detective, "It's only going to be a matter of time before they catch up with me. I know too much
about the Muslims. But their threats are not going to stop me from what I am determined to do."
After that night spent in the hotel, Malcolm X was police-escorted back to O'Hare where he
caught a plane to New York City's Kennedy Airport.
Right away, he was served with a court order of eviction from the Elmhurst home. He telephoned
me upstate. His voice was strained. He told me that he had filed an appeal to the court order, that
on the next day he was going to Alabama, and thence to England and France for scheduled
speeches, and soon after returning he would go to Jackson, Mississippi, to address the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, on February 19. Then he said-the first time he had ever
voiced to me such an admission-"Haley, my nerves are shot, my brain's tired." He said that upon
his return from Mississippi, he would like to comeand spend two or three days in the town where I
was, and read the book's manuscript again. "You say it's a quiet town. Just a couple of days of
peace and quiet, that's what I need." I said that he knew he was welcome, but there was no need
for him to tax himself reading through the long book again, as it had only a few very minor editing
changes since he had only recently read it. "I just want to read it one more time," he said,
"because
I don't expect to read it in finished form." So we made a tentative agreement that the day after his
projected return from Mississippi, he would fly upstate to visit for a weekend with me. The
projected date was the Saturday and Sunday of February 20-21.
Jet magazine reported Malcolm X's trip to Selma, Alabama, on the invitation of two members of
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Dr. Martin Luther King was in a Selma jail when
Malcolm X's arrival sent officials of Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference "into a
tailspin." Quickly, the SCLC's Executive Director Reverend Andrew Young and Reverend James
Bevel met with Malcolm X, urging him not to incite any incidents and cautioning him that his
presence could cause violence. "He listened with a smile," said Miss Faye Bellamy, secretary of
the SNCC, who accompanied Malcolm X to a Negro church where he would address a mass
meeting. "Remember this: nobody puts words in my mouth," he told Miss Bellamy. He told her
that "in about two weeks" he planned to start Southern recruiting for his Harlem-based OAAU. At
the church where he would speak, Malcolm X was seated on the platform next to Mrs. Martin
Luther King, to whom he leaned and whispered that he was "trying to help," she told Jet. "He
said he wanted to present an alternative; that it might be easier for whites to accept Martin's
proposals after hearing him (Malcolm X). I didn't understand him at first," said Mrs. King. "He
seemed rather anxious to let Martin know he was not causing trouble or making it difficult, but that
he was trying to make it easier.... Later, in the hallway, he reiterated this. He seemed sincere...
."
Addressing the mass meeting Malcolm X reportedly shouted: "I don't advocate violence, but if a
man steps on my toes, I'll step on his.".. ."Whites better be glad Martin Luther King is rallying the
people because other forces are waiting to take over if he fails."
Returned to New York City, Malcolm X soon flew to France. He was scheduled to speak before a
Congress of African Students. But he was formally advised that he would not be permitted to
speak and, moreover, that he could consider himself officially barred forever from France as "an
undesirable person." He was asked to leave-and he did, fuming with indignation. He flew on to
London, and reporters of the British Broadcasting Corporation took him on an interviewing tour in
Smethwick, a town near Birmingham with a large colored population. Numerous residents raised
a storm of criticism that the B.B.C. was a party to a "fanning of racism" in the already tensionfilled
community. On this visit, he spoke also at the London School of Economics.
Malcolm X returned to New York City on Saturday, February 13th. He was asleep with his family
when at about a quarter of three the following Sunday morning, a terrifying blast awakened them.
Sister Betty would tell me later that Malcolm X, barking commands and snatching up screaming,
frightened children, got the family safely out of the back door into the yard. Someone had thrown
flaming Molotov cocktail gasoline bombs through the front picture window. It took the fire
department an hour to extinguish the flames. Half the house was destroyed. Malcolm X had no
fire insurance.
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