Then-March 26, 1964-a note came from Malcolm X: "There is a chance that I may make a quick
trip to several very important countries in Africa, including a pilgrimage to the Muslim Holy Cities
of Mecca and Medina, beginning about April 13th. Keep this to yourself."
While abroad, Malcolm X wrote letters and postcards to almost everyone he knew well. His letters
now were signed "El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz."
Then, in mid-May, Sister Betty telephoned me, her voice jubilant: Malcolm X was returning. I flew
to New York City. On May 21, the phone rang in my hotel room and Sister Betty said, "Just a
minute, please-," then the deep voice said, "How are you?"
"Well! El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz! How are you?" He said, "Just a little bit tired." He had arrived
on a Pan-American Airlines flight at 4:30. He was going to have a press conference at seven P.M.
at the Hotel Theresa. "I'll pick you up at 6:30 at 135th and Lenox, on the uptown side-all right?"
When the blue Oldsmobile stopped, and I got in, El-Hajj Malcolm, broadly beaming, wore a
seersucker suit, the red hair needed a barber's attention, and he had grown a beard. Also in the
car was Sister Betty. It was the first time we had ever seen each other after more than a year of
talking several times a week on the telephone. We smiled at each other. She wore dark glasses,
a blue maternity suit, and she was pregnant with what would be her fourth child.
There must have been fifty still and television photographers and reporters jockeying for position,
up front, and the rest of the Skyline Ballroom was filling with Negro followers of Malcolm X, or his
well-wishers, and the curious. The room lit up with flickering and flooding lights as he came in the
door squiring Sister Betty, holding her arm tenderly, and she was smiling broadly in her pride that
this man was her man. I recognized the Times 'M.S. Handler and introduced myself; we warmly
shook hands and commandeered a little two-chair table. The reporters in a thick semicircle before
Malcolm X seated on the podium fired questions at him, and he gave the impression that all of his
twelve years' oratorical practice had prepared him for this new image.
"Do we correctly understand that you now do not think that all whites are evil?"
"True, sir! My trip to Mecca has opened my eyes. I no longer subscribe to racism. I have
adjusted my thinking to the point where I believe that whites are human beings"-a significant
pause-"as long as this is borne out by their humane attitude toward Negroes."
They picked at his "racist" image. "I'm not a racist. I'm not condemning whites for being whites,
but for their deeds. I condemn what whites collectively have done to our people collectively."
He almost continually flashed about the room the ingratiating boyish smile. He would pick at the
new reddish beard. They asked him about that, did he plan to keep it? He said he hadn't decided
yet, he would have to see if he could get used to it or not. Was he maneuvering to now join the
major civil rights leaders whom he had previously bitterly attacked? He answered that one
sideways: "I'll explain it this way, sir. If some men are in a car, driving with a destination in mind,
and you know they are going the wrong way, but they are convinced they are going the right way,
then you get into the car with them, and ride with them, talking-and finally when they see they are
on the wrong road, not getting where they were intending, then you tell them, and they will listen
toyou then, what road to take." He had never been in better form, weighing, parrying,
answering the questions.
The Times' Handler, beside me, was taking notes and muttering under his breath, "Incredible!
Incredible!" I was thinking the same thing. I was thinking, some of the time, that if a pebble were
dropped from the window behind Malcolm X, it would have struck on a sidewalk eight floors below
where years before he had skulked, selling dope.
As I resumed writing upstate, periodic notes came from Malcolm X. "I hope the book is
proceeding rapidly, for events concerning my life happen so swiftly, much of what has already
been written can easily be outdated from month to month. In life, nothing is permanent; not even
life itself (smile). So I would advise you to rush it on out as fast as possible." Another note, special
delivery, had a tone of irritation with me: he had received from the publisher a letter which
indicated that he had received a $2500 check when the book contract was signed, "and therefore
I will be expected to pay personal income tax on this. As you know, it was my repeated
specification that this entire transaction was to be made at that time directly with and to the
Mosque. In fact, I have never seen that check to this very day."
darsice
(darsice)
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