Autobiography of Malcolm X

The tension on the car could have been cut with a knife. Then, soon, the porter returned to
Malcolm X, his voice expansive. "One of our guests would like to meet you." Now a young, cleancut
white man rose and came up, his hand extended, and Malcolm X rose and shook the
proffered hand firmly. Newspapers dropped just below eye-level the length of the car. The young
white man explained distinctly, loudly, that he had been in the Orient for a while, and now was
studying at Columbia. "I don't agree with everything you say," he told Malcolm X, "but I have to
admire your presentation."
Malcolm's voice in reply was cordiality itself. "I don't think you could search America, sir, and find
two men who agree on everything." Subsequently, to another white man, an older businessman,
who came up and shook hands, he said evenly, "Sir, I know how you feel. It's a hard thing to
speak out against mewhen you are agreeing with so much that I say." And we rode on into New
York under, now, a general open gazing.
In Washington, D.C., Malcolm X slashed at the government's reluctance to take positive steps in
the Negro's behalf. I gather that even the White House took notice, for not long afterward I left off
interviewing Malcolm X for a few days and went to the White House to do a Playboy interview
of the then White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, who grimaced spontaneously when I
said I was writing the life story of Malcolm X. Another time I left Malcolm X to interview the U.S.
Nazi Party Commander George Lincoln Rockwell, who frankly stated that he admired the courage
of Malcolm X, and he felt that the two of them should speak together across the United States,
and they could thus begin a real solution to the race problem-one of voluntary separation of the
white and black races, with Negroes returning to Africa. I reported this to Malcolm X, who snorted,
"He must think I'm nuts! What am I going to look like going speaking with a devil!" Yet
another time, I went off to Atlanta and interviewed for Playboy Dr. Martin Luther King. He was
privately intrigued to hear little-known things about Malcolm X that I told him; for publication, he
discussed him with reserve, and he did say that he would sometime like to have an opportunity to
talk with him. Hearing this, Malcolm X said drily, "You think I ought to send him a telegram with my
telephone number?" (But from other things that Malcolm X said to me at various times, I deduced
that he actually had a reluctant admiration for Dr. King.)
Malcolm X and I reached the point, ultimately, where we shared a mutual camaraderie that,
although it was never verbally expressed, was a warm one. He was for me unquestionably one of
the most engaging personalities I had ever met, and for his part, I gathered, I was someone he
had learned he could express himself to, with candor, without the likelihood of hearing it repeated,
and likeany person who lived amid tension, he enjoyed being around someone, another man,
with whom he could psychically relax. When I made trips now, he always asked me to telephone
him when I would be returning to New York, and generally, if he could squeeze it into his
schedule, he met me at the airport. I would see him coming along with his long, gangling strides,
and wearing the wide, toothy, good-natured grin, and as he drove me into New York City he would
bring me up to date on things of interest that had happened since I left. I remember one incident
within the airport that showed me how Malcolm X never lost his racial perspective. Waiting for my
baggage, we witnessed a touching family reunion scene as part of which several cherubic little
children romped and played, exclaiming in another language. "By tomorrow night, they'll know
how to say their first English word-nigger," observed Malcolm X.
When Malcolm X made long trips, such as to San Francisco or Los Angeles, I did not go along,
but frequently, usually very late at night, he would telephone me, and ask how the book was
coming along, and he might set up the time for our next interview upon his return. One call that I
never will forget came at close to four A.M., waking me; he must have just gotten up in Los
Angeles. His voice said, "Alex Haley?" I said, sleepily, "Yes? Oh, hey, Malcolm!" His voice said,
"I trust you seventy per cent"-and then he hung up. I lay a short time thinking about him and I
went back to sleep feeling warmed by that call, as I still am warmed to remember it. Neither of us
ever mentioned it.
Malcolm X's growing respect for individual whites seemed to be reserved for those who ignored
on a personal basis the things he said about whites and who jousted with him as a man. He,
moreover, was convinced that he could tell a lot about any person by listening. "There's an art to