Brother Malcolm." At a late evening FIPA rally before Louis Mi-chaux's bookstore, Jesse Gray
declared that in 1965 a Negro should run for Mayor of New York "in the name of Malcolm," and
speculated that such a candidate should receive 100,000 votes. Shortly after the FIPA rally,
merchants and other members of the Uptown Chamber of Commerce met and swiftly passed a
resolution urging all Harlem stores to remain open and "continue to serve their customers," and
recommendation was made that full pay be given to any store employees who might wish to
attend Malcolm X's funeral on Saturday morning. Then one after another, Harlem leaders sharply
criticized the FIPA proposal as "irresponsible." Finally, nearly all of the Harlem stores kept their
doors open for business. The FIPA got together about twenty pickets who patrolled for a while
before Harlem's largest store, Blumstein's; leading the pickets were two white men carrying signs
reading "All Stores Should Close. Honor Malcolm X."
The weather had turned very cold. Icicles hung from the collapsed roof of the fire-ruined building
that had housed Black
Muslim Mosque Number 7. The Amsterdam News, its offices barely a block down Eighth
Avenue from the funeral home where Malcolm X's body lay, editorialized, "Steady, Eddie!" saying
that orderly tributes to Malcolm X would "confound his critics, who would like nothing better than
to see black people rioting over his remains."
The fear of serious mass rioting set off by some unpredictable spark hung steadily in the air. An
increasing number of Harlem leaders declared that the principal reason for this was the
downtown white press media, sensationalizing whatwas going on in a calm, dignified community.
Finally the Harlem Ministers' Interfaith Association would issue a formal accusation: "The
screaming headlines of many of our newspapers make it seem as if all of Harlem was an armed
camp, ready to explode at any moment. The vast majority of the citizens of the Harlem
community is not involved in the unfortunate acts of violence that have been grossly overplayed
by the press. Many times the slanting of the news is able to bring about an atmosphere through
which a few depraved and reckless individuals can take advantage."
"Malcolm X Died Broke"-that headline in Harlem's Amsterdam News came as a shock to
many in the community. Few had reflected that Malcolm X, upon becoming a Black Muslim
minister, had signed an oath of poverty, so that for twelve years he never acquired anything in his
own name. (Somewhere I have read that Malcolm X in his Black Muslim days received about
$175 weekly to cover his living and other expenses exclusive of travel.) "He left his four daughters
and pregnant wife with no insurance of any kind, no savings, and no income," the Amsterdam
News story said (and it might have added that he never drew up a will; he had made a February
26th appointment with his lawyer-five days after his death). Within the week, two groups had
organized and were asking Harlemites for contributions to help Sister Betty raise and educate the
children (since organized as the Malcolm X Daughters' Fund at Harlem's Freedom National Bank,
275 West 125th Street).
In Boston, Malcolm X's half-sister, Mrs. Ella Mae Collins, told a news conference that she would
choose the leaders of the OAAU to succeed Malcolm X. Mrs. Collins operated the Sarah A. Little
School of Preparatory Arts where, she said, children were taught Arabic, Swahili, French, and
Spanish. In 1959, she, too, had broken away from Elijah Muhammad's Black Muslims, to which
she had originally been converted by Malcolm X.
Far from Harlem, in lands where Malcolm X had traveled, the press had giventhe murder a
coverage that had highly irritated the Director of the United States Information Agency, Carl T.
Rowan, himself a Negro. In Washington, addressing the American Foreign Service Association,
Rowan said that when he first heard of the murder, he knew it would be grossly misconstrued in
some countries where people were unaware what Malcolm X represented, and he said the USIA
had worked hard to inform the African press of the facts about Malcolm X and his preachments,
but still there had been "a host of African reaction based on misinformation and
misrepresentation."