there was considerable concern in Chicago over just what the Black
Muslims were teaching in their schools. A biracial committee visited
the University of Islam there and came away stunned. Said committee
member Judge Edyth Sampson, a former U.S. delegate to the United
Nations, “These people are doing a magnificent job with their young
students. I am deeply impressed by what I saw.”
What Mrs. Sampson and her fellow committee members saw was essentially
this: Black Muslim boys and girls stand muster for cleanliness and
decorum each morning. The classes are separated, boys in one section,
girls in the other, and the students’ day is divided between religious
and secular education. They are taught both English and Arabic; they
are drilled in the history of the black man in Africa and America. Then
they are taught the history of the Black Muslim movement from Fard down
to Minister Malcolm X.
In 1963 Sister Christine X, one of the directors of the school,
authored a new first reader which is now being employed. The exercises
in the book are something American educators would do well to study:
My name is Nora X. My father’s name is James X, and my mother is
Frances X. We are Muslims. We have our own flag. Our flag is over
there on the wall. The symbols on our flag are a star and a crescent.
Then the students are told to use the following words in sentences:
Allah, black, Muhammad, God, Temple, nation, flag, Armageddon, Elijah.
Other exercises in the book call for the student to write short essays
on Mr. Muhammad and other notables within the movement. Then as the
students progress through school they are taught to link subject
matter to the history of the black man. For example, when the students
are being taught mathematics they are repeatedly reminded that much
of modern math is based on work done by the Egyptians; they are not
allowed to forget that English is not their native tongue, that their
language is Arabic, that the white man robbed them of their tongue
when he kidnaped their foreparents from Africa.
The thing that arrests me most about these schools is that they are
now turning out the first generation of youth completely schooled
in the Black Muslim doctrine. Unlike Malcolm X, John Ali, and other
prominent Muslims of today who had to be “de-brainwashed” before they
saw the light, the movement now has several score teen-agers who have
been grounded in their faith just as a devout Catholic child is reared
in his. As of now the movement suffers greatly from a lack of trained
leaders. Only a handful of capable men and women are available to the
organization and the nature of their doctrine is such that trained
Negroes are hardly apt to join. But a few more years will see the
emergence of well-trained Black Muslims who, I am certain, will give
the organization more administrative order than it now has.
Meanwhile the Black Muslims are bombarding Negroes all over the
nation with their message to the “lost-found, so-called Negro in the
wilderness of North America.” For a number of years Mr. Muhammad
had a weekly column in some of the nation’s best Negro newspapers.
Now the Muslims publish their own weekly, _Mr. Muhammad Speaks_,
a thirty-six-page tabloid that has the largest circulation of any
Negro newspaper being published. The Muslims also conduct a weekly
radio program on stations in some forty cities throughout the nation.
All this is augmented by the appearances of Malcolm X on radio and
TV programs each week. All in all, the Black Muslims have covered
the nation; their basic teachings are known and debated by Negroes
everywhere.
On the whole, then, the state of the Nation of Islam is good; its
population is growing, its economy is well into the black, and its
foreign relations--though strained--are better than they have ever been
before.
4. THE BLACK MUSLIMS AND THE NEGRO REVOLT
_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: