Malcolm X (47 page)

As excitement about the March on Washington grew, Malcolm decided to increase the Harlem mosque’s outreach efforts. On August 10, Malcolm told a crowd of about eight hundred that the Nation would not participate in the march, but Elijah Muhammad was planning to be in Washington during that week to ensure that “there would be no skullduggery, no flimflam, no sell-out.” Malcolm also tried out, for the first time, his counterargument against the march, implying that it had been taken over by the Kennedy administration. This strategy characterized the main thrust of Malcolm’s attacks against both Kennedy and King. By taking aim at the top of the power structure and assuming a populist tone, he hoped to drive a wedge between average blacks and their leadership, to better bring them to the Nation’s position. Now he set about portraying the march as another example of the grassroots being co-opted by the establishment, which of course had its own selfish agenda. “When the white man found out he couldn’t stop [the march], he joined it,” Malcolm told the crowd. Four days later, Raymond Sharrieff gave a talk at Mosque No. 7, and he too discouraged participation by NOI members. “Some so-called Negroes believe in Martin King, and this is well and good,” he declared diplomatically. Elijah Muhammad and King “should be tried as leaders,” but ultimately Muhammad would be “on top because his works are greater.” He then warned, “In Islam today a test of the Muslim belief is being waged. You should be wise in your decision when choosing.”

On August 18, Malcolm was in Washington, speaking at a local NOI meeting. In the speech, he described the current situation as the “gravest crisis since the civil war.” The vast majority of blacks had “lost all confidence in the false promises of hypocritical white politicians.” His chief animus, however, was aimed at the “white liberals, who have been making a great fuss over the South, only to blind us to what is happening here in the North.” The root causes of American racism were to be found in the nation’s history. “The Revolutionary War and the Civil War were two wars fought on American soil, supposedly for freedom and democracy—but if these two wars were really for freedom and human dignity of
all
men, why are 20 million of our people still confined and enslaved?” Amajority of the “founding fathers,” men who signed the Declaration of Independence, owned slaves.

In the typed manuscript of this address, Malcolm made a handwritten correction that directly attacked the Kennedy administration, despite Muhammad’s advice. Crossing out the words “the American government,” he inscribed, “this present Catholic administration.” He correctly anticipated the white backlash against the affirmative action and equal opportunity policies that within a few years would drive millions of Southern Democrats and white workers into the Republican Party, but he still could not imagine the passage of landmark civil rights legislation, least of all led by a Southern Democrat and taking place within one year

On August 23, Malcolm answered listeners’ questions on WNOR radio, in Norfolk, Virginia, saying that Wallace D. Fard’s coming in the 1930s represented the realization of Jewish prophecies, as well as the fulfillment of Islamic expectations. He described Fard as “the son of Man,” making him divine—a status that Fard never claimed, at least not publicly. The day before, he had explained to a crowd the basics of the Nation’s strange cosmology, complete with the story of Yacub and the white devils. It seemed incongruous with the rest of his rhetoric, but either he still firmly accepted the key tenets of Elijah Muhammad’s world or he found it expedient to make it seem as though he did publicly. Politically, he was clearer: “The Muslims who follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad won’t have anything to do whatsoever with the March,” he insisted. It would not benefit blacks to “go down to a dead man’s statue—a dead President’s monument—who was supposed to have issued an Emancipation Proclamation a hundred years ago.”

It took only a few days before his negative comments about the forthcoming march began circulating in the national press. Meanwhile, thousands began to descend on Washington: the supposedly “Uncle Tom” leaders like Rustin, Randolph, and King had mobilized a quarter of a million people, well beyond the NOI's outreach. Across the country, tens of thousands of working-class blacks were also engaged in smaller protests. As Malcolm took in the march’s tremendous drawing power, he must have been of two minds. The turnout let him take the temperature of the nation’s black community; the massive mobilization showed that the gains made by King and other civil rights leaders in Birmingham and Montgomery had had a galvanizing effect. He could hardly deny their effectiveness in mobilizing blacks on a large scale. Yet he also believed that the NOI needed to delegitimize the march, to push back on the idea that this dramatic display of numbers could have any real effect on black Americans’ lives. According to Larry 4X Prescott, several days before the march Malcolm met with Mosque No. 7 members, instructing them again that Elijah Muhammad had forbidden them to participate, though he also informed Larry and others that he himself would be attending, having received permission from the Messenger. On the night before the march, hundreds of buses were stationed at departure points throughout New York City. NOI laborers went to virtually every bus to distribute copies of
Muhammad Speaks
. Malcolm was letting it be known, Larry explained, that this was “a part of history that we should be a part of.”

And yet publicly he was communicating the opposite. At an NOI rally just before the march, Malcolm pilloried the gathering as “the Farce on Washington,” decrying its effectiveness and challenging the idea that the march as planned represented the will of the majority of blacks. He argued that the mobilization “actually began as a spontaneous and angry action of protest from the dissatisfied black masses.” This had occurred, he admitted, because black people were overwhelmingly opposed to racial segregation. Malcolm claimed that the original intention was for black groups to tie up the Capitol through sit-ins and other civic disruptions. Inevitably, though, powerful whites began to influence events. Wilkins, Randolph, King, and other civil rights leaders supposedly had been ordered to call off the march. They informed the Kennedy administration that they were not in charge of the mobilization—that the black masses had taken control. Malcolm argued that the Kennedy administration decided to “co-opt” the demonstration. The president not only publicly endorsed the march’s goals, but encouraged Negroes to participate in it. Malcolm’s thesis was that the civil rights leaders were so craven and bankrupt that they were duped by whites in power.

This version of events was a gross distortion of the facts—yet it contained enough truth to capture an audience of unhappy black militants who had wanted the march to spearhead strikes and widespread civil disobedience. For all of Malcolm’s calls for unity, and for whatever the march represented in its mass outpouring of support, the Black Freedom Movement continued to be pulled in different directions. Many on the left, including much of SNCC, were inclined to agree with Malcolm’s position on the march’s ineffectiveness. They saw the event as representative of the overly cautious strategies of middle-class Negro leaders, and believed more forceful action would be necessary to make real gains. These disagreements played themselves out in backroom deals leading up to the march, most notably when SNCC's John Lewis found himself embroiled in controversy over his planned speech, which said essentially that the march was too little, too late; at the last minute, more conservative leaders pressured him to cut its most inflammatory passages. Malcolm’s rhetoric, unburdened by factors of diplomacy, did not shy away from making such points.

On the night before the march, Peter Goldman ran into Louis Lomax in a Washington hotel lobby. Goldman recalled that Lomax led him to a large suite crowded with about fifty middle-class African Americans:

Malcolm was indeed the center of attention wherever he went, usually followed by a gaggle of newsmen. Attorney Floyd McKissick, who in 1965 would become head of CORE, ran into him at the Washington Hilton. The two men hugged each other and began conversing before panicked CORE staffers hustled McKissick away, worried that any association with Malcolm would damage their image. Rustin encountered Malcolm on at least three occasions that night and the following day. The first time, he was leaving a strategy session with the march’s major speakers when he saw Malcolm holding court with some reporters. Instead of getting angry, he knew his old debating partner well enough by now to use humor to deflate him. “Now, Malcolm, be careful,” he warned. “There are going to be a half-million people here tomorrow, and you don’t want to tell
them
this is nothing but a picnic.” Malcolm replied, “What I tell them is one thing. What I tell the press is something else.” Sometime later, Malcolm was with a group of marchers. Walking by, Rustin shouted out, “Why don’t you tell them this is just a picnic?” This time Malcolm just smiled. The next day, with the demonstration concluded, Rustin saw him one more time. Malcolm said seriously, “You know, this dream of King’s is going to be a nightmare before it’s over.” “You’re probably right,” Rustin replied.

The March on Washington is today largely remembered for King’s “I Have a Dream” address, which drew heavily upon public speeches he had given in Birmingham that April and in Detroit two months earlier. The democratic vision he evoked—“that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveholders will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood”—spoke to the possibility of transforming the nation’s political culture and making it fully inclusive for the first time in history. King’s speech was much more than a rhetorical achievement: it was a challenge to white America to break with its racist past, and to embrace a multiracial future. Not widely known is that King’s most memorable remarks that day were completely extemporaneous. However, as central as King’s role was, what Rustin did following the “I Have a Dream” address was nearly as important. Going to the podium, he reviewed the march’s objectives, which included passage of Kennedy’s civil rights bill, a federal initiative to address unemployment, the desegregation of schools, and an increase in the federal minimum hourly wage to two dollars. The vast audience gave its consent for every demand.

From a distance, Malcolm witnessed it all. Roy Wilkins’s nephew Roger Wilkins, then a young attorney working in the Justice Department, spotted Malcolm’s unmistakable profile under a shady tree, looking out over the crowd. It is probable that several hundred NOI members participated in the march, defying Muhammad and the national leadership. Among their numbers was included Herbert Muhammad, who used his connections with
Muhammad Speaks
to be admitted as an “official photographer” to the grandstand at the speaker's platform. As Malcolm returned to New York, he must have realized that he had to present an action-oriented program of demands that would place the Nation of Islam on the side of black protest.

The NOI's national leaders finally felt confident enough that the rumors of Muhammad’s sexual infidelities were sufficiently under control to schedule a major address by the Messenger in Philadelphia on September 29. At this rally, Muhammad voiced his direct opposition to the spirit of the March, which continued to dominate discussions a month later. In his judgment, it was “a waste of time for Negro leaders to go to Washington for justice.” American whites were “snakelike in nature” and “were created for the purpose of murdering black people.” Negroes had to choose complete racial separation, and if not, “they will die.” The 1963 Philadelphia rally was also significant because it was the final time that both Muhammad and Malcolm appeared on a public stage together. Throughout 1961-63, Malcolm had presented himself to the media as Muhammad’s national representative. But at the Philadelphia rally, Muhammad announced that Malcolm had been named national minister. The new appointment, which surely generated opposition from Muhammad’s inner circle and family members, elevated Malcolm above all other NOI ministers. “This is my most faithful, hard-working minister,” Muhammad told his audience. “He will follow me until he dies.”

During these autumn weeks, Malcolm continued his sessions with Alex Haley, which he may have come to consider as a kind of therapy. In the writer's studio, telling his story, Malcolm discovered that he could relax a bit, and a looser, more casual side of his personality emerged. On one occasion, Haley recalled Malcolm’s playfulness as he discussed his Harlem exploits: “Incredibly, the fearsome black demagogue was scat-singing and popping his fingers, ‘re-bop-de-bop-blap-blam—’ and then grabbing a vertical pipe with one hand (as the girl partner) he went jubilantly lindy-hopping around . . .” In late September, Haley contacted Malcolm by letter, with words of praise: “I’ve never heard, when its full sweep is reflected upon, a more dramatic life account.” He promised Malcolm that “whatever professional techniques” he possessed, they would “be brought into the effort to do the material that you have given me full justice.” He asked assistance in “filling holes,” and once again gave as an example Malcolm’s complex relationship with Reginald. To make the break with his brother “gripping,” Haley explained, “I must build up your regard and respect for Reginald when the two of you were earlier in Harlem—and, as of now, I have nothing about him there.” Finally, Haley urged for as many hours as Malcolm could spare. “I badly need it. Justice to what the book can do for the Muslims needs it.”