CHAPTER 4
Malcolm’s elder brother Wilfred and his wife, Ruth, lived in the quiet, suburban black neighborhood of Inkster, just outside Detroit, at 4336 Williams Street. This was to be Malcolm’s base for the seven months after his release from prison. In his autobiography, Malcolm recounted the morning routine that Wilfred supervised. “‘In the name of Allah, I perform the ablution,’ he would say before washing first his right hand, then his left.” After the family had showered, completing “the whole body’s purification,” it was ready for morning prayers. Part of this ritual was similar to practices of orthodox Islam; however, like many of the NOI’s methods, it also had special elements. First, Nation of Islam members, like Moorish Science Temple followers, faced east and raised their hands when praying, but did not prostrate themselves. They also did not recite the shahada or practice any other of the five pillars. At one point, when Elijah Muhammad felt slighted by Arab Muslims, he briefly commanded NOI members to face the direction of Chicago rather than Mecca for their prayers.
Shortly after moving back to Michigan, Malcolm started working at the Cut Rate department store to fulfill the conditions of his parole. He was grateful to have a job, but soon described his experiences with some bitterness:
“Nothing Down ” advertisements drew poor Negroes into that store like [flies to] flypaper. It was a shame, the way they paid three and four times what the furniture had cost, because they could get credit from those Jews. It was the same kind of cheap, gaudy-looking junk that you can see in any of the black furniture stores today. . . . I would see clumsy, work-hardened, calloused hands scrawling and scratching signatures on the contract, agreeing to highwayrobbery interest rates in the fine print that never was read.
It was his first work experience of the outside world since his conversion, and the episode had a profound impact on Malcolm. It was the first time he had offered a strongly negative generalization about Jews, categorizing them as a group.
Established in 1932, downtown Detroit’s Temple No. 1 was the Nation of Islam’s oldest, but after twenty years it still had barely one hundred formal members. Its minister, Lemuel (Anderson) Hassan, like all NOI clergy, had been selected personally by Elijah Muhammad, to whom he was required to report each week. Despite its modest size, the temple possessed an active religious and social life. “The men were quietly, tastefully dressed,” Malcolm recalled. Seating arrangements were by gender, men to the right, women to the left. Unlike in an orthodox Muslim masjid(mosque), which had no furniture, members sat upright in chairs throughout all services, which largely consisted of lectures about Elijah’s teachings. It did not take long for Malcolm to wonder why, after two decades of existence, Temple No. 1’s membership was so tiny, and he was surprised to learn that Hassan and other senior members were not eager to proselytize. Malcolm voiced his frustration to his family, but Wilfred advised patience.
That August Malcolm asked his parole officer if he might travel to Chicago to visit Elijah Muhammad, explaining that he would be accompanied by three of his brothers. Approval granted, Malcolm participated in Temple No. 1’s automobile caravan, consisting of ten cars, to make the trip. Arriving in Chicago’s sprawling South Side, Malcolm waited impatiently at the temple for the formal program to start. Finally Allah’s Messenger entered, surrounded by Fruit of Islam guards in dark suits, white shirts, and bow ties. In a soft voice, Muhammad—wearing a gold-embroidered fez—reminded his audience about the personal sacrifices he had made for over two decades. African Americans were truly the Original People, he said, unjustly stolen to North America. Only the Nation of Islam’s teachings could restore black people to their rightful place. Malcolm “sat riveted”—then, unbelievably, Elijah called out his name. Stunned, he stood up before several hundred congregants as Muhammad explained that Malcolm had been so devoted while in prison that he had written to him daily; such peerless example recalled Job.
After the service, Malcolm and his whole group were invited to dinner. The Messenger’s family had only recently moved into an eighteen-room mansion at 4847 South Woodlawn Avenue, in the exclusive Hyde Park section of Chicago’s South Side, purchased with funds tithed by the Nation’s increasing membership. During the meal, Malcolm mustered the courage to ask how Detroit’s Nation of Islam should reach out to recruits. Muhammad counseled him to concentrate on young people—“The older ones will follow through shame,” he explained. The point went home.
In orthodox Islam, evangelical work is known as da’wa. In Western countries, it has two purposes: to promote Muslim practices and values among nonbelievers, and to reinforce what the scholar Ismail al-Faruqi termed “Islamicity.” In the Nation of Islam, da’wa was called “fishing for converts.” Almost immediately after his return home Malcolm plunged into Detroit’s bars, pool halls, nightclubs, and back alleys, aggressively “fishing.” Night after night, he attempted to interest his “poor, ignorant, brain-washed black brothers” in Muhammad’s message. At first, only a trickle of the curious came to temple meetings, but persistence soon paid off. Within a few months temple membership had almost tripled.
Malcolm’s most remarkable convert during this time was a young man named Joseph Gravitt, who would become for a time one of his closest confidants and an important figure in the Nation of Islam over the next decade. Born in Detroit in 1927, Gravitt served in the army in 1946–47, winning, according to his own account, the “World War II Victory Medal”; his official army record shows evaluations that ranged from “unknown” to “excellent.” Returning to civilian life, he found it difficult to get work, soon becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol and developing a reputation for violence against women. In November 1949, police charged him with “indecent and obscene conduct in a public place.”
By the time Malcolm encountered him, Gravitt was sleeping in Detroit’s alleys, but Malcolm sensed his potential, and personally supervised his rehabilitation. Having experienced military discipline, Gravitt responded well under Malcolm’s stern authority. Within days, his entire life was taken up by the Nation of Islam: during the daytime he worked as the short-order cook and waiter at the temple restaurant; in the evenings he directed Fruit of Islam members in the martial arts, and he sacked out to sleep in the restaurant at night. Within months he had become a devoted—even fanatical—Fruit of Islam leader, his metamorphosis adding to Malcolm’s reputation.
As he was devoting an increasing amount of time to the Nation of Islam, Malcolm struggled to find regular work that he could tolerate. In January 1953, he was taken on at the new Ford assembly plant in Wayne as a “final assembler” on the production line. Although he was employed for only one week, it was long enough for him to become a member of United Auto Workers Local 900. A short time later, he was hired at Gar Wood Industries, a company famous for its innovations in truck equipment, cranes, and road machinery. By the 1950s, Gar Wood was one of Detroit’s major employers, but many of the jobs made available to blacks were dirty and dangerous. Malcolm’s technical classification was as a grinder, defined as a “worker who pulverizes material or grinds surface objects.” It paid a little better than his previous employment, but it was a miserable, monotonous job, and Malcolm felt caged.
Wilfred, in whom he confided, may have conveyed his brotherʹs discontent to Minister Hassan; or perhaps, with his eye for identifying talent, Elijah suggested a new assignment for his young disciple. When in early 1953 Malcolm was approached about becoming an NOI minister, he must have felt profound relief, as well as justifiable pride, yet he also recognized that the inner council surrounding Elijah demanded humility. He duly responded that he was “happy and willing to serve Mr. Muhammad in the lowliest capacity,” reluctantly agreeing to deliver a brief talk to Temple No. 1 about “what Mr. Muhammad’s teachings had done for me.” The lecture went off well, and as a follow-up he gave another, devoted to “my favorite subject . . . Christianity and the horrors of slavery.” He came to look back nostalgically on these early efforts as the beginnings of his life as a minister.
The Massachusetts Parole Board certified Malcolm’s discharge from parole on May 4, 1953; Michigan’s discharge followed shortly thereafter. Malcolm X—as he was now known within the Nation of Islam—was free to travel throughout the United States. One day that same month, during his work shift, he was pulled off the production line by his supervisor. Waiting to see him was an FBI field agent, who ordered Malcolm to accompany him to his supervisor’s office. Once there, he was asked why he had not registered for the Korean War draft. Malcolm was aware that Elijah Muhammad had encouraged the evasion of the draft during World War II, but instead of citing the Messenger ’s example, he informed the agent that he had just been released from prison and thought that former prisoners were not allowed to register. He was allowed to leave, and a few days later registered at the local Selective Service office, claiming conscientious objector status. According to FBI records, he wrote that his country of citizenship was Asia. He also asserted that his “mental attitude and outlook in general regarding war and religion” merited “disqualification from military service.” On May 25 he was given a physical exam for the draft and failed: the subject “had [an] asocial personality with paranoid trends.”
That summer, Malcolm became Detroit Temple No. 1’s assistant minister. He was already commuting regularly between Detroit and Chicago, where he was preparing for the ministry, much of his tutelage being directly under the supervision of Elijah Muhammad. “I was treated as if I had been one of the sons of Mr. Muhammad and his dark, good wife Sister Clara,” Malcolm recalled fondly. “In the Muslim-owned combination grocery-drug store on Wentworth and 31st Street, Mr. Muhammad would sweep the floor or something like that . . . as an example to his followers.” Malcolm relished the opportunity to ask questions of the man he believed to embody perfection. “The way we were with each other,” he recalled, “it would make me think of Socrates on the steps of the Athens marketplace, spreading his wisdom to his students.”
In June, Malcolm quit his job at Gar Wood and began working full-time for the Nation of Islam. Technically, NOI clergy were not employees; the income they received from temple offerings was deemed an informal contribution for voluntary services. Throughout the remainder of that year, Malcolm continued to steer scores of fresh converts into Detroit’s temple. He also gained confidence in his ability to speak in public, lecturing on a range of topics. By late 1953, Elijah Muhammad decided that his protégé should be promoted to minister and be assigned to establishing a temple where the Nation of Islam had few followers. Boston was the logical choice: Malcolm had lived there for several years and had numerous relatives and old friends in the city. One NOI member who lived in the city, Lloyd X, agreed to house him and invite small groups to his home to hear the young minister. Years later, Malcolm could recall the appeal he delivered to one such gathering in early January 1954. What he could not have known was that within his audience was an FBI informant. The fact that the Boston field office of the FBI thought it prudent to conduct surveillance even of tiny NOI gatherings, in their homes, reveals just how potentially dangerous the sect was believed to be.
Within the Nation of Islam, each successful temple had four decision-making officers who exercised authority over routine activities, though always under Muhammad’s autocratic guidance: the minister, the temple’s secretary-treasurer, the women’s captain of Muslim Girls Training (MGT), and the men’s captain, the head of the Fruit of Islam (FOI). These personnel were frequently selected directly by the national secretariat in Chicago, which in effect included Muhammad, national captain of the Fruit of Islam Raymond Sharrieff, Sharrieff’s wife and Muhammad’s daughter, national MGT captain Ethel Sharrieff, and the national secretary-treasurer; indirectly, Elijah Muhammad, Jr., Herbert Muhammad, and other relatives were involved in the process. At local levels, the minister was the public face of the temple, the Nation of Islam’s chief representative to the outside world. Internally, his role was pastoral. But in terms of how the temple functioned as a social organization, as a kind of secret society whose borders had to be policed constantly, no one was more important than the Fruit of Islam captain. Forever on the lookout for acts of disobedience or disloyalty, his disciplinary rod was essential in maintaining a well-run temple.
Although Malcolm’s initial activities focused on Boston, he traveled up and down the East Coast and as far west as Chicago. Sometime that first January back east, he went to several meetings at New York City’s tiny Temple No. 7 in Harlem. In February he served as a guide for pilgrims coming to Chicago to attend the Nation of Islam’s major annual event, the Saviour’s Day convention, celebrating the birth and divinity of its founder, Wallace D. Fard. This marked the first time that the young apprentice took the stage as a featured speaker before a national audience. FBI surveillance indicated that he “spoke against the ‘white devils’” and encouraged “greater hatred on the part of the cult towards the white race.”
By late February, Malcolm’s recruitment efforts had been so successful that there were sufficient converts to create a new temple in Boston, No. 11. At one of his larger public gatherings, he was delighted to see Ella, but she remained a stubborn holdout against the Nation’s call. With its focus on recruiting prisoners and the poor, the Nation didn’t fit with her notions of black middle-class respectability, and she was skeptical of Muhammad’s claim to be Allah’s Messenger. Knowing Ella’s stubborn temperament, Malcolm doubted that his words would ever change her negative view of the Nation. “I wouldn’t have expected anyone short of Allah Himself to have been able to convert Ella.” During this time, it’s possible that Malcolm also reconnected with his former girlfriend Evelyn Williams, who continued to harbor deep feelings for him. She subsequently joined the NOI, and when Malcolm moved to New York later that year, she followed him there.
His next assignment, as minister of Philadelphia’s temple, required both diplomacy and a firm administrative hand. The temple was run by Willie Sharrieff (no relation to Raymond). Malcolm spoke at one of its meetings, informing his stunned audience that he had been authorized to “shake things up.” Along with Isaiah X Edwards, the minister of Baltimore’s temple, he had conducted a preliminary investigation of the temple’s affairs. The day before the meeting, March 5, Sharrieff had been removed from his position. Eugene X Bee, who had been appointed Fruit of Islam temple captain as well as assistant minister by Sharrieff, was also dismissed. Malcolm assumed the titles “teacher” and “acting minister.” To consolidate his position, he led or participated in a series of eight temple meetings throughout the last three weeks of March.
Malcolm’s progress was carefully monitored by the FOI’s supreme captain, Raymond Sharrieff. In 1949, Sharrieff had married Muhammad’s second oldest child, Ethel, and before long exercised administrative authority that went well beyond the Fruit of Islam, overseeing the Nation’s growing real estate and commercial ventures in Chicago. For years, the Nation of Islam had lacked a substantial institutional presence in many key cities, but its failure to grow was now shown not to have been due to a lack of interest in its message but to poor local leadership. In Detroit, Malcolm had exposed Lemuel Hassan as, at best, a mediocre minister. By 1957 Hassan would be reassigned to the less prestigious temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Malcolm’s brother Wilfred elevated to become minister of Detroit’s Temple No. 1, second in status only to Chicago. Malcolm’s rise and Hassan’s demotion infuriated Hassan’s brother, James X, who was the assistant minister of Chicago Temple No. 2, as well as assistant principal of the University of Islam. James’s hostility toward Malcolm would, within several years, be shared by most of the Nation of Islam’s ruling elite in Chicago.
Both Muhammad and Sharrieff may also have worried that Malcolm, still only twenty-nine, might be moving too quickly. One of them initiated the order in early 1954 to Joseph X Gravitt to travel first to Boston, then to the Philadelphia temple, to aid in the reconsolidation of both temples’ Fruit of Islam as their new captain. Joseph’s immediate supervisor, however, was not to be Malcolm, but Sharrieff.
Joseph’s presence in Philadelphia afforded Malcolm the rare luxury of having occasional mornings and afternoons off, and whenever he could he explored sites such as the city’s art museum and libraries. Most of his time, however, was taken up by his administrative duties throughout the Northeast, which kept him constantly in transit. His absence required Joseph to speak frequently at Philadelphia’s Temple No. 12. The subject of one May 1954 speech was “the duty of Muslims to take the heads of four devils for which they will win a free trip to Mecca.” He explained that this meant “the bringing of a lost Muslim into the Nation of Islam and thereby cutting off a devil’s head.” Such hell-and-damnation rhetoric lacked even the sophistication of the young Malcolm, but in an organization that lived by disclipline such a no-nonsense manner had its advantages.
Side by side, both living in Philadelphia (Malcolm in a rented flat at 1522 North Twenty-sixth Street), the two men seemed an unlikely duo, but over these months they formed bonds of trust and codependence. Malcolm was six feet, three inches tall and weighed no more than 170 pounds; he was youthful, passionate, constantly in motion, intent on honing his language. Joseph, at five feet, six inches, possessed a muscular build, and was small but very tough at 145 pounds; he was quiet and cautious, yet volatile. As in Boston, much of the credit for getting the Philadelphia temple in order went to Malcolm, and indeed in June, in recognition of his outstanding efforts, Muhammad named him the new minister of Harlem’s Temple No. 7. Yet during the two and a half months after Joseph’s arrival in Philadelphia, Malcolm had participated in only four local meetings: Joseph had absolutely been in charge, both as head of the Fruit of Islam and as substitute minister. In the Autobiography, Malcolm is silent about Joseph’s contributions.
In less than a year, Malcolm had gone from line worker at Gar Wood to full minister of the Nation of Islam in one of the most important black centers in the United States. He was keenly aware of the challenge ahead of him. He would later recall, “Nowhere in America was such a single temple potential available as in New York’s five boroughs. They contained over a million black people.”
Sometime in June 1954, Malcolm relocated to New York City. For another three months he continued to serve as the principal minister in both Harlem and Philadelphia, but he devoted most of his time trying to make sense of the situation in New York. His first step was to appoint a man named James 7X as his assistant minister, but not until August was Joseph X transferred to New York, to join him at Temple No. 7 as its FOI captain.
Malcolm found himself with a membership that numbered only a few dozen people. Even that figure is an informed guess: neither he nor any other NOI minister ever revealed publicly the actual numbers, in part because they were so low. From 1952 to early 1953, there were probably fewer than one thousand members throughout the country.
Malcolm found to his dismay that Harlem’s Temple No. 7 was even more disorganized than Philadelphia. For six months he labored to reproduce the growth he had created in Boston and Philadelphia, but without success. The Autobiography offers several explanations. First, Harlem was still filled with ex-Garveyites and a variety of aggressive nationalist groups all pushing their agendas. “We were only one among the many voices of black discontent,” Malcolm noted. “I had nothing against anyone trying to promote independence and unity among black men, but they still were making it tough for Mr. Muhammad’s voice to be heard.” He also mentioned the social apathy and lack of political awareness to which Harlem blacks seemed to have succumbed. “Every time I lectured my heart out and then asked those who wanted to follow Mr. Muhammad to stand, only two or three would . . . sometimes not that many.”
The challenges were more complicated than he was willing to admit. The postwar economic boom had left much of African America behind. The conditions of Harlem’s tenements had deteriorated significantly from the neighborhood’s more glorious times in the 1920s. Many buildings were vermin- and rat-infested; it was not unusual even along major thoroughfares for disgruntled tenants to throw their garbage into the streets. Asthma, drug addiction, venereal disease, and tuberculosis were rampant. In 1952, for example, central Harlem’s tuberculosis mortality rate was nearly fifteen times that for nearly all-white Flushing, Queens.
Despite these problems, in the decade after World War II Harlem had also developed a small, status-conscious black middle class that was wealthier and politically more influential than during the depression. New York City’s farther suburbs were still largely segregated, but slowly middle-class blacks began to move to the outer boroughs of the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. The number of black professionals grew, but many were still only beginning to escape from the ghettos of Harlem and Brooklyn.
The heavy concentration of black voters in Manhattan also led to expanding political power. The 1953 election of Harlem resident Hulan Jack as the first black president of the borough of Manhattan symbolized that growing clout. Constantly pushing Harlem’s political agenda was of course Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who by the time of Malcolm’s return had been in Congress for a decade. In March 1955, Powell called for a boycott of Harlem savings banks that “practice ‘Jim Crow-ism’ and ‘economic lynching.’” He urged Abyssinian Baptist Church’s fifteen thousand members to withdraw their funds from white-owned banks and transfer them to either the black-owned Carver Federal Savings in Harlem or the black-owned Tri-State Bank in Memphis, Tennessee. At the national level, he disrupted the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign for Adlai Stevenson by his surprise endorsement of Dwight Eisenhower, who in the election that November received nearly 40 percent of the African-American vote nationally. Powell’s justification was the domination of Southern “Dixiecrats” who controlled the Democratic Party in Congress. He explained, “This does not necessarily mean a shift to the Republican party. It does mean that the Negro people are standing up as American men and women, thinking for themselves and voting as independents.” Malcolm probably admired the black congressman’s feisty independence from the Tammany Hall Democratic Party machine. Powell’s model of political independence, as a black man who could not be dominated by whites, would influence how Malcolm defined independent politics after his departure from the Nation of Islam.
Harlem was also a common site for many civil rights protests. One of the largest, soon after Malcolm’s arrival, occurred on September 25, 1955. More than ten thousand people gathered at the Williams Institutional Church on Seventh Avenue at West 132nd Street to denounce the acquittal by an all-white jury of two white men accused of murdering Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old black boy in Mississippi. The rally demanded that President Eisenhower “convene a special session of Congress and . . . recommend the immediate passage of a Federal anti-lynching bill.” Abyssinian’s associate pastor, the Reverend David N. Licorish, who represented Powell, called upon blacks to protest in Washington, D.C. The NAACP leader, Roy Wilkins, urged black New Yorkers to address racial discrimination in the city.
Far from being a community overwhelmed and silenced by the weight of racial oppression, Harlem continued to be a lively political environment. The level of participation was high and in full evidence: public rallies, boycotts, and fund-raisers were common. Street philosophers and orators would climb up ladders placed along major thoroughfares, primarily 125th Street, and declaim their ideas to passersby. The Nation found it difficult to make headway, largely because its appeal was apolitical; Elijah Muhammad’s resistance to involvement in political issues affecting blacks, and his opposition to NOI members registering to vote and becoming civically engaged, would have struck most Harlemites as self-defeating.
Many in the neighborhood had already been introduced to a more orthodox Islam through the extensive missionary activities of the Ahmadiyya Muslims. The sect had won the respect of many blacks through its vigorous opposition to legal segregation and its criticism of Christian denominations for accepting Jim Crow. In 1943, for example, the Ahmadis’ Moslem Sunrise had characterized Detroit’s race riot as a “dark blot on this country’s good name.” The colored world would recognize “that black-skinned people are killing and being killed by white-skinned people in free America.” Five years later, the magazine published a survey of nearly 13,600 Presbyterian, Unitarian, Lutheran, and Congregational churches documenting that only 1,331 of them had any nonwhite members. Racism within Christian churches led many African-American artists, writers, and intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s to consider converting to some version of Islam. Recruiting was particularly effective in the bebop world. A key figure was Antigua-born Alfonso Nelson Rainey (Talib Dawud), onetime member of Dizzy Gillespie’s band. Dawud’s own conversion persuaded tenor saxophonist Bill Evans to become a Muslim, acquiring the name Yusef Lateef; his conversion was followed by Lynn Hope’s (Hajj Rashid) and drummer Kenny Clarke’s (Liaqat Ali Salaam). Based in Philadelphia, Dawud developed a working relationship with Harlem’s International Muslim Brotherhood, throughout which a supportive network was established linking largely black masjids in Providence, Washington, D.C., and Boston. Dozens of other popular jazz artists became associated with Ahmadi Islam, including Art Blakey, Ahmad Jamal, McCoy Tyner, Sahib Shihab, and Talib Dawud’s wife, the vocalist Dakota Staton (who changed her name to Aliyah Rabia after conversion). Even those who did not formally convert, like John Coltrane, were heavily influenced by the Ahmadiyya.
In Cleveland, an Ahmadiyya mosque had been established during the Great Depression; by the 1950s it had more than one hundred African-American congregants. Indeed, the Cleveland mosque’s Ahmadi leader, Wali Akram, became perhaps the first black American awarded a visa for a pilgrimage to Mecca, in 1957. All of these activities created among many African Americans a general awareness of different types of Islam, beyond that represented by the Nation of Islam. This was particularly true in Harlem, which made winning converts difficult.
Not until September 1954 did Malcolm secure permanent living quarters in the New York area: at 25-35 Humphrey Street, in the quiet neighborhood of East Elmhurst, Queens. The property was owned and shared by a black couple, Curtis and Susie Kenner. Although Malcolm’s principal responsibility was now Temple No. 7, he was informally promoted to be Elijah Muhammad’s chief troubleshooter along the East Coast, and even in the Midwest. He continued to lecture regularly at the Philadelphia temple throughout the fall and winter months of 1954-55, and also made trips by automobile to Springfield, Massachusetts, and Cincinnati, Ohio, to support local initiatives.
Even more than in the Philadelphia temple, he came to rely on Captain Joseph, routinely dictating instructions to his lieutenant, who in turn barked out orders to subordinates. One Sunday when Malcolm was away, a guest sermon was delivered by the minister from the Baltimore temple. The meeting, however, actually belonged to Joseph, who opened the proceedings by upbraiding all the male members who had missed meetings or turned up late, demanding “explanations of their delinquencies in attendance.” Joseph praised Baltimore’s minister as “a man of peace,” but sharply reminded the faithful that he (Joseph) “was not.”
Despite Joseph’s hard work, nearly all the praise for the successes in New York centered increasingly on Malcolm. At this time, Joseph was living in a small basement apartment far uptown in West Harlem. He received no salary for his labors as FOI head and worked as a cook at a restaurant owned by an NOI member, the Shabazz restaurant on Fifth Avenue. Sometime during his assignment in Philadelphia, he started dating a woman in the Philadelphia temple, and by early 1956 she had moved in with him. If Joseph planned to start a family, Malcolm must have realized, the Nation owed him a more dependable income. Perhaps for these reasons, Malcolm started praising Joseph during his temple sermons or remarks to the Fruit of Islam. The Nation of Islam’s administrators in Chicago also recognized Joseph’s contributions and considered reassigning him to a more prestigious position. Two weeks prior to the Saviour’s Day convention in February 1955, Joseph was summoned to Chicago, probably by Raymond Sharrieff, and told of a new national program in which he would supervise the recruitment and training of a thousand recruits. For several weeks it appeared that he would be transferred, and at Temple No. 7’s Fruit of Islam meeting on February 21 members received word that he would no longer be with them. But, for reasons still unclear, in early March it was announced that he would be remaining in New York.
Malcolm and Joseph’s efforts in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, combined with other evangelical efforts by Malcolm in various cities, had increased NOI membership by perhaps a thousand new followers. This unprecedented growth signaled to the FBI, which had been tracking the Nation of Islam for decades, that something was stirring, something that they should take seriously. For years, the Bureau had monitored what it still described derisively in internal documents as the “Moslem Cult of Islam” (MCI). Its surveillance now indicated that an ex-convict, one Malcolm K. Little, was largely responsible for the cult’s new evangelical fervor. Malcolm had been on their radar, and under watch, since his letter-writing days at Norfolk and Charlestown, and on January 10, 1955, two FBI agents arranged to see him in New York. They subsequently reported that the subject had been “very uncooperative.” He “refused to furnish any information concerning the officers, names of members, to furnish doctrines or beliefs of the MCI or family background data on himself.” The ex-convict did, however, express several theological and political opinions, describing Elijah Muhammad as “the greatest prophet of all, being the last and greatest Apostle.” When the agents challenged him about the NOIʹs “alleged teachings [of] racial hatred,” he replied, “They do not teach hatred but the truth, that the ‘black man’ has been enslaved in the United States by the ‘white man.’” When asked whether he would serve in the armed forces, Malcolm refused to answer. “The subject did, however, admit that during World War II he had admired the Japanese people and soldiers and that he would have liked to join the Japanese Army.” Malcolm also denied ever having been a member of the Communist Party. His responses were far more confrontational than his interview with the FBI field agent several years earlier. He was unafraid to identify himself completely with Elijah Muhammad’s creed and his organization, regardless of the political consequences. Malcolm subsequently warned members of Temple No. 7 not to cooperate with FBI agents who might contact them.
The February Saviour’s Day convention of 1955 was symbolically Malcolm’s coming out party as the Nation of Islam’s uncrowned prince. In less than two years, he had tripled the size of Detroit’s temple, established thriving temples in Boston and Philadelphia, and with Joseph’s assistance was finally beginning to recruit members into Harlem’s Temple No. 7. He had become a favorite guest minister in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Springfield, and other cities. The FBI surveillance of the NOI convention observed that throughout the proceedings “the subject appeared to be enjoying Elijah Mohammed’s confidence, and seemed to have a free hand.” Malcolm even set aside time to escort NOI members on a tour of Chicago’s Museum of Natural History and “placed his various interpretations on the exhibits at the Museum as portraying the creation of the white man by the ‘black man.’”
Attending the convention was an ambitious twenty-one-year-old singer and nightclub performer named Louis Eugene Walcott. Born in New York City on May 11, 1933, Walcott was raised as an Episcopalian in Roxbury. He would recall that both his parents, like Malcolm’s, had been militant black nationalists: “My father was a Garveyite,” he explained, “so I couldn’t grow up in this society without the touch of Mr. Garvey in my soul, in my mind, and in my spirit.” Both Walcott’s parents had emigrated from the Caribbean, and as in the Little household from an early age he had been encouraged by his mother to read books and magazines documenting the issues affecting blacks. A track star in high school, he also excelled as a debater, violinist, and singer. After graduating from Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, he began his career in show business as a calypso artist, calling himself “the Charmer.” Like Malcolm, he eventually came to remake himself, first as Louis X, and then as Louis Farrakhan.
It was in Boston in 1954 that “the Charmer” first encountered Malcolm. Walcott and his wife were living in a small apartment on Massachusetts Avenue—only a few doors away from the apartment of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was in graduate school completing his Ph.D. Not far away was the nightclub where Walcott performed, and between his musical sets he would occasionally grab a quick dinner at a nearby restaurant, the Chicken Lane. It was here that he was introduced to Malcolm, who “had on a brown tam, brown coat, brown suit, and brown gloves.” The minister made an immediate impression. “He was an imposing man,” Farrakhan remembered, “talking so bad about white folks, I was scared of him.”
Walcott’s first real experience of the Nation of Islam occurred at the 1955 Saviourʹs Day convention. He was headlining a show, “Calypso Follies,” at the Blue Angel nightclub on Chicago’s North Side, when a friend invited him to the Nation’s festival. The supreme minister had been told that Walcott, who was a minor celebrity in the music and nightclub business, would be present in the audience. Aides later informed Muhammad exactly where the young man was sitting. Well into his talk, Muhammad turned and began speaking directly to him. Farrakhan later described the moment as “instant love.” His wife enthusiastically joined the Nation that night, and although he still harbored reservations, he agreed to join as well. The young couple duly completed the obligatory letter of request for membership and mailed it off to the Chicago office. They heard nothing for five months. That July, Walcott was in New York City, performing in Greenwich Village. He decided to attend a service at Harlem’s Temple No. 7, primarily to hear Malcolm, whose oratory captivated him and who convinced him to dedicate his life to the Nation. “I had never heard a black man in my life talk the way this brother talked,” Farrakhan recalled.
By the mid-1950s, the number of established jazz artists and popular musicians who had joined the Nation of Islam caused some consternation within the Chicago headquarters, which worried that their prominence might make them more independent than other members. The Nation demanded a conservative, sober lifestyle, something quite at odds with the way most musicians lived. In late 1955, the temples were informed that no NOI member would henceforth be permitted to work as a professional entertainer. Walcott first heard about the edict while in New York when visiting the Nation’s restaurant on West 116th Street at Lenox Avenue. For him, with a wife and young child, it was a serious blow. Walcott walked several blocks, confused over what course to take. Somehow he came to a halt, turned around, and headed back to the restaurant with the intention of remaining faithful to the Nation. He was met by Captain Joseph, who was furious that someone had leaked the information prematurely. Malcolm had the job of subsequently informing Louis that he had been granted four additional weeks, but thereafter would have to quit the music business.
Louis had enrolled in the Monday FOI class, and Joseph asked him to deliver a talk. His brief oration, which explained the reasons leading to his conversion, proved mesmerizing. Decades later, NOI veterans who were there could still recite Louis’s words: “I will take the message of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to every nook and cranny in the United States of America.” Louis’s talent as an orator convinced Malcolm to put the young apprentice into his small assistant minister class. It was here, during the first six months of 1956, that Louis flourished, carefully modeling his presentations on Malcolm’s, even studying his mentorʹs mannerisms and dietary habits. It was clear that he brought to the ministry certain skills from his nightclub act. Not only did Malcolm not mind; he took genuine pride in Louis’s accomplishments, and a bond developed. Eventually, Louis described Malcolm as “the father I never had.”
In June or July, Louis was named FOI captain for Boston’s Temple No. 11. In the years since Malcolm’s initial proselytizing efforts, the temple had suffered a membership decline and was in need of an energy boost. Within a year Louis was elevated to minister. Chicago officials were thrilled with their convert. They even allowed him to revive his singing career, but in the service of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad; he wrote and performed several “Islamic-inspired” gospel songs that became wildly popular among temple members.
Louis became Malcolm’s first true protégé. Many other young men would follow, fashioning their sermons and temple activities on Malcolm’s dynamic model. It was not long before they were widely, and sometimes disparagingly, known within the Nation as “Malcolm’s Ministers.”
Malcolm believed that Muslim clergy could be divided into two categories—evangelists and pastors. Few outstanding evangelists excelled as pastors, which called for skill in providing comfort and support to congregants, while relatively few pastors could call their congregations to embrace a spiritual vision in the manner of a great evangelist. “My desire has always been to be good at both,” he said. Several years later, he would equate himself with the greatest Christian evangelist of his time, Billy Graham.
He considered every sermon he delivered an evangelical opportunity, because usually the congregation included a small number of first-time guests. A typical NOI service was very different from most Christian services. The temple’s secretary or captains might open the meeting with announcements; then the minister would lecture, frequently using a blackboard or posters to reinforce points being made. Malcolm would encourage his audience to ask questions, and even welcomed banter and debate with visitors. At one typical Philadelphia meeting, Malcolm declared that the Nation was “the only place in the ‘wilderness of North America’ that the ‘black man and black woman’ [hear] the truth about themselves.” The lecture hammered at two themes. First, Malcolm repeatedly emphasized that blacks were spiritually dead as a group, and that their reawakening depended solely on their acknowledgment of the truth, represented by Elijah Muhammad. Second, Malcolm discussed the Nation’s expectations of how women and men should relate to each other. Urging men to “respect their women,” he also warned women to dress modestly. Women who attracted the amorous attentions of men by “the display of their bodies,” Malcolm declared, “were as common as the dog we see chasing the other dog in the streets.”
At another 1955 Philadelphia temple sermon he used experiences of racial oppression to explain why whites had no right to describe the Nation of Islam as subversive:
Here is a man who has raped your mother and hung your father on his tree, is he subversive? Here is a man who robbed you of all knowledge of your nation and your religion and is he subversive? Here is a man who lied to you and trick[ed] you about all things, is he subversive? . . . This is a man who the Almighty God Allah is subversive against. Black men all over the planet are subversive to this devil and you come in here and get mad at us. You’s better listen or you will be taken off the planet along with the devil. This wicked government must be destroyed and those of you who want to follow after the serpent and commit evil also. This is a warning to you that you are living in the last day and you must decide tonight, whether you want to survive the war of Armageddon. . . .
Throughout the Philadelphia sermon, Malcolm presented a vivid picture of damnation for those who continued their allegiance to white values, though as an orator he had learned how to modulate his tone. Frequently he employed humor, and occasionally even references to bebop slang. “North America is already smothering with fire,” he warned. “You think you are so hep and, Jack, you can’t even smell the smoke.” He even “ran the dozens,” in the colloquial language of black folk culture, by making negative references to black mothers: “Your mother is a prostitute when you are not respecting women—you might as well say this because this is what is proven by your actions.” He declared that he had no fear of government surveillance: “The FBI follows me all over the country and they cannot do anything about this teaching unless it is the will of Allah. The devils have lost their power now and the only thing they can do is try to frighten the black men who are still dead.”
As the sermon ended, he observed that, while there had been a large number of male converts recently, “there is something very wrong that sisters are not coming in.” Instead of questioning the Nation’s sexist practices that discouraged the recruitment of new female members, Malcolm blamed the excessive gossiping of the temple’s females. “I’d rather put all of the sisters out for bickering and go out and get a lot of prostitutes. That sounds harsh, but I cannot stand this disunity.” Tirades like these earned Malcolm a reputation for being aggressively hostile to black women and suspicious of the institution of marriage. Taking his cue, many Fruit members applauded and imitated the ministerʹs sexist attitudes and rhetoric.
Malcolm frequently cited episodes in American history, emphasizing the legacy of the slave trade to condemn both Christianity and the U.S. government. In another sermon, he remarked that all Negroes were “American citizens, but you cannot prove this because you have been fighting for civil rights ever since the enemy brought you to Jamestown, Virginia, in the year of 1555. You do not own any state in North America but today you say you are American.” Black people could not look to whites to redeem their lives. “Today the white man does not have any power left and it is only the black man who has any chance to save himself.” On another occasion, he reminded members that people of European descent were hopelessly outnumbered globally by Africans, Asians, and other nonwhites. “There are only two kinds of people, the white and the black, so if you are not white you must be black.” He urged NOI members to patronize businesses managed or owned by Muslims. Without mentioning Wilfred by name, he noted that, in Detroit, “one of the brothers is the manager of a large department store and hires as many members . . . as he possibly can.”
By 1955, Malcolm’s popularity had become so intense that NOI headquarters called on him to relocate to Chicago for three weeks, to promote a membership drive in Temple No. 2. Recruitment efforts were ongoing, and during the mid-1950s the Nation of Islam seems to have looked closely at the model of Islamic proselytizing practiced by the controversial Ahmadi Muslims. Despite the Ahmadis’ refusal to consider the Prophet Muhammad the Seal of the Prophets, which deeply disturbed nearly all orthodox Muslims, and at a time when the Pakistani government was moving to designate the sect a non-Muslim religious group, emigrant Ahmadis had successfully formed political coalitions and working relationships with Sunni Muslims in the United States and frequently worshipped side by side with them. By the late 1950s a significant number of African-American Ahmadis had joined the Nation, partially due to its explicitly black identification. In doing so, they introduced a more orthodox interpretation of classical Islam, as well as a long-standing commitment to the international Islamic community. No matter how sectarian and heretical the NOIʹs theological tenets, Elijah Muhammad always insisted that his ministers present his creed as part of a global community of Muslims. These factors helped shape Malcolm’s version of da’wa, and his pastoral duties. This was the main reason why, in the early 1960s, Malcolm would so vigorously criticize the phrase “Black Muslims” to describe the Nation of Islam.
As the Nation grew, it began to interact with traditional or orthodox Muslims in different ways. And despite the Nation’s adherence to the theologically bizarre tenets of Yacub’s History, the fundamental spiritual terrain that defined Islam’s contours had a direct and inescapable pull on the NOI’s evolution. Within orthodox Islam, there are two great divisions: the Sunni, who represent the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and the Shi’a, a group who believe that Ali, the Prophet’s nephew and son-in-law, and his descendants were the sole successors to Muhammad. For Sunnis, ordained clergy do not exist. The leader of the observance of salat, or prayer service, may be anyone knowledgeable. This leader, the imam, strives to be “a pattern for the rest to follow, so as to preserve the required precision and order of the service.” In Islam, the imam may also be a prominent theologian or legal scholar. The Shi’a, by contrast, perceive their imams as divinely inspired. Two main branches of the Shi’a, the Isma’ilis and Imanis, define their imams by hereditary descent and believe that their leaders possess a god-given understanding of Islam, first represented by Ali. The imams possess the powers of the “cycle of prophecy” (nubuwwa) and, as one Islamic scholar puts it, “they serve as intercessors between humans and God.”
Over centuries, Islamic political thought evolved in two strikingly different directions. For most Sunnis, the foundation of all religious teachings is the sharia, the law, which in turn is grounded in haqiqat, a literal interpretation of the Qurʹan. For the Shi’as, spiritual knowledge is esoteric, hidden, secret. The Shi’a Muslim approaches the Qurʹan not for the construction of laws but for knowledge that reveals truth. Because Shi’as frequently functioned as persecuted minorities in predominantly Sunni societies, they withdrew from politics and civil society. The Shi’as view most political leaders as illegitimate, and except in states like Iran in which they control the government, they generally have not participated in politics.
Although the Lost-Found Nation of Islam can hardly be considered orthodox, it shares striking parallels with Shi’ism. Both view their faiths from the vantage point of persecuted minorities; both are convinced that all civil authorities and politics are corrupt; both espouse what in Arabic is called hikmat’ At-tadrij, the gradual communication of religious knowledge and truth over time. When Elijah Muhammad elevated Wallace D. Fard to the status of Allah, Muhammad immediately became the sect’s sole conduit with God. Muhammad also acquired the authoritative power of prophecy and, as in the case of Shi’a Muslims, an infallibility that could not be challenged. Also like most Shi’a, Elijah Muhammad firmly believed that key positions within the temple’s leadership should be linked, either through genetic connections (for example, Ethel Muhammad Sharrieff, Herbert Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad, Jr., Wallace Muhammad) or through marriage (for example, Raymond Sharrieff). For this reason, despite Malcolm’s filial relationship with Muhammad, most members of the patriarch’s family strongly rejected him as a potential heir apparent because he was not related by blood. On a lower level, it was not unusual for local leaders to be relatives. By the late 1950s, for instance, three Little brothers were ministers of important temples—Wilfred in Detroit, Philbert in Lansing, and Malcolm in Harlem.
Despite the NOI’s heterodoxy, Elijah Muhammad perceived his sect as part of a global brotherhood, the ummah, which transcended the distinctions of ethnicity, nationality, class, and even race. NOI ministers were trained to see themselves as dedicated warriors in a spiritual struggle against God’s enemies. Such an imam can be described as a mujahid, one who devotes his life to the service of Allah, but who also practices spiritual self-discipline.
Members of the Nation of Islam with a more sophisticated knowledge of orthodox Islam found allegorical reasons for believing that the sect would ultimately grow away from its heretical roots and rejoin more conventional Islam. They compared Elijah’s flight from Detroit to Chicago and the hegira of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. The persecution of the first Muslims was subsequently experienced by Elijah and his early followers who resisted the U.S. draft. Perhaps most persuasively, all Muslims knew that the Holy Qurʹan was a book of Muhammad’s recitations compiled over a period of twenty-two years. Muslims believe that the work contains a unitary message; nevertheless, the focus and content of the surahs, or chapters, changed over time. In a similar fashion, Elijah distributed “lessons” to his followers to be studied and committed to memory. Each lesson reflected a “divine truth,” yet together they were incomplete, to be superseded by subsequent revelations. As Elijah’s connections with the larger Islamic world grew, the likelihood for some sort of theological evolution, or “Islamization,” also increased. In fact, this is exactly what happened upon Elijah’s death in 1975, when his rebellious son Wallace took over the leadership of the Nation; he instituted a total rejection of the Nation’s dissident religious dogma and accepted orthodox Islam.
One decisive step occurred, curiously enough, through global politics. The Nation of Islam had always viewed African Americans as “black Asiatics,” and in its realm of the saved there was no distinction between Asians and Africans. Consequently, the NOI took special note when in April 1955 representatives from twenty-nine African and Asian nations met in Bandung, Indonesia, to plan how they might cooperate politically. Participating states included Burma, Cambodia, the People’s Republic of China, India, Thailand, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Ethiopia, and the Gold Coast, but by far the largest contingent was made up by nations with majority Muslim populations: Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Turkey, and Yemen. In the opening address, the Indonesian president Achmed Sukarno declared the gathering the first transnational conference of colored peoples in history.
Revolution against the old colonial rule had been in the air. The conference came only six years after the triumph of the Communist Party over the Kuomintang in China. In Vietnam in 1952, the popular forces of Ho Chi Minh had routed the French colonial army at Dien Bien Phu, leading to a French withdrawal two years later. In Sudan, a revolt broke out in August 1955, forcing the British to airlift eighteen thousand troops into rebel areas.
But it was in the Muslim ummah that the struggles for independence were most inspirational. In Morocco, the French decision to depose Sultan Mohammed V in 1953 had led to massive protests. Fresh from their defeat in Vietnam, the French permitted the sultan to return, and independence was granted in March 1956. In Tunisia, internal autonomy from the French had been achieved in 1955, and full independence was won the following March. In November 1954, the struggle in Algeria had erupted into war. What was significant was that the Algerian nationalists, while Muslims, did not perceive the conflict as a jihad, or holy war, but rather a nationalist one. The guerrilla fighters, numbering about twenty thousand, confronted over one million French colonists and the French army. By the end of the war a quarter of a million Algerians had been killed and two million displaced from their homes, many into camps. Perhaps the most dramatic confrontation between the Arab world and the West occurred in Egypt with the Suez crisis. In July 1956, President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. In response, on October 30 the Israelis invaded Egypt, and the British followed. The United States, under Eisenhower, opposed the invasion, forcing the Israelis and the British to withdraw. Throughout the Muslim world Nasser was celebrated as the leader of anti-Western sentiment and Arab nationalism. Malcolm closely monitored these events, which to him fulfilled the divine prophecy foretelling the decline and fall of European and U.S. power. As Malcolm explained to a Temple No. 7 audience, “The ‘black man’ are united all over the world to fight the ‘devils.’ ”
The Bandung gathering represented the opening of a new epoch, and firmly fixed in Malcolm’s mind the possibilities of unifying internationally and nationally with other African Americans and followers of Islam. Black American leaders, Malcolm now urged, must “hold a Bandung Conference in Harlem.” The principles of nonaggression and cooperation that had characterized the Bandung Conference should inform the strategy of black “Asiatics” inside the United States. “We must come together and hear each other before we can agree . . . ,” he argued. “And the enemy must be recognized by all of us [as] a common enemy . . . before we can put forth a united effort against him.” Delivered at a meeting of the African Freedom Day Rally, Malcolm’s remarks echoed those of Blyden nearly a century before, illustrating the connections that were forming within his politics between Pan-Africanism, Pan-Islam, and Third World liberation. More than any other NOI leader, he recognized the religious and political significance of Bandung. His sermons made increased references to events in Asia, Africa, and other Third World regions, and he emphasized the kinship black Americans had with non-Western dark humanity, but he was also careful to integrate this new emphasis into his presentations gradually, without seeming to break from the traditional script demanded by Elijah Muhammad.
By as early as 1956, Captain Joseph began using such expressions as “Hey, ain’t none like Malcolm” and “They don’t come like the Minister.” He was careful to speak playfully, almost mocking Malcolm, but he was acknowledging an undeniable truth: Malcolm was standing apart. He had earned a reputation as the Nation’s most extreme taskmaster, a zealot whose life was consumed by his service of Allah and unquestioned dedication to Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm held each member of his temple to the strictest standards; he would never hesitate to levy sanctions against even his closest lieutenants or to oust loyal members from the temple for weeks at a time for minor infractions, such as smoking cigarettes. He could be so demanding, his chief lieutenant James 67X Warden explained, because he was hardest on himself. Louis Farrakhan confirmed this:
Nobody could handle Malcolm. He had a brilliant mind. He was disciplined . . . I never saw Malcolm smoke. I never heard Malcolm curse. I never saw Malcolm wink at a woman. I never saw Malcolm eat in between meals. He ate one meal a day. He got up at 5 o’clock in the morning to say his prayers. I never saw Malcolm late for an appointment. Malcolm was like a clock.
Elijah Muhammad preached that the Bible was a book not of history but of prophecy. “So Malcolm saw himself biblically,” James 67X related, “not as someone who had been, but as [one who] was becoming, had been described prophetically. He saw himself as poor, and he saw himself as a fisher of men.” Malcolm sought no monetary reward; the pride he felt in bringing in thousands of “lost-founds” was sufficient compensation. But James also understood that much of Malcolm’s success, especially in New York, was “based upon what was happening outside the mosque”—that is, the conditions that confronted most blacks in daily life.
Essential to the Nation’s functioning was discipline—and swift punishment for infractions. Members were constantly urged to report to officers anything that constituted suspicious behavior. Under Elijah Muhammad’s postwar regime, the Nation developed a strict disciplinary procedure in which, for example, members were expected to eat only one meal a day, usually in late afternoon or early evening. Muslims who were judged overweight were technically in violation of the NOI’s dietary rules. Penalties imposed were usually “time out,” a period when the offender was barred from attending temple functions. More severe was “silencing,” when the offender was barred not only from the temple but also from communicating with other members. In a 1955 lecture at the Philadelphia temple, Malcolm ordered the local leaders to purchase scales and to “weigh the members” every Monday and Thursday. “Those who are overweight,” he warned, “will be given two weeks to lose ten pounds or will be given time out.” He anticipated that his draconian edict would not be popular: “I’d better not hear anyone mentioning my name in criticism or I will give them indefinite time out of the temple and might keep you out of here for good. Is there anyone who wants to question me or doesn’t think I am being fair? Raise your hand. Good thing you didn’t, because you would have gotten out of the temple.”
Malcolm’s reputation for severity, especially toward those who questioned the infallibility of Elijah Muhammad, was demonstrated in an incident that occurred probably in May 1955. He and a trusted lieutenant, Jeremiah X (later Shabazz), were driving a car through Detroit’s streets when they recognized Malcolm’s younger brother Reginald, who had been expelled from the Nation years before. Malcolm stopped the car and beckoned him over; his brother appeared deranged and disheveled. According to Jeremiah, Malcolm then drove away, leaving Reginald adrift on the city’s sidewalks. Malcolm explained to Jeremiah X that his brother had fallen under “divine chastisement” for his self-destructive opposition to Elijah Muhammad.
Malcolm cut back on his travels throughout the remainder of 1955 and all of 1956, but still maintained a demanding schedule. His recruitment trip to Lansing and Detroit in May 1955 consumed at least two weeks. Over that summer, administrative problems at the temple in Philadelphia again forced him to divide his work largely between that city and New York. His energy for recruiting new members and expanding the Nation’s base was undiminished, however. In 1955 alone, he was instrumental in establishing three successful temples: No. 13 in Springfield, Massachusetts; No. 14 in Hartford, Connecticut; and No. 15 in Atlanta. To build the organization in Springfield, he relied on the leadership of an old acquaintance, Osborne Thaxton, whom he had converted to the Nation of Islam while both were serving time in prison. Temple No. 14 came about practically from nothing when a woman from Hartford attended a service at Springfield and asked Malcolm to come to her hometown the following Thursday, traditionally domestic servants’ day off. Malcolm made the journey, and into her housing project apartment trooped about fifteen maids, cooks, chauffeurs, and household workers employed in the Hartford area. Within a few months more than forty new converts had been won.
These evangelical efforts had a profound impact on the internal culture of the Nation of Islam. Hundreds of converts were joining every month. Hundreds of letters requesting membership had to be reviewed and processed every week. The administrative burdens multiplied accordingly. Local temple secretaries had to be instructed about new applications and members. New administrative teams—ministers, secretaries, FOI and MGT captains—had to be selected, or in many cases moved from one city to another. Between 1953 and 1955, the Nation of Islam more than quadrupled, from about twelve hundred to nearly six thousand members. From 1956 until 1961, it would expand more than tenfold, to between fifty thousand and seventy-five thousand members. Although many continued to be recruited from prisons, unemployment lines, and ghettos, the Nation began to capture a broader audience. Thousands now came from the middle class, or were highly paid skilled workers and trade unionists.
Part of the Nation’s newfound appeal had to do with the black reaction to Southern whites’ “massive resistance” to desegregation beginning in 1955. The growth of White Citizens’ Councils across the South and the slayings of local NAACP and civil rights workers in the late fifties convinced a minority of African Americans that the NOI was right: whites would never grant full equality to blacks. If Jim Crow was inescapable, then the Nation’s strategy of building all-black economic and social institutions in the face of implacable white hostility made sense to many.
Civil rights activity was intensifying across the country, on multiple fronts. The struggle during the bus boycott in 1955-56 unfolding in Montgomery, Alabama, put the movement, and its radiant (and then virtually unknown) young leader, in the headlines. Blacks couldn’t understand why, years after the Supreme Court had outlawed racial segregation on interstate buses, the laws weren’t being enforced. In Montgomery, thousands of working- and middle-class Negroes risked their jobs and personal safety to support a nonviolent protest, led by twenty-six-year-old minister Martin Luther King, Jr.
The goal of King and the majority of civil rights activists was integration—they had had enough of separation, which was so dramatically trapping African Americans in poverty and inequality. Malcolm was wise enough not to criticize the boycott for its integrationist goals when asked to comment on King’s efforts. Instead, he focused his criticisms on the U.S. government, “the seat of every kind of evil. . . . America is the modern Babylon where there is greater crime, persecution and injustice than in every place in the world.” Alluding to the Bandung model of Asian-African solidarity, he stated in another address that the “‘black men’ all over the planet Earth are uniting, and all have one object in mind—the destruction of the ʹdevil.ʹ ʺ
The thousands of recruits Malcolm and others were bringing into the Nation represented hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional revenue, thanks to the group’s strict tithing requirements. All members were expected to donate at minimum one-tenth of their household income to the temple, but many gave significantly more. Under Sharrieff’s supervision, the NOI began purchasing commercial real estate on Chicago’s South Side. Muhammad’s adult children, at Malcolm’s urging, were added to the NOI’s payroll. Elijah Muhammad could not have failed to notice the growing power of his brilliant protégé. New temples required the training and supervision of new ministers, and since Malcolm was personally responsible for establishing the four new temples and for successfully reviving those in Philadelphia and New York, he directly managed or influenced the selection of personnel. No previous minister had ever been granted such authority. It is probably for this reason that, sometime in 1956, temple ministers were ordered by Chicago to audiotape their weekly sermons and mail the tapes to NOI headquarters. Either Elijah or his associates would then monitor the lectures, to ensure no deviation from official dogma. The edict coincided with a new attitude Muhammad displayed toward Malcolm, perhaps meant to temper his young ministerʹs growth. Now when Malcolm visited Muhammad at his Hyde Park estate, he would be criticized on some point or other.
These criticisms had their effect. Malcolm’s frenetic travel schedule was somewhat reduced. However, even a relatively scaled-down schedule meant that he was on the road for at least four months of the twelve between mid-1956 and mid-1957. His basic message made few major deviations from Elijah’s script, but transcripts from FBI informants also reveal a degree of political emphasis in Malcolm’s polemics against white racism that were largely missing from Elijah Muhammad’s jeremiads.
By the end of 1955 the Harlem temple had grown from several dozen followers to 227 “registered members”—either official converts or individuals who had submitted letters to join. Registered members generally attended Sunday services but participated irregularly in other temple activities. Within this group, only seventy-five individuals were considered “active members”: participating in all FOI or MGT meetings, attending all lectures and services, volunteering for special duties, and regularly tithing. The administrative routine had become well established. Although Malcolm continued to be out of town for weeks at a time, he tried to keep involved in all important business decisions, relying on Joseph to maintain discipline and for the development and expansion of the temple. Occasionally, however, the two men traveled together to nearby cities where new temples had been started, to supervise training and the selection of captains.
Given Malcolm’s legendary strictness, the NOIʹs highly punitive culture, and tension that may have rippled beneath the surface of his relationship with Joseph over issues of credit and control, it seems surprising that the two men took so long to find themselves at odds. But in 1956 their productive partnership was finally ruptured. The specific reasons for the break remain contested. Some believe that Malcolm had blocked Joseph’s advancement as the Nation’s supreme captain. Others blame Joseph for the break, accusing him of failing to report to Malcolm a damaging rumor about Elijah Muhammad that had been circulating. But within months their fraternal association soured and Joseph grew to hate Malcolm for what transpired next.
In September 1956, Joseph stood accused of beating his wife, and Malcolm, as judge and jury, conducted the trial before the entire membership of the temple. Prior to bringing up the case, Malcolm had addressed several others. Brother Adam and Sister Naomi, who’d admitted to the sin of fornication, were banished for five years. Sister Eunice, who had joined the Nation of Islam as a child, was charged with adultery. Malcolm observed that Eunice’s husband was a “registered” Muslim, a man “who was in prison. How do you think he feels?” After listening to her responses, Malcolm coldly meted out his version of justice: “Sister, I have no alternative other than to give you five years out of the Nation of Islam, during which I would advise you to fast and pray to Allah, ask him for forgiveness, ask your husband for forgiveness. . . . In no way can I show you any sympathy, pity, or anything, because you should know better.”
When Joseph stepped up, Malcolm sternly announced, “This is the day of manifestation of defects.” He then addressed Joseph: “You are charged with putting your hands on your wife. Guilty or not guilty?” Joseph curtly replied, “Guilty.” Malcolm ruled that Joseph had been convicted of a “class F” judgment, meaning that he was no longer considered in good standing. For the next ninety days, he was stripped of his FOI rank and banned from temple functions and even from speaking with other members except officials. Malcolm used Joseph’s shame as an opportunity to instruct his congregation about the standards that were expected:
You know the laws of Islam, brother. You teach them. You taught them. You were Captain of the Fruit in Boston, and you’ve been Captain of the Fruit in Philadelphia, and you’ve been Captain of the Fruit right here. . . . You know, as well as I, and better perhaps than most brothers here, that any brother that puts his hand on his wife . . . if it comes to my knowledge, automatically has ninety days out of the Temple of Islam. . . . I hope and pray Allah will bless you to remain strong and come back into the Temple of Islam and do the good work for Allah and his Messenger in the Nation.
Joseph was asked if he had anything to say in his own defense; he declined to speak, and was told to leave the room. Malcolm informed temple members that the original charge of spousal abuse had been filed eight months before—implying that the case had been considered by the Messenger himself, so delaying the final decision. Then he launched into a vigorous defense of Joseph’s character. “Many of you may not like him. Many of you may have grievances against him . . . But also, many of you won’t make the sacrifice that he would make.” Without question, Joseph was a “good brother,” but for the next three months he was to be treated as an outcast. “And all of those Muslims that follow him are outcasts.”
The FBI watched these internal conflicts with interest. On October 23 its New York office reported to the director that Gravitt had been removed as Temple No. 7’s FOI captain, but that he had been allowed to hold a job as a night cook at the temple’s restaurant. A second report, dated December 12, indicated that Gravitt still remained under suspension; if accurate, this was beyond the ninety-day period that Malcolm had mandated. By the celebration of Saviourʹs Day in Chicago in late February 1957, Joseph had been fully restored to his rank. Yet the experience of becoming a temple “outcast” likely left him feeling a profound sense of humiliation and a loss of status. He was no longer, at least within the confines of the temple, Malcolm’s partner and equal; he was his subordinate, a hardworking but flawed lieutenant who had proven incapable of adhering to Malcolm’s high moral standards.
While Joseph grew angrier, Malcolm continued to be unhappy with the slow growth of Harlem’s Temple No. 7. He had begun making overtures to the Abyssinian Baptist Church, and also recruited several members from Powell’s powerful Baptist church. The most productive fishing grounds by far had been the tiny Pentecostal churches, whose members were working-class blacks. But Malcolm must have seen that the most well-attended institutions in Harlem were those involved in civil rights advocacy, electoral politics, and social reform. The NOI’s culture was designed to look inward, to reject the “devil” and all his works. However, if neither heaven nor hell existed, as Elijah Muhammad taught, and the Negro’s “hell” was here, in the United States, did not Muslims have an obligation to wage jihad?
Despite the absence of legal Jim Crow, New York City in the mid-1950s remained highly segregated. As the New York Times observed, “There is gross discrimination against Negroes here, and in many respects they are the oppressed class of the city.” Blacks as a rule were barred from most private housing, and were shepherded into ghettos like Harlem. The zoning of public schools confined most of their children to a substandard education, and there were frequent examples of police brutality toward blacks. For the NOI to break through to a mass audience, Malcolm would have to speak directly to these issues. Like Powell and other political ministers, he would have to leave his sanctuary and shift his focus beyond simply recruiting congregants for the Nation. He would have to address the real-world conditions of African Americans.
Though he did not realize it at the time, Malcolm’s career as a national civil rights leader began late on the afternoon of April 26, 1957, near the corner of Lenox Avenue and 125th Street, in the heart of Harlem. Two police officers were attempting to arrest a black man, Reese V. Poe, of 120 West 126th Street, following a street altercation. They were working over Poe with their nightsticks when three black men attempted to intervene: Frankie Lee Potts, twenty-three, as well as two members of Temple No. 7, Lypsie Tall, twenty-eight, and Johnson Hinton, thirty-two. The men yelled, “You’re not in Alabama. This is New York.” One of the patrolmen, interpreting this as a provocation, attempted to arrest Hinton, on the grounds of failure to move and resisting arrest. He delivered several powerful blows to Hinton’s face and skull, which surgeons later diagnosed as causing lacerations of the scalp, a brain contusion, and subdural hemorrhaging. The three Muslims were then arrested along with Poe and hauled to the 28th Precinct station house.
A woman who had observed the assault rushed to the NOI’s restaurant several blocks away with the news. Captain Joseph promptly mobilized members by telephone. At sundown, Malcolm and a small group of Muslims went to the station house and demanded to see brother Johnson. At first, the duty officer denied that any Muslims were there, but as a crowd of angry Harlemites swelled to about five hundred, the police changed their minds and Malcolm was allowed to speak briefly with him. Despite his pain and disorientation, Hinton explained that when they had arrived at the station house and he attempted to fall down on his knees to pray, an officer struck him across the mouth and shins with his nightstick. Malcolm quickly took in Hinton’s physical condition and demanded that he be properly treated. The police relented; Hinton was transported in an ambulance to Harlem Hospital—followed by about a hundred Muslims who walked in formation north up Lenox Avenue. Malcolm knew exactly what effect this march would have down the busiest thoroughfare in Harlem. While Hinton received treatment, the crowd outside swelled to two thousand. Alarmed, the NYPD called “all available cops” to provide backup. Then, amazingly, they released Johnson X Hinton from the hospital—back to the 28th Precinct jail. The protesters marched back to the station house angrier than before, returning this time down West 125th Street, Harlem’s central business corridor. Within an hour, at least four thousand people were jammed in front of the station house. A confrontation appeared inevitable.
When Malcolm finally walked into the station house, it was well past midnight. Escorting him was Harlem attorney Charles J. Beavers, who made bail arrangements for Potts and Tall and asked to see Hinton. The police allowed this but adamantly refused to return Hinton to the hospital, insisting that he had to be incarcerated overnight to appear in court the next day. At about two thirty a.m., with thousands of angry Harlemites still gathered outside, Malcolm sensed a stalemate. As if to underscore his authority in front of the police, he walked outside and gave a hand signal to his FOI phalanx. Silently and immediately, the FOI marched away, with orders to regroup at the NOI restaurant at four a.m. Following their lead, the protesting Harlemites also dispersed in minutes.
The police had never seen anything like it. One stunned officer, groping for an explanation, admitted to the New York Amsterdam News editor James Hicks, “No one man should have that much power.”
The next morning, bail of $2,500 was paid by the NOI, but the police still refused to deliver Hinton to his attorney or to Malcolm. Still bleeding and disoriented, he was dumped out into the street outside the city’s felony courthouse. Malcolm’s men subsequently drove him to Harlem’s Sydenham Hospital, where doctors estimated that he had a fifty-fifty chance of surviving. The next day, a crowd of more than four hundred Muslims and Harlemites gathered for a vigil at a small park facing the hospital; NOI members from Boston, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Hartford, and other cities had driven in to take part. In a private meeting with a delegation of police administrators, Malcolm made the Nation’s position clear: “We do not look for trouble . . . we do not carry knives or guns. But we are also taught that when one finds something that is worthwhile getting into trouble about, he should be ready to die, then and there, for that particular thing.” As James Hicks observed, “Though they were stern in their protest they were as orderly as a battalion of Marines.”
All three men who had been arrested were subsequently acquitted. Johnson X Hinton and the Muslims filed a successful lawsuit against the NYPD, receiving more than seventy thousand dollars, the largest police brutality judgment that a New York jury had ever awarded. But the incident had also set in motion the forces culminating in Malcolm’s inevitable rupture with the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad could maintain his personal authority only by forcing his followers away from the outside world; Malcolm knew that the Nation’s future growth depended on its being immersed in the black community’s struggles of daily existence. His evangelism had expanded the NOI’s membership, giving it greater impact, but it was also forcing him to address the problems of non-Muslim black Americans in new ways. Eventually, he would have to choose: whether to remain loyal to Elijah Muhammad, or to be “on the side of my people.”