The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley

by Alex Haley

  In Mecca, too, I had played back for myself the twelve years I had spent with Elijah Muhammad as if it were a motion picture. I guess it would be impossible for anyone ever to realize fully how complete was my belief in Elijah Muhammad. I believed in him not only as a leader in the ordinary human sense, but also I believed in him as a divine leader, I believed he had no human weaknesses or faults, and that, therefore, he could make no mistakes and that he could do no wrong. There on a Holy World hilltop, I realized how very dangerous it is for people to hold any human being in such esteem, especially to consider anyone some sort of “divinely guided” and “protected” person.

  My thinking had been opened up wide in Mecca. In the long letters I wrote to friends, I tried to convey to them my new insights into the American black man’s struggle and his problems, as well as the depths of my search for truth and justice.

  “I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda,” I had written to these friends. “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

  Largely, the American white man’s press refused to convey that I was now attempting to teach Negroes a new direction. With the 1964 “long, hot summer” steadily producing new incidents, I was constantly accused of “stirring up Negroes.” Every time I had another radio or television microphone at my mouth, when I was asked about “stirring up Negroes” or “inciting violence,” I’d get hot.

  “It takes no one to stir up the sociological dynamite that stems from the unemployment, bad housing, and inferior education already in the ghettoes. This explosively criminal condition has existed for so long, it needs no fuse; it fuses itself; it spontaneously combusts from within itself….”

  They called me “the angriest Negro in America.” I wouldn’t deny that charge. I spoke exactly as I felt. “I believe in anger. The Bible says there is a time for anger.” They called me “a teacher, a fomentor of violence.” I would say point blank, “That is a lie. I’m not for wanton violence, I’m for justice. I feel that if white people were attacked by Negroes—if the forces of law prove unable, or inadequate, or reluctant to protect those whites from those Negroes—then those white people should protect and defend themselves from those Negroes, using arms if necessary. And I feel that when the law fails to protect Negroes from whites’ attack, then those Negroes should use arms, if necessary, to defend themselves.”

  “Malcolm X Advocates Armed Negroes!”

  What was wrong with that? I’ll tell you what was wrong. I was a black man talking about physical defense against the white man. The white man can lynch and burn and bomb and beat Negroes—that’s all right: “Have patience”…“The customs are entrenched”…“Things are getting better.”

  Well, I believe it’s a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself. If that’s how “Christian” philosophy is interpreted, if that’s what Gandhian philosophy teaches, well, then, I will call them criminal philosophies.

  I tried in every speech I made to clarify my new position regarding white people—“I don’t speak against the sincere, well-meaning, good white people. I have learned that there are some. I have learned that not all white people are racists. I am speaking against and my fight is against the white racists. I firmly believe that Negroes have the right to fight against these racists, by any means that are necessary.”

  But the white reporters kept wanting me linked with that word “violence.” I doubt if I had one interview without having to deal with that accusation.

  “I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man’s problem—just to avoid violence. I don’t go for non-violence if it also means a delayed solution. To me a delayed solution is a non-solution. Or I’ll say it another way. If it must take violence to get the black man his human rights in this country, I’m for violence exactly as you know the Irish, the Poles, or Jews would be if they were flagrantly discriminated against. I am just as they would be in that case, and they would be for violence—no matter what the consequences, no matter who was hurt by the violence.”

  White society hates to hear anybody, especially a black man, talk about the crime the white man has perpetrated on the black man. I have always understood that’s why I have been so frequently called “a revolutionist.” It sounds as if I have done some crime! Well, it may be the American black man does need to become involved in a real revolution. The word for “revolution” in German is Umwälzung. What it means is a complete overturn—a complete change. The overthrow of King Farouk in Egypt and the succession of President Nasser is an example of a true revolution. It means the destroying of an old system, and its replacement with a new system. Another example is the Algerian revolution, led by Ben Bella; they threw out the French who had been there over 100 years. So how does anybody sound talking about the Negro in America waging some “revolution”? Yes, he is condemning a system—but he’s not trying to overturn the system, or to destroy it. The Negro’s so-called “revolt” is merely an asking to be accepted into the existing system! A true Negro revolt might entail, for instance, fighting for separate black states within this country—which several groups and individuals have advocated, long before Elijah Muhammad came along.

  When the white man came into this country, he certainly wasn’t demonstrating any “non-violence.” In fact, the very man whose name symbolizes non-violence here today has stated:

  “Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.”

  “Peaceful coexistence!” That’s another one the white man has always been quick to cry. Fine! But what have been the deeds of the white man? During his entire advance through history, he has been waving the banner of Christianity…and carrying in his other hand the sword and the flintlock.

  You can go right back to the very beginning of Christianity. Catholicism, the genesis of Christianity as we know it to be presently constituted, with its hierarchy, was conceived in Africa—by those whom the Christian church calls “The Desert Fathers.” The Christian church became infected with racism when it entered white Europe. The Christian church returned to Africa under the banner of the Cross—conquering, killing, exploiting, pillaging, raping, bullying, beating—and teaching white supremacy. This is how the white man thrust himself into the position of leadership of the world—through the use of naked physical power. And he was totally inadequate spiritually. Mankind’s history has proved from one era to another that the true criterion of leadership is spiritual. Men are attracted by spirit. By power, men are forced. Love is engendered by spirit. By power, anxieties are created.

  I am in agreement one hundred percent with those racists who say that no government laws ever can force brotherhood. The only true world solution today is governments guided by true religion—of the spirit. Here in race-torn America, I am convinced that the Islam religion is desperately needed, particularly by the American black man. The black man needs to reflect that he has been America’s most fervent Christian—and where has it gotten him? In fact, in the white man’s hands, in the white man’s interpretation…where has Christianity brought this world?
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br />   It has brought the non-white two-thirds of the human population to rebellion. Two-thirds of the human population today is telling the one-third minority white man, “Get out!” And the white man is leaving. And as he leaves, we see the non-white peoples returning in a rush to their original religions, which had been labeled “pagan” by the conquering white man. Only one religion—Islam—had the power to stand and fight the white man’s Christianity for a thousand years! Only Islam could keep white Christianity at bay.

  The Africans are returning to Islam and other indigenous religions. The Asians are returning to being Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims.

  As the Christian Crusade once went East, now the Islamic Crusade is going West. With the East—Asia—closed to Christianity, with Africa rapidly being converted to Islam, with Europe rapidly becoming un-Christian, generally today it is accepted that the “Christian” civilization of America—which is propping up the white race around the world—is Christianity’s remaining strongest bastion.

  Well, if this is so—if the so-called “Christianity” now being practiced in America displays the best that world Christianity has left to offer—no one in his right mind should need any much greater proof that very close at hand is the end of Christianity.

  Are you aware that some Protestant theologians, in their writings, are using the phrase “post-Christian era”—and they mean now?

  And what is the greatest single reason for this Christian church’s failure? It is its failure to combat racism. It is the old “You sow, you reap” story. The Christian church sowed racism—blasphemously; now it reaps racism.

  Sunday mornings in this year of grace 1965, imagine the “Christian conscience” of congregations guarded by deacons barring the door to black would-be worshipers, telling them “You can’t enter this House of God!”

  Tell me, if you can, a sadder irony than that St. Augustine, Florida—a city named for the black African saint who saved Catholicism from heresy—was recently the scene of bloody race riots.

  I believe that God now is giving the world’s so-called “Christian” white society its last opportunity to repent and atone for the crimes of exploiting and enslaving the world’s non-white peoples. It is exactly as when God gave Pharaoh a chance to repent. But Pharaoh persisted in his refusal to give justice to those whom he oppressed. And, we know, God finally destroyed Pharaoh.

  Is white America really sorry for her crimes against the black people? Does white America have the capacity to repent—and to atone? Does the capacity to repent, to atone, exist in a majority, in one-half, in even one-third of American white society?

  Many black men, the victims—in fact most black men—would like to be able to forgive, to forget, the crimes.

  But most American white people seem not to have it in them to make any serious atonement—to do justice to the black man.

  Indeed, how can white society atone for enslaving, for raping, for unmanning, for otherwise brutalizing millions of human beings, for centuries? What atonement would the God of Justice demand for the robbery of the black people’s labor, their lives, their true identities, their culture, their history—and even their human dignity?

  A desegregated cup of coffee, a theater, public toilets—the whole range of hypocritcal “integration”—these are not atonement.

  After a while in America, I returned abroad—and this time, I spent eighteen weeks in the Middle East and Africa.

  The world leaders with whom I had private audiences this time included President Gamal Abdel Nasser, of Egypt; President Julius K. Nyerere, of Tanzania; President Nnamoi Azikiwe, of Nigeria; Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, of Ghana; President Sekou Touré, of Guinea; President Jomo Kenyatta, of Kenya; and Prime Minister Dr. Milton Obote, of Uganda.

  I also met with religious leaders—African, Arab, Asian, Muslim, and non-Muslim. And in all of these countries, I talked with Afro-Americans and whites of many professions and backgrounds.

  An American white ambassador in one African country was Africa’s most respected American ambassador: I’m glad to say that this was told to me by one ranking African leader. We talked for an entire afternoon. Based on what I had heard of him, I had to believe him when he told me that as long as he was on the African continent, he never thought in terms of race, that he dealt with human beings, never noticing their color. He said he was more aware of language differences than of color differences. He said that only when he returned to America would he become aware of color differences.

  I told him, “What you are telling me is that it isn’t the American white man who is a racist, but it’s the American political, economic, and social atmosphere that automatically nourishes a racist psychology in the white man.” He agreed.

  We both agreed that American society makes it next to impossible for humans to meet in America and not be conscious of their color differences. And we both agreed that if racism could be removed, America could offer a society where rich and poor could truly live like human beings.

  That discussion with the ambassador gave me a new insight—one which I like: that the white man is not inherently evil, but America’s racist society influences him to act evilly. The society has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings.

  I had a totally different kind of talk with another white man I met in Africa—who, to me, personified exactly what the ambassador and I had discussed. Throughout my trip, I was of course aware that I was under constant surveillance. The agent was a particularly obvious and obnoxious one; I am not sure for what agency, as he never identified it, or I would say it. Anyway, this one finally got under my skin when I found I couldn’t seem to eat a meal in the hotel without seeing him somewhere around watching me. You would have thought I was John Dillinger or somebody.

  I just got up from my breakfast one morning and walked over to where he was and I told him I knew he was following me, and if he wanted to know anything, why didn’t he ask me. He started to give me one of those too-lofty-to-descend-to-you attitudes. I told him then right to his face he was a fool, that he didn’t know me, or what I stood for, so that made him one of those people who let somebody else do their thinking; and that no matter what job a man had, at least he ought to be able to think for himself. That stung him; he let me have it.

  I was, to hear him tell it, anti-American, un-American, seditious, subversive, and probably Communist. I told him that what he said only proved how little he understood about me. I told him that the only thing the F.B.I, the C.I.A., or anybody else could ever find me guilty of, was being open-minded. I said I was seeking for the truth, and I was trying to weigh—objectively—everything on its own merit. I said what I was against was strait-jacketed thinking, and strait-jacketed societies. I said I respected every man’s right to believe whatever his intelligence tells him is intellectually sound, and I expect everyone else to respect my right to believe likewise.

  This super-sleuth then got off on my “Black Muslim” religious beliefs. I asked him hadn’t his headquarters bothered to brief him—that my attitudes and beliefs were changed? I told him that the Islam I believed in now was the Islam which was taught in Mecca—that there was no God but Allah, and that Muhammad ibn Abdullah who lived in the Holy City of Mecca fourteen hundred years ago was the Last Messenger of Allah.

  Almost from the first I had been guessing about something; and I took a chance—and I really shook up that “super-sleuth.” From the consistent subjectivity in just about everything he asked and said, I had deduced something, and I told him, “You know, I think you’re a Jew with an Anglicized name.” His involuntary expression told me I’d hit the button. He asked me how I knew. I told him I’d had so much experience with how Jews would attack me that I usually could identify them. I told him all I held against the Jew was that so many Jews actually were hypocrites in their claim to be friends of the American black man, and it burned me up to be so often called “anti-Semitic” when I spoke things I knew to be the absolute truth about J
ews. I told him that, yes, I gave the Jew credit for being among all other whites the most active, and the most vocal, financier, “leader” and “liberal” in the Negro civil rights movement. But I said at the same time I knew that the Jew played these roles for a very careful strategic reason: the more prejudice in America could be focused upon the Negro, then the more the white Gentiles’ prejudice would keep diverted off the Jew. I said that to me, one proof that all the civil rights posturing of so many Jews wasn’t sincere was that so often in the North the quickest segregationists were Jews themselves. Look at practically everything the black man is trying to “integrate” into for instance; if Jews are not the actual owners, or are not in controlling positions, then they have major stockholdings or they are otherwise in powerful leverage positions—and do they really sincerely exert these influences? No!

  And an even clearer proof for me of how Jews truly regard Negroes, I said, was what invariably happened wherever a Negro moved into any white residential neighborhood that was thickly Jewish. Who would always lead the whites’ exodus? The Jews! Generally in these situations, some whites stay put—you just notice who they are: they’re Irish Catholics, they’re Italians; they’re rarely ever any Jews. And, ironically, the Jews themselves often still have trouble being “accepted.”