The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley

by Alex Haley

  With Christmas approaching, upon an impulse I bought for Malcolm X’s two oldest daughters two large dolls, with painted brown complexions, the kind of dolls that would “walk” when held by the left hand. When Malcolm X next came to my room in the Hotel Wellington, I said, “I’ve gotten something for you to take to Attallah and Qubilah for Christmas gifts,” and I “walked” out the dolls. Amazement, then a wide grin spread over his face. “Well, what do you know about that? Well, how about that!” He bent to examine the dolls. His expression showed how touched he was. “You know,” he said after a while, “this isn’t something I’m proud to say, but I don’t think I’ve ever bought one gift for my children. Everything they play with, either Betty got it for them, or somebody gave it to them, never me. That’s not good, I know it. I’ve always been too busy.”

  —

  In early January, I flew from upstate New York to Kennedy Airport where I telephoned Malcolm X at home and told him that I was waiting for another plane to Kansas City to witness the swearing-in of my younger brother George who had recently been elected a Kansas State Senator. “Tell your brother for me to remember us in the alley,” Malcolm X said. “Tell him that he and all of the other moderate Negroes who are getting somewhere need to always remember that it was us extremists who made it possible.” He said that when I was ready to leave Kansas, to telephone him saying when I would arrive back in New York, and if he could we could get together. I did this, and he met me at Kennedy Airport. He had only a little while, he was so pressed, he said; he had to leave that afternoon himself for a speaking engagement which had come up. So I made reservations for the next flight back upstate, then we went outside and sat and talked in his car in a parking lot. He talked about the pressures on him everywhere he turned, and about the frustrations, among them that no one wanted to accept anything relating to him except “my old ‘hate’ and ‘violence’ image.” He said “the so-called moderate” civil-rights organizations avoided him as “too militant” and the “so-called militants” avoided him as “too moderate.” “They won’t let me turn the corner!” he once exclaimed, “I’m caught in a trap!”

  In a happier area, we talked about the coming baby. We laughed about the four girls in a row already. “This one will be the boy,” he said. He beamed, “If not, the next one!” When I said it was close to time for my plane to leave, he said he had to be getting on, too. I said, “Give my best to Sister Betty,” he said that he would, we shook hands and I got outside and stood as he backed the blue Oldsmobile from its parking space. I called out “See you!” and we waved as he started driving away. There was no way to know that it was the last time I would see him alive.

  —

  On January 19, Malcolm X appeared on the Pierre Berton television show in Canada and said, in response to a question about integration and intermarriage:

  “I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being—neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there’s no question of integration or intermarriage. It’s just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being. I may say, though, that I don’t think it should ever be put upon a black man, I don’t think the burden to defend any position should ever be put upon the black man, because it is the white man collectively who has shown that he is hostile toward integration and toward intermarriage and toward these other strides toward oneness. So as a black man and especially as a black American, any stand that I formerly took, I don’t think that I would have to defend it because it’s still a reaction to the society, and it’s a reaction that was produced by the society; and I think that it is the society that produced this that should be attacked, not the reaction that develops among the people who are the victims of that negative society.”

  From this, it would be fair to say that one month before his death, Malcolm had revised his views on intermarriage to the point where he regarded it as simply a personal matter.

  —

  On the 28th of January, Malcolm X was on TWA’s Flight No. 9 from New York that landed at about three P.M. in Los Angeles. A special police intelligence squad saw Malcolm X greeted by two close friends, Edward Bradley and Allen Jamal, who drove him to the Statler-Hilton Hotel where Malcolm X checked into Room 1129. Said Bradley, “As we entered the lobby, six men came in right after us. I recognized them as Black Muslims.” When Malcolm X returned downstairs to the lobby, he “practically bumped into the Muslim entourage. The Muslims were stunned. Malcolm’s face froze, but he never broke his gait. Then, we knew we were facing trouble.” Malcolm X’s friends drove him to pick up “two former secretaries of Elijah Muhammad, who (had) filed paternity suits against him,” and they went to the office of the colorful Los Angeles attorney Gladys Root. Mrs. Root said that Malcolm X made accusations about Elijah Muhammad’s conduct with various former secretaries.

  After dinner, Malcolm X’s two friends drove him back to the hotel. “Black Muslims were all over the place,” Bradley related. “Some were in cars and others stood around near the hotel. They had the hotel completely surrounded. Malcolm sized up the situation and jumped out of the car. He warned me to watch out and ran into the lobby. He went to his room and remained there for the rest of his stay in Los Angeles.”

  The car in which Malcolm X left the hotel, bound for the airport, was followed, said Bradley. “Hardly had we got on the freeway when we saw two carloads of Black Muslims following us. The cars started to pull alongside. Malcolm picked up my walking cane and stuck it out of a back window as if it were a rifle. The two cars fell behind. We picked up speed, pulled off the airport ramp, and roared up to the front of the terminal. The police were waiting and Malcolm was escorted to the plane through an underground passageway. Then I saw Malcolm to the plane.”

  Chicago police were waiting when the plane landed at O’Hare Airport that night at eight o’clock. Driven to the Bristol Hotel, Malcolm X checked in, and the adjoining suite was taken by members of the police force who would keep him under steady guard for the next three days in Chicago. Malcolm X testified at the office of the Attorney General of the State of Illinois which had been investigating the Nation of Islam. Another day he appeared on the television program of Irv Kupcinet; he described attempts that had been made to kill him. He said he had on his desk a letter naming the persons assigned to kill him. When police returned Malcolm X to his hotel “at least 15 grim-faced Negroes (were) loitering nearby.” Whispered Malcolm X to Detective Sergeant Edward McClellan, “Those are all Black Muslims. At least two of them I recognize as being from New York. Elijah seems to know every move I make.” Later, in his room, he told the detective, “It’s only going to be a matter of time before they catch up with me. I know too much about the Muslims. But their threats are not going to stop me from what I am determined to do.” After that night spent in the hotel, Malcolm X was police-escorted back to O’Hare where he caught a plane to New York City’s Kennedy Airport.

  Right away, he was served with a court order of eviction from the Elmhurst home. He telephoned me upstate. His voice was strained. He told me that he had filed an appeal to the court order, that on the next day he was going to Alabama, and thence to England and France for scheduled speeches, and soon after returning he would go to Jackson, Mississippi, to address the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, on February 19. Then he said—the first time he had ever voiced to me such an admission—“Haley, my nerves are shot, my brain’s tired.” He said that upon his return from Mississippi, he would like to come and spend two or three days in the town where I was, and read the book’s manuscript again. “You say it’s a quiet town. Just a couple of days of peace and quiet, that’s what I need.” I said that he knew he was welcome, but there was no need for him to tax himself reading through the long book again, as it had only a few very minor editing changes since he had only recently read it. “I just want to read it one more time,” he said, “because I don’t expect to read it in finished form
.” So we made a tentative agreement that the day after his projected return from Mississippi, he would fly upstate to visit for a weekend with me. The projected date was the Saturday and Sunday of February 20-21.

  Jet magazine reported Malcolm X’s trip to Selma, Alabama, on the invitation of two members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Dr. Martin Luther King was in a Selma jail when Malcolm X’s arrival sent officials of Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference “into a tailspin.” Quickly, the SCLC’s Executive Director Reverend Andrew Young and Reverend James Bevel met with Malcolm X, urging him not to incite any incidents and cautioning him that his presence could cause violence. “He listened with a smile,” said Miss Faye Bellamy, secretary of the SNCC, who accompanied Malcolm X to a Negro church where he would address a mass meeting. “Remember this: nobody puts words in my mouth,” he told Miss Bellamy. He told her that “in about two weeks” he planned to start Southern recruiting for his Harlem-based OAAU. At the church where he would speak, Malcolm X was seated on the platform next to Mrs. Martin Luther King, to whom he leaned and whispered that he was “trying to help,” she told Jet. “He said he wanted to present an alternative; that it might be easier for whites to accept Martin’s proposals after hearing him (Malcolm X). I didn’t understand him at first,” said Mrs. King. “He seemed rather anxious to let Martin know he was not causing trouble or making it difficult, but that he was trying to make it easier….Later, in the hallway, he reiterated this. He seemed sincere….”

  Addressing the mass meeting Malcolm X reportedly shouted: “I don’t advocate violence, but if a man steps on my toes, I’ll step on his.”…“Whites better be glad Martin Luther King is rallying the people because other forces are waiting to take over if he fails.”

  Returned to New York City, Malcolm X soon flew to France. He was scheduled to speak before a Congress of African Students. But he was formally advised that he would not be permitted to speak and, moreover, that he could consider himself officially barred forever from France as “an undesirable person.” He was asked to leave—and he did, fuming with indignation. He flew on to London, and reporters of the British Broadcasting Corporation took him on an interviewing tour in Smethwick, a town near Birmingham with a large colored population. Numerous residents raised a storm of criticism that the B.B.C. was a party to a “fanning of racism” in the already tension-filled community. On this visit, he spoke also at the London School of Economics.

  Malcolm X returned to New York City on Saturday, February 13th. He was asleep with his family when at about a quarter of three the following Sunday morning, a terrifying blast awakened them. Sister Betty would tell me later that Malcolm X, barking commands and snatching up screaming, frightened children, got the family safely out of the back door into the yard. Someone had thrown flaming Molotov cocktail gasoline bombs through the front picture window. It took the fire department an hour to extinguish the flames. Half the house was destroyed. Malcolm X had no fire insurance.

  Pregnant, distraught Sister Betty and the four little daughters went to the home of close friends. Malcolm X steeled himself to catch a plane as scheduled that morning to speak in Detroit. He wore an open-necked sweater shirt under his suit. Immediately afterward, he flew back to New York. Monday morning, amid a flurry of emergency re-housing plans for his family, Malcolm X was outraged when he learned that Elijah Muhammad’s New York Mosque Number 7 Minister James X had told the press that Malcolm X himself had fire-bombed the home “to get publicity.”

  Monday night, Malcolm X spoke to an audience in the familiar Audubon Ballroom. If he had possessed the steel nerves not to become rattled in public before, now he was: “I’ve reached the end of my rope!” he shouted to the audience of five hundred. “I wouldn’t care for myself if they would not harm my family!” He declared flatly, “My house was bombed by the Muslims!” And he hinted at revenge. “There are hunters; there are also those who hunt the hunters!”

  Tuesday, February 16th, Malcolm X telephoned me. He spoke very briefly, saying that the complications following the bombing of his home had thrown his plans so awry that he would be unable to visit me upstate on the weekend as he had said he would. He said he had also had to cancel his planned trip to Jackson, Mississippi, which he was going to try and make later. He said he had to hurry to an appointment, and hung up. I would read later where also on that day, he told a close associate, “I have been marked for death in the next five days. I have the names of five Black Muslims who have been chosen to kill me. I will announce them at the meeting.” And Malcolm X told a friend that he was going to apply to the Police Department for a permit to carry a pistol. “I don’t know whether they will let me have one or not, as I served time in prison.”

  On Thursday he told a reporter, in an interview which did not appear until after his death: “I’m man enough to tell you that I can’t put my finger on exactly what my philosophy is now, but I’m flexible.”

  The blackboard in the OAAU office counseled members and visitors that “Bro. Malcolm Speaks Thurs. Feb. 18, WINS Station, 10:30 P.M.” Earlier Thursday, Malcolm X discussed locating another home with a real estate dealer. On Friday, he had an appointment with Gordon Parks, the Life magazine photographer-author whom he had long admired and respected. “He appeared calm and somewhat resplendent with his goatee and astrakhan hat,” Parks would report later in Life. “Much of the old hostility and bitterness seemed to have left him, but the fire and confidence were still there.” Malcolm X, speaking of the old Mosque Number 7 days, said, “That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of those days—I’m glad to be free of them. It’s a time for martyrs now. And if I’m to be one, it will be in the cause of brotherhood. That’s the only thing that can save this country. I’ve learned it the hard way—but I’ve learned it….”

  Parks asked Malcolm X if it was really true that killers were after him. “It’s as true as we are standing here,” Malcolm X said. “They’ve tried it twice in the last two weeks.” Parks asked him about police protection, and Malcolm X laughed, “Brother, nobody can protect you from a Muslim but a Muslim—or someone trained in Muslim tactics. I know. I invented many of those tactics.”

  Recalling the incident of the young white college girl who had come to the Black Muslim restaurant and asked “What can I do?” and he told her “Nothing,” and she left in tears, Malcolm X told Gordon Parks, “Well, I’ve lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a Muslim that I’m sorry for now. I was a zombie then—like all Muslims—I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man’s entitled to make a fool of himself if he’s ready to pay the cost. It cost me twelve years.”

  Saturday morning, he drove Sister Betty to see a real estate man. The house that the man then showed them that Malcolm X particularly liked, in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood also on Long Island, required a $3000 down payment. Sister Betty indicated her approval, too, and Malcolm X told the real estate man he thought they would take it. Driving Sister Betty back to the friends’ home where she was staying with the children, they estimated that it would cost them about another $1000 to make the move. He stayed until mid-afternoon with Sister Betty at the friends’ home, talking. He told her that he realized that she had been under protracted great strain, and that he was sorry about it. When he got his hat to leave, to drive into Manhattan, standing in the hallway, he told Sister Betty, “We’ll all be together. I want my family with me. Families shouldn’t be separated. I’ll never make another long trip without you. We’ll get somebody to keep the children. I’ll never leave you so long again.”

  “I couldn’t help but just break out grinning,” Sister Betty would later tell me.

  She figured that he must have stopped at a nearby drugstore to use the telephone booth when I later told her that Malcolm X had telephoned me upstate at about 3:30 that afternoon.
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  For the first time in nearly two years, I did not recognize immediately that the voice on the other end of the phone belonged to Malcolm X. He sounded as if he had a heavy, deep cold. He told me that in the middle of the night he and some friends had helped a moving company’s men take out of the other house all of the family’s furniture and other belongings salvageable after the fire-bombing—before a sheriff’s eviction party would set the things out on the sidewalk. “Betty and I have been looking at a house we want to buy”—he tried a chuckle—“you know nobody’s going to rent, not to me, these days!” He said, “All I’ve got is about $150,” and that he needed a $3000 down payment plus $1000 moving costs; he asked if I thought the publisher would advance him $4000 against the projected profits from the book. I said that when our agent’s offices opened on Monday morning, I would telephone and I knew that he would query the publisher to see if it couldn’t be arranged, then Monday night I would call him back and let him know.

  He said that he and Sister Betty had decided that although they were going to pay for the house, to avoid possible trouble they had gotten the agreement of his sister Ella who lived in Boston to let the house be bought in her name. He said that he still owed $1500 to his sister Ella which she had loaned him to make one trip abroad. Eventually they would change the house’s title into Sister Betty’s name, he said, or maybe into the name of their oldest daughter, Attilah.

  He digressed on the dangers he faced. “But, you know, I’m going to tell you something, brother—the more I keep thinking about this thing, the things that have been happening lately, I’m not all that sure it’s the Muslims. I know what they can do, and what they can’t, and they can’t do some of the stuff recently going on. Now, I’m going to tell you, the more I keep thinking about what happened to me in France, I think I’m going to quit saying it’s the Muslims.”