Astonishing numbers of white people called, and wrote, offering contributions, or asking could
they join? The answer was, no, they couldn't join; our membership was all black-but if their
consciences dictated, they could financially help our constructive approach to America's race
problems.
Speaking-engagement requests came in-twenty-two of them in one particular Monday morning's
mail. It was startling to me that an unusual number of the requests came from groups of white
Christian ministers.
I called a press conference. The microphones stuck up before me. The flashbulbs popped. The
reporters, men and women, white and black, representing media that reached around the world,
sat looking at me with their pencils and open notebooks.
I made the announcement: "I am going to organize and head a new mosque in New York City
known as the Muslim Mosque, Inc. This will give us a religious base, and the spiritual force
necessary to rid our people of the vices that destroy the moral fiber of our community.
"Muslim Mosque, Inc. will have its temporary headquarters in the HotelTheresa in Harlem. It will
be the working base for an action program designed to eliminate the political oppression, the
economic exploitation, and the social degradation suffered daily by twenty-two million Afro-
Americans."
Then the reporters began firing questions at me.
It was not all as simple as it may sound. I went few places without constant awareness that any
number of my former brothers felt they would make heroes of themselves in the Nation of Islam if
they killed me. I knew how Elijah Muhammad's followers thought; I had taught so many of them to
think. I knew that no one would kill you quicker than a Muslim if he felt that's what Allah wanted
him to do.
There was one further major preparation that I knew I needed. I'd had it in my mind for a long
time-as a servant of Allah. But it would require money that I didn't have.
I took a plane to Boston. I was turning again to my sister Ella. Though at times I'd made Ella
angry at me, beneath it all, since I had first come to her as a teen-aged hick from Michigan, Ella
had never once really wavered from my corner.
"Ella," I said, "I want to make the pilgrimage to Mecca."
Ella said, "How much do you need?"