and outside Faith Temple. It was crispy cold outside.
About six A.M., people began forming a line on the east side of Amsterdam Avenue. By nine A.M.
, an estimated six thousand persons thronged the nearby blocks, behind police barriers, and
faces were in every window of the apartment buildings across the street; some stood shivering on
fire escapes. From 145th Street to 149th Street, policemen had blocked off all automobile traffic
except for their own cars, the newspapers' cars, and the equipment trucks for radio and television
on-the-spot coverage. There were hundreds of policemen, some on the rooftops in the immediate
area. Combing the crowd's edges were reporters with microphones and notebooks. "He was
fascinating, a remarkably fascinating man, that's why I'm here," a white girl in her mid-twenties
told a New York Times man; and a Negro woman, "I'm paying my respects to the greatest black
man in this century. He's a black man. Don't say colored." Another woman, noticing steel helmets
inside a television network car, laughed to the driver, "You getting ready for next summer?"
When the Faith Temple doors were opened at 9:20, a corps of OAAU members entered. Within
the next quarter-hour, twenty of the men had ushered in six hundred seat-holders. Fifty press
reporters, photographers and television cameramen clustered beneath religious murals to the
rear of the altar, and some stood on chairs to see better. A Negro engineer monitored recording
equipment between the altar and the coffin which was guarded by eight uniformed Negro
policemen and two uniformed Negro policewomen. One Negro plain-clothes policeman sat on
either side of heavily veiled Sister Betty in the second row. The raised lid of the coffin hid the Faith
Temple's brass tithe box and candelabra; the head of the Islamic Mission of America, in Brooklyn,
Sheik Al-Haj Daoud Ahmed Faisal, had counseled that any hint of Christianity in the services
would make the deceased a kafir, an unbeliever. (The sheik had also dissented with the days
of public exhibition of the body: "Death is a private matter between Allah and the deceased.")
Before the services began, OAAU ushers brought in one floral wreath-a two-by-five arrangement
of the Islamic Star and Crescent in white carnations against a background of red carnations.
First, the actor Ossie Davis and his wife, actress Ruby Dee, read the notes, telegrams and cables
of condolence. They came from every major civil-rights organization; from individual figures such
as Dr. Martin Luther King; from organizations and governments abroad, such as The Africa-
Pakistan-West-Indian Society of the London School of Economics, the Pan-African Congress of
Southern Africa, the Nigerian Ambassador from Lagos, the President of the Republic of Ghana,
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah: "The death of Malcolm X shall not have been in vain."
Next, Omar Osman stood, a representative of the Islam Center of Switzerland and the United
States: "We knew Brother Malcolm as a blood brother, particularly after his pilgrimage to Mecca
last year. The highest thing that a Moslem can aspire to is to die on the battlefield and not die at
his bedside-" He paused briefly to wait out the applause from among the mourners. "Those who
die on the battlefield are not dead, but are alive!" The applause was louder, and cries rose, "Right!
Right!" Omar Osman then critically commented upon the remarks which USIA Director Carl
Rowan had made in Washington, D.C., about the foreign press reaction to the death of the
deceased. From the audience then hisses rose.
Again, the actor Ossie Davis stood. His deep voice delivered the eulogy to Malcolm X which was
going to cause Davis subsequently to be hailed more than ever among Negroes in Harlem:
"Here-at this final hour, in this quiet place, Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest
hopes-extinguished now, and gone from us forever....
"Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain-
and we will smile.... They will say that he is of hate-a fanatic, a racist-who can only bring evil to
the cause for which you struggle!
"And we will answer and say unto them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch
him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing?
Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would
know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him: Malcolm was our