The Separate State
On the day every television network carried scenes of Birmingham police dogs attacking Negro children, Malcolm X submitted to an interview. Asked what he thought of the events at Birmingham, Malcolm said: “Martin Luther King is a chump, not a champ. Any man who puts his women and children on the front lines is a chump, not a champ.”
This was Malcolm’s most inglorious hour. It will take him months of hard work to regain the ground he lost among non-Muslim Negroes with that single statement. Even the Negro moderates, those who disapprove of the direct-action technique, were silenced by the dogs, fire hoses, and club-swinging policemen. Since Birmingham I have been on a lecture tour that carried me to eight major cities in as many states; I found that Negroes were melted into one by the fire of that battle; I saw a unity I have never seen in rank-and-file Negroes before; I felt a mutual love that is all but unknown among Negroes; I sensed a dislike for white people that borders on the disgraceful. Martin King—and we know his strengths as well as his weaknesses—triggered Birmingham. This nation’s Negroes were with him. If he was a “chump,” so were we all.
Malcolm’s statement had the effect of making every Negro who wept when he saw dogs attacking Negro children feel like a moral idiot; Malcolm’s analysis—if proper—means that every Negro woman who shouted resentment when she saw her black sisters knocked to the ground is spiritually illiterate and intellectually stupid. Malcolm—in a contorted way, to be sure—allowed himself to become one with Bull Conner. Malcolm X, the brilliant student of mass psychology, blundered badly.
The Black Muslims had a multiple choice at Birmingham: They could have joined us in the demonstrations; they could have kept quiet; they could have denounced us. I was there and watched the Black Muslim position take shape. Minister James X of the Birmingham temple wanted Malcolm to come and make a major speech during the turmoil; Minister Jeremiah X, minister to the Atlanta temple and roving southern bishop for the movement, was of much the same mind. Knowing the Black Muslim line of authority as I do, I am certain that James and Jeremiah reflected not only Malcolm’s desire to come but Elijah Muhammad’s decision to let the Big X fly to Birmingham if the proper stage were set. The matter was debated by Negro non-Muslims who could have set just such a stage. Some felt it would be a good thing to have Malcolm speak in Birmingham, since the Klan held a rally there at the peak of the crisis. Others felt the Black Muslims should stay out of the picture. There was a standoff on the question, and silence prevailed. Non-Muslim Negroes knew Malcolm X could not speak in favor of integration. And they prayed—both to Jehovah and Allah—that Big Red would take advantage of that excellent opportunity to keep quiet.
Malcolm elected to speak against us. We were all pained by his outburst, but now—after several weeks of reflection—it is clear that Malcolm did precisely what he had to do. For the Negro revolt had caught up with the Black Muslims.
The Black Muslims came to power during a moral interregnum, at a time when it seemed certain that this nation would refuse to obey its own desegregation laws. But the sudden new militancy of the Negro has forced an unscheduled confrontation between the Muslims and this republic: America must prove that it is not a nation of white devils or perish. The Black Muslims, on the other hand, must face the reality of change in the American way of life. The Negro has always privately talked loud and bitterly about the American white man. The Black Muslims brought that talk into the open, on television and radio, and made it plain for all to see and hear. This was good for both the Negro and the white man: it shocked and frightened white people to hear what we have been thinking and saying about them for five hundred years; the Black Muslims were a catharsis for us, purging our innards of the bile brought on by slavery and segregation. Released from consuming anger we dropped the façade of puritan legalism and went racing into the streets screaming that defiance which is endemic to the tribe of restless natives we American Negroes most certainly are. Thus the inspired Negro students who took our fight into the streets, who shouted “now or never,” have challenged the Black Muslims by interposing the theology of desegregation. In The Negro Revolt I described that theology in these words:
The sit-ins raged throughout the spring of 1960 and convinced even more people that direct mass action was the shorter, more effective route to their goal of desegregation. But, from an internal viewpoint, more significant than the stale coffee and soggy hamburgers was the brand of Negro that was emerging. They were no longer afraid; their boldness, at times, was nothing short of alarming. And although few people knew it, a new religion, peculiar to the Negro, was being born.
This faith, given incipient articulation by Martin Luther King, was the culmination of a hundred years of folk suffering. Like all faiths, it is peculiar to the people who fashioned it; it was a hodgepodge, as every faith is, of every ethical principle absorbed by my people from other cultures. And so the best of Confucius, Moses, Jesus, Gandhi, and Thoreau was extracted, then mixed with the peculiar experience of the Negro in America. The result was a faith that justified the bus boycott and inspired Negro college students to make a moral crusade out of their right to sit down in a restaurant owned by a white man and eat a hamburger.
As Pastor Kelly Miller Smith walked to the lectern to begin his Sunday sermon, on that first Sunday of March, 1960, in Nashville, Tennessee, he knew his parishioners wanted and needed more than just another spiritual message. The congregation—most of them middle-class Americans, many of them university students and faculty members—sat before him waiting, tense; for Nashville, like some thirty-odd other Southern college towns, was taut with racial tension in the wake of widespread student demonstrations against lunch counter discrimination in department stores.
Among the worshipers in Pastor Smith’s First Baptist Church were some of the eighty-five students from Fisk and from Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial University who had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to obstruct trade and commerce because they staged protests in several of Nashville’s segregated eating places. Just two days before, Nashville police had invaded Mr. Smith’s church—which also served as headquarters for the demonstrators—and arrested one of their number, James Lawson, Jr., a Negro senior theological student at predominantly white Vanderbilt University, on the same charge.
“Father, forgive them,” Mr. Smith began, “for they know not what they do.” And for the next half-hour, the crucifixion of Christ carried this meaning as he spoke:
“The students sat at the lunch counters alone to eat, and when refused service, to wait and pray. And as they sat there on that Southern Mount of Olives, the Roman soldiers, garbed in the uniforms of Nashville policemen and wielding night sticks, came and led the praying children away. As they walked down the streets, through a red light, and toward Golgotha, the segregationist mob shouted jeers, pushed and shoved them, and spat in their faces, but the suffering students never said a mumbling word. Once the martyr mounts the Cross, wears the crown of thorns, and feels the pierce of the sword in his side there is no turning back.
“And there is no turning back for those who follow in the martyr’s steps,” the minister continued. “All we can do is to hold fast to what we believe, suffer what we must suffer if we would forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
This new gospel of the American Negro is rooted in the theology of desegregation; its missionaries are several thousand Negro students who—like Paul, Silas, and Peter of the early Christian era—are braving great dangers and employing new techniques to spread the faith. It is not an easy faith, for it names the conservative Negro leadership class as sinners along with the segregationists. Yet this new gospel is being preached by clergymen and laymen alike wherever Negroes gather.
Here, then—in the American Negro’s mind and for his loyalty—is being waged one of the several battles gods have fought during the history of man. This particular encounter is between a home-grown Allah who is one with black men the world over, but who has a special yen for the American Negro, and a transmuted Jesus who was born in Judea, crucified on Golgotha’s heights, rose from the dead to ascend into heaven, but submitted to reincarnation as a student sit-in. And so it is that Allah and Jesus fight it out for the spiritual allegiance of the American Negro at a lunch counter in Woolworth’s.
This is indeed a long way from the mountains near Olympia and the flats of Greece where the gods once romped and fought for glory. But gods follow man; wherever man is, wherever the great issues of man are being determined, there also one will find the gods. Man and the issue are now centered around the rise and current crisis of Western civilization. The British historian-theologian Arnold Toynbee suggests that the black Westerner may well determine the fate of Atlantic civilization. The gods apparently agree, and they have come to our shores to ply their wares. But Western man, particularly the Negro, is demanding more of his gods than man once did.
Once upon a time all god had to do was promise man life after death, an eternal remission for the sins man committed on earth while trying to sing a hymn in a strange land. But the gods can no longer get away with such shoddy realism; men want to eat good food, sleep without being awakened by nibbling rats, work at jobs commensurate with their abilities, live where their earning power allows them, and use all facilities paid for out of public funds.
“We don’t want to eat a hot dog in this store,” Jeremiah X said to me as we watched scores of Birmingham youngsters stage sit-ins; “we want the store and the ground on which it sits.”
This is the dilemma the Black Muslims now face: They must eschew everything tinged by “integration,” yet they must seek acceptance among the black masses who are risking their all—particularly in the South—for the sake of fuller involvement in the American mainstream. The Muslims’ reply, of course, is the separate state, a place where all American black men will live, have their own government, readopt Arabic, reaccept Allah, and ready themselves for the hour when the “word” will be given and Armageddon will proceed.
The tragedy of this is that Black Muslim leaders, including Elijah Muhammad, have said they know such a state will never come into being. This admission by them relieves me of the need to discuss the impracticality of the proposal. Rather, I am engaged by the fact that the Black Muslims continue to urge Negroes to back the demands for such a state rather than act to better their plight in the nation as it now is.
Their promise of a separate state, like the chariot that was scheduled to swing low and take us home a century ago, is but another of the mirages that has kept the American Negro from digging water in the land that is his and under his feet. Black Muslims are forbidden to vote; thus they cannot help us overcome such men as Eastland and Talmadge. They are against all forms of integration; thus they cannot help us in the fight for better jobs, schools, and housing.
The Negro masses are beginning to indict the Black Muslims for impotence; they talk but cannot act; they criticize but cannot correct. Thus the Black Muslims are running the risk of becoming just another sect, an offbeat faith that expiates destiny by the shouting of voices, the stomping of feet, and the banging of tambourines. Their early promise of becoming a meaningful new faith has been made pallid by their lack of an activated social gospel. To put it bluntly, the Black Muslims are flirting with the same doom that overtook Christianity.
As the interview in Part Two shows, I have questioned Malcolm X in depth about this. He is adamant, his voice has the ring of finality. In substance, his position is this:
The Negro Revolt will fail because integration will not work; it will not work because the white man is wicked by nature and will not give Negroes full participation in American life. It is not that the white man refuses to integrate, but that his wicked nature makes it impossible for him to give justice, equality, and freedom to other peoples. Even the victories that have been won are tricks, token integration offered to a few Negroes to quiet the Negro masses. When Negroes realize they have been tricked, that the white man has no intentions of integrating, trouble will break out. And this is when the Black Muslims will inherit the earth, particularly America. This nation could avoid all this by granting Negroes states of their own. But they are too wicked to do even that. So let Armageddon rip.
Even so, I pressed Malcolm:
LOMAX: Minister Malcolm, will the Black Muslims join picket lines and demonstrations for better jobs, housing, and schools?
MALCOLM X: Only The Honorable Elijah Muhammad can answer that.
The Friends and Followers of Malcolm X
It pains Malcolm X that most people consider him the spokesman for the Black Muslims. Malcolm prefaces all his public statements with the phrase, “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that ...”; he attributes his every thought and action to the teachings of Mr. Muhammad. “The Messenger is the Prophet of Allah,” Malcolm once explained to me, “and I am but Elijah’s servant.”
Following a Los Angeles TV debate between Malcolm X, two other Negroes, and me, my aunt invited some fifty people to meet the members of the panel at her home. Malcolm X appeared and of course became the center of attraction. The guests were upper-middle-class Negroes—doctors, lawyers, teachers, professionals all. Some ten white persons were also present. One woman asked Malcolm why he prefaced his remarks by saying, “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that....”
“Because,” Malcolm said cuttingly, “Mr. Muhammad is everything and I am nothing. When you hear Charlie McCarthy speak, you listen and marvel at what he says. What you forget is that Charlie is nothing but a dummy—he is a hunk of wood sitting on Edgar Bergen’s lap. If Bergen quits talking, McCarthy is struck dumb; if Bergen turns loose, McCarthy will fall to the floor, a plank of sawdust fit for nothing but the fire. This is the way it is with the Messenger and me. It is my mouth working, but the voice is his.”
Malcolm X may well be Elijah Muhammad’s Charlie McCarthy, but it was Charlie McCarthy who made Edgar Bergen rich and famous. By the same token, observers are convinced that whereas Elijah Muhammad is the maximum leader of the movement, Malcolm X is the man who will have to save the Black Muslims from becoming just another sect or cult. Malcolm’s role rests on more than his indisputable ability and public presence; it is augmented by the absence of other talented men in the movement. I have met and talked with every major figure in the Black Muslim hierarchy, and there is not one among them who can do the job that must be done if the organization is to make a continuing impression on non-Muslim Negroes. This is not to say that there are no able administrators within the movement; on the contrary, I, for one, am convinced that Malcolm is not a good administrator, that men like John X are better suited than he for this role. But John X cannot capture the mind and imagination of TV viewers as Malcolm X has done. Both of Muhammad’s sons are extremely able, but they cannot cause the nation’s press to beat a path to Muhammad’s door, as Malcolm has done.
Malcolm X now holds down three jobs: he is minister of Temple Number Seven, New York; minister of Temple Number Four, Washington, D.C.; and traveling bishop-trouble shooter for the entire movement. Malcolm roams the nation holding press conferences and being the official presence wherever Muslims get into trouble with the police; he moves between temples, making sure that internal problems are handled correctly; he moves from town to town organizing new temples and addressing mass rallies; he has spoken at most major universities outside the South and fills the air waves with his beguiling jargon.
Then Malcolm commutes several times a month to Phoenix, Arizona, where the asthma-stricken Elijah Muhammad now lives, for further guidance and policy conferences. Hardly a day passes that Malcolm does not speak with the Messenger from wherever he is by telephone. I know from many personal experiences that even so trivial a request as one for Malcolm to sit for an interview is cleared with The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I also know that Muhammad sometimes says “no” and that Malcolm obeys. Many commentators make much over what they call the “New York-Chicago” cleavage within the Black Muslim movement. I am inclined to doubt the reality of that cleavage, but I am also convinced that there are stresses and strains within the movement, the same kinds of stresses and strains that afflict any organization that involves human beings.
Elijah Muhammad officially lives in Chicago but actually spends almost all of his time in Arizona. This is for reasons of health alone and talk to the contrary is untrue. From Phoenix the Messenger runs everything. Chicago is the nerve center of the movement, and Elijah activates it by telephone calls and couriers. It is now clear that Elijah has delegated to Chicago the responsibility for turning out the movement’s publications and over-all policy statements. It is equally clear that the finances and other administrative chores of the movement are carried out in Chicago. Malcolm at one time carried some of these responsibilities, particularly the publishing of the Muslim newspaper, and many observers thought they saw an intraorganizational fight when these responsibilities were taken from him and given to Chicago. They are wrong; what they saw was a freeing of Malcolm X, a decision by Muhammad that Malcolm was needed as ambassador-at-large for the Black Muslims, that he should not be tied down to the responsibility of editing and publishing a weekly newspaper. This decision by Muhammad was made possible because John X, a former FBI agent and perhaps the best administrative brain in the movement, was shifted from New York to Chicago.
Raymond Sharrieff is without doubt the strong man of the movement. He is tall, big, and quiet, as a strong man should be. But his strength, too, flows down from that enigmatic man, Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad has been able to harness Malcolm X, John X, and Sharrieff to the same plow and make them pull in tandem. But once Muhammad dies—at least, so most observers feel—this triumvirate will fly apart and wreck the movement. I doubt it. The Black Muslims know the world is waiting for just this to happen, and I am positive they have already made certain that it will not happen.
The New Policy
Succession is not the major question facing the Black Muslims; the young, thinking men in the hierarchy know what the big issue is, know that they must issue a new policy statement if they are to capture the minds of the Negroes who are carrying out the current revolution. Calling the white man a devil and exhorting all Negroes to prepare for life in a separate state simply is not enough to win over the children who marched at Birmingham and all over this republic. No, if the Black Muslims are to get a hearing, they must have more than this to say.
This new policy statement is the prime concern of the Black Muslim movement. Several factors are involved:
First, the consensus among the Black Muslim hierarchy is that the current Negro demonstrations will end in bitter defeat and disappointment. These men, including Elijah Muhammad, are unalterably convinced that white America will not honor the promise of integration. Then, at least so the thinking goes, the Negro people will set off trouble; they will denounce and abandon Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, and James Farmer; they will turn for leadership to someone who foresaw the defeat clearly. In the meantime, however, good but misguided Negroes will take to the streets and demonstrate because they still have faith in integration, they still believe in the ability of white people to do the right thing.
I predict the Black Muslims will erect a policy of active wait-and-see; they will not join picket lines and participate in demonstrations, but they will take a more active part in general community life. This, I think, is the meaning behind the recent announcement that the Black Muslims are considering active participation in politics. The suggestion was made during the movement’s annual convention in Chicago early in the spring of 1963. It is still not clear just what the Muslims have in mind, but I see them first moving to register their people and then supporting Negro candidates who share some of the Muslims’ concerns.
Malcolm X addressing a Harlem rally protesting crime. Many civic and elected officials share the platform with him, look on as Malcolm X says, “Dope, prostitution, and numbers could not flourish here in Harlem without the knowledge of the police!”
(Photo by Robert L. Haggins)
Malcolm X raising money during a Washington, D.C., rally at which Elijah Muhammad spoke. Black Muslims give a portion of their wages to the temple each week, and these donations are the movement’s major source of income. However, Muslims do raise additional funds at rallies and bazaars.
(Photo by Eve Arnold, Magnum)
A Muslim meeting at Urlene Arena, Washington, D.C. Malcolm X confers with Wallace Muhammad.
(Richard Saunders from Pictorial)
Muslim women at Urlene Arena meeting.
(Richard Saunders from Pictorial)
Malcolm X speaking at Harvard Law School. All over the nation he has told such audiences of the Black Muslims’ teaching.
(Photo by Robert L. Haggins)
Black Muslims demonstrating in front of courthouse during trial of one of their brothers.
(Photo by Robert L. Haggins)
Members of The Fruit of Islam stand inspection.
(Richard Saunders from Pictorial)
Malcolm X “makes it plain” at Temple Number Seven in Harlem.
(Richard Saunders from Pictorial)
Elijah Muhammad, who makes all major decisions, confers with his chief aids: (top left) Raymond Sharrieff, chief of The Fruit of Islam; (top right) Malcolm X; (bottom left) National Secretary John X; (bottom right) Elijah Muhammad, Jr., gives orders to The Fruit of Islam by walkie-talkie, while Malcolm X listens.
(Photo by Eve Arnold, Magnum)
Malcolm X makes phone call from Muslim store in Chicago.
(Photo by Eve Arnold, Magnum)
Minister Henry X takes Muslim youths on tour of the Museum of Natural History. “This was our culture before the white man kidnaped us,” he tells them.
(Photo by Eve Arnold, Magnum)
Four Muslim sisters have dinner at a temple restaurant.
(Photo by Eve Arnold, Magnum)
Muslim women making their own costumes—long flowing dresses and headpieces.
(Photo by Eve Arnold, Magnum)
Muslim youngsters being taught Arabic at the University of Islam in Chicago, the largest Arabic school in the nation. The University is accredited and trains youth from kindergarten through high school. Picture above blackboard is of Elijah Muhammad. The star and crescent is the symbol of the Nation of Islam.
(Photo by Eve Arnold, Magnum)
These candidates will not be Black Muslims; they will be “race” men who are willing to “speak out,” an act that is so dear to the hearts of Muslims. These Negro candidates will not back such Muslim programs as the quest for an all-black state, but neither will they denounce the Black Muslims. Some Black Muslims may run for office, however. Malcolm X has often flirted with the idea of seeking a Congressional seat, and there are those, including me, who feel he would win if he selected the right area.
This would mean that the Black Muslims would work with political candidates who must also work with other groups, some of whom would support direct action. This would indirectly ally the Muslims with direct action and would improve their image, provided they accompanied such action with the cessation of attacks on men like Martin Luther King and Roy Wilkins. As I see it, this is the best possible position for the Black Muslims: it would ally them with the Negro push for better housing, jobs, and schools while at the same time allowing them to abstain from direct action; it would also free them to say that a separate state is still the best answer. Most of all, such a move would lift the Black Muslims to the level of respectability they have so long wanted. Other Negro spokesmen would have to practice summitry with the Muslims, and they would become an accepted rather than feared force in the Negro community.
A second factor involved in the Black Muslim search for a new policy turns on Akbar Muhammad, the youngest son of Elijah, who has just returned to America after two years of study at Egypt’s famed Al-Azhar University. Al-Azhar is the cultural center of orthodox Islam, and its professors are the brains of that faith. It is beyond question that Elijah’s position has been enhanced by Akbar’s period of study there; it is just as certain that the Black Muslim movement will be affected by Akbar’s return.
At this writing Akbar has been home less than a month. He is in the company of Malcolm X and will make a nation-wide tour of Muhammad’s temples, where he will lecture on traditional Islam and the influence of Africa in current world affairs.
Already his influence is being felt.
“Akbar Comes to Harlem” was the billing for a major Black Muslim rally held shortly after his return. The New York press, Negro and white, was filled with ads and special announcements inviting people to come out and hear Akbar Muhammad, the youngest son of Elijah Muhammad, report on his sojourn and studies in Africa and Egypt. Much was made of the fact that Akbar had been a student at Al-Azhar University. Even more was made of the fact that he had attended the recent summit meeting of African heads of state as a correspondent for the Muslim newspaper, Mr. Muhammad Speaks.
Observers of the movement were certain that his speech would be heavily pro-African, that he would argue for a closer relationship between the Black Muslim movement and traditional Islam, and that he once again would remind American Negroes of their African heritage. But Akbar Muhammad’s two-hour talk before some four thousand Negroes on that Saturday afternoon in Harlem proved to be a complete surprise; further, it laid bare the only real schism there is within the Black Muslim movement.
After a highly charged introduction by Malcolm X the distinguished speaker rose. Twenty-five-year-old Akbar Muhammad is much like his father, medium brown, diminutive, slightly built. He stood at the lectern stroking his goatee during the three-minute ovation from the crowd. Then he spoke: “As-Salaam-Alaikum.” His Arabic was exquisite. His inflection alone was enough to let the black masses know they were hearing something different from the southern-accented “Peace be with you” they hear from the ordinary Black Muslims. All up and down the block Muslims leaped into the air with ecstasy, praising Allah for the “back home” diction one of their leaders had acquired.
Akbar had been speaking a scant five minutes when the crowd became strangely silent. Elijah’s son was clearly giving a new teaching, a gospel that contradicted much of what Malcolm X and others had been saying for the past few years.
“We must have unity among Negroes,” Akbar said.
It is time for all of us—CORE, the NAACP, Dr. Martin Luther King, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Black Muslims—to sit down together behind closed doors and unite. Negro leaders must now stop calling each other names. We must stop calling Dr. King names, and he must stop talking about us before the enemy. We may not be able to walk all the way to freedom together, but we can walk half the way together, so let’s unite and walk together as far as we can.
The audience began to warm to his strange message. The notion of unity among Negro leaders—including the Muslims—was not new. Malcolm X had launched the same theme three years ago but found no takers among established Negro leaders. Recently, however, the breach had widened; Malcolm called Martin Luther King “a chump, not a champ”; King took to a New York pulpit and denounced “those among us who would have us live in a separate state.” The night of that sermon King was pelted with eggs as he entered the church. Malcolm X denied that the Black Muslims were responsible for the incident but he also refused to say he was sorry that it had happened. All this was less than two weeks before the speech by Akbar.
I watched the setting as Akbar continued to speak. The stage obviously had been readied for him. This was no ordinary rally: Elijah Muhammad, Jr., had flown in from Chicago to be present, along with John X Ali, National Secretary for the movement. Ministers Jeremiah (Baltimore), Louis X (Boston), and Thomas J. (Hartford) were there. Minister Woodrow (Atlantic City) was on hand with his camera crew, and Joseph X, captain of the New York Fruit, turned his men out in full dress. This was clearly a major move, and the Muslims had worked hard to underscore its importance.
But what did it all mean?
“Now if we can unify,” Akbar continued, “we can get help. I have just come from Africa,” he said with a sly smile, “and I bring you a message from our African brothers. Now you newsmen get this correct. I am only bringing a message to the people, a message sent by their brothers in Africa. This is the message: Spokesmen from African states—I’ll even go so far as to tell you that they are on the west coast of Africa—told me to tell you that if you unite, they are ready to help us win our freedom. They are ready to help us with arms, men, and know-how!”
The crowds at such street rallies in Harlem are always infiltrated with black nationalists, and the mere thought of Africans sending arms, men, and know-how to aid the American Negro was enough to set off rejoicing.
To the dismay of newsmen, who hoped he would go into the who, what, when, where, and how of all this, Akbar let the matter drop. Instead he turned to a discussion of the white man.
“I don’t hate any man because of the color of his skin,” Akbar said. “I look at a man’s heart, I watch his actions, and I make my conclusions on the basis of what he does rather than how he looks.”
There are two ways of interpreting what Akbar said: He could have been saying that action, not skin color, was the determining factor in any moral judgment; or he could have been spouting the Muslim line that the white man can prove he is not evil by nature by acting correctly. Either way, what Akbar was saying is a long way from the strong line preached by both Malcolm X and Elijah. And when this is coupled with Akbar’s public denunciation of those Negro leaders who call other Negro leaders names, his speech takes on an even stranger character.
Akbar closed his talk with a call for unity among black men all over the world. “What we must have,” he said, “is unity among American Negroes; once we get that, Africans are willing to help us with men, guns, and know-how. Then we can proceed to unity of black men all over the world.”
As Akbar finished, the crowd applauded with vigor; they were all aware that they had witnessed a peculiar thing. First, Akbar had not mentioned the separate state a single time during his speech. This is indeed strange coming from the son of the Messenger, the man whose basic tenet is a call for “several states” where Negroes can form their own government. Second, Akbar did not once use the phrase, “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.” He made only one reference to his father, and that came when he said, “The Teacher tells us that we should prepare ourselves for black unity.” Most of all, Akbar’s talk had none of the strident denunciations of white men that one expects to hear at a Black Muslim rally.
It was Malcolm X who pointed up the strangeness of the doctrine we had heard.
“I am guilty!” Malcolm told the crowd after Akbar finished. “I am guilty of calling other Negro leaders names. As you know, no one has done more of that recently than I have. But today we have heard a new teaching, and we are all going to abide by it.... Now brothers with the white buckets will pass among you. And you integrate those white buckets with some green dollar bills. Meanwhile I am going to talk to you.... If you help Mr. Muhammad, you are helping the man who has helped you. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the man who has told you the truth about yourself; The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the man who has told you the truth about the white man.... The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the man who has made it possible for Brother Akbar to go to school back home in Egypt; The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the man who tells you to stand up; The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the man who tells you to look up; The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the man who tells you to clean yourself up, provide for your wife and children, protect your family. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad will make you stop drinking; The Honorable Elijah Muhammad will make you stop stealing; The Honorable Elijah Muhammad will make you be true to your family; The Honorable Elijah Muhammad will get that monkey [dope addiction] off your back; The Honorable Elijah Muhammad will get this white, blue-eyed gorilla off your back!”
“Make it plain, Brother Minister, make it plain.”
Black men and their women all up and down the streets shouted and jumped for joy. This was what they had come to hear in the first place. Big Red had made their cups run over. Now they were ready to go home.
The Harlem rally was Akbar’s hour. Malcolm X had given the Messenger’s son, the bright kid away at school in Egypt, a major New York hearing with the press in full attendance. And Akbar had acted like an Arab; he had talked traditional Islam and preached black unity. It was abundantly clear that Akbar is much more committed to Africa than he is to a separate black state here in America. He reflects the Arabs’ involvement with black unity throughout the world. And here lies the schism, for it is clear that Malcolm X is closer to Elijah Muhammad, in terms of just what the American Negro should do, than is Elijah’s own son. This schism, however, is not as wide or as serious as the Muslims’ detractors would have it. Elijah’s big point is that the Negro should have a separate state; the Arabs simply shrug this off. But the imminent fall of white civilization is something upon which they all agree and for which they are all preparing.
One can expect, then, that the Black Muslims will become more “Islamic” and more “political” in the days just ahead. The new emphasis on traditional Islam will be primarily a matter of ritual and temple organization; the new “political” attitude will be an attempt at a social ethic that would place the Muslims in favor with the black masses without committing them to “integration” causes.
But this is a holding operation, something the Black Muslims, like God, suffer to be so. They are going to effect an accommodation with the Negro Revolt, but they are certain that the American white power structure will defraud us all. Then the Nation of Islam can say, “We told you so,” and sound the bugle for Armageddon.
How sound would such a new policy be?
From an organizational point of view I think it would make sense. Not only is it the most liberal position they can possibly accommodate, but it shows that some—perhaps quite a few people—inside the movement are thinking creatively. As a non-Muslim, I have much the same reservations about the new policy as I had about the old. I don’t share their total pessimism on how the Negro Revolt will end. I can foresee a situation in which the white power structure fails to yield and Negroes start trouble; that not only can happen, but it probably will happen in isolated pockets before the race issue is settled. I doubt that the trouble will be nation-wide, but even widespread rioting would not necessarily mean the triumph of the Black Muslims.
To state it bluntly, Negroes, as we have done in the past, can have a race riot without becoming Black Muslims!
Let there be no denying that such a tragedy will play into the hands of the Black Muslims; there are, indeed, grave risks involved, and the best way to avoid them is to see to it that the tragedy doesn’t occur.
Peace Be Unto You
The Black Muslim movement is undeniably a sect, if for no other reason than that it is dominated and run by charismatic leadership. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the mystical and powerful presence of the movement, the meaning around which everything else occurs and orbits. Elijah Muhammad has never claimed immortality; thus even the Black Muslims know he will eventually die. Critics of the movement predict that there will be a frenetic, perhaps bloody, scramble for leadership at Muhammad’s death. My prediction is that the Black Muslim hierarchy will gather in conclave and that they will come out with a new leader. That leader will not be Malcolm X. Rather, I suggest that Malcolm, John, and Sharrieff will be retained in the posts they now occupy and a younger man—almost certainly one of Muhammad’s sons—will be the new Messenger.
There are three reasons why I feel this will prove true:
1. The mystique of the movement is that Muhammad met and knew Allah—Fard. Thus it follows that the flesh and blood of Muhammad has inherited the magic of that encounter. Muhammad will be raised to sainthood, and the Muslim gospel will continue to be prefaced with the phrase, “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us....” Thus the new Messenger should be a physical reminder of Elijah.
2. John and Sharrieff are sensible, practical men. They know the impact Malcolm has made on the American scene, and they will keep him precisely where he is, for this is the only way they can stay where they are.
3. Finally, I am persuaded of the morality of these Black Muslim leaders. Think of their doctrine what one may, I am convinced that they would no more fight publicly over the question of leadership than would the cardinals of the Roman Church. Indeed, I feel the conclave will move just as the Catholic Church has often moved, that the question of a new leader will be overshadowed by a debate over policy. I see Malcolm, then, not as the maximum leader, but as prime minister and behind-the-scenes policy maker.
This is no cause for rejoicing. Akbar Muhammad, who I suspect will be the new Messenger, is steeped in traditional Islam. He will bring to the maximum-leadership post the zeal and determination one associates with the early Mohammedans. Followers of Allah have always been strong on internal brotherhood and notoriously short of patience and mercy toward outsiders. Those of us who have studied the movement have had to stand muster before Raymond Sharrieff, and to a man we are agreed that we would not enjoy tangling with him and The Fruit. Once Elijah is dead, I suspect the prospect of tangling with him will be even less inviting.
“I’ll be honest with you,” Malcolm X said to me. “Everybody is talking about differences between the Messenger and me. It is absolutely impossible for us to differ. What he says is law; that is what is done. But I’ll tell you this,” he added. “Mr. Muhammad was with Allah, and he has been granted divine patience; he is willing to wait on God to deal with the devil. Well, the rest of us have not seen Allah; we don’t have this divine patience, and we are not so willing to wait on God. The younger Black Muslims want to see some action!”
For the first and, to my knowledge, only time Malcolm deviated from the Messenger’s position when he said that. Malcolm X means it, he is not alone: Akbar means it, John X means it, Sharrieff means it, and Wallace, another son of Elijah’s, means it. These men are waiting for integration to fail. This republic would do well to take them seriously.
The Black Muslims will endure but they will not prevail. Rather, they will linger for years to come and be a constant reminder of what this republic did to thousands who sought its promise. They will integrate this nation’s body politic and make us continually aware of what can happen if white men don’t learn to love before black men learn to hate. And maybe one day before I die we can all join together—black and white and Malcolm X—and say, “As-Salaam-Alaikum.” That is to say, peace be unto you.