Early the next morning, I picked up Betty at her parents' home. We drove to the first town in
Indiana. We found out that only a few days before, the state law had been changed, and now
Indiana had a long waiting period.
This was the fourteenth of January, 1958; a Tuesday. We weren't far from Lansing, where my
brother Philbert lived. I drove there. Philbert was at work when we stopped at his house and I
introduced Betty X. She and Philbert's wife were talking when I found out on the phone that we
could get married in one day, if we rushed.
We got the necessary blood tests, then the license. Where the certificate said "Religion," I wrote
"Muslim." Then we went to the Justice of the Peace.
An old hunchbacked white man performed the wedding. And all of the witnesses were white.
Where you are supposed to say all those "I do' s," we did. They were all standing there, smiling
and watching every move. The old devilsaid, "I pronounce you man and wife," and then, "Kiss
your bride."
I got her out of there. All of that Hollywood stuff! Like these women wanting men to pick them up
and carry them across thresholds and some of them weigh more than you do. I don't know how
many marriage breakups are caused by these movie-and television-addicted women expecting
some bouquets and kissing and hugging and being swept out like Cinderella for dinner and
dancing-then getting mad when a poor, scraggly husband comes in tired and sweaty from
working like a dog all day, looking for some food.
We had dinner there at Philbert's home in Lansing. "I've got a surprise for you," I told him when
we came in. "You haven't got any surprise for me," he said. When he got home from work and
heard I'd been there introducing a Muslim sister, he knew I was either married, or on the way to
get married.
Betty's nursing school schedule called for her to fly right back to New York, and she could return
in four days. She claims she didn't tell anybody in Temple Seven that we had married.
That Sunday, Mr. Muhammad was going to teach at Detroit's Temple One. I had an Assistant
Minister in New York now; I telephoned him to take over for me. Saturday, Betty came back. The
Messenger, after his teaching on Sunday, made the announcement. Even in Michigan, my
steering clear of all sisters was so well known, they just couldn't believe it.
We drove right back to New York together. The news really shook everybody in Temple Seven.
Some young brothers looked at me as though I had betrayed them. But everybody else was
grinning like Cheshire cats. The sisters just about ate up Betty. I never will forget hearing one
exclaim, "You got him!" That's like I was telling you, the nature of women. She'd got me.
That's part ofwhy I never have been able to shake it out of my mind that she knew something-all
the time. Maybe she did get me!
Anyway, we lived for the next two and a half years in Queens, sharing a house of two small
apartments with Brother John AH and his wife of that time. He's now the National Secretary in
Chicago.
Attallah, our oldest daughter, was born in November 1958.
She's named for Attilah the Hun (he sacked Rome). Shortly after Attallah came, we moved to our
present seven-room house in an all-black section of Queens, Long Island.
Another girl, Qubilah (named after Qubilah Khan) was born on Christmas Day of 1960. Then,
yasah ("Ilyas" is Arabic for "Elijah") was born in July 1962. And in 1964 our fourth daughter,