Part 13 (2/2)

The NYPD's narrative about Malcolm's murder was simple. The slaying was the culmination of an almost yearlong feud between two black hate groups. The NYPD had two priorities in conducting its investigation: first, to protect the ident.i.ties of its undercover police officers and informants, like Gene Roberts; and second, to make successful cases against NOI members with histories of violence. Its hasty and haphazard treatment of forensic evidence at the crime scene suggested that it had little interest in solving the actual homicide.

From the outset, the NYPD focused its attention on Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, the two NOI lieutenants they believed had partic.i.p.ated in the shooting of Benjamin Brown in the Bronx. The department's hypothesis in the Malcolm killing was that Butler was the second gunman along with Hayer. Johnson was supposedly the shotgun shooter, despite that he was about four inches taller and fairer complexioned than the very dark, stocky Willie Bradley. Still, the police's suspicions were not entirely without merit. Several OAAU and MMI members placed either Butler or Johnson in the Audubon on the day of the shooting. George Matthews, a member of both groups, informed an NYPD detective that ”Butler looks like one of the men who had been engaged in the argument but that he would not swear to this.” An ”unspecified number” of other eyewitnesses viewed Butler in lineups, and two claimed that he had been inside the Grand Ballroom on the day of the shooting.

Yet the most intriguing piece of evidence against Butler came from Sharon 6X Poole, the eighteen-year-old OAAU secretary with whom Malcolm had been secretly involved in the previous weeks. Only minutes after the shooting, she told a news interviewer that one of the a.s.sa.s.sins was definitely a member of Harlem Mosque No. 7. Sharon had been sitting in the first row when the shooting began, and had fallen to the floor like nearly everyone else. She was still able to identify one of the a.s.sa.s.sins, she claimed, as a man wearing a brown suit who was an NOI member from Harlem.

On February 26 police arrested Butler at his home and drove him to a station house to be questioned, prompting the Times Times and newspapers across the country to a.s.sert that the NYPD was solving the case. The next day, without being contacted by the police first, Sharon 6X phoned the NYPD and presented what appeared to be a convincing story. Again, she explained that she had been seated in the front row when the shooting started. She ”observed Malcolm get shot, place his hands across his chest, and then fall backwards.” One of the shooters who sprinted past her with a gun in his hand looked like ”the pictures of Norman Butler” she had seen in newspapers. She described Butler as ”thirty-five years, five foot eleven inches, or six foot, medium build, 170 pounds, brown skin. . . . [The] subject was firing his gun in all directions in an attempt to get out of the premises.” Sharon 6X also told the police that MMI ”guards were all ordered not to have any guns, that is all except Reuben Francis.” and newspapers across the country to a.s.sert that the NYPD was solving the case. The next day, without being contacted by the police first, Sharon 6X phoned the NYPD and presented what appeared to be a convincing story. Again, she explained that she had been seated in the front row when the shooting started. She ”observed Malcolm get shot, place his hands across his chest, and then fall backwards.” One of the shooters who sprinted past her with a gun in his hand looked like ”the pictures of Norman Butler” she had seen in newspapers. She described Butler as ”thirty-five years, five foot eleven inches, or six foot, medium build, 170 pounds, brown skin. . . . [The] subject was firing his gun in all directions in an attempt to get out of the premises.” Sharon 6X also told the police that MMI ”guards were all ordered not to have any guns, that is all except Reuben Francis.”

Her statements focused attention on Harlem Mosque No. 7, yet police never examined Sharon's possible connections with Newark mosque members. After entering the Grand Ballroom on the afternoon of the a.s.sa.s.sination, Sharon 6X had sat in the front row next to Linwood X Cathcart, an NOI member from New Jersey whose presence perturbed the MMI members who recognized him. The seating arrangement may have been a coincidence, but subsequent evidence concerning Sharon and Cathcart makes this hard to believe. More than forty years after the a.s.sa.s.sination, Cathcart and Sharon 6X Poole Shabazz live together in the same New Jersey residence, and Shabazz has maintained absolute silence about her relations.h.i.+ps with both Malcolm X and Cathcart.

A grand jury was impaneled on March 1, and the New York district attorney's office vigorously presented its theory that only three men-Hayer, Johnson, and Butler-had committed the murder. Johnson was arrested on March 3. He, too, was placed in the Audubon by eyewitnesses. Photojournalist Earl Grant divulged important details to the NYPD about the murder that had been confided in him by a fellow MMI member, Charles X Blackwell, one of the rostrum guards during the a.s.sa.s.sination. On March 8, Grant told police that Blackwell observed one a.s.sa.s.sin ”fleeing from the chair area to the ladies room located on the east side of the ballroom.” Blackwell ”feels that this person [Thomas Johnson] was arrested for this crime-he knows Johnson from previous meetings.” Blackwell also identified ”another person who he knows as Benjamin from Paterson or Newark seated about the third row on the left side.” Although the police were pleased that Johnson was placed at the crime scene, the fact that Blackwell had identified Ben X Thomas of the Newark mosque, one of the actual a.s.sa.s.sins, was not further investigated. On March 10 the grand jury ruled that Hayer, Butler, and Johnson had ”willfully, feloniously and of malice aforethought” killed Malcolm X.

The police were well aware that New Jersey Muslims might have been involved in the murder. MMI guards had mentioned the presence of Linwood Cathcart in the Grand Ballroom, and he was interviewed by the NYPD on March 25, 1965; Robert 16X Gray, a member of the Newark mosque, had already been interviewed three days earlier. However, the police did not systematically investigate Hayer's ties to the Newark mosque, or endeavor to explain how he might have hooked up with Butler and Johnson, two Harlem-based NOI officers more senior than himself. They apparently did not consider that NOI protocol would never have allowed enforcers from the Harlem mosque to murder Malcolm in broad daylight, because such men almost certainly would have been recognized by many in the crowd. The NYPD file for Joseph Gravitt is empty, indicating perhaps that any evidence obtained from the Mosque No. 7 captain had been destroyed years ago.

Within Malcolm's organizations, suspicion quickly rose over the truth of the NYPD's a.s.sertion, and murmurs could be heard about the possibility of an inside job. Since the day of the murder, some inside the MMI had started to revise their estimation of Reuben X Francis as the day's hero, for shooting Talmadge Hayer. If the NYPD had been asked to relocate their detail outside the Audubon to a location several blocks away, there were only two individuals, other than Malcolm, who had the authority to negotiate a pullback: James 67X and Reuben. In addition, many began to wonder why Charles X Blackwell and Robert 35X Smith had been a.s.signed to guard Malcolm that day when neither man had much experience in a forward defensive position, and when a usual rostrum guard, William 64X George, was present but a.s.signed to guard the door. Reuben's position as Malcolm's head of security, responsible for both communicating with the police and arranging Malcolm's guard detail, had some brothers believing that he might have been involved in the killing.

Gerry Fulcher was convinced that Reuben Francis ”was the the guy. He organized it. And he wanted to get out of Dodge when he knew things were going to get hot. It would come back to him.” The key question for Fulcher was whether Francis was an informant for either the FBI or the NYPD. If Francis had been involved, Fulcher believes, ”he had to have contacts within the agency [FBI], or with our office.” But Francis's role remains uncertain; even the police records are unclear because BOSS and the FBI rarely shared important information about undercover operatives. ”The last thing the FBI would ever tell BOSS,” Fulcher said, ”is that Francis was an informant.” guy. He organized it. And he wanted to get out of Dodge when he knew things were going to get hot. It would come back to him.” The key question for Fulcher was whether Francis was an informant for either the FBI or the NYPD. If Francis had been involved, Fulcher believes, ”he had to have contacts within the agency [FBI], or with our office.” But Francis's role remains uncertain; even the police records are unclear because BOSS and the FBI rarely shared important information about undercover operatives. ”The last thing the FBI would ever tell BOSS,” Fulcher said, ”is that Francis was an informant.”

Francis began telling others that things were too hot to stay in New York. Released for bail of $10,000, he began expressing fears that New York district attorneys intended to prosecute him for the Hayer shooting, so he decided to flee the country. Anas Luqman, who had also been dragged in by police and then released, thought this made sense, and the two men hatched a plot to drive to the Mexican border and hide out in the desert. Francis recruited three other men with NOI connections who, for different reasons, also wanted to leave the United States. Luqman insisted that one of them, a seventeen-year-old boy, be left behind. ”So we started driving,” Luqman recalled more than forty years later, and after several days on the road the group crossed the border.

Whether or not Malcolm's own men played a role in his death, nearly all Malcolmites were convinced that law enforcement and the U.S. government were extensively involved in the murder. Peter Bailey, for example, charged in a 1968 interview that the NYPD and the FBI ”knew that brother Malcolm's destiny was a.s.signed for a.s.sa.s.sination.” Bailey believed that both Thomas Johnson and Norman Butler were innocent. Although he himself did not witness the shooting-he was waiting downstairs for the arrival of Reverend Galamison-he developed a strong theory on how the a.s.sa.s.sination had occurred. ”I think that brother Malcolm was killed by trained killers,” he said, not ”amateurs.” Bailey doubted that ”the Muslims were capable of doing it.” Consequently, most OAAU and MMI members decided not to be cooperative with the police. What they failed to understand was that there was intense compet.i.tion and mistrust between the NYPD and the FBI. Even within the NYPD itself, BOSS operated largely above the law, s.h.i.+elding its own operatives and paid informants from the rest of the police force. Consequently there was no unified law enforcement strategy in place to suppress the investigation of Malcolm's death. In the end, cooperation with police detectives might have increased the likelihood that Malcolm's real killers would have been brought to justice.

Ultimately, the police's version of events gained credibility from the media's sensationalizing of Malcolm's antiwhite image. A New York Times New York Times news article, for example, was headlined ”Malcolm X Lived in Two Worlds, White and Black, Both Bitter.” In its editorial, the news article, for example, was headlined ”Malcolm X Lived in Two Worlds, White and Black, Both Bitter.” In its editorial, the Times Times described Malcolm as ”an extraordinary and twisted man, turning many true gifts to evil purpose. . . . Malcolm X had the ingredients for leaders.h.i.+p, but his ruthless and fanatical belief in violence not only set him apart from the responsible leaders of the civil rights movement and the overwhelming majority of Negroes. It also marked him for notoriety, and for a violent end.” The editorial implied that Malcolm's break from the NOI was due to jealousy rather than political or ethical differences. It also suggested that black nationalist extremists, whether in the Nation or in some other group, had been responsible for the murder. ”The world he saw through those horn-rimmed gla.s.ses of his was distorted and dark,” the editorial concluded. ”But he made it darker still with his exaltation of fanaticism. Yesterday someone came out of that darkness that he sp.a.w.ned, and killed him.” described Malcolm as ”an extraordinary and twisted man, turning many true gifts to evil purpose. . . . Malcolm X had the ingredients for leaders.h.i.+p, but his ruthless and fanatical belief in violence not only set him apart from the responsible leaders of the civil rights movement and the overwhelming majority of Negroes. It also marked him for notoriety, and for a violent end.” The editorial implied that Malcolm's break from the NOI was due to jealousy rather than political or ethical differences. It also suggested that black nationalist extremists, whether in the Nation or in some other group, had been responsible for the murder. ”The world he saw through those horn-rimmed gla.s.ses of his was distorted and dark,” the editorial concluded. ”But he made it darker still with his exaltation of fanaticism. Yesterday someone came out of that darkness that he sp.a.w.ned, and killed him.”

Several days later, Time Time magazine left no doubt regarding its interpretation : ”Malcolm X had been a pimp, a cocaine addict and a thief. He was an unashamed demagogue. His gospel was hatred.” The magazine also concurred with the NYPD's theory of the a.s.sa.s.sination. ”Malcolm's murder [was] almost certainly at the hands of the Black Muslims from whom he had defected.” But it was not enough just to condemn Malcolm on ideological grounds; magazine left no doubt regarding its interpretation : ”Malcolm X had been a pimp, a cocaine addict and a thief. He was an unashamed demagogue. His gospel was hatred.” The magazine also concurred with the NYPD's theory of the a.s.sa.s.sination. ”Malcolm's murder [was] almost certainly at the hands of the Black Muslims from whom he had defected.” But it was not enough just to condemn Malcolm on ideological grounds; Time Time went on to invent a story to ridicule his character. The Sunday afternoon program at the Audubon had started late, the magazine declared, because ”characteristically [Malcolm] had kept his followers waiting for nearly an hour while he lingered over tea and a banana split at a nearby Harlem restaurant.” went on to invent a story to ridicule his character. The Sunday afternoon program at the Audubon had started late, the magazine declared, because ”characteristically [Malcolm] had kept his followers waiting for nearly an hour while he lingered over tea and a banana split at a nearby Harlem restaurant.”

Other publications expressed similar sentiments. The Sat.u.r.day Evening Post' Sat.u.r.day Evening Post's obituary was more sensitive than most, but expressed frustration and confusion over the murdered black leader. ”The ugly killing of Malcolm X prompted many people to attempt an a.s.sessment of this violent and baffling young demagogue. Was his death an inevitable part of the struggle for Negro equality?” the obituary asked. ”His death resembled a martyrdom less than a gangland execution. But Americans have had too much of a.s.sa.s.sination, too much of the settlement of conflict by violence.”

The New York Herald Tribune' New York Herald Tribune's initial headline story on Malcolm, printed that Sunday evening but dated as the first edition of February 22, read ”Malcolm X Slain by Gunmen as 400 in Ballroom Watch: Police Rescue Two Suspects.” An accompanying article stated that Hayer had been ”taken to the Bellevue Prison Ward and was sealed off by a dozen policemen. The other suspect was taken to the Wadsworth Avenue precinct, where the city's top policemen immediately converged.” Several hours later, in the Herald Tribune' Herald Tribune's late edition, the subhead of the article was changed: ”Police Rescue One Suspect.” References to a second suspect being taken to the Wadsworth Avenue police precinct were deleted. Black nationalists and Trotskyists would subsequently charge that the NYPD ”covered up” its own involvement in the a.s.sa.s.sination by suppressing evidence and witnesses, including the capture of one a.s.sailant who may have been a BOSS operative. The NYPD and mainstream journalists such as Peter Goldman ridiculed such speculations. Goldman attributed the confusion to the fact that reporters debriefed Officer Thomas Hoy ”at the scene and Aronoff at the station house,” not realizing they ”were talking about the same man. . . . [T]he confusion lasted long enough to create a whole folklore around the 'arrest' of a mysterious second suspect-a mythology that endures to this day.” However, Herman Ferguson's 2004 account of a second man who had been shot being taken away by the police lends some credence to the ”second suspect” theory. If an informant or undercover operative of the FBI or BOSS had been shot, or was part of the a.s.sa.s.sination team, the police almost certainly never would have permitted his role to become public. Another possibility was the presence of more than one a.s.sa.s.sination team in the Grand Ballroom that Sunday. Although Ferguson and many eyewitnesses saw three shooters, some observers, including FBI informants, claimed that there were four or even five.

Within twenty-four hours of the a.s.sa.s.sination, nearly every national civil rights organization had distanced itself from both Malcolm and the b.l.o.o.d.y events at the Audubon. To Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, Malcolm's a.s.sa.s.sination ”revealed that our society is still sick enough to express dissent through murder. We have not learned to disagree without being violently disagreeable.” The NAACP leader Roy Wilkins deplored Malcolm's ”gunning down” as a ”shocking and ghastly demonstration of the futility of resorting to violence as a means of settling differences.” Speaking on behalf of SNCC, the young desegregation activist Julian Bond informed the New York Times New York Times, ”I don't think Malcolm's death or any man's death could influence our deep-seated belief in nonviolence.”

From London, James Baldwin responded by linking the crime to the involvement of the U.S. government. ”Whoever did it,” he speculated, ”was formed in the crucible of the Western world, of the American Republic.” Much more explicit was CORE's James Farmer, who was well aware of Malcolm's metamorphosis and had expressed doubts that the leader's murder was the product of a feud with the Nation of Islam. ”I believe that his killing was a political killing,” he declared. It was hardly ”accidental that his death came at a time when his views were changing [toward] the mainstream of the civil rights movement.” Farmer's demand for a ”federal inquiry into the murder,” however, found virtually no support. To the public, the Nation of Islam was evidently responsible for the shooting.

Malcolm's death set off a chain reaction of violence and intimidation that kept his supporters in fear and left his organizations crumbling. On the night of the murder, a fire ignited in Muhammad Ali's Chicago apartment, but the fire was later determined to have been accidental. Ali informed the press that Malcolm had been his friend ”as long as he was a member of [the Nation of] Islam. Now I don't want to talk about him.” Perhaps still suspicious about his apartment fire, Ali protested, ”All of us were shocked at the way [Malcolm] was killed.” Ali denied that Elijah Muhammad, or others in the NOI, had any involvement in the murder.

Two days later, early in the morning on February 23, unknown parties ascended to the roof of a building next door to Mosque No. 7 and tossed Molotov c.o.c.ktails into the mosque's fourth floor, igniting a fire that soon raged out of control, with flames soaring as high as thirty feet. The fire quickly spread next door to the Gethsemane Church of G.o.d in Christ, and soon seventy-five firemen were working frantically to put it out. As a section of the mosque's wall collapsed, five firefighters and a civilian were injured. Within an hour the entire building was gutted. The Fruit of Islam was mustered, and soon about three hundred people were watching the fire blaze away. As the crowd grew and emotions surged, the police became worried and called in reinforcements. In the frigid night air, Larry 4X Prescott huddled next to Captain Joseph, who had begun to weep. Larry was shocked to see the almost stoic, deeply private Joseph now overwhelmed with grief.

The destruction of the mosque greatly increased public perceptions that an open gang war was imminent. The NYPD policed the Nation's Brooklyn mosque and the ten businesses it owned in the surrounding neighborhood; the mosque in Queens was similarly protected. In Chicago, squads stood an around-the-clock vigil to protect the life of Muhammad, still cloistered in his Hyde Park mansion. Captain Joseph characterized the Harlem firebombing as ”a vicious sneak attack. . . . The worst thing a man can do is tamper with your religious sanctuary.”

The Nation would exact its revenge not in Harlem's streets, but in Chicago at the Saviour's Day convention. In preparation, administrators worked closely with the Chicago police to carry out extraordinary security measures around the convention hall. A police bomb squad thoroughly checked the facility; attendees were processed through police barricades before entering. Elijah Muhammad himself ”will not make a move unless accompanied by at least six members of his security force, the Fruit of Islam brigade,” reported the Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune. Twenty-five hundred members were present as the convention began on February 26. The event was orchestrated as a triumph of the victors. ”Malcolm was a hypocrite who got what he was preaching,” Elijah Muhammad proclaimed. ”Just weeks ago he came to this city to blast away with his hate and mudslinging. He didn't stop here, either, but then went around the country trying to slander me.”

The audience was treated to the spectacle of Wallace Muhammad and Malcolm's brothers, Wilfred X and Philbert X, walking out onstage to ask forgiveness and to pledge fidelity to the Messenger. Wallace claimed that he had been confused, that it had been wrong to leave the Nation and his father. In tears, he announced that ”only G.o.d was in a position to judge a figure so exalted” as Elijah Muhammad. Reading texts that had been prepared for them, both Wilfred and Philbert denounced their dead brother for ”his mistakes” and made it clear they would not attend his funeral. Wilfred declared to the convention, ”We must not let our natural enemy, the white man, come between us [to] get us to kill each other. I was shocked to hear the news of my brother's death but from my heart I ask Allah to strengthen me as a follower of Elijah Muhammad.”

Back in New York, there were by now serious questions about how Malcolm was to be buried. By Islamic standards, the autopsy itself had represented a desecration of his body. Muslim tradition also requires the prompt burial of the deceased, and on the opening day of the Saviour's Day convention Malcolm's corpse was lying in state for the fourth day at Harlem's Unity Funeral Home, dressed in a Western-style business suit. Since Tuesday, about thirty thousand people had come to pay their respects. During the week Betty and others close to her had contacted more than a dozen Harlem churches, including Adam Clayton Powell's Abyssinian Baptist, to host Malcolm's last rites; all declined, fearing Nation of Islam retaliation. Finally, the Faith Temple Church of G.o.d in Christ, on Amsterdam Avenue in West Harlem, agreed to make its auditorium available. Within hours, the church received a series of bomb threats, but the ceremony went forward without incident. Just before the funeral, Sheikh Ahmed Ha.s.soun prepared and wrapped Malcolm's body in a kafan kafan, a traditional Muslim burial sheet.

More than a thousand people packed the Faith Temple Church on Sat.u.r.day, February 27, to bear witness to Malcolm's funeral. There were a small number of movement leaders-Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, d.i.c.k Gregory, and SNCC's John Lewis and James Forman-but the majority stayed away, probably fearing violence. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was not present, nor were most of Harlem's civic leaders. Betty had asked Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee to preside over the program, and the two read out dozens of notes of condolence from a range of dignitaries, including King, Whitney Young, and Kwame Nkrumah. But it was Davis's soliloquy on the meaning of Malcolm's life to the black people of Harlem that captured the public's imagination, and in subsequent decades would dwarf everything else that occurred that day. Using notes scribbled at his kitchen table, Davis spoke these words: Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial, and bold young captain-and we will smile. . . . And we will answer and say unto them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? . . . And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him: Malcolm was our manhood, our living black manhood! . . . And we will know him then for what he was and is-a prince-our own black s.h.i.+ning prince-who didn't hesitate to die, because he loved us so.

Following Davis's eulogy, Betty walked to the coffin to view her husband a final time. Accompanied by two plainclothes police officers, she bent down and kissed the gla.s.s cover that had been placed over his body. She then collapsed in tears. The funeral cortege, which included three family cars, twelve police vehicles, and eighteen mourners' cars, headed north to Westchester County. About twenty-five thousand people braved the freezing weather along the route to the cemetery. Only two hundred people, including media representatives, were allowed at the gravesite. After the last prayers, the coffin was lowered into the grave. There was still time for a final moment of controversy, one that in many respects ill.u.s.trates the dilemma Malcolm faced at the end of his life. Several MMI and OAAU brothers noticed that the cemetery workers waiting to bury the coffin were all white. No white men, they complained, should be allowed to throw dirt on Malcolm's body. The workers were persuaded to surrender their shovels, and under a drizzling rain the brothers proceeded to bury Malcolm themselves.

During the weeks after the mosque firebombing and the funeral, Malcolm loyalists feared for their lives. The Nation was convinced that die-hard Malcolmites were responsible for the fire, and that their actions merited fierce retribution. On March 12, Leon 4X Ameer, mostly recovered from the savage beating he had suffered at the hands of Clarence Gill and his men back in December, spoke to a meeting of Boston Trotskyists, claiming he had evidence that the U.S. government was involved in Malcolm's death. The next day his body was found in his room at the Sherry Biltmore hotel. A medical examiner ruled that Ameer's death was caused by a coma from a sleeping pill overdose. Another victim was Robert 35X Smith, one of Malcolm's rostrum guards at the a.s.sa.s.sination. ”Karate Bob,” as he was called, died when he either jumped or was pushed in front of a speeding subway car. When questioned years later about the death, Larry 4X Prescott curtly explained, ”He got killed in the subway. They claimed that we pushed him off the subway [platform] or something, which I don't believe.”

Neither the OAAU nor MMI had cultivated procedures of collective decision making, and without Malcolm, the weak bonds that had held the groups together came apart. Leaders worked on a volunteer basis out of personal devotion to Malcolm, and his death did more than deny them his physical presence: it froze their universe. He had become the cutting edge for rethinking black nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and their own homegrown version of Islam, and often his devotees stumbled behind him-even at times suppressing his letters because his s.h.i.+fts in ideology were too disturbing. Without the architecture of his expanding social vision, they found it almost impossible to build upon his legacy. Trust soon evaporated between most members, as people renounced their ties.

In retrospect, Max Stanford said, ”the OAAU was trying to put [itself] together too fast.” Collective leaders.h.i.+p was the desired goal, but in reality ”most people were mesmerized by Malcolm.” Even when Stanford expressed disagreements with Malcolm, he admitted, ”Malcolm would mesmerize me. He was further developed” politically and intellectually than nearly all his followers. Consequently, when Malcolm became ”a ma.s.s spokesman who's world-acclaimed,” there was no one after the a.s.sa.s.sination prepared to a.s.sume his leaders.h.i.+p mantle. At first, James 67X thought he might be up to the task. Several days after the a.s.sa.s.sination, he met with Revolutionary Action Movement members Max Stanford and Larry Neal. According to Stanford, James said that ”Malcolm had formed a RAM cell somewhere in Muslim Mosque, Inc. and had said that if anything happened to him, I would know what to do.” RAM's representatives agreed to work with James and other MMI activists. ”The agreement was for [James] to continue to go internationally and around the country like Malcolm,” Stanford recalled, ”because he could sound like Malcolm.” Yet James soon had his hands full simply trying to keep both groups alive. Because of the long-troublesome divisions between the MMI and the OAAU, there was no one in either group who could inspire the trust and confidence of members in the other group. The secular-oriented activists, moreover, had little interest in the MMI's Islamic spiritual agenda. Given the absence of administrative resources or even a permanent office, neither organization could be sustained.

As the core of Malcolm's supporters disappeared or fell away, James alone was left to deal with Betty Shabazz. Even within hours of Malcolm's murder, her relations.h.i.+p with the MMI and the OAAU had become confrontational. She blamed Malcolm's supporters for his death; in her bitterness and anger, she instructed several OAAU members to dump into the garbage many of her husband's important papers, all of which had been moved for safety to the Wallaces' home. She demanded that James forward to her all MMI correspondence unopened, including letters addressed to Malcolm, allowing her to review everything first. James refused. ”She was a grieving widow, a hero's widow,” he explained, but one who had at best a limited comprehension of the MMI and OAAU's work.

The care and security of Betty and the children were largely a.s.sumed by Ruby Dee, Juanita Poitier, and other female friends, most of them celebrities. These women established the Committee of Concerned Mothers to provide support. Percy Sutton, James Baldwin, and John Oliver Killens also became actively involved. Within several weeks, over six thousand dollars was raised, including a five-hundred-dollar contribution from s.h.i.+rley Graham Du Bois. In August, the committee organized a benefit concert that attracted a thousand people and generated another five thousand dollars for the purchase of a home. Malcolm's core const.i.tuency, the black poor and working cla.s.s, never abandoned Betty. She received many envelopes with small amounts of cash, sent either to the Hotel Theresa or to the MMI's post office box. James 67X wrote to many of Malcolm's international contacts requesting funds. Advertis.e.m.e.nts were placed on New York radio stations. Several aggressive MMI brothers even visited Harlem merchants and demanded cash and merchandise ”contributions” for Betty and the children. Yet some Malcolm loyalists found Betty's behavior at this time disturbing. To them, she seemed to be rejecting her husband's poor and working-cla.s.s black const.i.tuency, favoring instead overtures to the black bourgeoisie. Ferguson put Betty's elitist politics in the context of Malcolm's ”Message to the Gra.s.sroots” speech: ”She moved from the field slaves to the house slaves.”

As James 67X's most trusted allies dissipated, and the difficulties of working with Betty grew more apparent, he recalled his promise to Malcolm to work for him for twelve months. Mid-March 1965 marked the end of that obligation, and he now began considering other options. He was exhausted, and Charles Kenyatta's scurrilous rumors also had a poisonous effect; some MMI members wondered why James had left the Audubon for nearly an hour following the shooting, and questioned his cordial relations with the Marxists in RAM. So when Ella Collins contacted James, demanding the right to take over the MMI and OAAU based on her blood tie with Malcolm, he at first resisted, but soon agreed to resign his post. Ella was also given the incorporation papers for Muslim Mosque, Inc., becoming the effective leader of both groups.

On March 15, Ella held a press conference at OAAU and MMI headquarters. Described in the New York Times New York Times as ”an ample figure in black skirt and large-b.u.t.toned blouse,” Collins was ”terse and cryptic in speech,” a far cry from her charismatic brother. Collins's claim to leaders.h.i.+p was based on her questionable a.s.sertion that she had been executive director of Boston's OAAU chapter since June 1964. She also a.s.serted that Malcolm himself had appointed her as ”his successor” on February 20, 1965. Collins generally expressed conservative views. She said that she had ”no desire to fight against” Muhammad or the Nation of Islam; she attributed the firebombing of Malcolm's Queens home to forces ”much bigger than the Black Muslims”; and when asked whether the OAAU would reject ”leftist or communist” support, Collins responded, ”I believe so.” Within days, Collins's reactionary politics-when compared to Malcolm's-and her belligerent behavior drove out the few remaining veteran activists. Soon after, James 67X informed RAM that he planned to abandon all future

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