The autobiography of Malcolm X (51 page)

In the biggest press conference that I had ever experienced anywhere, the camera bulbs flashed, and the reporters fired questions.

“Mr. Malcolm X, what about those 'Blood Brothers,' reportedly affiliated with your organization, reportedly trained for violence, who have killed innocent white people?” . . .“Mr. Malcolm X, what about your comment that Negroes should form rifle clubs? . . .”

I answered the questions. I knew I was back in America again, hearing the subjective, scapegoat- seeking questions of the white man. New York white youth were killing victims; that was a “sociological” problem. But when black youth killed somebody, the power structure was looking to hang somebody. When black men had been lynched or otherwise murdered in cold blood, it was always said, “Things will get better. ”When whites had rifles in their homes, the Constitution gave them the right to protect their home and themselves. But when black people even spoke of having rifles in their homes, that was “ominous.”

I slipped in on the reporters something they hadn't been expecting. I said that the American black

man needed to quit thinking what the white man had taught him-which was that the black man had no alternative except to beg for his so-called “civil rights.” I said that the American black man needed to recognize that he had a strong, airtight case to take the United States before the United Nations on a formal accusation of “denial of human rights”-and that if Angola and South Africa were precedent cases, then there would be no easy way that the U.S. could escape being censured, right on its own home ground.

Just as I had known, the press wanted to get me off that subject. I was asked about my “Letter From Mecca”-I was all set with a speech regarding that:

"I hope that once and for all my Hajj to the Holy City of Mecca has established our Muslim Mosque's authentic religious affiliation with the 750 million Muslims of the orthodox Islamic World. And I _know_ once and for all that the Black Africans look upon America's 22 million blacks as long-lost _brothers_!They _love_ us! They _study_ our struggle for freedom! They were so _happy_ to hear how we are awakening from our long sleep-after so-called 'Christian' white America had taught us to be _ashamed_ of our African brothers and homeland!

"Yes-I wrote a letter from Mecca. You're asking me 'Didn't you say that now you accept white men as brothers?' Well, my answer is that in the Muslim World, I saw, I felt, and I wrote home how my thinking was broadened! Just as I wrote, I shared true, brotherly love with many white- complexioned Muslims who never gave a single thought to the race, or to the complexion, of another Muslim.

"My pilgrimage broadened my scope. It blessed me with a new insight. In two weeks in the Holy Land, I saw what I never had seen in thirty-nine years here in America. I saw all _races_, all _colors_,-blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans-in _true_ brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshiping as one! No segregationists-no liberals; they would not have known how to interpret the meaning of those words.

"In the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I never will be guilty of that again-as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black man. The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.

"Yes, I have been convinced that _some_ American whites do want to help cure the rampant racism which is on the path to _destroying_ this country!

"It was in the Holy World that my attitude was changed, by what I experienced there, and by what I witnessed there, in terms of brotherhood-not just brotherhood toward me, but brotherhood between all men, of all nationalitiesand complexions, who were there. And now that I am back in America, my attitude here concerning white people has to be governed by what my black brothers and I experience here, and what we witness here-in terms of brotherhood. The _problem_ here in America is that we meet such a small minority of individual so-called 'good,' or 'brotherly' white people. Here in the United States, notwithstanding those few 'good' white people, it is the _collective_ 150 million white people whom the _collective_ 22 million black people have to deal with!

"Why, here in America, the seeds of racism are so deeply rooted in the white people collectively, their belief that they are 'superior' in some way is so deeply rooted, that these things are in the national white subconsciousness. Many whites are even actually unaware of their own racism, until they face some test, and then their racism emerges in one form or another.

"Listen! The white man's racism toward the black man here in America is what has got him in such trouble all over this world, with other non-white peoples. The white man can't separate himself from the stigma that he automatically feels about anyone, no matter who, who is not his color. And the non-white peoples of the world are sick of the condescending white man! That's

why you've got all of this trouble in places like Viet Nam. Or right here in the Western Hemisphere-probably 100 million people of African descent are divided against each other, taught by the white man to hate and to mistrust each other. In the West Indies, Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela, all of South America, Central America! All of those lands are full of people with African blood! On the African continent, even, the white man has maneuvered to divide the black African from the brown Arab, to divide the so-called 'Christian African' from the Muslim African. Can you imagine what can happen, what would certainly happen, if all of these African-heritage peoples ever _realize_ their blood bonds, if they ever realize they all have a common goal-if they ever _unite_?"

The press was glad to get rid of me that day. I believe that the black brothers whom I had just recently left in Africa would have felt that I did the subject justice. Nearly through the night, my telephone at home kept ringing. My black brothers and sisters around New York and in some other cities were calling to congratulate me on what they had heard on the radio and television news broadcasts, and people, mostly white, were wanting to know if I would speak here or there.

The next day I was in my car driving along the freeway when at a red light another car pulled alongside. A white woman was driving and on the passenger's side, next to me, was a white man. “_Malcolm X_!” he called out-and when I looked, he stuck his hand out of his car, across at me, grinning. “Do you mind shaking hands with a white man?” Imagine that! Just as the traffic light turned green, I told him, “I don't mind shaking hands with human beings. Are you one?”

CHAPTER NINETEEN 1965

I must be honest. Negroes-Afro-Americans-showed no inclination to rush to the United Nations and demand justice for themselves here in America. I really had known in advance that they wouldn't. The American white man has so thoroughly brainwashed the black man to see himself as only a domestic “civil rights” problem that it will probably take longer than I live before the Negro sees that the struggle of the American black man is international.

And I had known, too, that Negroes would not rush to follow me into the orthodox Islam which had given me the insight and perspective to see that the black men and white men truly could be brothers. America's Negroes-especially older Negroes-are too indelibly soaked in Christianity's double standard of oppression.

So, in the “public invited” meetings which I began holding each Sunday afternoon or evening in Harlem's well-known Audubon Ballroom, as I addressed predominantly non-Muslim Negro audiences, I did not immediately attempt to press the Islamic religion, but instead to embrace all who sat before me:

“-not Muslim, nor Christian, Catholic, nor Protestant . . . Baptist nor Methodist, Democrat nor Republican, Mason nor Elk! I mean the black people of America-and the black people all over this earth! Because it is as this collective mass of black people that we have been deprived not only of our civil rights, but even of our human rights, the right to human dignity. . . .”

On the streets, after my speeches, in the faces and the voices of the people I met-even those who would pump my hands and want my autograph-I would feel the wait-and-see attitude. I would feel-and I understood-their uncertainty about where I stood. Since the Civil War's “freedom,” the black man has gone down so many fruitless paths. His leaders, very largely, had failed him. The religion of Christianity had failed him. The black man was scarred, he was cautious, he was apprehensive.

I understood it better now than I had before. In the Holy World, away from America's race problem, was the first time I ever had been able to think clearly about the basic divisions of white

people in America, and how their attitudes and their motives related to, and affected Negroes. In my thirty-nine years on this earth, the Holy City of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the Creator of All and felt like a complete human being.

In that peace of the Holy World-in fact, the very night I have mentioned when I lay awake surrounded by snoring brother pilgrims-my mind took me back topersonal memories I would have thought were gone forever . . . as far back, even, as when I was just a little boy, eight or nine years old. Out behind our house, out in the country from Lansing, Michigan, there was an old, grassy “Hector's Hill,” we called it-which may still be there. I remembered there in the Holy World how I used to lie on the top of Hector's Hill, and look up at the sky, at the clouds moving over me, and daydream, all kinds of things. And then, in a funny contrast of recollections, I remembered how years later, when I was in prison, I used to lie on my cell bunk-this would be especially when I was in solitary: what we convicts called “The Hole”-and I would picture myself talking to large crowds. I don't have any idea why such previsions came to me. But they did. To tell that to anyone then would have sounded crazy. Even I didn't have, myself, the slightest inkling. . . .

In Mecca, too, I had played back for myself the twelve years I had spent with Elijah Muhammad as if it were a motion picture. I guess it would be impossible for anyone ever to realize fully how complete was my belief in Elijah Muhammad. I believed in him not only as a leader in the ordinary _human_ sense, but also I believed in him as a _divine_ leader. I believed he had no human weaknesses or faults, and that, therefore, he could make no mistakes and that he could do no wrong. There on a Holy World hilltop, I realized how very dangerous it is for people to hold any human being in such esteem, especially to consider anyone some sort of “divinely guided” and “protected” person.

My thinking had been opened up wide in Mecca. In the long letters I wrote to friends, I tried to convey to them my new insights into the American black man's struggle and his problems, as well as the depths of my search for truth and justice.

“I've had enough of someone else's propaganda,” I had written to these friends. “I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever andwhatever benefits humanity _as a whole_.”

Largely, the American white man's press refused to convey that I was now attempting to teach Negroes a new direction. With the 1964 “long, hot summer” steadily producing new incidents, I was constantly accused of “stirring up Negroes.” Every time I had another radio or television microphone at my mouth, when I was asked about “stirring up Negroes” or “inciting violence,” I'd get hot.

“It takes no one to stir up the sociological dynamite that stems from the unemployment, bad housing, and inferior education already in the ghettoes. This explosively criminal condition has existed for so long, it needs no fuse; it fuses itself; it spontaneously combusts from within itself. . . .”

They called me “the angriest Negro in America.” I wouldn't deny that charge. I spoke exactly as I felt. “I _believe_ in anger. The Bible says there is a _time_ for anger.” They called me “a teacher, a fomenter of violence.” I would say point blank,' That is a lie. I'm not for wanton violence, I'm for justice. I feel that if white people were attacked by Negroes-if the forces of law prove unable, or inadequate, or reluctant to protect those whites from those Negroes-then those white people should protect and defend themselves from those Negroes, using arms if necessary. And I feel that when the law fails to protect Negroes from whites' attack, then those Negroes should use arms, if necessary, to defend themselves."

“Malcolm X Advocates Armed Negroes!” What was wrong with that? I'll tell you what was wrong. I was a black man talking about physical

defense against the white man. The white man can lynch and burn and bomb and beat Negroes-that's all right: “Have patience” . . .“The customs are entrenched” . . ."Things are getting

better."

Well, I believe it's a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself. If that's how “Christian” philosophy is interpreted, if that's what Gandhian philosophy teaches, well, then, I will call them criminal philosophies.

I tried in every speech I made to clarify my new position regarding white people-“I don't speak against the sincere, well-meaning, good white people. I have learned that there _are_ some. I have learned that not all white people are racists. I am speaking against and my fight is against the white _racists_. I firmly believe that Negroes have the right to fight against these racists, by any means that are necessary.”

But the white reporters kept wanting me linked with that word “violence.” I doubt if I had one interview without having to deal with that accusation.

“I _am_ for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem-just to _avoid_ violence. I don't go for non-violence if it also means a delayed solution. To me a delayed solution is a non-solution. Or I'll say it another way. If it must take violence to get the black man his human rights in this country, I'm _for_ violence exactly as you know the Irish, the Poles, or Jews would be if they were flagrantly discriminated against. I am just as they would be in that case, and they would be for violence-no matter what the consequences, no matter who was hurt by the violence.”

White society _hates_ to hear anybody, especially a black man, talk about the crime the white man has perpetrated on the black man. I have always understood that's why I have been so frequently called “a revolutionist.” It sounds asif _I_ have done some crime! Well, it may be the American black man does need to become involved in a _real_ revolution. The word for “revolution” in German is _Umwalzung_. What it means is a complete overturn-a complete change. The overthrow of King Farouk in Egypt and the succession of President Nasser is an example of a true revolution. It means the destroying of an old system, and its replacement with a new system. Another example is the Algerian revolution, led by Ben Bella; they threw out the French who had been there over 100 years. So how does anybody sound talking about the Negro in America waging some “revolution”? Yes, he is condemning a system-but he's not trying to overturn the system, or to destroy it. The Negro's so-called “revolt” is merely an asking to be _accepted_ into the existing system! A _true_ Negro revolt might entail, for instance, fighting for separate black states within this country-which several groups and individuals have advocated, long before Elijah Muhammad came along.

When the white man came into this country, he certainly wasn't demonstrating any “non- violence.” In fact, the very man whose name symbolizes non-violence here today has stated:

“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.”

“Peaceful coexistence!” That's another one the white man has always been quick to cry. Fine! But what have been the deeds of the white man? During his entire advance through history, he has been waving the banner of Christianity . . . and carrying in his other hand the sword and the flintlock.

You can go right back to the very beginning of Christianity. Catholicism, the genesis of Christianity as we know it to be presently constituted, with its hierarchy, was conceived in Africa-by those whom the Christian church calls “The Desert Fathers.” The Christian church became infected with racism when it entered white Europe. The Christian church returned to Africa under the banner of the Cross-conquering, killing, exploiting, pillaging, raping, bullying, beating-and teaching white supremacy. This is how the white man thrust himself into the position of leadership of the world- through the use of naked physical power. And he was totally inadequate spiritually. Mankind's history has proved from one era to another that the true criterion of leadership is spiritual. Men are attracted by spirit. By power, men are _forced_. Love is engendered by spirit. By power, anxieties are created.

I am in agreement one hundred per cent with those racists who say that no government laws ever cam _force_ brotherhood. The only true world solution today is governments guided by true religion-of the spirit. Here in race-torn America, I am convinced that the Islam religion is desperately needed, particularly by the American black man. The black man needs to reflect that he has been America's most fervent Christian-and where has it gotten him? In fact, in the white man's hands, in the white man's interpretation . . . where has Christianity brought this _world_?

It has brought the non-white two-thirds of the human population to rebellion. Two-thirds of the human population today is telling the one-third minority white man, “Get out!” And the white man is leaving. And as he leaves, we seethe non-white peoples returning in a rush to their original religions, which had been labeled “pagan” by the conquering white man. Only one religion-Islam- had the power to stand and fight the white man's Christianity for a _thousand years_! Only Islam could keep white Christianity at bay.

The Africans are returning to Islam and other indigenous religions. The Asians are returning to being Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims.

As the Christian Crusade once went East, now the Islamic Crusade is going West. With the East- Asia-closed to Christianity, with Africa rapidly being converted to Islam, with Europe rapidly becoming un-Christian, generally today it is accepted that the “Christian” civilization of America- which is propping up the white race around the world-is Christianity's remaining strongest bastion.

Well, if _this_ is so-if the so-called “Christianity” now being practiced in America displays the best that world Christianity has left to offer-no one in his right mind should need any much greater proof that very close at hand is the _end_ of Christianity.

Are you aware that some Protestant theologians, in their writings, are using the phrase “post- Christian era”-and they mean _now_?

And what is the greatest single reason for this Christian church's failure? It is its failure to combat racism. It is the old “You sow, you reap” story. The Christian church sowed racism- blasphemously; now it reaps racism.

Sunday mornings in this year of grace 1965, imagine the “Christian conscience” of congregations guarded by deacons barring the door to black would-be worshipers, telling them “You can't enter _this_ House of God!”

Tell me, if you can, a sadder irony than that St. Augustine, Florida-a city namedfor the black African saint who saved Catholicism from heresy-was recently the scene of bloody race riots.