About the same time, one of the scribblings of Malcolm X's that I had retrieved had read,
enigmatically, "My life has always been one of changes." Another time, this was in September,
1963, Malcolm X had been highly upset about something during an entire session, and when I
read the Amsterdam News for that week, I guessed that he had been upset about an item in
Jimmy Booker's column that Booker had heard that Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X were
feuding. (Booker was later to reveal that after his column was written, he had gone on vacation,
and on his return he learned that Malcolm X "stormed into the Amsterdam News with three
followers... 'I want to see Jimmy Booker. I don't like what he wrote. There is no fight between
me and Elijah Muhammad. I believe in Mr. Muhammad and will lay down my life for him.' ")
Also, now and then, when I chanced to meet a few other key Muslims, mainly when I was with
Malcolm X, but when he was not immediately present, I thought I detected either in subtle
phrasing, or in manner, something less than total admiration of their famous colleague-and then I
would tell myself I had misinterpreted. And during these days, Dr. C. Eric Lincoln and I would talk
on the phone fairly often. We rarely would fail to mention how it seemed almost certain that seeds
of trouble lay in the fact that however much Malcolm Xpraised Elijah Muhammad, it was upon
dramatic, articulate Malcolm X that the communications media and hence the general public
focused the great bulk of their attention. I never dreamed, though, what Malcolm X was actually
going through. He never breathed a word, at least not to me, until the actual rift became public.
When Malcolm X left me at around two A.M. on that occasion, he asked me to call him at nine
A.M. The telephone in the home in East Elmhurst rang considerably longer than usual, and Sister
Betty, when she answered, sounded strained, choked up. When Malcolm X came on, he, too,
sounded different. He asked me, "Have you heard the radio or seen the newspapers?" I said I
hadn't. He said, "Well, do!" and that he would call me later.
I went and got the papers. I read with astonishment that Malcolm X had been suspended by
Elijah Muhammad-the stated reason being the "chickens coming home to roost" remark that
Malcolm X recently had made as a comment upon the assassination of President Kennedy.
Malcolm X did telephone, after about an hour, and I met him at the Black Muslims' newspaper
office in Harlem, a couple of blocks further up Lenox Avenue from their mosque and restaurant.
He was seated behind his light-brown metal desk and his brown hat lay before him on the green
blotter. He wore a dark suit with a vest, a white shirt, the inevitable leaping-sailfish clip held his
narrow tie, and the big feet in the shined black shoes pushed the swivel chair pendulously back
and forth as he talked into the telephone.
"I'm always hurt over any act of disobedience on my part concerning Mr. Muhammad.... Yes, sir-
anything The Honorable Elijah Muhammad does is all right with me. I believe absolutely in his
wisdom and authority." The telephone would ring again instantly every time he put it down. "Mr.
Peter Goldman! I haven't heard your voice in a good while! Well, sir, I just should havekept my big
mouth shut." To the New York Times: "Sir? Yes-he suspended me from making public
appearances for the tune being, which I fully understand. I say the same thing to you that I have
told others, I'm in complete submission to Mr. Muhammad's judgment, because I have always
found his judgment to be based on sound thinking." To C.B.S.: "I think that anybody who is in a
position to discipline others should first learn to accept discipline himself."
He brought it off, the image of contriteness, the best be could-throughout the harshly trying next
several weeks. But the back of his neck was reddish every time I saw him. He did not yet put into
words his obvious fury at the public humiliation. We did very little interviewing now, he was so
busy on telephones elsewhere; but it did not matter too much because by now I had the bulk of
the needed life story material in hand. When he did find some time to visit me, he was very
preoccupied, and I could feel him rankling with anger and with inactivity, but he tried hard to
hide it.