The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley

by Alex Haley

  Appointed Muslim Sisters quickly passed small trays from which everyone took a thin, round patty of peppermint candy. At my signal, the candy was put into mouths. “We will file by now for a last look at our brother. We won’t cry—just as we don’t cry over candy. Just as this sweet candy will dissolve, so will our brother’s sweetness that we have enjoyed when he lived now dissolve into a sweetness in our memories.”

  I have had probably a couple of hundred Muslims tell me that it was attending one of our funerals for a departed brother or sister that first turned them toward Allah. But I was to learn later that Mr. Muhammad’s teaching about death and the Muslim funeral service was in drastic contradiction to what Islam taught in the East.

  We had grown, by 1956—well, sizable. Every temple had “fished” with enough success that there were far more Muslims, especially in the major cities of Detroit, Chicago, and New York than anyone would have guessed from the outside. In fact, as you know, in the really big cities, you can have a very big organization and, if it makes no public show, or noise, no one will necessarily be aware that it is around.

  But more than just increase in numbers, Mr. Muhammad’s version of Islam now had been getting in some other types of black people. We began now getting those with some education, both academic, and vocations and trades, and even some with “positions” in the white world, and all of this was starting to bring us closer to the desired fast car for Mr. Muhammad to drive. We had, for instance, some civil servants, some nurses, clerical workers, salesmen from the department stores. And one of the best things was that some brothers of this type were developing into smart, fine, aggressive young ministers for Mr. Muhammad.

  I went without a lot of sleep trying to merit his increasing evidences of trust and confidence in my efforts to help build our Nation of Islam. It was in 1956 that Mr. Muhammad was able to authorize Temple Seven to buy and assign for my use a new Chevrolet. (The car was the Nation’s, not mine. I had nothing that was mine but my clothes, wrist watch, and suitcase. As in the case of all of the Nation’s ministers, my living expenses were paid and I had some pocket money. Where once you couldn’t have named anything I wouldn’t have done for money, now money was the last thing to cross my mind.) Anyway, in letting me know about the car, Mr. Muhammad told me he knew how I loved to roam, planting seeds for new Muslims, or more temples, so he didn’t want me to be tied down.

  In five months, I put about 30,000 miles of “fishing” on that car before I had an accident. Late one night a brother and I were coming through Weathersfield, Connecticut, when I stopped for a red light and a car smashed into me from behind. I was just shook up, not hurt. That excited devil had a woman with him, hiding her face, so I knew she wasn’t his wife. We were exchanging our identification (he lived in Meriden, Connecticut) when the police arrived, and their actions told me he was somebody important. I later found out he was one of Connecticut’s most prominent politicians; I won’t call his name. Anyway, Temple Seven settled on a lawyer’s advice, and that money went down on an Oldsmobile, the make of car I’ve been driving ever since.

  —

  I had always been very careful to stay completely clear of any personal closeness with any of the Muslim sisters. My total commitment to Islam demanded having no other interests, especially, I felt, no women. In almost every temple at least one single sister had let out some broad hint that she thought I needed a wife. So I always made it clear that marriage had no interest for me whatsoever; I was too busy.

  Every month, when I went to Chicago, I would find that some sister had written complaining to Mr. Muhammad that I talked so hard against women when I taught our special classes about the different natures of the two sexes. Now, Islam has very strict laws and teachings about women, the core of them being that the true nature of man is to be strong, and a woman’s true nature is to be weak, and while a man must at all times respect his woman, at the same time he needs to understand that he must control her if he expects to get her respect.

  But in those days I had my own personal reasons. I wouldn’t have considered it possible for me to love any woman. I’d had too much experience that women were only tricky, deceitful, untrustworthy flesh. I had seen too many men ruined, or at least tied down, or in some other way messed up by women. Women talked too much. To tell a woman not to talk too much was like telling Jesse James not to carry a gun, or telling a hen not to cackle. Can you imagine Jesse James without a gun, or a hen that didn’t cackle? And for anyone in any kind of a leadership position, such as I was, the worst thing in the world that he could have was the wrong woman. Even Samson, the world’s strongest man, was destroyed by the woman who slept in his arms. She was the one whose words hurt him.

  I mean, I’d had so much experience. I had talked to too many prostitutes and mistresses. They knew more about a whole lot of husbands than the wives of those husbands did. The wives always filled their husbands’ ears so full of wife complaints that it wasn’t the wives, it was the prostitutes and mistresses who heard the husbands’ innermost problems and secrets. They thought of him, and comforted him, and that included listening to him, and so he would tell them everything.

  Anyway, it had been ten years since I thought anything about any mistress, I guess, and as a minister now, I was thinking even less about getting any wife. And Mr. Muhammad himself encouraged me to stay single.

  Temple Seven sisters used to tell brothers, “You’re just staying single because Brother Minister Malcolm never looks at anybody.” No, I didn’t make it any secret to any of those sisters, how I felt. And, yes, I did tell the brothers to be very, very careful.

  This sister—well, in 1956, she joined Temple Seven. I just noticed her, not with the slightest interest, you understand. For about the next year, I just noticed her. You know, she never would have dreamed I was even thinking about her. In fact, probably you couldn’t have convinced her I even knew her name. It was Sister Betty X. She was tall, brown-skinned—darker than I was. And she had brown eyes.

  I knew she was a native of Detroit, and that she had been a student at Tuskegee Institute down in Alabama—an education major. She was in New York at one of the big hospitals’ school of nursing. She lectured to the Muslim girls’ and women’s classes on hygiene and medical facts.

  I ought to explain that each week night a different Muslim class, or event, is scheduled. Monday night, every temple’s Fruit of Islam trains. People think this is just military drill, judo, karate, things like that—which is part of the F.O.I. training, but only one part. The F.O.I. spends a lot more time in lectures and discussions on men learning to be men. They deal with the responsibilities of a husband and father; what to expect of women; the rights of women which are not to be abrogated by the husband; the importance of the father-male image in the strong household; current events; why honesty, and chastity, are vital in a person, a home, a community, a nation, and a civilization; why one should bathe at least once each twenty-four hours; business principles; and things of that nature.

  Then, Tuesday night in every Muslim temple is Unity Night, where the brothers and sisters enjoy each other’s conversational company and refreshments, such as cookies and sweet and sour fruit punches. Wednesday nights, at eight P.M., is what is called Student Enrollment, where Islam’s basic issues are discussed; it is about the equivalent of catechism class in the Catholic religion.

  Thursday nights there are the M.G.T. (Muslim Girls’ Training) and the G.C.C. (General Civilization Class), where the women and girls of Islam are taught how to keep homes, how to rear children, how to care for husbands, how to cook, sew, how to act at home and abroad, and other things that are important to being a good Muslim sister and mother and wife.

  Fridays are devoted to Civilization Night, when classes are held for brothers and sisters in the area of the domestic relations, emphasizing how both husbands and wives must understand and respect each other’s true natures. Then Saturday night is for all Muslims a free night, when, usually, they visit at each other’s homes
. And, of course, on Sundays, every Muslim temple holds its services.

  On the Thursday M.G.T. and G.C.C. nights, sometimes I would drop in on the classes, and maybe at Sister Betty X’s classes—just as on other nights I might drop in on the different brothers’ classes. At first I would just ask her things like how were the sisters learning—things like that, and she would say “Fine, Brother Minister.” I’d say, “Thank you, Sister.” Like that. And that would be all there was to it. And after a while, I would have very short conversations with her, just to be friendly.

  One day I thought it would help the women’s classes if I took her—just because she happened to be an instructor, to the Museum of Natural History. I wanted to show her some Museum displays having to do with the tree of evolution, that would help her in her lectures. I could show her proofs of Mr. Muhammad’s teachings of such things as that the filthy pig is only a large rodent. The pig is a graft between a rat, a cat and a dog, Mr. Muhammad taught us. When I mentioned my idea to Sister Betty X, I made it very clear that it was just to help her lectures to the sisters. I had even convinced myself that this was the only reason.

  Then by the time of the afternoon I said we would go, well, I telephoned her; I told her I had to cancel the trip, that something important had come up. She said, “Well, you sure waited long enough to tell me, Brother Minister, I was just ready to walk out of the door.” So I told her, well, all right, come on then, I’d make it somehow. But I wasn’t going to have much time.

  While we were down there, offhandedly I asked her all kinds of things. I just wanted some idea of her thinking; you understand, I mean how she thought. I was halfway impressed by her intelligence and also her education. In those days she was one of the few whom we had attracted who had attended college.

  Then, right after that, one of the older sisters confided to me a personal problem that Sister Betty X was having. I was really surprised that when she had had the chance, Sister Betty X had not mentioned anything to me about it. Every Muslim minister is always hearing the problems of young people whose parents have ostracized them for becoming Muslims. Well, when Sister Betty X told her foster parents, who were financing her education, that she was a Muslim, they gave her a choice: leave the Muslims, or they’d cut off her nursing school.

  It was right near the end of her term—but she was hanging on to Islam. She began taking baby-sitting jobs for some of the doctors who lived on the grounds of the hospital where she was training.

  In my position, I would never have made any move without thinking how it would affect the Nation of Islam organization as a whole.

  I got to turning it over in my mind. What would happen if I just should happen, sometime, to think about getting married to somebody? For instance Sister Betty X—although it could be any sister in any temple, but Sister Betty X, for instance, would just happen to be the right height for somebody my height, and also the right age.

  Mr. Elijah Muhammad taught us that a tall man married to a too-short woman, or vice-versa, they looked odd, not matched. And he taught that a wife’s ideal age was half the man’s age, plus seven. He taught that women are physiologically ahead of men. Mr. Muhammad taught that no marriage could succeed where the woman did not look up with respect to the man. And that the man had to have something above and beyond the wife in order for her to be able to look to him for psychological security.

  I was so shocked at myself, when I realized what I was thinking, I quit going anywhere near Sister Betty X, or anywhere I knew she would be. If she came into our restaurant and I was there, I went out somewhere. I was glad I knew that she had no idea what I had been thinking about. My not talking to her wouldn’t give her any reason to think anything, since there had never been one personal word spoken between us—even if she had thought anything.

  I studied about if I just should happen to say something to her—what would her position be? Because she wasn’t going to get any chance to embarrass me. I had heard too many women bragging, “I told that chump ‘Get lost!’ ” I’d had too much experience of the kind to make a man very cautious.

  I knew one good thing; she had few relatives. My feeling about in-laws was that they were outlaws. Right among the Temple Seven Muslims, I had seen more marriages destroyed by in-laws, usually anti-Muslim, than any other single thing I knew of.

  I wasn’t about to say any of that romance stuff that Hollywood and television had filled women’s heads with. If I was going to do something, I was going to do it directly. And anything I was going to do, I was going to do my way. And because I wanted to do it. Not because I saw somebody do it. Or read about it in a book. Or saw it in a moving picture somewhere.

  I told Mr. Muhammad, when I visited him in Chicago that month, that I was thinking about a very serious step. He smiled when he heard what it was.

  I told him I was just thinking about it, that was all. Mr. Muhammad said that he’d like to meet this sister.

  The Nation by this time was financially able to bear the expenses so that instructor sisters from different temples could be sent to Chicago to attend the Headquarters Temple Two women’s classes, and, while there, to meet The Honorable Elijah Muhammad in person. Sister Betty X, of course, knew all about this, so there was no reason for her to think anything of it when it was arranged for her to go to Chicago. And like all visiting instructor sisters, she was the house guest of the Messenger and Sister Clara Muhammad.

  Mr. Muhammad told me that he thought that Sister Betty X was a fine sister.

  If you are thinking about doing a thing, you ought to make up your mind if you are going to do it, or not do it. One Sunday night, after the Temple Seven meeting, I drove my car out on the Garden State Parkway. I was on my way to visit my brother Wilfred, in Detroit. Wilfred, the year before, in 1957, had been made the minister of Detroit’s Temple One. I hadn’t seen him, or any of my family, in a good while.

  It was about ten in the morning when I got inside Detroit. Getting gas at a filling station, I just went to their pay phone on a wall; I telephoned Sister Betty X. I had to get Information to get the number of the nurses’ residence at this hospital. Most numbers I memorized, but I had always made it some point never to memorize her number. Somebody got her to the phone finally. She said, “Oh, hello, Brother Minister—” I just said it to her direct: “Look, do you want to get married?”

  Naturally, she acted all surprised and shocked.

  The more I have thought about it, to this day I believe she was only putting on an act. Because women know. They know.

  She said, just like I knew she would, “Yes.” Then I said, well, I didn’t have a whole lot of time, she’d better catch a plane to Detroit.

  So she grabbed a plane. I met her foster parents who lived in Detroit. They had made up by this time. They were very friendly, and happily surprised. At least, they acted that way.

  Then I introduced Sister Betty X at my oldest brother Wilfred’s house. I had already asked him where people could get married without a whole lot of mess and waiting. He told me in Indiana.

  Early the next morning, I picked up Betty at her parents’ home. We drove to the first town in Indiana. We found out that only a few days before, the state law had been changed, and now Indiana had a long waiting period.

  This was the fourteenth of January, 1958; a Tuesday. We weren’t far from Lansing, where my brother Philbert lived. I drove there. Philbert was at work when we stopped at his house and I introduced Betty X. She and Philbert’s wife were talking when I found out on the phone that we could get married in one day, if we rushed.

  We got the necessary blood tests, then the license. Where the certificate said “Religion,” I wrote “Muslim.” Then we went to the Justice of the Peace.

  An old hunchbacked white man performed the wedding. And all of the witnesses were white. Where you are supposed to say all those “I do’s,” we did. They were all standing there, smiling and watching every move. The old devil said, “I pronounce you man and wife,” and then, “Kiss your brid
e.”

  I got her out of there. All of that Hollywood stuff! Like these women wanting men to pick them up and carry them across thresholds and some of them weigh more than you do. I don’t know how many marriage breakups are caused by these movie- and television-addicted women expecting some bouquets and kissing and hugging and being swept out like Cinderella for dinner and dancing—then getting mad when a poor, scraggly husband comes in tired and sweaty from working like a dog all day, looking for some food.

  We had dinner there at Philbert’s home in Lansing. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” I told him when we came in. “You haven’t got any surprise for me,” he said. When he got home from work and heard I’d been there introducing a Muslim sister, he knew I was either married, or on the way to get married.

  Betty’s nursing school schedule called for her to fly right back to New York, and she could return in four days. She claims she didn’t tell anybody in Temple Seven that we had married.

  That Sunday, Mr. Muhammad was going to teach at Detroit’s Temple One. I had an Assistant Minister in New York now; I telephoned him to take over for me. Saturday, Betty came back. The Messenger, after his teaching on Sunday, made the announcement. Even in Michigan, my steering clear of all sisters was so well known, they just couldn’t believe it.

  We drove right back to New York together. The news really shook everybody in Temple Seven. Some young brothers looked at me as though I had betrayed them. But everybody else was grinning like Cheshire cats. The sisters just about ate up Betty. I never will forget hearing one exclaim, “You got him!” That’s like I was telling you, the nature of women. She’d got me. That’s part of why I never have been able to shake it out of my mind that she knew something—all the time. Maybe she did get me!