Part 5 (2/2)

Plans moved forward for Elijah Muhammad to make his own trip. Sometime during the first half of November 1959, Muhammad set out with two of his sons, Herbert and Akbar. He later claimed to have accomplished a hajj, but because his journey to Mecca took place outside of the officially sanctioned hajj season, technically he had made umrah umrah, a spiritually motivated visit, even though the umrah umrah is widely accepted throughout the Muslim world as a legitimate pilgrimage. More important was the official acceptance of Muhammad and his small delegation by Saudi authorities, who controlled access to the city for wors.h.i.+ppers. is widely accepted throughout the Muslim world as a legitimate pilgrimage. More important was the official acceptance of Muhammad and his small delegation by Saudi authorities, who controlled access to the city for wors.h.i.+ppers.

Muhammad arrived back home on January 6, 1960. Like Malcolm, he had been profoundly affected, and set about implementing changes to give the NOI a stronger Islamic character. At the next month's Saviours Day convention, he ordered that the NOIs temples would henceforth be called mosques, in keeping with orthodox Islam. More significantly, the pace of Islamization was accelerated. Arabic-language instruction increased, and he sent his son Akbar to study at Al-Azhar University in Cairo; yet he must have seen, as Malcolm had, that his own position presented special challenges when it came to reconciling the NOI with orthodox Islam. His authority, and indeed much of the wealth and property he had accrued, derived from his special (if fictive) status as Allah's Messenger-a status he had no intention of relinquis.h.i.+ng. To maintain his supremacy while remaking the face of the NOI would prove a difficult balancing act.

”1960 may well prove to be a year of decision for the American Negro.” Thus spoke radical attorney William Kunstler, opening a debate between Malcolm and the Reverend William M. James on New York City's WMCA radio early that year. Across the South sit-ins and protests had been multiplying, with Negro students refusing to vacate their seats at lunch counters that would not serve them and standing firm in stores that asked them to leave. The mixed experience Malcolm had had with The Hate That Hate Produced The Hate That Hate Produced reinforced the value of presenting the NOIs views in a favorable light, so when early in 1960 New York local radio station WMCA proposed a debate between him and James, the liberal pastor of Metropolitan Community United Methodist Church in Harlem, he accepted the invitation. reinforced the value of presenting the NOIs views in a favorable light, so when early in 1960 New York local radio station WMCA proposed a debate between him and James, the liberal pastor of Metropolitan Community United Methodist Church in Harlem, he accepted the invitation.

Kunstler pressed Malcolm right away. ”Roy Wilkins, the executive director of the NAACP, has described your Temple of Islam as being no better than the Ku Klux Klan. You think this is an adequate comment?” Malcolm at once characterized Wilkins's comment as ignorant: ”I very much doubt, if Mr. Wilkins was familiar with Mr. Muhammad and his program, that he would make such charges.” When Kunstler grew agitated and cited press accounts of NOI members calling whites ”inhuman devils,” Malcolm defended the cause of ”racial extremism” by framing it as a form of exceptionalism common to religious groups. Catholics and Baptists, he pointed out, both claimed the only way to get to heaven was through members.h.i.+p in their respective churches. ”And Jews themselves for thousands of years have been taught that they alone are G.o.d's chosen people . . . I find it difficult for Catholics and Christians to accuse us of teaching or advancing any kind of racial supremacy or racial hatred, because their history and their own teachings are filled with it.”

Whether or not 1960 proved to be the year of the American Negro, it saw Malcolm finding an audience beyond the black community, and his fame growing. He tried hard to maintain a regular presence at Mosque No. 7, but his speaking engagements continued at a rapid clip. In March, he lectured to students from Harvard, Boston, and MIT at a seminar hosted at Boston University. His formal remarks lasted barely ten minutes; the question and answer exchange went on for more than two hours. He also delivered a lecture at an NAACP-sponsored event at Queens College in May, significant because it marked the first time that the civil rights organization had provided a platform to a black leader who so sharply opposed its policies.

However, the most important address he gave that year was on May 28 at the Harlem Freedom Rally, which the NOI organized with more than a dozen other local black groups. The rally was held at the intersection of Harlem's West 125th Street and Seventh Avenue, where an estimated four thousand people attending the five-hour-long program were packed in shoulder to shoulder in the streets and along the sidewalks. Before the rally started, loudspeakers blared out Louis Xs calypso song ”A White Man's Heaven Is a Black Man's h.e.l.l.” When Malcolm took to the stage, he delivered a speech that departed from his typical remarks of the time. He made a consciously broad appeal, focusing not on the NOI but on ”the black people of Harlem, the black people of America, and the black people all over this earth.” At times, he even sounded King-like: ”We are not here at this rally because we have already gained freedom. No! We are gathered here rallying for the freedom which we have long been promised, but have as yet not received.” Throughout his remarks, he used the racially inclusive language of the civil rights cause-”freedom,” ”equality,” and ”justice”-as the framework for building an all-black militant coalition based in the Harlem ghetto. Negroes aligned with the NAACP and National Urban League would find it difficult to argue against such rhetoric, which had neatly appropriated their own.

A central purpose of the rally, Malcolm told his audience, was to listen to a variety of African-American leaders, including some ”who have been acting as our spokesmen, and representing us to the white man downtown.” He offered no criticism of moderates, instead emphasizing the necessity for Harlem's blacks to overcome the divisions in their community. His emphasis on the need for a united front projected an image of pragmatism and moderation, a remarkable turn for a man who only months earlier had attacked integrationist leaders as Uncle Toms. The speech met with tremendous success and was largely responsible for transforming Malcolm into a respected political leader in Harlem's civic life. Whether the NYPDs BOSS division knew ahead of time about his intentions, it a.s.signed six detectives to attend the rally. One, a black officer named Ernest B. Latty, was apparently so disturbed by the song ”A White Man's Heaven” that he purchased the record and attached it to his report. Reactions among the detectives in general raised enough concern to result in a significant increase in BOSSs surveillance.

As Malcolm's schedule of media appearances, college lectures, and speeches grew throughout 1960, so did criticism of him within the NOI. To demonstrate his loyalty, he attended many of Muhammad's public talks, while keeping track of local mosques and devoting himself to Mosque No. 7 at all hours. He also promoted a cult around Muhammad, suggesting that the ”apostle” could commit no sins or errors of judgment. ”If you look at the development of the Nation of Islam,” Louis Farrakhan explained, ”it was Brother Malcolm who started referring to Elijah as 'the Honorable' Elijah, and who started making us say-over and over again-'Messenger Elijah Muhammad taught me' or 'Messenger Elijah Muhammad teaches us.' He was driving the point home that Elijah Muhammad was a messenger of G.o.d.”

Malcolm's high profile continued to generate speaking invitations at major universities, which introduced him to a significantly larger-and whiter-audience than any of his coworkers inside the Nation. FBI informants even reported that Malcolm might run for public office. On October 20, at Yale Law School auditorium, he was matched with Herbert Wright, the NAACPs national youth secretary. Before a standing-room-only crowd, Wright predictably promoted the cause of racial integration, calling for the use of ”litigation, education, and legislation” to achieve reforms. Malcolm rejected this in favor of the total separation of the races. At the end of the debate, NOI members circulated among the throng of white students, selling records featuring ”A White Man's Heaven Is a Black Man's h.e.l.l.” The debate with Wright represented, on balance, a retreat from the positions favoring civil rights that Malcolm had expressed at the Harlem rally only months before. The emphasis on strict racial separation probably was prompted by Malcolm's desire to make a clear distinction with the NAACP in front of a mostly white audience.

The brutal pace of travel continued throughout the second half of 1960. Although NOI-related business consumed most of his energies, Malcolm continued to look for ways to reach a wider public. The radio interviews and debates reached a largely intellectual and middle-cla.s.s audience. What he was looking for was a way to establish himself on a par with other national and international leaders.

As fate would have it, an opportunity to crash international headlines came gift wrapped from the Cuban Revolution. In September 1960, Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro traveled to New York City to attend the United Nations General a.s.sembly. Across Harlem, news of his impending trip set off great excitement among leaders of the local black left. They quickly arranged a welcoming committee, which Malcolm joined. When the Cuban delegation arrived, it checked in to the well-appointed Shelburne Hotel on Lexington Avenue at 37th Street. Tensions soon ran high: the Cubans already felt insulted by the State Department, which had confined the eighty-five-member delegation's freedom of travel to Manhattan Island. Then a dispute arose over the bill at the Shelburne, with an outraged Castro accusing the hotel of making ”unacceptable cash demands.” At first, he threatened to move his entourage to Central Park. ”We are mountain people,” he explained proudly. ”We are used to sleeping in the open air.” United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjold scrambled to secure lodgings for them at the midtown Commodore Hotel, but he was too late: Malcolm and the Harlem welcoming committee had swooped in and invited the Cubans to stay at the Hotel Theresa, at Seventh Avenue and 125th Street. The eleven-story hotel had three hundred guest rooms; the new guests reserved forty of them, in addition to two suites, one of which was for Fidel.

A Was.h.i.+ngton Post Was.h.i.+ngton Post writer speculated that ”Castro, who has made overtures to U.S. Negro leaders to support his left-leaning revolution, apparently was trying to get as much propaganda as possible out of his move.” The Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, who was attending the same UN session, immediately sensed an opportunity, and within hours drove uptown and met with Castro for the first time. Meanwhile, thousands of Harlemites thronged the hotel to witness the comings and goings of the delegation and the various visits by international dignitaries. It wasn't long before a mix of political groups entered the crowd, pus.h.i.+ng their own agendas: black nationalists who promoted the cause of deposed Congolese premier Patrice Lumumba, civil rights activists favoring desegregation, pro-Castro demonstrators, and even some beatniks from Greenwich Village. One placard read: ”Man, like us cats dig Fidel the most. He knows what's hip and bugs the squares.” writer speculated that ”Castro, who has made overtures to U.S. Negro leaders to support his left-leaning revolution, apparently was trying to get as much propaganda as possible out of his move.” The Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, who was attending the same UN session, immediately sensed an opportunity, and within hours drove uptown and met with Castro for the first time. Meanwhile, thousands of Harlemites thronged the hotel to witness the comings and goings of the delegation and the various visits by international dignitaries. It wasn't long before a mix of political groups entered the crowd, pus.h.i.+ng their own agendas: black nationalists who promoted the cause of deposed Congolese premier Patrice Lumumba, civil rights activists favoring desegregation, pro-Castro demonstrators, and even some beatniks from Greenwich Village. One placard read: ”Man, like us cats dig Fidel the most. He knows what's hip and bugs the squares.”

Malcolm's members.h.i.+p on the welcoming committee put him in a prime position to turn the visit into an opportunity. Late in the evening of September 19, he and a few NOI lieutenants were granted an hour with Castro. Details of their conversation are at best sketchy; Benjamin 2X Goodman later claimed that Malcolm attempted to ”fish” Castro, inviting him to join the NOI. Yet Malcolm surely sensed that any official relations.h.i.+p, while useful, would create great difficulties for him with the authorities. One report suggests that, after the meeting, Malcolm was repeatedly invited to visit Cuba, but made no commitments. Whatever transpired, he was clearly impressed by Castro personally and viewed this new connection as a diplomatic resource that the NOI could exploit. On September 21, speaking at Mosque No. 7, Malcolm instructed all FOI members to stand on ”twenty-four-hour alert” so long as Castro remained in Harlem. He added that Castro was ”friendly” to the Muslims. An FBI informant reported that ”the FOI was being alerted to a.s.sist Castro in the event of any anti-Castro demonstrations.”

Though Muhammad Speaks Muhammad Speaks eventually became a staunch defender of the Cuban Revolution, at the time Elijah Muhammad was extremely unhappy about the meeting between Malcolm and Castro. Since his return from the Middle East, his chronic pulmonary illness had worsened, and for all Malcolm's efforts to venerate Muhammad, speculation remained rife throughout the Nation over whether Malcolm or Wallace Muhammad might soon a.s.sume the role of national leader. Since speaking together at the Feast of the Followers in 1957, Malcolm and Wallace had grown closer, despite Wallace's increasing rejection of his fathers theology and his disgust with what he saw as graft on the part of advisers like Raymond and Ethel Sharrieff. Malcolm's militant att.i.tude rubbed off on Wallace to the point that some NOI leaders worried about the potency of a potential alliance. Mosque No. 4 minister Lucius X Brown complained that the duo might ”talk Elijah Muhammad into marching on the White House.” Even if Muhammad did not want to, Lucius suggested, ”Malcolm and Wallace were after Muhammad's job and Muhammad might do it to save face.” eventually became a staunch defender of the Cuban Revolution, at the time Elijah Muhammad was extremely unhappy about the meeting between Malcolm and Castro. Since his return from the Middle East, his chronic pulmonary illness had worsened, and for all Malcolm's efforts to venerate Muhammad, speculation remained rife throughout the Nation over whether Malcolm or Wallace Muhammad might soon a.s.sume the role of national leader. Since speaking together at the Feast of the Followers in 1957, Malcolm and Wallace had grown closer, despite Wallace's increasing rejection of his fathers theology and his disgust with what he saw as graft on the part of advisers like Raymond and Ethel Sharrieff. Malcolm's militant att.i.tude rubbed off on Wallace to the point that some NOI leaders worried about the potency of a potential alliance. Mosque No. 4 minister Lucius X Brown complained that the duo might ”talk Elijah Muhammad into marching on the White House.” Even if Muhammad did not want to, Lucius suggested, ”Malcolm and Wallace were after Muhammad's job and Muhammad might do it to save face.”

The possibility of this power pairing appeared to be dashed on March 23, 1960, when Wallace Muhammad was convicted in federal court for refusing to be drafted into the military. In June of that same year, he was sentenced to three years' incarceration. Wallace's attorney appealed the decision, claiming him as a conscientious objector. While the appeal crawled through the system, Wallace continued his activities building the Philadelphia mosque, and he was a frequent visitor to Harlem Mosque No. 7. For example, on January 29, 1961, when Malcolm was away on an extended lecture tour, Wallace was advertised as the featured speaker at Mosque No. 7 in the Amsterdam News Amsterdam News. At an October 1961 hearing, Wallace's appeal was finally denied, and he was ordered to turn himself in for incarceration in a federal prison. On October 30, Wallace began serving a three-year term at the Federal Correctional Inst.i.tution in Sandstone, Minnesota. Wallace Muhammad was paroled on January 10, 1963, and he immediately returned to resume his ministers appointment at Mosque No. 12 in Philadelphia.

Wallace's absence from NOI organizational life tended to increase paranoid rumors and fears about Malcolm, especially among Elijah Muhammad's other children. Some of the hostility directed at Malcolm grew from his organizational function. As a national overseer, his responsibilities included resolving local feuds between members of various mosques. The role of troubleshooter was an unenviable one, because Malcolm was frequently forced to impose the authority of Chicago headquarters over local leaders who sought the semiautonomy and flexibility that he himself enjoyed.

Facing growing strife, Malcolm was concerned about protecting his allies within the NOI. No one was more important to him than Louis X Walcott. Louis had worked directly under Malcolm in New York City from October 1955 to July 1956, enough time for him to incorporate Malcolm's oratorical style into his own. But when he had become Boston's minister in 1957, he had considerable difficulty handling the job. He feared that he was unqualified, with the mosque having attracted a number of professionals far more experienced in business and civic affairs than he was. Farrakhan recalled: ”[Malcolm] would come and look after his little brother and give me pointers. And Malcolm would go out in the street, man, and listen to the people, go in barbershops-'What do you think about the mosque?' And he would get the outside view of me and us. And he would come back and tell me what the people were saying and correct me.”

Malcolm was determined that his protege become a national figure in his own right, and encouraged him to write two plays, Orgena Orgena and and The Trial The Trial, both of which became wildly popular when performed before Muslim audiences. But before long Louis needed a different kind of help. Ella Collins, newly converted to the NOI, had quickly become leader of those who wanted Louis deposed. Years later he would describe her as a ”genius woman,” then adding, ”But in my weakness in administrative skill, she saw that weakness and raised a group in opposition to me.” With the same boundless energy with which she had established educational programs within the temple, she threw herself into battle. As tensions mounted, a fire broke out in Louis's home; no one was injured, but most NOI members believed that Collins was responsible.

Both sides appealed to Elijah Muhammad. Louis argued that Ella continued to undermine his authority and should be disciplined, if not expelled. Ella urged Muhammad to name her captain of Mosque No. 11 and to fire Louis. Muhammad first offered a compromise: Louis would remain the minister, but none of the programs Ella had initiated at the mosque would be canceled. Ella tried to adhere to this plan, but her dislike for Louis was too strong, and she soon stopped attending the mosque. But the matter did not end there. Malcolm was invited to Boston as a mediator, where he explained to Louis that Ella was an extremely dangerous person. ”Ella is the type of woman that-brother, she'll kill you.” Malcolm had little choice but to back Louis's decision to expel her, making her the second of his siblings, after Reginald, that Malcolm would sacrifice to his loyalty to the Nation.

By 1960, the black activist Bayard Rustin was almost fifty years old. Though his tireless civil rights work brought him into a.s.sociation with younger men like King, his agitation on behalf of African Americans had begun decades earlier. Rustin had briefly joined the Communist Party in the late 1930s, then in 1941 worked with A. Philip Randolph's Negro March on Was.h.i.+ngton Movement, which forced President Roosevelt to outlaw racial discrimination in the defense industry. Like Malcolm, he had opposed black involvement in World War II, and his refusal to join the military landed him a three-year prison sentence. After his release, he partic.i.p.ated in nonviolent demonstrations, challenging Jim Crow laws on public buses in the upper South; by the mid-1950s he had become an invaluable adviser and fund-raiser to King.

However, as the decade turned and the bitter taste of McCarthyism lingered in the mouths of the left, Rustin found himself suddenly marginalized. It was not only on account of his brief communist members.h.i.+p, but also his s.e.xuality: Rustin was gay, and in 1953 had been jailed in California for public s.e.xual activity. In April 1960, he had become involved with a new organization initiated by Ella Baker, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which would become the radical wing of the desegregationist struggle. Throughout that summer, he had a.s.sisted SNCCs new president, Marion Barry, in planning what was to be a major conference on nonviolence in October. Rustin's name was even listed on the conference program. But when the AFL-CIOs executive council, which was funding the conference, expressed opposition to his partic.i.p.ation based on his s.e.xual orientation and brief communist past, Barry and other student coordinators caved in and ”disinvited” him. Rustin's public banning was not unusual for African-American leftists, however. In academic year 1961-62, communist Benjamin Davis, Jr., was banned from speaking on many college campuses, sparking student protests at City University of New York.

Rustin's isolation from the Black Freedom Movement and his desire to use the publicity surrounding Malcolm to reestablish his own credentials may help to explain his growing interest in the Nation of Islam. On November 7, 1960, the two men debated each other on New York City's WBAI radio, the beginning of a friends.h.i.+p that would endure despite their divergent agendas. Malcolm, speaking first, began by distinguis.h.i.+ng the NOIs approach from that of black nationalism. A nationalist, Malcolm explained, shared the same aim of a Muslim. ”But the difference is in method. We say the only solution is the religious approach; this is why we stress the importance of a moral reformation.” He denied any commitment to practical politics, a.s.serting Elijah Muhammad was ”not a politician.”

Malcolm had by this time garnered much experience as a debater, but Rustin had more, and he worked over his younger opponent; it didn't help that the holes in Malcolm's argument were easy to spot. Rustin attacked Malcolm's separatist position as conservative, even pa.s.sive. The vast majority of blacks, he said, were ”seeking to become full-fledged citizens,” and the purpose of civil rights protests was to further this cause. Malcolm denied the possibility that ”full-fledged” citizens.h.i.+p was attainable. ”We feel that if a hundred years after the so-called Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation the black man is still not free, then we don't feel that what Lincoln did set them free in the first place.” Rustin quickly pointed out that Malcolm was avoiding the question.

The older man's superior debating skills kept his opponent on the defensive. At one point, Malcolm denied that integration was ever going to happen, but admitted that ”if the white man were to accept us, without laws being pa.s.sed, then we would go for it.” This alone was a significant concession, except Rustin wanted to force Malcolm to the logical end point of this argument: that if change was impossible to achieve in America, blacks would have to set up a separate state elsewhere. When Malcolm finally admitted as much, Rustin closed the trap. It was relatively easy for him to recount the major reforms that had taken place, and the practical impossibility of a black state. ”The great majority of Negroes [are] feeling that things can improve here. Until you have some place to go, they're going to want to stay.”

In a matter of minutes, the essential weakness of the Nation of Islam had been exposed. It presented itself as a religious movement, with no direct interest in politics. Yet, as King had shown, when it came to driving change, religion and politics did not need to be mutually exclusive. Hundreds of black Christian ministers were already using their churches as centers for mobilizing civil disobedience and voter registration efforts. The Nation saw the white government as the enemy; Elijah Muhammad often claimed in speeches that the government had failed black Americans. But with John F. Kennedy's election in November 1960, largely on the wings of significant support by blacks, reforms seemed to be on the horizon. And even if those reforms were limited, the Garveyite notion of one or more separate black states was never a realizable alternative.

Most devastating for Malcolm was that he knew Rustin was right. For all the strides the Nation had made in promoting self-improvement in the lives of its members, its political isolation had left it powerless to change the external conditions that bounded their freedoms. Malcolm himself had already embraced the necessity of direct political action when he marched down Harlem's busiest thoroughfares and blockaded a police station to secure the safety of Johnson X Hinton. And the Third World movements he embraced-from the postcolonial struggles inspired by Pan-Africanism to his identification with Castro-were driven fundamentally by a commitment to politics. Rustin showed that Malcolm was defending a conservative, apolitical program that, by his own actions, he did not endorse.

Had Malcolm been quicker to grasp the practical implications of Rustin's logic, he might have avoided one of the great disasters of his career. Soon after the debate, he was charged with leading the NOIs mobilization in Dixie. By the late 1950s, most civil rights organizations were devoting their resources to support campaigns across the South, and the NOI did not want to be caught out. In 1960 in Jackson, Mississippi, thousands of blacks had partic.i.p.ated in an economic boycott of segregationist white merchants that proved to be 90 to 95 percent effective. That August NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers investigated and publicized police brutality cases in the state. CORE was also poised for growth, when in December 1960 the Supreme Court ruled in Boynton v. Virginia Boynton v. Virginia that racial segregation was outlawed in all interstate transportation terminals, much as the earlier that racial segregation was outlawed in all interstate transportation terminals, much as the earlier Morgan v. Virginia Morgan v. Virginia had done for interstate bus travel itself. In early 1961, under new director James Farmer, CORE would initiate ”Freedom Rides” of desegregationist protesters into the Deep South. had done for interstate bus travel itself. In early 1961, under new director James Farmer, CORE would initiate ”Freedom Rides” of desegregationist protesters into the Deep South.

Unlike these civil rights groups, however, the Nation's Southern strategy would be anch.o.r.ed to its program of black separatism. Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm had together constructed an anti-integrationist strategy that they hoped would find a receptive audience among Southern blacks. A key element of their approach was to brand African-American Christian clergy, especially those involved in nonviolent protests, as ”Toms”-even though such an ugly attack directly contradicted Malcolm's public commitment to the building of a black united front. The plan also called for the construction of new NOI mosques across the region.

In December, Malcolm traveled to Atlanta, announcing his presence there in an interview on that city's WERD radio. He attended meetings and gave lectures at Atlanta's Mosque No. 15 on at least five occasions, before moving on to an interdenominational ministers' conference in Alabama and other meetings in Tampa, Miami, and Jacksonville.

Malcolm returned home for the Christmas Day birth of his second daughter, Qubilah, named in honor of Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, but by late January he was back in Atlanta, ostensibly to partic.i.p.ate in local NOI meetings. The main purpose of this trip, however, was to establish an understanding with the Ku Klux Klan.

No single incident in Malcolm's entire career has generated more controversy than his private caucus with the Klan in January 1961. Most of the details about the planning and logistics of this meeting are still sketchy. What is established is that, despite a previous exchange of hostile letters between KKK leader J. B. Stoner and Elijah Muhammad, both the Klan and the NOI saw advantages to crafting a secret alliance. On January 28, Malcolm and Atlanta NOI leader Jeremiah X met in Atlanta with KKK representatives. Apparently, the Nation was interested in purchasing tracts of farmland and other properties in the South and, as Malcolm explained, wanted to solicit ”the aid of the Klan to obtain the land.” According to FBI surveillance, Malcolm a.s.sured the white racists that ”his people wanted complete segregation from the white race.” If sufficient territory were obtainable, blacks could establish their own racially separate businesses and even government. Explaining that the Nation exercised strict discipline over its members, he urged white racists in Georgia to do likewise: to eliminate those white ”traitors who a.s.sisted integration leaders.”

Malcolm himself seems to have viewed the entire affair with distaste, as he complained about it afterward to Elijah Muhammad and did not publicly admit his role until years later. Even then, he worked to distance himself, claiming that he had no knowledge about NOI-Klan contacts after January 1961,

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