CHAPTER TWELVE

SAVIOR

During the spring of nineteen fifty-two I joyously wrote Elijah Muhammad and my family that the
Massachusetts State Parole Board had voted that I should be released. But still a few months
were taken up with the red tape delay of paper work that went back and forth, arranging for my
parole release in the custody of my oldest brother, Wilfred, in Detroit, who now managed a
furniture store. Wilfred got the Jew who owned the store to sign a promise that upon release I
would be given immediate employment.
By the prison system wire, I heard that Shorty also was up for parole. But Shorty was having
trouble getting some reputable person to sign for him. (Later, I found out that in prison Shorty had
studied musical composition. He had even progressed to writing some pieces; one of them I know
he named "The Bastille Concerto. ")
My going to Detroit instead of back to Harlem or Boston was influenced by my family's feeling
expressed in their letters. Especially my sister Hilda had stressed to me that although I felt I
understood Elijah Muhammad's teachings, I had much to learn, and I ought to come to Detroit
and become a member of a temple of practicing Muslims.
It was in August when they gave me a lecture, a cheap Li'l Abner suit, and a small amount of
money, and I walked out of the gate. I never looked back, butthat doesn't make me any different
from a million inmates who have left a prison behind them.
The first stop I made was at a Turkish bath. I got some of that physical feeling of prison-taint
steamed off me. Ella, with whom I stayed only overnight, had also agreed that it would be best for
me to start again in Detroit. The police in a new city wouldn't have it in for me; that was Ella's
consideration-not the Muslims, for whom Ella had no use. Both Hilda and Reginald had tried to
work on Ella. But Ella, with her strong will, didn't go for it at all. She told me that she felt anyone
could be whatever he wanted to be, Holy Roller, Seventh Day Adventist, or whatever it was, but
she wasn't going to become any Muslim.
Hilda, the next morning, gave me some money to put in my pocket. Before I left, I went out and
bought three things I remember well. I bought a better-looking pair of eyeglasses than the pair the
prison had issued to me; and I bought a suitcase and a wrist watch.
I have thought, since, that without fully knowing it, I was preparing for what my life was about to
become. Because those are three things I've used more than anything else. My eyeglasses
correct the astigmatism that I got from all the reading in prison. I travel so much now that my wife
keeps alternate suitcases packed so that, when necessary, I can just grab one. And you won't find
anybody more time-conscious than I am. I live by my watch, keeping appointments. Even when
I'm using my car, I drive by my watch, not my speedometer. Time is more important to me than
distance.
I caught a bus to Detroit. The furniture store that my brother Wilfred managed was right in the
black ghetto of Detroit; I'd better not name the store, if I'm going to tell the way they robbed
Negroes. Wilfred introduced me to the Jews who owned the store. And, as agreed, I was put to