Chicago, to last for three days. Early Friday morning in New York at the Kennedy Airport dozens
of policemen spent forty minutes searching a plane belonging to Capital Airlines, which back in
December 1964 had accepted a Mosque Number 7 charter flight to Chicago and return, at a fee
of $5,175.54 which the mosque had subsequently paid in increments.
Altogether, about three thousand Black Muslims from their mosques in most sizable cities were in
Chicago for their annual "Saviour's Day" convention, regarded by them as similar to the holiday of
Christmas. In the order of arrival, each group from the different mosques and cities assembled
outside the big sports coliseum south of Chicago's business district, the brothers of all ages
dressed in neat, dark suits and white shirts and the sisters garbed in flowing silk gowns and
headdresses-and every individual was filtered through anintense security check that Chicago
police sources said was unprecedented in Chicago except for a visiting President.
Searched even more closely were the relatively few non-Muslim Negroes who came to be
spectators, and the press representatives both white and black. "Take off your hat, show some
respect!" snapped a Black Muslim guard at a white reporter. As each person was "cleared" a Fruit
of Islam man ushered him or her to a specific seat in the drafty interior of the 7500-seat coliseum.
(Later, Muslim sources would blame the half-full house upon "the white man's dividing of
Negroes," but observers who recalled the packed coliseum in 1964 said that bombing fears kept
away many non-Muslim Negroes.) The audience sat lightly murmuring under the two huge
hanging banners proclaiming "Welcome Elijah Muhammad-We Are Glad To Have You With Us"
and "We Must Have Some Of This Land" (referring to Elijah Muhammad's demand that "one or
more states" be turned over to the "23 million so-called Negroes" in America as partial reparation
for "over a century of our free blood and sweat as slaves which helped to develop this wealthy
nation where still today you show us you do not wish or intend to accept us as equals"). In front of
the wide, raised speaker's platform were two nearly life-sized photographic blowups of Elijah
Muhammad. Standing between the stage and the audience were Fruit of Islam guards. Others
were prowling the aisles, scanning rows of faces, with intermittent peremptory demands for
identification, "What mosque, brother?" Still more Fruit of Islam men were inspecting the
coliseum's vacant balcony, backstage, downstairs, and rafters and roof.
The ghost of Malcolm X was in the coliseum. First, in a high drama for the Muslims, Elijah
Muhammad's son, Wallace Delaney Muhammad, who once had sided with Malcolm X, faced the
audience and begged forgiveness for his defection. Next, two brothers of Malcolm X, Wilfred and
Philbert, both of them Black Muslim ministers, urged unity with Elijah Muhammad. Said Minister
Wilfred X of the Detroit mosque, "We would be ignorant to get confusedand go to arguing and
fighting among ourselves and forget who the real enemy is." Said Minister Philbert X, of the
Lansing mosque, "Malcolm was my own blood brother, next to me.... I was shocked. No man
wants to see his own brother destroyed. But I knew that he was traveling on a very reckless and
dangerous road. I made attempts to change his course. When he was living, I tried to keep him
living; now that he is dead, there is nothing I can do." Indicating the seated Elijah Muhammad,
Minister Philbert X declared, "Where he leads me, I will follow"-and then he introduced the Black
Muslim leader to make his address.
Only the head of Elijah Muhammad was visible above the grim-faced Fruit of Islam men in a living
wall, Cassius Clay among them. Crescents, stars, moons and suns were in goldthread
embroidery on the small fez that Elijah Muhammad wore. He said in his speech: "For a long time,
Malcolm stood here where I stand. In those days, Malcolm was safe, Malcolm was loved. God,
Himself, protected Malcolm.... For more than a year, Malcolm was given his freedom. He went
everywhere-Asia, Europe, Africa, even to Mecca, trying to make enemies for me. He came back
preaching that we should not hate the enemy.... He came here a few weeks ago to blast away
his hate and mud-slinging; everything he could think of to disgrace me.... We didn't want to kill
Malcolm and didn't try to kill him. They know I didn't harm Malcolm. They know I loved him. His
foolish teaching brought him to his own end... ."
Both physically and emotionally worked up, often Elijah Muhammad would begin coughing. "Take