, don't go downtown." 0:16:02.463,0:16:06.332 She says, "If you go, you won't come back." 0:16:06.332,0:16:12.617 That night around 11 o'clock, Earl Little was found in an isolated area outside Lansing, 0:16:12.617,0:16:18.716 his body almost cut in two by the wheels of a streetcar. 0:16:18.716,0:16:23.684 The police reported Earl Little's death an accident. 0:16:23.684,0:16:29.531 There was a cloud over that whole issue because, at the time, 0:16:29.531,0:16:42.463 it was perceived that rather than an accident with a streetcar that Earl Little had really been pushed under the wheels of the streetcar. 0:16:42.463,0:16:43.983 As a matter of fact, 0:16:43.983,0:16:47.298 I remember hearing just that language, 0:16:47.298,0:16:53.254 that he was probably pushed under the wheels of that streetcar. 0:16:53.254,0:16:55.485 And my father's death caused a great 0:16:55.485,0:16:57.574 great shock in the family, 0:16:57.574,0:16:59.220 because he was the power. 0:16:59.220,0:17:00.554 He was the strength. 0:17:00.554,0:17:01.673 We were organized, 0:17:01.673,0:17:02.906 we were a structured family. 0:17:02.906,0:17:04.333 When I'd get out of school, 0:17:04.333,0:17:07.124 when we got out of school, me and my brothers and sisters, 0:17:07.124,0:17:08.883 we'd come right home and go to work 0:17:08.883,0:17:11.640 in the garden, clean up the chicken shed and get ready for the night, 0:17:11.640,0:17:13.438 and get up in the morning and all this. 0:17:13.438,0:17:15.279 We'd pump the water and bring it in the house and all this. 0:17:15.279,0:17:17.381 This was while Dad was alive, 0:17:17.381,0:17:21.888 because to not do this brought the consequences of a whipping. 0:17:21.888,0:17:24.687 So we were disciplined. 0:17:24.687,0:17:28.203 And then after my father got killed 0:17:28.203,0:17:33.187 and my mother's inability to run as fast as I could run or Malcolm 0:17:33.187,0:17:35.678 enabled us to get away with a lot of things 0:17:35.678,0:17:38.078 we wouldn't have tried to get away with. 0:17:38.078,0:17:43.364 So we got looser and looser. 0:17:43.364,0:17:48.975 Louise Little struggled to raise her seven children through the years of the Great Depression. 0:17:48.975,0:17:53.180 She's reduced to where she has no income. 0:17:53.180,0:17:55.018 She'd try to get -- she got jobs. 0:17:55.018,0:17:57.045 She was a proud lady. 0:17:57.045,0:17:58.353 She had a lot of pride. 0:17:58.353,0:18:02.835 She sold. She crocheted gloves for people. 0:18:02.835,0:18:07.501 She did a lot of things not to be dependent solely on welfare. 0:18:07.501,0:18:11.138 She didn't like them telling her what she could do and what she couldn't do. 0:18:11.138,0:18:16.379 And this is one of the main things that devastated her more than anything else. 0:18:16.379,0:18:22.438 As time went by, you could see she was wearing down. 0:18:22.438,0:18:26.799 [music] 0:18:26.799,0:18:30.381 For seven years, as Malcolm grew into adolescence, 0:18:30.381,0:18:35.109 his mother slowly withdrew from her family. 0:18:35.109,0:18:38.619 Two days before Christmas, 1938, 0:18:38.619,0:18:48.529 Louise Little was diagnosed as paranoid and was sent to Kalamazoo State Hospital. 0:18:48.529,0:18:52.229 And when I came home from school one day and she wasn't there, 0:18:52.229,0:18:58.304 I can remember being empty 'cause my mother had never left us. 0:18:58.304,0:19:01.472 And I felt, you know, the pain of her being gone every day, 0:19:01.472,0:19:04.208 and it was only going to be a couple of weeks, 0:19:04.208,0:19:05.187 you know. 0:19:05.187,0:19:08.393 She was going to get better and come right back home. 0:19:08.393,0:19:12.848 And it turned into years. 0:19:12.848,0:19:20.830 Louise Little would remain at Kalamazoo for the next 26 years. 0:19:20.830,0:19:25.620 The 13-year-old Malcolm watched as the court split up his family, 0:19:25.620,0:19:29.888 assigning the younger children to foster homes in Lansing 0:19:29.888,0:19:38.257 and sending him to a white community 10 miles away. 0:19:38.257,0:19:39.838 In the past, 0:19:39.838,0:19:45.140 the greatest weapon the white man has had has been his ability to divide and conquer. 0:19:45.140,0:19:49.617 If I take my hand and slap you, 0:19:49.617,0:19:51.068 you don't even feel it. 0:19:51.068,0:19:55.991 It might sting you because these digits are separated. 0:19:55.991,0:20:03.662 But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together. 0:20:03.662,0:20:08.128 He was a man who, in the eighth grade in Michigan 0:20:08.128,0:20:12.892 a school where I think he was the only black in his class and one of the very few in the school 0:20:12.892,0:20:16.625 had been an outstanding straight-A student, 0:20:16.625,0:20:17.181 you know, 0:20:17.181,0:20:19.599 who had been in fact the president of his class, 0:20:19.599,0:20:22.405 and all the others were white in the eighth grade. 0:20:22.405,0:20:26.194 Obviously, he had to be exceptional to be those things. 0:20:26.194,0:20:33.159 And then you had the Malcolm who had left school and who had gone to Roxbury, Massachusetts 0:20:33.159,0:20:39.480 where he had gotten his first exposure to what might loosely be called "hustling." 0:20:39.480,0:21:04.562 [music] 0:21:04.562,0:21:09.466 I called myself little hustler up in Roxbury in those days. 0:21:09.466,0:21:11.685 And this particular day, you know, 0:21:11.685,0:21:17.202 Malcolm X had come into Boston and he had on his zoot suit with the wide-brim hat 0:21:17.202,0:21:21.983 with the long, three-quarter-length coat with the chain that went down to your ankles. 0:21:21.983,0:21:31.864 I don't know, the last time I recall, Cab Callowy used that outfit for his stage uniform. 0:21:31.864,0:21:33.676 Now, when Malcolm left Lansing, 0:21:33.676,0:21:36.186 he had nothing but a old square suit on 0:21:36.186,0:21:37.069 "white man's suit," 0:21:37.069,0:21:38.865 as I call it. 0:21:38.865,0:21:41.168 When he came back from Boston, oh Lord, 0:21:41.168,0:21:44.567 Malcolm had a zoot suit on and a wide-brim hat 0:21:44.567,0:21:47.065 and a chain from his hat down onto his lapel 0:21:47.065,0:21:49.666 and he was the talk of the town. 0:21:49.666,0:21:53.402 Everybody was talking about Malcolm. 0:21:53.402,0:21:57.647 [music] 0:21:57.647,0:22:01.226 And then when he was dancing on the floor and he was floating around, 0:22:01.226,0:22:04.094 those pants were like he was a floating balloon, 0:22:04.094,0:22:07.006 with -- that coat was like a wing. 0:22:07.006,0:22:11.762 The way he'd be dancing and flying around with the big, 10-gallon hat on and the chain flinging. 0:22:11.762,0:22:11.763 And this used to really shake up the girls. 0:22:11.763,0:22:11.763 [music and singing] 0:22:28.634,0:22:29.815 In Boston, they called him "New York Red. 0:22:29.815,0:22:31.856 In New York, they called him "Detroit Red." 0:22:31.856,0:22:34.512 He had his hair crockonoed, "conked," you know. 0:22:34.512,0:22:38.334 It was red and he had pictures of him and Billie Holiday 0:22:38.334,0:22:46.367 and all these people at the time out there who were just being made known to the rest of the black world. 0:22:46.367,0:22:54.704 Malcolm worked the kitchen crew on the New Haven Railroad between Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. 0:22:54.704,0:23:06.228 In 1942, he moved to Harlem and at age 17 began traveling in a world of after-hour clubs and small-time hustlers. 0:23:06.228,0:23:08.522 He reached a point where he said, 0:23:08.522,0:23:15.815 "You'll never make it on these janitor jobs and selling sandwiches on these trains and shining shoes and stuff like that." 0:23:15.815,0:23:18.176 He says, "You never will get anywhere." 0:23:18.176,0:23:22.878 Well, he had the reputation as being a hustler and he was a street person, 0:23:22.878,0:23:25.012 but he wasn't a hustler. 0:23:25.012,0:23:28.070 He was a con man, yeah, a con artist. 0:23:28.070,0:23:30.741 They called him an artist. 0:23:30.741,0:23:34.109 When the white folks came out at night and they wanted black women, 0:23:34.109,0:23:35.463 he could arrange for them to get them. 0:23:35.463,0:23:38.087 If they wanted bootleg whiskey, he knew where to get it. 0:23:38.087,0:23:41.089 If they wanted drugs, he knew where to get it. 0:23:41.089,0:23:45.954 He made it possible that he knew what they wanted and he knew where to get it 0:23:45.954,0:23:49.423 and he would be in the middle where he could make a profit off of it. 0:23:49.423,0:23:53.124 And this is the way he started doing. 0:23:53.124,0:23:54.621 Looking back at that time, 0:23:54.621,0:23:57.794 Malcolm said only three things worried him 0:23:57.794,0:24:02.863 jail, a job and the Army. 0:24:02.863,0:24:04.724 To avoid serving in World War II, 0:24:04.724,0:24:10.840 he told his draft board that he wanted to organize black soldiers to kill whites. 0:24:10.840,0:24:17.939 He was judged unfit for the military. 0:24:17.939,0:24:22.117 Malcolm's gambling and drugs and Harlem nightlife were expensive. 0:24:22.117,0:24:26.560 He had already been arrested twice for petty crimes. 0:24:26.560,0:24:29.589 When he moved back to Boston in 1945, 0:24:29.589,0:24:34.368 he organized a gang to burglarize homes of prominent families. 0:24:34.368,0:24:37.969 The other gang members included his friend Malcolm Jarvis, 0:24:37.969,0:24:42.848 his white girlfriend, Bea, and two other white women. 0:24:42.848,0:24:47.204 This girl knew that these people were down in Florida at that time of the year, 0:24:47.204,0:24:48.086 there was nobody home, 0:24:48.086,0:24:52.649 so we broke into the house and we'd get some of their valuables and Malcolm would 0:24:52.649,0:24:54.929 take most of the stuff and pawn it and get money 0:24:54.929,0:24:56.589 for his gambling habit. 0:24:56.589,0:25:00.000 After two weeks of doing this, 0:25:00.000,0:25:02.443 that's when the ??? when he made the mistake 0:25:02.443,0:25:07.112 of going to the pawn shop to retrieve a watch worth over a thousand dollars that came out of 0:25:07.112,0:25:13.170 one of the houses and that's when he was arrested by three policemen. 0:25:13.170,0:25:19.034 Malcolm Little, Malcolm Jarvis and the three women were charged with breaking and entering. 0:25:19.034,0:25:22.189 The fact that two black men were with white women became 0:25:22.189,0:25:25.107 an issue in the court. 0:25:25.107,0:25:32.351 Malcolm was definitely involved with two white women and this is what made the case so powerful. 0:25:32.351,0:25:36.007 So outrageous. 0:25:36.007,0:25:42.396 The women testified that Malcolm had forced them to participate in the burglaries. 0:25:42.396,0:25:49.519 The two men received a maximum sentence: eight to ten years in state prison. 0:25:49.519,0:25:53.694 When they sentenced us, I went out of my mind. 0:25:53.694,0:25:58.140 I reached up and grabbed the bars of the cage and I shook them, almost shook them right up off the floor 0:25:58.140,0:26:00.161 and I hollered at the judge and I said to him, 0:26:00.161,0:26:03.675 "you might as well kill me as to give me ten years in jail." 0:26:03.675,0:26:09.100 Well, I was what you call a mad negro, I was one. 0:26:09.100,0:26:11.307 And I knew what I saw was real. 0:26:11.307,0:26:12.895 ??? 0:26:12.895,0:26:22.947 I knew that when they laughed all together, they were laughing, look what we did, we doing it to the negro. 0:26:22.947,0:26:30.138 Then they had the unintimidated gall to ask the girls before they took them out of there to press charges 0:26:30.138,0:26:36.421 against us for rape. The girls wouldn't do it. 0:26:36.421,0:26:41.654 Malcolm Little was twenty years old, facing eight to ten years in state prison. 0:26:41.654,0:26:47.324 He had wandered far from the Garvey pride and independence his parents had preached. 0:26:47.324,0:26:56.346 He was now prisoner number 22843. 0:26:56.346,0:27:01.696 To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. 0:27:01.696,0:27:05.816 To remain a criminal is the disgrace. 0:27:05.816,0:27:10.333 I formerly was a criminal. I formerly was in prison. 0:27:10.333,0:27:15.243 I'm not ashamed of that. You never can use that over my head, 0:27:15.243,0:27:19.423 and he's using the wrong stick. I don't feel that stick. 0:27:19.423,0:27:26.560 [cheering and applause] 0:27:26.560,0:27:32.129 They charged Jesus with sedition. Didn't they do that? 0:27:32.129,0:27:40.864 They said he was against Caesar. They said he was discriminating because he told his disciples 0:27:40.864,0:27:49.453 "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, 0:27:49.453,0:27:55.220 who are lost from the knowledge of themselves and who are strangers in a land that is not theirs. Go to those people. Go 0:27:55.220,0:28:04.843 to the slaves. Go to the second-class citizens. Go to the ones who are suffering the brunt of Caesar's brutality." 0:28:04.843,0:28:11.725 And if Jesus were here in America today, he wouldn't be going to the white man. The white man is the oppressor. 0:28:11.725,0:28:17.449 He would be going to the oppressed. He would be going to the humble. He would be going to the lowly. 0:28:17.449,0:28:20.473 He would be going to the rejected and the despised. 0:28:20.473,0:28:35.042 He would be going to the so-called American negro. 0:28:35.042,0:28:43.170 Behind prison walls, Malcolm hustled bets, fed his drug habit and argued against the existence of God. 0:28:43.170,0:28:47.138 The men in the cellblock called him Satan. 0:28:47.138,0:28:56.405 But at the same time, encouraged by an older black inmate, Malcolm began reading and taking English courses. 0:28:56.405,0:29:06.945 Malcolm described vividly prison life that he was in effect lonely and limited, but had plans for 0:29:06.945,0:29:12.654 he was going to do a lot of reading and he certainly 0:29:12.654,0:29:14.426 did a lot of writing. 0:29:14.426,0:29:20.799 Because I think there were times when he probably wrote to me every week. 0:29:20.799,0:29:26.051 During the second year in prison, his brothers and sisters wrote to him about what they called 0:29:26.051,0:29:29.330 the natural religion for the black man, 0:29:29.330,0:29:35.808 a religion that taught that black people were the original people, that God was black and 0:29:35.808,0:29:38.596 was called Allah. 0:29:38.596,0:29:43.432 They told Malcolm they were now a part of the Nation of Islam, followers of the honorable 0:29:43.432,0:29:49.172 Elijah Mohammad, the messenger of Allah. 0:29:49.172,0:29:58.522 I think Islam is one of the greatest religions of all time for our people in America. The so-called American 0:29:58.522,0:30:12.679 negro have to be completely reeducated and Islam gives them that qualification, that he can feel proud and 0:30:12.679,0:30:18.749 does not feel ashamed to be called a black man. 0:30:18.749,0:30:25.953 I came into the Muslim movement in 1947 and, um 0:30:25.953,0:30:29.787 then started bringing my brothers and sisters in. 0:30:29.787,0:30:34.974 When we already had been indoctrinated with Marcus Garvey's philosophy, so they didn't 0:30:34.974,0:30:39.043 have anything to do with convincing us that we were black 0:30:39.043,0:30:40.621 and should be proud. 0:30:40.621,0:30:43.987 We were already that when we came in. 0:30:43.987,0:30:47.373 So I wrote to Malcolm and told him about... 0:30:47.373,0:30:54.109 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 0:30:54.109,0:31:01.061 he had very low tolerance for religion and I didn't intend to lose that tolerance. 0:31:01.061,0:31:05.752 Malcolm's brothers and sisters wrote the young prisoner that black people in America 0:31:05.752,0:31:11.545 were part of a lost tribe, soon to be delivered out of bondage. 0:31:11.545,0:31:17.888 And that whites, according to Elijah Mohammad, were a race of devils whose domination on Earth was 0:31:17.888,0:31:21.371 about to end. 0:31:21.371,0:31:27.778 At first, he liked every bit of it, except one thing he couldn't understand and that was the part they were teaching 0:31:27.778,0:31:31.258 about the white man being the devil. 0:31:31.258,0:31:33.874 Malcolm wrote to Elijah Mohammad. Elijah Mohammad 0:31:33.874,0:31:38.692 answered and when he answered, he would cite a portion of scripture. 0:31:38.692,0:31:46.984 And then he gave him the key. He said the key... the Bible is the book that everything that takes place in that Bible 0:31:46.984,0:31:48.392 is on this Earth. 0:31:48.392,0:31:53.875 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 0:31:53.875,0:32:01.359 putting that hell on you. Well, that's a very convincing teaching, especially when you're using the white 0:32:01.359,0:32:05.383 man's history to corroborate this. 0:32:05.383,0:32:13.663 Malcolm began reading history, philosophy and religion. The writings of W.E.B Du Bois, 0:32:13.663,0:32:21.889 Shakespeare, Socrates, the fables of Aesop, the lives of Gandhi and Nat Turner. 0:32:21.889,0:32:29.609 And he finds all this history of how white Christians lynched black Christians, white Christians were the ones who were 0:32:29.609,0:32:33.499 involved in the slave trade -- those were Christians. 0:32:33.499,0:32:40.123 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 0:32:40.123,0:32:50.200 on this earth, it has to be the white man. 0:32:50.200,0:33:00.324 Elijah Mohammad told Malcolm to submit to Allah. But for Malcolm, submission would always be difficult. 0:33:00.324,0:33:11.387 It took a week before he could force himself to bow in prayer. 0:33:11.387,0:33:17.629 Later, to help spread the teachings of Elijah Mohammad, Malcolm joined the prison debate team, competing 0:33:17.629,0:33:22.846 against visiting college teams from Harvard and MIT. 0:33:22.846,0:33:25.910 That's when Malcolm's name and fame started spreading 0:33:25.910,0:33:28.664 amongst the prison population. And that's when the 0:33:28.664,0:33:31.905 population started to grow at the debating classes. Most of 0:33:31.905,0:33:36.330 the fellows used to come over out of curiosity just to hear him speak. 0:33:36.330,0:33:43.810 In 1950, Malcolm wrote to the governor demanding the right to practice the Muslim religion in prison. 0:33:43.810,0:33:53.458 His letters would later end up in FBI files. The Bureau had been keeping a close watch on the nation of Islam since 0:33:53.458,0:34:02.554 the late 1930s. Malcolm, considered a troublemaker, was denied an early parole. 0:34:02.554,0:34:09.667 He was not eligible to be let out at that time because he'd be a threat to society. 0:34:09.667,0:34:16.810 They considered him dangerous, knowledge-wise and otherwise, religious-wise. He would've been like a 0:34:16.810,0:34:22.600 rotten apple in the barrel of a thousand. He was gonna spoil many. 0:34:22.600,0:34:33.250 On August 7, 1952, after six and a half years in prison, Malcolm was released. Within a month, he was accepted into 0:34:33.250,0:34:41.781 the Nation of Islam. Malcolm Little had become Malcolm X. 0:34:41.781,0:34:45.265 How did you happen to join the Muslim movement? 0:34:45.265,0:34:54.536 I was in prison. I was a very wayward criminal, backward, illiterate, uneducated, whatever other negative characteristics you can think of... 0:34:54.536,0:35:01.121 type of person until I heard the teachings of the honorable Elijah Mohammad. And because of the impact that it had 0:35:01.121,0:35:08.334 upon me in giving me a desire to reform myself and rehabilitate myself for the first time in my life. And also being 0:35:08.334,0:35:15.440 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 0:35:15.440,0:35:21.363 the religious teachings of the honorable Elijah Mohammad, immediately, it instilled within me such a high degree of racial 0:35:21.363,0:35:28.250 pride and racial dignity that I wanted to be somebody and I realized that I couldn't be anybody by begging the white man 0:35:28.250,0:35:35.328 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. 0:35:35.328,0:35:47.570 The first time I recall seeing Malcolm was at the home of my father, Elijah Mohammad. I saw a thin man, tall man, young 0:35:47.570,0:35:54.574 man, reddish face. If he was just meeting you, the first thing you would get from him is a smile. 0:35:54.574,0:35:58.000 He said "this is Wallace" and I smiled 0:35:58.000,0:36:05.262 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. 0:36:05.262,0:36:12.009 And he was just so excited about the messenger, really, it wasn't just seeing Wallace. It was seeing the 0:36:12.009,0:36:14.584 messenger's son. 0:36:14.584,0:36:20.067 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 0:36:20.067,0:36:28.442 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. 0:36:28.442,0:36:34.742 And he says, "I'm surprised that you are sitting here and so many empty seats." He said "every time you come out here," 0:36:34.742,0:36:37.152 he said "this place should be full." 0:36:37.152,0:36:40.706 And that excited the honorable Elijah Mohammad. 0:36:40.706,0:36:48.490 In the early 1950s, the Nation of Islam was unknown in most black communities. Total membership was believed to be 0:36:48.490,0:36:51.373 no more than four hundred people. 0:36:51.373,0:36:56.144 Malcolm was sent on the road to spread the message. 0:36:56.144,0:37:04.685 Within two years, he helped organize temples in Boston, Hartford and Philadelphia. 0:37:04.685,0:37:11.223 Elijah Mohammad then named Malcolm minister of the most important temple on the east coast, 0:37:11.223,0:37:15.430 Harlem's temple number seven. 0:37:15.430,0:37:18.805 Mr. Mohammad knew that Malcolm had the experience and 0:37:18.805,0:37:23.742 he knew New York and he also knew that he was the kind 0:37:23.742,0:37:33.103 of man, complexion, height, speech and carriage, all has to be taken into consideration when you select a man 0:37:33.103,0:37:37.862 to send before the people. Plus, this is an international city. 0:37:37.862,0:37:42.037 You got to have your best in New York and this is why 0:37:42.037,0:37:46.872 Mr. Mohammad selected him. 0:37:46.872,0:37:50.062 [soft applause] 0:37:50.062,0:37:56.507 In 1955, when Elijah Mohammad visited the New York temple, it was to inspect the work of the 0:37:56.507,0:38:09.033 ambitious and outspoken young minister who had transformed tiny storefronts along the east coast into a congregation of thousands. 0:38:09.033,0:38:19.131 Malcolm X and Elijah Mohammad's message made a whole lot of people feel whole again, human being again, 0:38:19.131,0:38:24.005 some of them came out and found a new meaning to their 0:38:24.005,0:38:28.174 manhood and their womanhood. Had Elijah Mohammad 0:38:28.174,0:38:40.536 tried to introduce an orthodox form of Arab-oriented Islam, I doubt if he would have attracted five hundred people. 0:38:40.536,0:38:52.090 But he introduced a form of Islam that could communicate with the people he had to deal with. 0:38:52.090,0:39:01.330 He was the king to those who had no king and he was the messiah to those some people thought unworthy 0:39:01.330,0:39:07.639 of a messiah. 0:39:07.639,0:39:14.318 The ??? honorable Elijah Mohammad is like nothing I have ever taken, it's a medicine. 0:39:14.318,0:39:15.301 Right, that's right. 0:39:15.301,0:39:18.261 You're seeing the medicine that has cured me of all my ills. 0:39:18.261,0:39:19.046 That's right. 0:39:19.046,0:39:21.253 'Cause I was a sick man. 0:39:21.253,0:39:25.649 And when I embraced the teachings of the honorable Elijah Mohammad, these teachings cured me of these ills. 0:39:25.649,0:39:28.102 I'm a well man now. And I feel good. 0:39:28.102,0:39:32.213 That's right, as long as you stay with the doctor, you'll continue to feel good. 0:39:32.213,0:39:34.328 Yes sir. 0:39:34.328,0:39:36.295 What about you, brother? How do you feel about the honorable Elijah Mohammad? 0:39:36.295,0:39:44.496 Honorable Elijah Mohammad is trying to teach all our original people they are in bad shape. Honorable Elijah 0:39:44.496,0:39:46.801 Mohammad trying to wake 'em up. 0:39:46.801,0:39:50.123 [music] 0:39:50.123,0:39:54.021 Inside Muslim temples, no white people were allowed. 0:39:54.021,0:40:06.668 Members worked to build a self-sufficient community founded on strict rules and absolute obedience. 0:40:06.668,0:40:14.412 The Nation set up Muslim schools for its children, teaching mathematics, science, history and Arabic. 0:40:14.412,0:40:20.773 [all in chorus] We're the original man. The original man is the ??? 0:40:20.773,0:40:27.796 [indistinct] on the Planet Earth. 0:40:27.796,0:40:34.872 Muslim women studied nutrition, child-rearing and guidelines on how to care for their husbands. 0:40:34.872,0:40:46.309 Muslim men studied parental responsibility, history and religion. 0:40:46.309,0:40:54.028 The elite corps, called the Fruit of Islam, was trained in hand-to-hand combat and was expected to protect 0:40:54.028,0:41:01.893 the temples and to punish any members who spoke out against the messenger. 0:41:01.893,0:41:08.072 I was surprised when I went into some... a couple of the Muslim families. The faith that they had 0:41:08.072,0:41:17.591 in Elijah Mohammad and in Malcolm... I asked one father, I said, "suppose your son came home one day and told you 0:41:17.591,0:41:20.612 that he was renouncing the Muslim religion?" 0:41:20.612,0:41:25.823 And he said "I would turn him from my door. I would never allow him in again." 0:41:25.823,0:41:30.982 So I asked Malcolm about that. He says, "he meant it. And he would do it." 0:41:30.982,0:41:35.401 I says, "not worry about what happened to his son?" 0:41:35.401,0:41:43.835 "No, he wouldn't worry about what happened to him. His allegiance is with Elijah Mohammad." 0:41:43.835,0:41:51.191 To help expand the Nation of Islam, Malcolm created a newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, 0:41:51.191,0:41:56.453 and persuaded other black newspapers to carry the messenger's weekly column. 0:41:56.453,0:42:04.233 His strength was, once he believed in a thing, he would give everything he had to it, all of his energies. 0:42:04.233,0:42:06.976 He'd work, he would become a workaholic. 0:42:06.976,0:42:09.127 He worked day and night for it. 0:42:09.127,0:42:16.147 He only required around four hours' sleep and many times wouldn't get that. And you just kind of wonder 0:42:16.147,0:42:19.631 how can anybody keep up that kind of a pace? But he did it, 0:42:19.631,0:42:27.343 day in and day out. Plus on top of that, he's reading. He's reading papers, keeping up what the news is, 0:42:27.343,0:42:34.289 he's just a person that's tuned into life in such a way that 0:42:34.289,0:42:38.988 he doesn't miss too much of it. 0:42:38.988,0:42:46.478 At age 32, after devoting five years to building the Nation, he sought the approval of Elijah Mohammad to marry 0:42:46.478,0:42:53.282 sister Betty X, a college-educated member of Harlem's temple number seven. 0:42:53.282,9:59:59.000 In the years that followed, the demands of his ministry allowed little time for his growing family. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He sometimes, if I could catch him, would have to read to the children. They would always want the story read again 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so that they would really just wait until he was on the last page and say "read it again." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Read it again, read it again," you know, and so that he started giving the books different endings. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He had a beautiful sense of humor, especially when he was kidding me about pork and whacking me on the back 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and saying that "you're a decent human being, smart historian, I'm going to give you 99 as a human being and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you stop eating pork I'm going to give you 100." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Had a beautiful sense of humor, plus the fact that when you got to know him, he was kind of shy.