Malcolm X

by Manning Marable

  In the middle of the controversy, Malcolm sent a sober, detailed letter to the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction. His purpose was to provide examples of discrimination against Muslims, appealing for greater religious freedom. He highlighted the case of one Muslim who had been placed in solitary confinement at Norfolk for four months. “He wholeheartedly embraced Islam,” Malcolm argued, “and by doing this he incurred the wrath [of prison authorities]. Because the Brother wishes to be Black (instead of negro or collared [sic]), because of his desire to be a good Muslim . . . he is being maliciously prosecuted.”

  In a second letter to the commissioner, and in subsequent correspondence, he shifted his argument, accusing Charlestown’s authorities of severely restricting the books by black authors that were available in the prison library. The tone was intellectual but increasingly intense and argumentative. “Is it actually against the ‘law’ for a Black man to read about himself? (let me laugh!),” he complained. He deplored the harassment experienced by Muslims who he claimed had done nothing wrong, and contrasted the example of one Black Muslim who had been rejected from enrolling in a prison literacy workshop with “the homosexual perverts” behind bars who “can get job-changes whenever they wish to change or acquire new ‘husbands.’” In more explicit language than ever before, he warned the commissioner that the Muslims would prefer to be kept separate from other prisoners, but if denied fair treatment they would be forced to become disruptive. “If it becomes the Will of Allah for peace to cease,” Malcolm predicted, “peace will cease!” This was a step beyond self-invention : Malcolm was in effect developing his powers of protest. He was teaching himself to be a great orator.

  In June 1950, the United States initiated military actions in Korea, under the auspices of the United Nations, to suppress communist insurgency. On June 29, Malcolm brazenly wrote a letter to President Truman, declaring his opposition to the conflict. “I have always been a Communist,” he wrote. “I have tried to enlist in the Japanese Army, last war, now they will never draft or accept me in the U.S. Army. Everyone has always said MALCOLM is crazy so it isn’t hard to convince people that I am.”

  It was this letter that brought Malcolm to the attention of the FBI, which opened a file on him that would never be closed. It also marked the beginning of their surveillance of him, which would continue until his death.

  Malcolm kept up his letter-writing campaign throughout 1950 and into 1951, even reaching back to people who had known him as a juvenile delinquent. One such letter, dated November 14, 1950, was addressed to the Reverend Samuel L. Laviscount of Roxbury. Apparently, Malcolm had occasionally attended meetings at Laviscount’s St. Mark’s Congregational Church in 1941. “Dear Brother Samuel,” he began. “When I was a child I behaved like a child, but since becoming a man I have endeavored to put away childish things. . . . When I was a wild youth, you often gave me some timely advice; now that I have matured I desire to return the favor.” He recounted his involvement in crime, his arrest, and subsequent incarceration. But “this sojourn in prison has proved to be a blessing in disguise, for it provided me with the Solitude that produced many nights of Meditation.” The experiences of imprisonment had confirmed the validity of Elijah Muhammad’s indictments. Malcolm proclaimed that he had subsequently “reversed my attitude toward my black brothers,” and “in my guilt and shame I began to catch every chance I could to recruit for Mr. Muhammad.” The task of emancipating black people from the effects of racial oppression, he explained, required a fundamental rejection of white values: “The devil[’s] strongest weapon is his ability to conventionalize our Thought . . . we willfully remain the humble servants of every one else’s ideas except our own . . . we have made ourselves the helpless slaves of the wicked accidental world.”

  After months back in Charlestown, however, the terrible conditions there took their toll. In a letter to Philbert sent in December 1950, Malcolm complained, “I have ulcers or something but I’ve had my fill of hospitals since being here. Ole man, I think I’m actually falling apart physically. Nothing more physically wrecks a man, than a steady prison diet.” He explained that he was “reading the Bible diligently,” but worried whether his interpretations of scriptures were “sound, or even on the correct track,” and looked forward to when he could listen to Elijah Muhammad’s latest teachings. For the first time, he signed his name, “Malcolm X (surprised?).” He also revealed that “a very wealthy man for whom I once worked, visited me today and is going to try and get me a recommendation from the parole board (Insha Allah) The Will of Allah will be done.” The “wealthy man” almost certainly was Paul Lennon. The most striking aspect of Malcolm’s continuing contacts with Lennon was that his affluent benefactor was white; given Malcolm’s professed hatred of all “white devils” (and his comments on homosexual inmates), his continuing contacts with Lennon may have indicated that his determination to get out of prison exceeded his commitment to Yacub’s History. Or perhaps the physical intimacies between the two men created a bond. Malcolm uncharacteristically stumbled somewhat as he explained, “By the way, he’s not an original”—meaning that he was not a Negro. “However he can give me a home and a job . . .”

  Malcolm’s choice of words—“a home”—implies more than a business association. The fact that Lennon went to see Malcolm behind bars suggests a degree of friendship. But Malcolm’s commitment to the Nation eventually made any kind of continued contact with Lennon impossible. No correspondence between Malcolm and Lennon has been found following Malcolm’s prison sentence ending in 1952. Malcolm firmly put behind him the episodes with Lennon, along with some other events from Detroit Red’s life of drugs and criminality. Malcolm Little, petty criminal and trickster, had transformed himself into Malcolm X, a serious political intellectual and Black Muslim. That metamorphosis left no space for a rich gay white man.

  Malcolm’s subsequent FBI files cite a revealing letter, written in January 1951, to someone whose name has been redacted in its records, but from the tone of the correspondence may have been Elijah Muhammad. “You once told me that I had a persecution complex,” it runs. “Quite naturally I refused to agree with you. . . . I was blinded by my own ignorance.” The letter recounts a visit to Charlestown by several family members, who raised with him the wrongs that he had committed: With great remorse I now think of the hate and revenge that I have been preaching in the past. But from here on in my words shall all be of Love and Justice. . . . Now that the Way has been made clear to me my sole desire is to replace the seeds of hate and revenge, that I have sown into the hearts of others, with the seed of Love and Justice . . . and to be Just in all that I think, speak and do.

  Malcolm’s further “apology for the unrest and misrepresentation of the Truth” was probably prompted by Elijah’s disapproval over the publicity surrounding the campaign for Muslim prisoners’ rights. For months, Malcolm had attempted to “embarrass” penal authorities by sending a stream of letters to local and state officials. Given Muhammad’s own prison hardships, the NOI leader recognized that any adverse publicity could threaten the sect’s survival. He also feared that prisoners who had converted to the Nation of Islam in other institutions might become targets of harassment by prison guards.

  Malcolm had himself already experienced such harassment at Charlestown. When prison cooks learned about the Muslims’ refusal to eat pork, they frequently served Malcolm’s food from utensils that had been used to process the meat, and made sure Malcolm and his fellow Muslims knew. In response, over his final two years in prison Malcolm existed on a diet composed primarily of bread and cheese. Such deprivations, combined with the lack of competent medical care while in prison, caused him health problems that would plague him the rest of his life. After arriving back at Charlestown, he was diagnosed with astigmatism and received his first pair of glasses. He came to believe that his impaired vision had been caused at Norfolk because he had “read so much by the lights-out glow in my room.”

  In late 19
50, Malcolm had submitted a petition to the commissioner of corrections requesting an official pardon from Massachusetts governor Paul A. Dever. On December 13 the district attorney for the Northern District of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts recommended the petition be denied. Not surprisingly, Dever agreed.

  That same month, Charlestown’s officials had refused to allow Muslim prisoners to leave their beds after lights-out curfew, to face east in solemn prayer. Writing in protest, Malcolm condemned the ban as an attack upon religious rights and warned that such an abridgment might require him to issue an appeal for redress to “the Whole Body of Islam”—that is, Islamic countries throughout the world. There might have been differences between the rituals of the Nation of Islam and orthodox Islam, but Malcolm saw himself in a global community.

  His next request to be paroled would be considered on June 4, 1952. After a review of his prison records, he was granted parole on condition that he go to Detroit to live with Wilfred. On August 4 the Massachusetts supervisor of parole, Philip J. Flynn, informed the parole board that Malcolm had obtained full-time employment at the Cut Rate department stores in Detroit. The date for his release was set for August 7. Wilfred’s willingness to sponsor Malcolm in his home and to secure a job for him was a collective decision by Little family members, including Ella. Given their brother's chaotic histories in both Roxbury and Harlem, they must have decided that it was preferable for him to be in Detroit. At the time, Wilfred was working at Cut Rate and persuaded his boss to take his younger brother on as a salesman.

  Just weeks before Malcolm’s release, however, the state experienced several prison uprisings. On July 1, 1952, 41 out of approximately 680 men at Concord prison rioted. This may have inspired some inmates at Charlestown to plan their own revolt. On July 22 about forty prisoners there staged an even more destructive outburst. Two prison guards were seized as hostages. When state police at last retook the facility, everybody who had taken part was placed in solitary confinement; some were also prosecuted. The two officers who had been hostages were retired, and fourteen guards were added to the prison staff for greater security. Eventually an inmates’ council was established, elected by prisoners, which regularly met with the warden to resolve grievances. Malcolm was not involved in the uprising and it did not affect his release. Indeed, he would have felt little sense of solidarity with rioting white inmates.

  Malcolm was finally released on August 7. He later described the occasion as just one more humiliation: “They gave me a lecture, a cheap L’il Abner suit, and a small amount of money, and I walked out of the gate. I never looked back . . .” Hilda was waiting outside. After the two embraced, they went to Boston to spend the night at Ella’s house. That evening, Malcolm visited a Turkish bath, to get “some of that physical feeling of prisontaint off me.” To start his new life, he purchased a new pair of glasses, a suitcase, and a wristwatch. Reflecting on his purchases, he wrote, “I was preparing for what my life was about to become.” He would see more, he would travel, and he would seize the time.

  CHAPTER 4

  “They Don’t Come Like the Minister”

  August 1952–May 1957

  Malcolm’s elder brother Wilfred and his wife, Ruth, lived in the quiet, suburban black neighborhood of Inkster, just outside Detroit, at 4336 Williams Street. This was to be Malcolm’s base for the seven months after his release from prison. In his autobiography, Malcolm recounted the morning routine that Wilfred supervised. “‘In the name of Allah, I perform the ablution,’ he would say before washing first his right hand, then his left.” After the family had showered, completing “the whole body’s purification,” it was ready for morning prayers. Part of this ritual was similar to practices of orthodox Islam; however, like many of the NOI’s methods, it also had special elements. First, Nation of Islam members, like Moorish Science Temple followers, faced east and raised their hands when praying, but did not prostrate themselves. They also did not recite the shahada or practice any other of the five pillars. At one point, when Elijah Muhammad felt slighted by Arab Muslims, he briefly commanded NOI members to face the direction of Chicago rather than Mecca for their prayers.

  Shortly after moving back to Michigan, Malcolm started working at the Cut Rate department store to fulfill the conditions of his parole. He was grateful to have a job, but soon described his experiences with some bitterness: “Nothing Down ” advertisements drew poor Negroes into that store like [flies to] flypaper. It was a shame, the way they paid three and four times what the furniture had cost, because they could get credit from those Jews. It was the same kind of cheap, gaudy-looking junk that you can see in any of the black furniture stores today. . . . I would see clumsy, work-hardened, calloused hands scrawling and scratching signatures on the contract, agreeing to highwayrobbery interest rates in the fine print that never was read.

  It was his first work experience of the outside world since his conversion, and the episode had a profound impact on Malcolm. It was the first time he had offered a strongly negative generalization about Jews, categorizing them as a group.

  Established in 1932, downtown Detroit’s Temple No. 1 was the Nation of Islam’s oldest, but after twenty years it still had barely one hundred formal members. Its minister, Lemuel (Anderson) Hassan, like all NOI clergy, had been selected personally by Elijah Muhammad, to whom he was required to report each week. Despite its modest size, the temple possessed an active religious and social life. “The men were quietly, tastefully dressed,” Malcolm recalled. Seating arrangements were by gender, men to the right, women to the left. Unlike in an orthodox Muslim masjid (mosque), which had no furniture, members sat upright in chairs throughout all services, which largely consisted of lectures about Elijah’s teachings. It did not take long for Malcolm to wonder why, after two decades of existence, Temple No. 1’s membership was so tiny, and he was surprised to learn that Hassan and other senior members were not eager to proselytize. Malcolm voiced his frustration to his family, but Wilfred advised patience.

  That August Malcolm asked his parole officer if he might travel to Chicago to visit Elijah Muhammad, explaining that he would be accompanied by three of his brothers. Approval granted, Malcolm participated in Temple No. 1’s automobile caravan, consisting of ten cars, to make the trip. Arriving in Chicago’s sprawling South Side, Malcolm waited impatiently at the temple for the formal program to start. Finally Allah’s Messenger entered, surrounded by Fruit of Islam guards in dark suits, white shirts, and bow ties. In a soft voice, Muhammad—wearing a gold-embroidered fez—reminded his audience about the personal sacrifices he had made for over two decades. African Americans were truly the Original People, he said, unjustly stolen to North America. Only the Nation of Islam’s teachings could restore black people to their rightful place. Malcolm “sat riveted”—then, unbelievably, Elijah called out his name. Stunned, he stood up before several hundred congregants as Muhammad explained that Malcolm had been so devoted while in prison that he had written to him daily; such peerless example recalled Job.

  After the service, Malcolm and his whole group were invited to dinner. The Messenger’s family had only recently moved into an eighteen-room mansion at 4847 South Woodlawn Avenue, in the exclusive Hyde Park section of Chicago’s South Side, purchased with funds tithed by the Nation’s increasing membership. During the meal, Malcolm mustered the courage to ask how Detroit’s Nation of Islam should reach out to recruits. Muhammad counseled him to concentrate on young people—“The older ones will follow through shame,” he explained. The point went home.

  In orthodox Islam, evangelical work is known as da’wa. In Western countries, it has two purposes: to promote Muslim practices and values among nonbelievers, and to reinforce what the scholar Ismail al-Faruqi termed “Islamicity.” In the Nation of Islam, da’wa was called “fishing for converts.” Almost immediately after his return home Malcolm plunged into Detroit’s bars, pool halls, nightclubs, and back alleys, aggressively “fishing.” Night after night, he attempted to interest his “p
oor, ignorant, brain-washed black brothers” in Muhammad’s message. At first, only a trickle of the curious came to temple meetings, but persistence soon paid off. Within a few months temple membership had almost tripled.

  Malcolm’s most remarkable convert during this time was a young man named Joseph Gravitt, who would become for a time one of his closest confidants and an important figure in the Nation of Islam over the next decade. Born in Detroit in 1927, Gravitt served in the army in 1946–47, winning, according to his own account, the “World War II Victory Medal”; his official army record shows evaluations that ranged from “unknown” to “excellent.” Returning to civilian life, he found it difficult to get work, soon becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol and developing a reputation for violence against women. In November 1949, police charged him with “indecent and obscene conduct in a public place.”

  By the time Malcolm encountered him, Gravitt was sleeping in Detroit’s alleys, but Malcolm sensed his potential, and personally supervised his rehabilitation. Having experienced military discipline, Gravitt responded well under Malcolm’s stern authority. Within days, his entire life was taken up by the Nation of Islam: during the daytime he worked as the short-order cook and waiter at the temple restaurant; in the evenings he directed Fruit of Islam members in the martial arts, and he sacked out to sleep in the restaurant at night. Within months he had become a devoted—even fanatical—Fruit of Islam leader, his metamorphosis adding to Malcolm’s reputation.

  As he was devoting an increasing amount of time to the Nation of Islam, Malcolm struggled to find regular work that he could tolerate. In January 1953, he was taken on at the new Ford assembly plant in Wayne as a “final assembler” on the production line. Although he was employed for only one week, it was long enough for him to become a member of United Auto Workers Local 900. A short time later, he was hired at Gar Wood Industries, a company famous for its innovations in truck equipment, cranes, and road machinery. By the 1950s, Gar Wood was one of Detroit’s major employers, but many of the jobs made available to blacks were dirty and dangerous. Malcolm’s technical classification was as a grinder, defined as a “worker who pulverizes material or grinds surface objects.” It paid a little better than his previous employment, but it was a miserable, monotonous job, and Malcolm felt caged.