1 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? 2 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? 3 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose? And the shape of your lips? 4 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? 5 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who taught you to hate your own kind? 6 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who taught you to hate the race you belong to? 7 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So much so that you don't want to be around each other. 8 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Befor you come asking Mr. Muhammed, does he teach hate you should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what god made you. 9 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Most of us blacks, or negroes as they call us really thought we were free. 10 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Without being aware that in our subconscious all those change we thought we had ??? was still there. 11 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And there were many ways where what really motivated us was our desire to be loved by the white man. 12 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Malcolm meant to ??? that sense of inferiority. 13 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He knew it would be painful. He knew that people would kill you because of it. 14 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But he dared to take that risk. 15 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He was saying something over and above than of any other leader of that day, 16 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 While the other leaders were begging for entry into the house of their oppressor he was telling you to build your own house. 17 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He expelled fear for african americans. He said: "I'll speak out loud what you've been thinking." 18 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And he said: "You'll see. People will hear and they won't do anything to us necessarily. Okay. 19 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 "But I will not speak it for the masses of people." 20 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But he said it in a very strong fashion. ??? 21 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in a fashion that said: "I am not afraid to say what you've been thinking all these years." 22 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That's why we loved him. He said it out loud. Not behind closed doors. 23 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He took on America for us. 24 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And I, for one, as a muslim belief the white man is intelligent enough. 25 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 If he were made to realize how black people really feel and how fed up we are without all that compromising sweet-talk. 26 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ??? you the one that makes it hard for himself. 27 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The white man beliefs you when you go to him with all that sweet talk, because you've been sweet talking 28 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ever since he brought you here. Stop sweet talking. 29 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Tell him how you feel. Tell him how what kind of hell you been catching ??? and let him know that if he's not ready 30 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to clean his house up. He shouldn't have a house. It should catch ??? on fire and burn down. 31 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 On these harlem street corners, for most of the century, black people had celebrated their culture 32 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and argued the question of race in america. 33 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 It was here that Malcolm first joined the street orders who gave voice to harlems hope and its anger. 34 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I fought ???. And that means that I ?? this white man's country, because integration 35 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 will never happen. 36 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You'll never as long as you live integrate into the white man's system. 37 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 125th Str. and 7th Ave. was the center of activity among the black street artists ??. 38 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When Malcolm arrived, technically he had no corner. 39 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So he established his base you might say in front of ??? bookstore. 40 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When Malcolm would ascend the little platform he couldn't talk for the first four or five minutes. 41 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The people would be making such a ??? shout to him. And he was standing, taking his due. 42 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And then he would open his mouth. 43 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They call Mr. Muhammed a hate teacher. Because he makes you hate dope and alcohol. 44 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 They call Mr. Muhammed a black surpremacist, because he teaches you and me not only that 45 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 we are as good as the white man, but better than the white man. 46 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You are better than the white man. 47 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And that's not saying anything. You don't ?? to be equal to him. Who is he to be equal with? 48 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Look as his skin. You can't compare your skin with his skin, while your skin looks like gold beside his skin. 49 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There was a time when we used to drool in the mouth over white people. 50 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We thought that they ??? and that we were ??? We were dumb. 51 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We couldn't see them as they are. 52 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Since the honorable Elijah Muhammed has come and taught us the religion of islam ?? clean us up 53 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and ?? so we can see for ourselves. Now we can see ?? pale things to look exactly as we look. 54 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Nothing but an old pale thing/face ?? 55 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I came away from that rally feeling that with him, once you heard him speak you never went back 56 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to where you were before. Even if you kept your position you had to re-think it. 57 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We weren't accustomed of being told that we were devils and that we were oppressors up here in our northern ??? 58 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He was speaking for a silent mass of black people. 59 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And saying it out front on the devils own airwaves. 60 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And that was an acto of war. 61 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When he came off the stage I jumped off the ???, walked up to him 62 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and of course when I got to him the Bodyguards moved in front. 63 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And he just pushed them away and I went in front of him, extended my hand 64 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and said: "I like some of what you said. I didn't agree with all what you said, but 65 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I liked some of what you said." 66 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He looked at me, held my hand in a very gentle fasion and said: "One day you will, siter". And he smiled. 67 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 To make his message clear, Malcolm used his own life as a lesson to all black americans. 68 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He preched it in fables and parables. And later in writing his autobiography with Alex Haley, 69 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 he sought some control in how his life would be interpreted in the future. 70 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I would be rather ??? taken by a statement that he made of himself. 71 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He would say: "I am a part of all I admit." And by that he meant that all the things 72 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 he had done in his earlier life had exposed him to things, that taught him skills of ??? 73 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ...all of which had synthesized ??? into the Malcolm who became the spokesman for the 74 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Nation of Islam. 75 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You were born in Omaha, is that right? - Yes sir. 76 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And your family left Omaha when you were about one year old? ??? 77 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I imagine about a year old. 78 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Why did they leave Omaha? - To my understanding the Ku Klux Klan burned down one of their homes in Omaha. 79 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This made your family very unhappy I'm sure. - Well, insecure if not unhappy. 80 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So you must have a somewhat prejudiced POV, a personally prejudiced POV. 81 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You cannot look at this in a broad academic sort of way. - I think this ain't correct. 82 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Because despite the fact that that happened in Ohama and then when we moved to 83 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Lansing, Michigan our home was burned down again. My father was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. 84 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And despite all of that no one was more thoroughly integrated with whites than I. 85 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 No one had lived more so in the society with whites than I. 86 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We were the only black children in the neighbourhood. 87 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 On the back of our property we had a wooded area. 88 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So the white kids would all come to our house and they'd go back and play in the woods. 89 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So Malcolm would say: "Let's go play Robin Hood." So we would go back there and play 90 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Robin Hood and Robin Hood was Malcolm. 91 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And these white kids ???. 92 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Malcolm said he was the lightest skinned of the seven children born to Earl and Louis Little. 93 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 A reminder, he said, of the white man who had raped his mothers mother. 94 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In 1929, when Malcolm was 4 years old his father, a carpenter and preacher moved the family 95 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 to Lansing Michigan. 96 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Lansing was a small town and the west side was the side of town the blacks lived on. 97 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Malcolm and his family lived outside of the city. 98 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And they had a four acre parcel with a small house on it. 99 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So they were sort of considered as farmers. 100 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Three months after the Littles moved in white neighbours took legal action to evict them. 101 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 A county judge ruled that the farm property was restricted to whites only. 102 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But Earl Little refused to move. 103 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Here in Michigan, Klu Klux Klan Membership was at least 7.000. 104 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Five times more than in Mississippi. 105 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 For Malcolms family white hostility was a fact of life. 106 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Everybody was asleep in our house and all of a sudden we heard a big boom. 107 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And when we woke up fire was everywhere. 108 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And everybody was running into the walls and into each other, you know? 109 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What I recall about that was my mother telling us: "Get up, get up, get up! The house is on fire! Get out!" 110 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That's what I actually recall. 111 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I could hear my mother yelling, I could hear my father yelling. 112 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And so they made sure they got us all rounded up and got us out. 113 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The house burned down to the ground. No fire wagon came. Nothing. We were burned out. 114 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Malcolms father Earl Little accused local whites of setting the fire. The police accuse Earl and 115 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 arrested him on suspicion on arson. The charges were later dropped. 116 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In the city where we grew up whites would refer to us as "Those uppity Niggers" or 117 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 "Those smart Niggers who live outside of town." 118 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In those days whenever a white person refered to you as a "Smart Nigger" that was their way 119 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 of saying a "Nigger you have to watch" because he's not dumb. 120 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My father was independent. He didn't want anybody to feed him. 121 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He wanted to raise his own food. He didn't want anybody to exercise authority over his children. 122 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He wanted to exercise the authority and he did. 123 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He was always speaking in terms of Marcus Garvey's way of thinking and trying to get black 124 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 people to organize themselves. Not to cause any trouble but just to work in unity with each other 125 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 toward improving their conditions. 126 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But in those days if you did that you were still considered a trouble maker. 127 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In the 1920's Marcus Garvey, a black nationalist preached that black americans should build a nation 128 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 independent of white society. 129 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 With memberships in the hundreds of thousands Garvey's "Universal Negro Improvement 130 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Association" sought closer ties with african countries. 131 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The UNIA had its own flag, its own National Anthem and and african legioun pledged to 132 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 defend black people at home and abroad. 133 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The US Bureau of Investigation labeled Garvey one of the prominent Negro agitators. 134 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The federal government deported him in 1927 but Malcolm's parents remained Garvey-ans. 135 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Earl recruited new members, Louise wrote for the Garvey newspaper. 136 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My mother was the one who would read to us the Garvey paper which was called "The Negro world". 137 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And she also would talk to us about ourselves being independent ???. 138 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We shouldn't be calling ourselves Negros or Niggers and that we were black people. 139 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That we should be proud to call ourselves black people. 140 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 What is your real name? - Maclolm X. Is that your legal name? - As far as I'm 141 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 concerned it is my legal name. 142 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Would you mind telling me what your fathers last name was= 143 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My father didn't know his last name. My father got his last name from his grandfather and his 144 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 grandfather got it from his grandfather who got it from the slave master. 145 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery - Was there any line, any point 146 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in the genealogy of your family when you did have to use the last name, and if so, what was it? 147 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America 148 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and made slaves and then the name of their slavemaster was given which we refuse. We reject 149 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 that name today... - You mean you won't even tell me what your fathers 150 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 supposed last name was or gifted last name was? 151 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I never acknowledge it whatsoever. 152 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 September 1931. Malcolm was six years old when his mother had a premonition. 153 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We were all in the house and had dinner, supper together. 154 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And my mother was holding Wesley, who was my youngest brother. 155 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And she ??? nursing him 'cause when she fell asleep nursing, holding the baby ??? 156 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My father had gotten up and went into the bedroom ??? to clean up and to go down 157 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and collect money. 158 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And she woke up and she said: "Earl, don't go downtown! If you go you won't come back." 159 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That night around 11 o'clock Earl Little was found in an isolated area outside Lansing. 160 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 His body almost cut in to by the wheels of a streetcar. 161 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The police reported Earl Littles death an accident. 162 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 There was a cloud over that whole issue, because at that time there was perceive that rather 163 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 than an accident with a streetcar that Rev. Little had really been pushed under the wheels of 164 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the streetcar. As a matter of fact I remember hearing just that language, that he was probably pushed. 165 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 under the wheels of that street car. 166 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 My fathers death caused great, great shock in the family, because he was the power. He was the strenght. 167 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 We were an organized and structured family. When we got out of school, me and my brothers 168 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and sisters we'd come right home and go to work. 169 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In the garden, clean the chicken shed and get ready for the night. 170 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And get up in the morning and all of this. We'd pump the water and bring in the house. 171 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This was ??? dad was alive. Because to not do this brought the consequences of a whipping. 172 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So we were disciplined. 173 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And than after my father got killed and my mothers inability to run as fast as I could run 174 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 or Malcolm enabled us to get away with a lot of things we wouldn't even have tried get away with. 175 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 So we got looser and looser. 176 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Louise Little struggled to raise her seven children through the years of gread depression. 177 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 She was reduced to where shehad no income. She tried get jobs ??? 178 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 She was a proud lady. She had a lot of pride. 179 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 She sold. She ?? people. She did alot of things not to be dependent sorely on welfare. 180 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 She didn't like them telling her but she could ??? 181 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And this is one of the main things that devestated her more than anything else. 182 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 As time whent by you could see she was wearing down. 183 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 For seven years as Malcolm grew into adolescents his mother slowly withdrew from her family. 184 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Two days vefore christmas 1938, Louise Little was diagonosed as paranoid and was sent to 185 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Kalamazoo State Hospital. 186 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When I came home from school one day and she wasn't there. I can remember feeling empty 187 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 'cause my mother would never left us. ??? 188 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And I felt the pain of her being gone everyday and it was only gonna be a couple of weeks. 189 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 She was gonna get better and come right back home. And it turned into years. 190 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Louise Little would remain in Kalamazoo for the next 26 years. 191 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The 13 year old Malcolm watched as the court split up his family. 192 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Assigning the younger children to foster homes in Lansing and sending him to a white community 193 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ten miles away. 194 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In the past the greatest weapon the white man has had has been his ability to devide and 195 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 conquer. 196 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When I take my hand and slap you, you don't even feel it. It might sting you because this digits are seperated. 197 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together. 198 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He was a man who in the eight grade in Michigan, a school where I think he was the only black 199 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in his class and one of the very few in the school have been an outstanding straight A student. 200 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 You know who had been incited ??? president of his class. 201 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And all the others were white in the eight grade and obviously he had to be exceptional to 202 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 be those things. 203 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And then you had the Malcolm who had left school and who had gone to Roxbury, Massachusetts 204 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 where he had gotten his first exposure to what might loosely ??? be told hustling. 205 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I called myself a little Hustler up in Roxbury in those days. 206 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And this particular day ??? Malcolm X had come into Buscity???, had on his zoot suit with the wide 207 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ??? had with the long 3/4 lenght coat ?? with the chain that went down to your ankles. 208 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The last time I recall, Cab Calloway used that outfit for his stage uniform. 209 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When Malcolm left Lansing he had nothing but an old square suit on. White man suit as I call it. 210 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When he came back from Boston, oh Lord, Malcolm had a zoot suit on him and a wide brim hat with 211 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 a chain from his hat down to his lapel. He was the top of the town. Everybody was talking 212 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 about Malcolm. 213 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When he was dancing on the floor, and he was floating around those pants ??? like he was a floating balloon. 214 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And that coat was like a wing. The way he'd be dancing ??? flying around with that big ???. 215 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And this used to really shake up the girls. 216 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In Boston they called him "New York Red" in New York they called him "Detroid Red". 217 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ????????? 218 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And he had pictures of him and Billy Holiday and all these people of that time out there. 219 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Who were just being made known to the rest of the black world. 220 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Malcolm works the kitchen crew on the New Haven Railroad between Boston, New York 221 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 and Washington DC. 222 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 In 1942 he moved to Harlem and at age 17 began travelling in a world of ??? after hour clubs and small time hustlers. 223 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He had reached a point at where he said: "You'll never make it on this janitory jobs and selling 224 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 sandwiches on these trains and shining shoes and stuff like that. You never will get anywhere." 225 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He had the reputation of being a hustler. 226 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 That he was a street person but he was a hustler. 227 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He was a con man.???? 228 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When the white folks ??? came out at night and they wanted black women, he could arrange for 229 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 them to get them. If they wanted bootleg-whiskey he knew where to get it. If they wanted drugs he knew where to get it. 230 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He made it possilbe. He knew what they wanted and he knew where to get it and he would be 231 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 in the middle where he could make a profit off of it. And this is the way he started doing it. 232 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Looking back at that time, Malcolm said: "Only three things worried him. 233 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Jail, a job and the army. 234 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 To avoid derving in WW2 he told his draft board that he wanted to organize black soldiers to 235 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 kill whites. 236 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He was judged unfit for the military. 237 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Malcolms gambling and drugs and Harlems night life were expensive. 238 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 He had already been arrested twice for petty crimes. 239 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When he moved back to Austin back in 1945 he organized a gang to burglurise homes of prominent families. 240 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The other gang members included his friend Malcolm Jarvis, his white girlfriend B. and 241 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 two other white women. 242 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 This girl knew that these people were down to Florida that time of the year. There was nobody 243 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 home, so we broke into the house and we'd get some of their valuables and Malcolm would take 244 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 most of the stuff and pawn it and get money for his gambling habit. 245 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 After two weeks of doing this that's when the case broke ??? when he made the mistake of going to 246 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the pawn shop to retrieve a watch with over a thousand dollars that came out of one of 247 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 the houses. That's when he was arrested by three police men. 248 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Malcolm Little, Malcolm Jarvis and the three women were charged with breaking and entering. 249 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The fact that two black men were with white women becaome an issue in the court. 250 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Malcolm was definitely involved with two white women and this is what made the case so 251 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 powerful. So outrages. 252 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The women testified that Malcolm had forced them to participate in the burglaries. 253 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 The two men received the maximum sentence. 8-10 years in state prison. 254 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 When they said the ??? I went out of my mind. I reached up and grabbed the bars of the cage and 255 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I shook then almost right up off the ??? and I hollered at the judge. I said to him: "You might as 256 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 well kill me as give me ten years in jail. 257 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 Well, I was a ??? mad negro. I was one. 258 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 And I knew what I saw was real. I don't know if ??? there was anything funny about it. ??? 259 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 I knew that when they laughed all together they were laughing: "Look what we did. We do'd it ??? 260 99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999 ??? Negro.