questions I asked between constant interruptions by callsfrom the New York press in the
telephone booth. When I asked if I could see Muslim activities in some other cities, he arranged
with other ministers for me to attend meetings at temples in Detroit, Washington, and
Philadelphia.
My article entitled "Mr. Muhammad Speaks" appeared in early 1960, and it was the first featured
magazine notice of the phenomenon. A letter quickly came from Mr. Muhammad appreciating that
the article kept my promise to be objective, and Malcolm X telephoned similar compliments.
About this time, Dr. C. Eric Lincoln's book The Black Muslims in America was published and
the Black Muslims became a subject of growing interest. During 1961 and 1962, the Saturday
Evening Post teamed me with a white writer, Al Balk, to do an article; next I did a personal
interview of Malcolm X for Playboy magazine, which had promised to print verbatim whatever
response he made to my questions. During that interview of several days' duration, Malcolm X
repeatedly exclaimed, after particularly blistering anti-Christian or anti-white statements: "You
know that devil's not going to print that!" He was very much taken aback when Playboy kept its
word.
Malcolm X began to warm up to me somewhat. He was most aware of the national periodicals'
power, and he had come to regard me, if still suspiciously, as one avenue of access. Occasionally
now he began to telephone me advising me of some radio, television, or personal speaking
appearance he was about to make, or he would invite me to attend some Black Muslim bazaar or
other public affair.
I was in this stage of relationship with the Malcolm X who often described himself on the air as
"the angriest black man in America" when in early 1963 my agent brought me together with a
publisher whom the Playboy interview had given the idea of the autobiography of Malcolm X. I
was asked if I felt I could get the now nationally known firebrand to consent to telling the intimate
details of his entire life. I said I didn't know, but I would ask him.The editor asked me if I could
sketch the likely highlights of such a book, and as I commenced talking, I realized how little I
knew about the man personally, despite all my interviews. I said that the question had made me
aware of how careful Malcolm X had always been to play himself down and to play up his leader
Elijah Muhammad.
All that I knew, really, I said, was that I had heard Malcolm X refer in passing to his life of crime
and prison before he became a Black Muslim; that several times he had told me: "You wouldn't
believe my past," and that I had heard others say that at one time he had peddled dope and
women and committed armed robberies.
I knew that Malcolm X had an almost fanatical obsession about time. "I have less patience with
someone who doesn't wear a watch than with anyone else, for this type is not time-conscious," he
had once told me. "In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or
failure." I knew how the Black Muslim membership was said to increase wherever Malcolm X
lectured, and I knew his pride that Negro prisoners in most prisons were discovering the Muslim
religion as he had when he was a convict. I knew he professed to eat only what a Black Muslim
(preferably his wife Betty) had cooked and he drank innumerable cups of coffee which he
lightened with cream, commenting wryly, "Coffee is the only thing I like integrated." Over our
luncheon table, I told the editor and my agent how Malcolm X could unsettle non-Muslims-as, for
instance, once when he offered to drive me to a subway, I began to light a cigarette and he drily
[sic] observed, "That would make you the first person ever to smoke in this automobile."
Malcolm X gave me a startled look when I asked him if he would tell his life story for publication. It
was one of the few times I have ever seen him uncertain. "I will have to give a book a lot of
thought," he finally said. Two days later, he telephoned me to meet him again at the Black Muslim
restaurant. He said, "I'll agree. I think my life story may help people to appreciate better how Mr.
Muhammad salvages black people. But I don't want my motives for this misinterpreted by
anybody-the Nation of Islam must get every penny that might come to me." Of course, Mr.
Muhammad's agreement would be necessary, and I would have to ask Mr. Muhammad myself.
So I flew again to see Mr. Muhammad, but this time to Phoenix, Arizona, where the Nation of