manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him,
we honor the best in ourselves.... And we will know him then for what he was and is-a Prince-
our own black shining Prince!-who didn't hesitate to die, because he loved us so."
Brief speeches were made by others. Then, the family, the OAAU members and other Muslims
present stood and filed by the coffin to view the body for the last time. Finally, the two plain-
clothes policemen ushered Sister Betty to have her last sight of her husband. She leaned over,
kissing the glass over him; she broke into tears. Until then almost no crying had been heard in the
services, but now Sister Betty's sobs were taken up by other women.
The services had lasted a little over an hour when the three minutes of prayers said for every
Muslim who is dead were recited by Alhajj Heshaam Jaaber, of Elizabeth, New Jersey. At the
phrase "Allahu Akbar"-"God is most great"-all Muslims in the audience placed their opened hands
at the sides of their faces.
An official cortege, with the hearse, of three family cars, eighteen mourners' cars, twelve police
cars and six press cars-followed by about fifty other cars-briskly drove the eighteen miles out of
Manhattan and along the New York Thruway, then off its Exit 7 to reach the Ferncliff Cemetery in
Ardsley, N.Y. All along the route, Negroes placed their hats or hands over their hearts,paying their
final respects. At each bridge crossing in Manhattan County, police cars stood watch; the
Westchester County police had stationed individual patrolmen at intervals en route to the
cemetery.
Over the coffin, final Moslem prayers were said by Sheik Alhajj Heshaam Jaaber. The coffin was
lowered into the grave, the head facing the east, in keeping with Islamic tradition. Among the
mourners, the Moslems knelt beside the grave to pray with their foreheads pressed to the earth,
in the Eastern manner. When the family left the gravesite, followers of Malcolm X would not let
the coffin be covered by the white grave-diggers who had stood a little distance away, waiting.
Instead, seven OAAU men began dropping bare handfuls of earth down on the coffin; then they
were given shovels and they carried dirt to fill the grave, and then mound it.
The night fell over the earthly remains of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, who had been called Malcolm
X; who had been called Malcolm Little; who had been called "Big Red" and "Satan" and
"Homeboy" and other names-who had been buried as a Moslem. "According to the Koran," the
New York Times reported, "the bodies of the dead remain in their graves until the Last Day, the
Day of Judgment. On this day of cataclysm the heavens are rent and the mountains ground to
dust, the graves open and men are called to account by Allah.
"The blessed-the godfearing, the humble, the charitable, those who have suffered and been
persecuted for Allah's sake or fought in religious wars for Islam-are summoned to the Garden of
Paradise.
"There, according to the teaching of Mohammed, the Prophet, they live forever by flowing
streams, reclining on silken cushions, and enjoying the company of dark-eyed maidens and wives
of perfect purity.
"The damned-the covetous, the evildoer, the follower of gods other than Allah-are sent to Eternal
Fire, where they are fed boiling water and molten brass. 'The death from which ye flee will truly
overtake you,' the Koran says. 'Then will ye be sent back to the Knower of things secret and
open, and He will tell you the truth of the things that ye did.'"
After signing the contract for this book, Malcolm X looked at me hard. "A writer is what I want, not
an interpreter." I tried to be a dispassionate chronicler. But he was the most electric personality I
have ever met, and I still can't quite conceive him dead. It still feels to me as if he has just gone
into some next chapter, to be written by historians.