its services.
On the Thursday M.G.T. and G.C.C. nights, sometimes I would drop in on the classes, and
maybe at Sister Betty X's classes-just as on other nights I might drop in on the different brothers'
classes. At first I would just ask her things like how were the sisters learning-things like that, and
she would say "Fine, Brother Minister." I'd say, "Thank you, Sister." Like that. And that would be
all there was to it. And after a while, I would have very short conversations with her, just to be
friendly.
One day I thought it would help the women's classes if I took her-just because she happened to
be an instructor, to the Museum of Natural History. I wanted to show her some Museum displays
having to do with the tree of evolution, that would help her in her lectures. I could show her proofs
of Mr. Muhammad's teachings of such things as that the filthy pig is only a large rodent. The pig is
a graft between a rat, a cat and a dog, Mr. Muhammad taught us. When I mentioned my idea to
Sister Betty X, I made it very clear that it was just to help her lectures to the sisters. I had even
convinced myself that this was the only reason.
Then by the time of the afternoon I said we would go, well, I telephoned her; I told her I had to
cancel the trip, that something important had come up. She said, "Well, you sure waited long
enough to tell me, Brother Minister, I wasjust ready to walk out of the door." So I told her, well, all
right, come on then, I'd make it somehow. But I wasn't going to have much time.
While we were down there, offhandedly I asked her all kinds of things. I just wanted some idea of
her thinking; you understand, I mean how she thought. I was halfway impressed by her
intelligence and also her education. In those days she was one of the few whom we had attracted
who had attended college.
Then, right after that, one of the older sisters confided to me a personal problem that Sister Betty
X was having. I was really surprised that when she had had the chance, Sister Betty X had not
mentioned anything to me about it. Every Muslim minister is always hearing the problems of
young people whose parents have ostracized them for becoming Muslims. Well, when Sister
Betty X told her foster parents, who were financing her education, that she was a Muslim, they
gave her a choice: leave the Muslims, or they'd cut off her nursing school.
It was right near the end of her term-but she was hanging on to Islam. She began taking babysitting
jobs for some of the doctors who lived on the grounds of the hospital where she was
training.
In my position, I would never have made any move without thinking how it would affect the Nation
of Islam organization as a whole.
I got to turning it over in my mind. What would happen if I just should happen, sometime, to
think about getting married to somebody? For instance Sister Betty X-although it could be any
sister in any temple, but Sister Betty X, for instance, would just happen to be the right height for
somebody my height, and also the right age.
Mr. Elijah Muhammad taught us that a tall man married to a too-short woman, orvice-versa, they
looked odd, not matched. And he taught that a wife's ideal age was half the man's age, plus
seven. He taught that women are physiologically ahead of men. Mr. Muhammad taught that no
marriage could succeed where the woman did not look up with respect to the man. And that the
man had to have something above and beyond the wife in order for her to be able to look to him
for psychological security.
I was so shocked at myself, when I realized what I was thinking, I quit going anywhere near
Sister Betty X, or any where I knew she would be. If she came into our restaurant and I was
there, I went out somewhere. I was glad I knew that she had no idea what I had been thinking
about. My not talking to her wouldn't give her any reason to think anything, since there had never
been one personal word spoken between us-even if she had thought anything.
I studied about if I just should happen to say something to her-what would her position be?
Because she wasn't going to get any chance to embarrass me. I had heard too many women
bragging, "I told that chump 'Get lost!'" I'd had too much experience of the kind to make a man
very cautious.
I knew one good thing; she had few relatives. My feeling about in-laws was that they were
darsice
(darsice)
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