Sister Betty, generally friendly enough on the phone with me, sometimes would exclaim in
spontaneous indignation, "The man never gets any sleep!" Malcolm X rarely put in less than an
18-hour workday. Often when he had left my studio at four A.M. and a 40-minute drive lay
between him and home in East Elmhurst, Long Island, he had asked me to telephone him there
at nine A.M. Usually this would be when he wanted me to accompany him somewhere, and he
was going to tell me, after reviewing his commitments, when and where he wanted me to meet
him. (There were times when I didn't get an awful lot of sleep, myself.) He was always
accompanied, either by some of his Muslim colleagues like James 67X (the 67th man named
"James" who had joined Harlem's Mosque Number 7), or Charles 37X, or by me, but he never
asked me to be with him when they were. I went with him to college and university lectures, to
radio and television stations for his broadcasts, and to public appearances in a variety of
situations and locations.
If we were driving somewhere, motorists along the highway would wave to Malcolm X, the faces
of both whites and Negroes spontaneously aglow with the wonderment that I had seen evoked by
other "celebrities." No few airline hostesses had come to know him, because he flew so much;
they smiled prettily at him, he was in turn the essence of courtly gentlemanliness, and inevitably
the word spread and soon an unusual flow of bathroom traffic would develop,passing where he
sat. Whenever we arrived at our destination, it became familiar to hear "There's Malcolm X!"
"Where?" "The tall one." Passers-by of both races stared at him. A few of both races, more
Negroes than whites, would speak or nod to him in greeting. A high percentage of white people
were visibly uncomfortable in his presence, especially within the confines of small areas, such as
in elevators. "I'm the only black man they've ever been close to who they know speaks the truth
to them," Malcolm X once explained to me. "It's their guilt that upsets them, not me." He said
another time, "The white man is afraid of truth. The truth takes the white man's breath and drains
his strength-you just watch his face get red anytime you tell him a little truth."
There was something about this man when he was in a room with people. He commanded the
room, whoever else was present. Even out of doors; once I remember in Harlem he sat on a
speaker's stand between Congressman Adam Clayton Powell and the former Manhattan Borough
President Hulan Jack, and when the street rally was over the crowd focus was chiefly on Malcolm
X. I remember another time that we had gone by railway from New York City to Philadelphia
where he appeared in the Philadelphia Convention Hall on the radio station WCAU program of Ed
Harvey. "You are the man who has said 'All Negroes are angry and I am the angriest of all'; is that
correct?" asked Harvey, on the air, introducing Malcolm X, and as Malcolm X said crisply, "That
quote is correct!" the gathering crowd of bystanders stared at him, riveted.
We had ridden to Philadelphia in reserved parlor car seats. "I can't get caught on a coach, I could
get into trouble on a coach," Malcolm X had said. Walking to board the parlor car, we had passed
a dining car toward which he jerked his head, "I used to work on that thing." Riding to our
destination, he conversationally told me that the F.B.I. had tried to bribe him for information about
Elijah Muhammad; that he wanted me to be sure and read a new book, Crisis in Black and
White by Charles Silberman-"one of the very few white writers I know with the courage to tell his
kind the truth"; and he asked me to make anote to please telephone the New York Post's
feature writer Helen Dudar and tell her he thought very highly of her recent series-he did not want
to commend her directly.
After the Ed Harvey Show was concluded, we took the train to return to New York City. The parlor
car, packed with businessmen behind their newspapers, commuting homeward after their
workdays, was electric with Malcolm X's presence. After the white-jacketed Negro porter had
made several trips up and down the aisle, he was in the middle of another trip when Malcolm X
sotto-voced in my ear, "He used to work with me, I forget his name, we worked right on this
very train together. He knows it's me. He's trying to make up his mind what to do." The porter
went on past us, poker-faced. But when he came through again, Malcolm X suddenly leaned
forward from his seat, smiling at the porter. "Why, sure, I know who you are!" the porter suddenly
said, loudly. "You washed dishes right on this train! I was just telling some of the fellows you were
in my car here. We all follow you!"
darsice
(darsice)
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