WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose? And the shape of your lips? 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? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who taught you to hate your own kind? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who taught you to hate the race you belong to? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So much so that you don't want to be around each other. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Most of us blacks, or negroes as they call us really thought we were free. 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. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm meant to ??? that sense of inferiority. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He knew it would be painful. He knew that people would kill you because of it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But he dared to take that risk. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was saying something over and above than of any other leader of that day, 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. 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." 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "But I will not speak it for the masses of people." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But he said it in a very strong fashion. ??? 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." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's why we loved him. He said it out loud. Not behind closed doors. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He took on America for us. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I, for one, as a muslim belief the white man is intelligent enough. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ??? you the one that makes it hard for himself. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ever since he brought you here. Stop sweet talking. 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 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On these harlem street corners, for most of the century, black people had celebrated their culture 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and argued the question of race in america. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I fought ???. And that means that I ?? this white man's country, because integration 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 will never happen. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You'll never as long as you live integrate into the white man's system. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 125th Str. and 7th Ave. was the center of activity among the black street artists ??. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When Malcolm arrived, technically he had no corner. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So he established his base you might say in front of ??? bookstore. 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. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then he would open his mouth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They call Mr. Muhammed a hate teacher. Because he makes you hate dope and alcohol. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They call Mr. Muhammed a black surpremacist, because he teaches you and me not only that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we are as good as the white man, but better than the white man. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You are better than the white man. 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? 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was a time when we used to drool in the mouth over white people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We thought that they ??? and that we were ??? We were dumb. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We couldn't see them as they are. 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 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nothing but an old pale thing/face ?? 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 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. 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 ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was speaking for a silent mass of black people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And saying it out front on the devils own airwaves. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that was an acto of war. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When he came off the stage I jumped off the ???, walked up to him 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and of course when I got to him the Bodyguards moved in front. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he just pushed them away and I went in front of him, extended my hand 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I liked some of what you said." 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. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He preched it in fables and parables. And later in writing his autobiography with Alex Haley, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 he sought some control in how his life would be interpreted in the future. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I would be rather ??? taken by a statement that he made of himself. 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 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 ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ...all of which had synthesized ??? into the Malcolm who became the spokesman for the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nation of Islam. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You were born in Omaha, is that right? - Yes sir. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And your family left Omaha when you were about one year old? ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I imagine about a year old. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This made your family very unhappy I'm sure. - Well, insecure if not unhappy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So you must have a somewhat prejudiced POV, a personally prejudiced POV. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because despite the fact that that happened in Ohama and then when we moved to 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And despite all of that no one was more thoroughly integrated with whites than I. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 No one had lived more so in the society with whites than I. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We were the only black children in the neighbourhood. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On the back of our property we had a wooded area. 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. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Robin Hood and Robin Hood was Malcolm. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And these white kids ???. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A reminder, he said, of the white man who had raped his mothers mother. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to Lansing Michigan. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm and his family lived outside of the city. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they had a four acre parcel with a small house on it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So they were sort of considered as farmers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Three months after the Littles moved in white neighbours took legal action to evict them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A county judge ruled that the farm property was restricted to whites only. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But Earl Little refused to move. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Here in Michigan, Klu Klux Klan Membership was at least 7.000. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Five times more than in Mississippi. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For Malcolms family white hostility was a fact of life. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Everybody was asleep in our house and all of a sudden we heard a big boom. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And when we woke up fire was everywhere. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And everybody was running into the walls and into each other, you know? 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!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's what I actually recall. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I could hear my mother yelling, I could hear my father yelling. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so they made sure they got us all rounded up and got us out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The house burned down to the ground. No fire wagon came. Nothing. We were burned out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolms father Earl Little accused local whites of setting the fire. The police accuse Earl and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 arrested him on suspicion on arson. The charges were later dropped. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Those smart Niggers who live outside of town." 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of saying a "Nigger you have to watch" because he's not dumb. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 My father was independent. He didn't want anybody to feed him. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He wanted to exercise the authority and he did. 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 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 toward improving their conditions. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But in those days if you did that you were still considered a trouble maker. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 independent of white society. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 With memberships in the hundreds of thousands Garvey's "Universal Negro Improvement 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Association" sought closer ties with african countries. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The UNIA had its own flag, its own National Anthem and and african legioun pledged to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 defend black people at home and abroad. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The US Bureau of Investigation labeled Garvey one of the prominent Negro agitators. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The federal government deported him in 1927 but Malcolm's parents remained Garvey-ans. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Earl recruited new members, Louise wrote for the Garvey newspaper. 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". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And she also would talk to us about ourselves being independent ???. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We shouldn't be calling ourselves Negros or Niggers and that we were black people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That we should be proud to call ourselves black people. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 concerned it is my legal name. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Would you mind telling me what your fathers last name was= 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 grandfather got it from his grandfather who got it from the slave master. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery - Was there any line, any point 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? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that name today... - You mean you won't even tell me what your fathers 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 supposed last name was or gifted last name was? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I never acknowledge it whatsoever. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 September 1931. Malcolm was six years old when his mother had a premonition. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We were all in the house and had dinner, supper together. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And my mother was holding Wesley, who was my youngest brother. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And she ??? nursing him 'cause when she fell asleep nursing, holding the baby ??? 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and collect money. 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." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That night around 11 o'clock Earl Little was found in an isolated area outside Lansing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 His body almost cut in to by the wheels of a streetcar. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The police reported Earl Littles death an accident. 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 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 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 under the wheels of that street car. 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. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and sisters we'd come right home and go to work. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the garden, clean the chicken shed and get ready for the night. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This was ??? dad was alive. Because to not do this brought the consequences of a whipping. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we were disciplined. 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 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we got looser and looser. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Louise Little struggled to raise her seven children through the years of gread depression. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She was reduced to where shehad no income. She tried get jobs ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She was a proud lady. She had a lot of pride. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She sold. She ?? people. She did alot of things not to be dependent sorely on welfare. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She didn't like them telling her but she could ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And this is one of the main things that devestated her more than anything else. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As time whent by you could see she was wearing down. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For seven years as Malcolm grew into adolescents his mother slowly withdrew from her family. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Two days vefore christmas 1938, Louise Little was diagonosed as paranoid and was sent to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Kalamazoo State Hospital. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 'cause my mother would never left us. ??? 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 She was gonna get better and come right back home. And it turned into years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Louise Little would remain in Kalamazoo for the next 26 years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The 13 year old Malcolm watched as the court split up his family. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Assigning the younger children to foster homes in Lansing and sending him to a white community 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ten miles away. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 conquer. 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. 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. 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 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know who had been incited ??? president of his class. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 be those things. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where he had gotten his first exposure to what might loosely ??? be told hustling. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I called myself a little Hustler up in Roxbury in those days. 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 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The last time I recall, Cab Calloway used that outfit for his stage uniform. 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. 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 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about Malcolm. 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. 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 ???. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And this used to really shake up the girls. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In Boston they called him "New York Red" in New York they called him "Detroid Red". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ????????? 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who were just being made known to the rest of the black world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm works the kitchen crew on the New Haven Railroad between Boston, New York 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and Washington DC. 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. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 sandwiches on these trains and shining shoes and stuff like that. You never will get anywhere." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He had the reputation of being a hustler. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That he was a street person but he was a hustler. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was a con man.???? 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 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. 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 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Looking back at that time, Malcolm said: "Only three things worried him. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Jail, a job and the army. 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 kill whites. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was judged unfit for the military. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolms gambling and drugs and Harlems night life were expensive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He had already been arrested twice for petty crimes. 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. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The other gang members included his friend Malcolm Jarvis, his white girlfriend B. and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 two other white women. 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 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 most of the stuff and pawn it and get money for his gambling habit. 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 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 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the houses. That's when he was arrested by three police men. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm Little, Malcolm Jarvis and the three women were charged with breaking and entering. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The fact that two black men were with white women becaome an issue in the court. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm was definitely involved with two white women and this is what made the case so 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 powerful. So outrages. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The women testified that Malcolm had forced them to participate in the burglaries. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The two men received the maximum sentence. 8-10 years in state prison. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When they sentenced us, I went out of my mind. I reached up and grabbed the bars of the cage and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I shook them, almost shook them right up off the floor, and I hollered at the judge. And I said to him, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "You might as well kill me as to give me 10 years in jail." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, I was they call a mad negro. I was one. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I knew what I saw was real. I knew there wasn't anything funny about it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I knew that when they laughed all together they were laughing: "Look what we did. We doing it to the Negro." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Then they had the unintimitadet gall 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to ask the girls, before they took them out of there, to press charges against us for rape. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The girls wouldn't do it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm Little was 20 years old, facing 8-10 years in state prison. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He had wandered far from the Garvey pride and independence his parents had preached. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was now prisoner number 22843. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To remain a criminal is the disgrace. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I formerly was a criminal. I formerly was in prison. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm not ashamed of that. You never can use that over my head, and he is using the wrong stick. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't feel that stick. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They charged Jesus with sedition. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Didn't they do that? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They said he was against Cesar. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They said he was discriminating because he told his desciples, : 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Go not the way of the gentiles, but rather go to the lost sheep. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Got to the people who don't know who they are. Who are lost from the knowledge of themselves. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And who are strangers in a land that is not theirs. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Go to those people! Go to the slaves! Go to the second class citizens! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Go to the ones who are suffering the wrath of Cesars brutality! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And if Jesus were here in america today he wouldn't be going to the white man. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The white man is the oppressor! He would be going to the oppressed. He would be going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the humble. He would be going to the ???. He would be going to the rejected and the despised. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He would be going to the so called american negro. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Prison 1946 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Behind prison walls Malcolm hustled bets, fed his drug habit and argued against the exiscante of god. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The men in his cell block called him "Satan". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But at the same time encouraged by an older black inmate, Malcolm began reading and taking 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 english courses. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm described vividly prison life. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That he was in effect lonely and limited ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but had plans for....He was going to do a lot of reading. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he certainly did a lot of writing, because I think there were times when he probably 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wrote me every week. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 During the second year in prison his brothers and sisters wrote to him about what they 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 called "The natural religion for the black man". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A religion that taught that black people were the original people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That god was black and was called Allah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They told Malcolm that they were now a part of the Nation of Islam. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Followers of the honorable Elijah Muhammed, the messenger of Allah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think Islam is one of the greatest religion of all time for all people of america. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The so called american negro have to be completely re-educated. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And Islam gives him that qualification that he can feel proud and does not feel ashamed to be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 called a black man. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I came into the muslim movement in 1947. And then started to bring my brothers and sisters in. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We already had been indoctrinated with americas ??? philosophy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So they didn't have anything to do wiht convincing us about we were black and should be proud, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we were already that when we came in. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I wrote to Malcolm and told him about...I said to him: "If you will believe in Allah, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that he would get out of prison. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that's all I wrote because I know that he had very low tolerance for religion and I didn'T 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 intend to use that tolerance. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm's brothers and sisters wrote the young prisoner that black people in america were 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 part of a lost tribe. Soon to be delivered out of bondage. And that whites, according to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammed - were a race of devils whose domination on earth was about to end. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 At first he liked every bit of it except one thing he couldn't understand. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that was the part that we were teaching about the white man being the devil. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm wrote to Elijah Muhammed. And Elijah Muhammed answered. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And when he answered he would recite the part of ??? scripture. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then he gave him the key. He said the key the bible is this book, that everything that takes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 place in this bible is on this earth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So you don't have to die to go to hell, you can catch ??? hell while you are living. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the white man is the one that is putting the hell on you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, that's a very convincing teaching, especiall when you use the white mans history to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 coraborate this. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm began reading history, philosophy and religion. The writing of D.E.B Debois, Shakespeare, Sokrates, The Fables of ???, The lives 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of Gandhi and Ned Turner. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he finds all this history of how white christians lynched black christians. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 White christians were the once who were involved in the slave trade. Those were christians. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So Malcolm began to see this and then he began to study it himself and prove that if there is such 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a thing as a real devil on this earth it has to be the white man. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammed told Malcolm to submit to Allah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But for Malcolm submission would always be difficult. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It took a week before he could force himself to bow in prayer. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Later, to help spread the teachings of Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm joined the prison debate team. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Competing about visiting college teams from harvard and MIT. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's when Malcolms name and fame started to spread amongst the prison population. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And, as the population started to grow at the debating classes, most of the fellas used to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 come over out of curiosity, just to hear him speak. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In 1950 Malcolm wrote to the Governor demanding the right to practice the muslim religion in prison. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 His letters would later end up in FBI files. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Bureau had been keeping a close watch on the Nation of Islam since the late 1930s. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm considered a trouble maker, was denied an early parole. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was not eligible to be led out at that time because he had been a threat to society. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They considered him dangerous. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Knowledge-wise and otherwise, religious-wise. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He would have been like a rotten appel in a box full of a thousand. He was gonna spoil many. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On August 7th 1952, after six and a half years in prison Malcolm was released. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Within a month he was accepted into the nation of islam. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm Little had become Malcolm X. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How did you happen to join the muslim movement? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was in prison. I was a very wayward criminal, backward, illiterate, uneducated and whatever 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 other negative characteristics you could think of, type of person. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Until I heard the teachings of the honorable Elijah Muhammed. And because of the impact that it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 had upon me, in giving me a desire to reform myself and rehabilitate myself for the first time 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in my life. Also to be able to see the effect that it had upon others. This is what made me accept it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I noticed that after being exposed to the religious teachings of the honorable 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammed immediately it instilled within me such a high degree of racial pride and racial 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 dignity that I wanted to be somebody. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I realized that I couldn't be somebody by begging the white man for what he had. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But that I had to get out of here and try to do something for myself or make somethign out 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of myself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The first time that I recalled seeing Malcolm was at the home of my father, honorable Elijah Muhammed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I saw a thin ?? man, tall man, young man, ???. He was just meeting you, the first thing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you would get from him was a smile. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He said: "This is Wallace!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I smiled at him. I was happy to see him because I had heard of him too. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he said: "The messengers son." And he was so excited about the messenger. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Really it wasn't just seeing Wallace, it was seeing the messengers son. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When Malcolm came out he was just so full of fire. He had gotten so full of fire, that he got out at the right time at 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the right place so could expound ???. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He came to Detroit, he was surprised to find there was such few people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ??? powerful deity in his mind. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he says: "I'm surprised that you are sitting here and so many empty seats. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Everytime you come out here this place should be full. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that excited the honorable Elijah Muhammed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the early 1950s the Nation of Islam was unknown in most black communities. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Total membership was believed to be no more than 400 people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm was sent on the road to spread the message. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Within two years he helped organize temples in Boston, Hartford and Philadelphia. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammed then named Malcolm Minister of the most important temple on the east coast. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Harlems temple number 7. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Mr. Muhammed knew that Malcolm had experience. That he knew New York. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He also knew, that he was that kind of men - complexion, height, speech and courage - all has 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to be taken into consideration, when you select a man to stand before the people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Plus, this is an international city. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You got to have your best in New York. And 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this is why Mr. Muhammed selected him. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In 1955, when Elijah Muhammed visited the New York temple it was to inspect the work of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ambitioned and outspoken minister, who had transformed tiny storefronts along the east coast 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 into a congregation of thousands. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammeds massage made a whole lot of people feel whole again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Human being again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Some of them came out and found a new meaning to their manhood and their womanhood. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Had Elijah Muhammed tried to introduced an orthodox form of ??? oriented islam, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I doubt if he would've attracted 500 people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But he introduced a form of islam that could communicate with the people he had to deal with. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was the king to those who had no king. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was the messiah to those some people thought unworthy of a messiah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The ??? thing is that Elijah Mudammed is like nothing I have ever taken. Like some medicine. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You see. A medicine that has cured me of all my ???. I was a sick man. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When I embraced the teachings of honorable Elijah Muhammed, these teachings cured me 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of decease. I'm a well man now. I feel good. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As long as you stay with the doctor you continue to be good - Yes sir. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What about you? How do feel about the honorable Elijah Muhamed? - Honorable Elijah Muhammed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is trying to teach all of ??? people they are ???. - Go ahead brother. - Elijah Muhammed tries to wake them up. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Inside muslim temples no white people were allowed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Members worked to build a self sufficiant community. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Thounded on strict rules and absolute obedience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The nation set up muslim schools for its children. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Teaching mathematics, sciene, history and arabic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Who is the original man?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "The original man is the ??? black man" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "The makers of all?? and the king of planet earth" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Muslim women studied nutrition, child bearing and guidlines on how to care about their husband. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Muslim man studied parental responsibility, history and religion. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The elite core, called "The fruit of Islam" was trained in hand to hand combat and was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 expected to protect the temples and to punish any members who spoke out against the messanger. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was surprised when I went to some of the muslim families. The faith that they had in the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammed and in Malcolm. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I asked one father: "Suppose your son came home one day and told you that he renounced the muslim 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 religion." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He said: "I would turn him from my door and I would never allow him in again." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I asked Malcolm. He said: "He meant it and he would do it." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I said: "Not worry about what would happen to his son?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "No, he wouldn't worry about what would happen to him. His allegiance is to Elijah Muhammed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To help expand the Nation of Islam Malcolm created a newspaper: "Muhammed speaks". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And persuaded other black newspapers to carry the messengers weekly column. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 His strenght was, once he believed in a thing he would give anything he had to it. All of his energy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He'd become a workaholic. He'd work day and night for it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He only required around 4 hours of sleep. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And many times he wouldn't even get that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Than you just kind of wonder: "How can anybody keep up that kind of ???". But he did it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Day in and day out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Plus, on top of that he's reading. He's reading papers, keeping up with what the news is. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He's just a person that's too ??? to life in such a way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That he doesn't miss too much of it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 At age 32, after devoting 5 years to building the Nation, he sought the approval of Elijah Muhammed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to merry sister Betty X. A college edubated member of Harlems temple number 7. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the years that followed the demands of his ministry allowed little time for his growing family. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He sometime, if I could catch up, he would have to read to the children. They would always want 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the story read again. So that they would really just wait that he was on the last page and say: "Read it again." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He started giving the books different endings. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He had a beautiful sense of humor. Especially if he was kidding me about pork. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ???? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You're a decent human being, smart historian. I give you 99 as a human being and you stop eating 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 pork I gonna give you a hundred. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A beautiful sense of humor plus the fact that when you got to know him he was kinda shy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm was now in the nation of islams inner circle. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammeds most visible represantitive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He had the messengers confidence and the loyalty of thousands of muslims. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In a sense Malcolm had found a father. Elijah Muhammed had found another son. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 God's Angry Men tangle with police. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Riot threat as cops beat moslem. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On an april night in 1957 a muslim brother was beaten by New York City police. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 His skull fractured, Johnson Hanton lay in a backroom of a Harlem police station. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When word spread that Hanton was dying Malcolm ordered the muslims into the streets. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Other Harlem residents joined them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The community had endured a long history of police brutality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Many considered the police an occupying force. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 18th precinct was notorious for their prejudice. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ?????? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That was the first time that anyone had marched on to 28th precinct in protest to something that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they felt wasn't right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't know what would have happened in Harlelm that night because the atmosphere was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not... I think the word to use is charged. Well, this atmosphere was explosive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm demande medical treatment for Hinton. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 After a long negotiation police agreed to send the prisoner to Harlem hospital. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But even then the muslims diffused to disperse. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This seargant came out and tried to chase ??? the muslims who were standing across the street. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And Malcolm came out and told him: "You can't do that. They're not gonna move for you. I'll send them away." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He went out to the front of the station on the first step and just waved his hand and the people walked away. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A police commissioner on the scene remarked: "That's too much power for one man to have." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm would later take New York city to court and win the largest police brutality settlement 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the cities history. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They realized that anytime a person could wave his hand and have a large number of people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 automatically move away without any conversation, that by the same token that same 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 man could wave his hand and cause those people to create some kind of disturbance if he wanted to. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I believe from that point on the police department and the political people in New York City realized 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that they had a significant force in the city to deal with. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The hate that hate produced. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Good evening I'm Mike Wallace. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Last week on news beat our 6:30 news program on January 13, we presented a five part series 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which we called the hate that hate produced. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The study of the rise of black racism. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Of a call for black supremacy among a small but growing segment of the american negro population. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We have come to here??? and to see the greatest and wisest and most ... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This 1959 documentary was the first television portrayal of the internal activities of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 nation of Islam. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm saw the television program as an opportunity. Elijah Muhammed was against it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Mr. Muhammed told malcolm no. It wasn't gonna do any good. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 All it would do is hurt us. ??? we were trying to do. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm wasn't satisfied. He didn't insist but he continued to ask Mr. Muhammed, could he do it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Mr. Muhammed reluctantly agreed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "The Trial," Nation of Islam Play. - I charge the white man with being the greates liar on earth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "The Trial," Nation of Islam Play. - I charge the white man, ladies and gentlemen of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the jury with being the greatest murder on earth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I charge the white man of being the greatest adultere on earth, so therefor... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Here was this auditorium overflowing. Thousands of people about ??? an organization 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I knew nothing about. I found it difficult to critic when I saw it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And of course when we put it on the air, New Yorkers - cause that's all that saw it - were stunned. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was this organisation, "The Black Muslims", about which white New Yorkers simply knew nothing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Minister Malcolm X, as he addresses a non-muslim audience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How could so few white people rule so many black people? This is the thing you should wanna know. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How could so few...The white man today will tell you that thousands of years ago, the black man 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in africa was living in palaces. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The black man in africa was wearing silk. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The black man in africa was cooking and seasoning his food. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The black man in africa had mastered arts and the sciences. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He knew the course of the stars in the universe before the man up in Europe knew that the earth 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wasn't flat. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Is that right or wrong? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was amazed at his ??? to communicate. And at the naked honesty with which he expressed his 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 feelings about black people or the white people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He scared me. I'm sure he intended to. But certainly??? after I saw him in The hat that hate produced 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I knew that I would never forget this man. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When I first saw Malcolm on the television, he scared me also. ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 turn off that television. That man is saying stuff you aint supposed to hear. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So of course we did. But always, you know when the sun comes into the window and you jump up 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to get it, to close the blinds or pull down the shades, but before you do that the sun comes in? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, before each time we turned the televition off a little sun came in. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 While the documentary helped bring in new converts, the racial views of the Naition of Islam 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 shocked white america and many in the black community. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Preaching of racial hatred and racial advantage and the bigotry involved is a bad thing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 wheter it's colored or white. For years the NAAPD has been opposed to white extremists preaching 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 hatred of nagro people and we are equally opposed of negro extremists preaching against 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 white people simple for the sake of whiteness. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Most in the civil rights movement believed that integration was the way to solve americas racial problems. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But Malcolm preached that black people were able to solve their own problems without the help of whites. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 At a time when black americans began to identify with freedom movements in africa and latin america, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm developed alliances with revolutionary leaders from around the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He encouraged to see themselves not as a minority but as a part of a world majority. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The riots ??? of african nations ??? with the spread with the nation of islam. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the civil rights movement. Gave black america a burst of pride.over and above anything we had had. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 since the decline of the movement of Marcus Garvin. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 will ??? wipe away our tears. That's the benifit of our unity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They are passing the basket through the crowd and I think anybody standing here should put 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 one dollar in that basket. Don't you think you should? Sure, this are freedom dollars, brothers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We're not asking you to give us some money to make us rich, we put up business. The honorable 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammed had set up more business than any black man in america. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Nation Of Islam with its interlocking corporations was now reputed to be the largest 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 black owned business empire in the united states. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Nation of Islam, during the early 60s was perhaps enjoying its best days. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We were opening restaurants and grocery stores and seen the Muhammed speaks paper compete 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with other black papers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We've seen Malcolm on television kind of frequently. We were proud of him. In our opinion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 he was doing an excellent job of representing the honorable Elijah Muhammed and the Nation of Islam. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We were seeing the Fruit of Islam not just exercising in some small facilities but seeing them 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 great numbers, hundreds of them, on the streets of big cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 My view on the Fruit of Islam was that these were the absolute baddest, cleanest brothers 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that I had seen in my life. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was some bad blood, you don't understand? I mean you did not mess with FOI. When they came 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 out in the street people would say: "Yes sir!". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The growing presence of the Fruit of Islam attracted police attention. There were increasing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 numbers of confrontations and arrests. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm warned that members of the FOI would always obey the law, but would also defend 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 themselves if attacked. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In cities across america police agencies were determined to contain the black muslims. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was only a matter of time until the two forces would again collide. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On a spring night in 1962 another confrontation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It began as a stop and search of muslim men delivering dry cleaning. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It ended with a full police assault on the muslim temple. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This time 8 men were shot. 1 Police officer and 7 muslims. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Temple secretary Ronald Stokes was dead at the scene. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I arrived at the mosque in Los Angeles after the shootin took place. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There was great sadness amongst people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm was walking back and forth shaking his head: "They're gonna pay for it." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If anyone would break into our temples we would defend it with our lives. The temple was sacred. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And those brothers, they acted on what they were taught. And I'm sure that anyone seeing police 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 break into a church would be outraged. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This didn't cause us a great surprise to us, the fact that they would resist our police officers and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 cause trouble because we have been watching this group for a long time and Chief Parker 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 warned some time ago that we might have trouble with them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Muslims riot. Kultist killed, policeman shot. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Los Angeles times reported the insident as a muslim riot and a wild gun fight. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Four Wounded, 26 taken into custody; two officers beaten. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Muslims shoot, beat police in wild gunfight. But it was never proven that any of the guns fired 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Muslims shoot, beat police in wild gunfight. belonged to the muslims. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm called for churches and civil rights organisations to form a united fund with the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 muslims against police brutality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Let us remember that we are not brutalised because we are baptist. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We are not brutalised because we're methodists, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We are not brutalised because we're muslims, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we are not brutalised because we're catholic. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We are brutalised because we are black people in america. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm telling you they came out of those cars and we have enough witnesses to hang them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 With their guns smoking. Chief Parker knows this, Mayor ??? knows this and every police official in the city knows that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They didn't fire no warning shots in the air. They fired warning shots point blank at innocent, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 unarmed, defenseless negroes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Cause I say, two of the brothers were shot in the back. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Another was shot in the shoulder. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Two of them was shot - excuse the expression - through the penis. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Let me tell you something. You say, we hate white people? We don't hate anybody. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We love our own people so much they think we hate the ones who are inflicting injustice against them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Coroner's INquest 1962 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Patrolman Donald Wease, the officer who killed Ronald Stokes testified that he knew Stokes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was unarmed but that Stokes had raised his hand in a menacing way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The all white coroners jury deliberated 22 minutes and found the death a justifiable homicide. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 14 muslims were then ordered to stand trial on assault charges. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 11 would be found guilty and sentenced to prison. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We were people that sayin ???: "Never be the aggressor but if someone attacks you, we do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not teach you to turn the other cheek." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There were muslims who were not from the east coast, but from other parts of the country, that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 would actually ?? to go out there and kill those police officers even though they may have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 been killed in the process of doing it. But that's how strong the attitude of muslims was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 against those brothers just being shot like that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Muhammad speakes: Court sets murdere free!" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The conflict of the Los Angeles mosque brought to the surface the growing differences between 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The messenger insisted Allah would evange Stokes death, but Malcolm demanded justice 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the courts. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Would it have been possible for them to get a fair trial ther would be no necessity for a trial at all. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 These are the victims of police bullets and you don't take the victims to court as a criminal. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You take the one who shot the victim to court. And it is the police who should be on trial here in Los Angeles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm began to talk less and less about god is going to get rid of the caucasian. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he began to talk about how we were gonna be able to bring him to justice. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And make them guilty and that they are not guilty according to the law of the land. ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That was not our argument at all. Our argument was that we were devine people and that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we would be protected and finally delivered. Put into the seat of authority by Allah. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That was our teaching at that time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To avoid further confrontations with city authorities, Elijah Muhammed summoned 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm to a meeting at the messengers home. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammed told him very definitely: "If you had reacted the way you should have reacted, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have had more faith in Allah, Ronald Stokes would be alive." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That was it. ??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And Malcolm said ???? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He just listened. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Mr. Muhammed told him: "That's one man that we lost. I never did tell you that we were going to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 lose anyone. But that's the way it is when you build an alligience??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He said: "They were wrong. But if I send my followers out there to do battle with those people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in an alley??, undercover or on top of the cover, they will get slaughtered and I'm not gonna do that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And Malcolm didn't like that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm had always said: "Muslims don't back down." In Harlem he had now to explain 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what happened in Los Angeles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Ronald Stokes was not the least ??? among the followers of the honorable Elijah Muhammed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was one of the highest. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was the secretary of our Los Angeles mosque. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And as we explained ??? on me, many of you thought that we should go right on out then, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and make war on the white man. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You wanted to do it yourself didn't you? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Didn't you? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You wanted some action then, didn't you? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Cause you don't like the idea of white people shooting black people down, do you? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And you're ready to do something about it? Aren't you? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We know you are and the white man should be thankful that god has given the honorable 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammed the control over his followers that he has. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Told him to play it ??? cool, calm and collected. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And leave it in the hands of god. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the months following the Los Angeles insident, Malcolms faiths in the messenger were further 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 tested by rumors about Elijah Muhammed private life. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Once a months he would go to Chicago to take money to Elijah Mohammed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he would always go to the side door. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And on this particular day, when he got to the side door there were three young ladies and they were 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 knocking and banging on the door: "Open the doodr, open the door! We need money for food, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 our children don't have this or the other." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He immediately felt that, number one he didn't belong there. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm had long dismissed stories that Elijah Muhammed had fathered eight children with 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 six of his secretaries. Now he approached the messengers son Wallace to confirm what he had 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 seen. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So I told him: "Yes, I know about that. You can see things but you don't wanna see it, so you just 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 block it out of your mind. I'm aware of secretaries having some kind of reletiaonship with my 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 father. ??? with their children. I've seen him take that children and somewhere in my consciousness 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was sure I was ??? that that was his family, but I never accepted it to deal with it in my mind. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Never did I accept it to deal with it in my mind. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Officials in the nation accused Wallace Muhammed of starting rumors and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 conspiring against his father. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The charge that I gave Malcolm information on my fathers domestic situation is true but only after 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm had already told me that he witnessed that sitiuation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It gives me great pleasure and an honor and ??? at this time to introduce to you and present to you 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the messenger of Allah, your admired and beloved ??? teacher, the most honorable and humble 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Elijah Muhammed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm had submitted himself to Elijah Muhammed as his spiritual leader. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He never tried to see anything else. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the things that he tried to put into practice himself, he thought were also being practiced 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by his leader. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And when he found out differently, it just took all of the wind out of his sails. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In public the two men continued to embrace. In private suspicion had replaced faith. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The relationship was further complicated by Elijah Muhammeds failing health. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolms popularity vastly improved. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Number one, Mr. Muhammed was thinking he had bronchitis. So Mr. Muhammed went to ??? public meetings 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 maybe once, twice a year. That's it. And the rest of the time Malcolm was going everywhere. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was Malcolm who sparked the growth of the Nation all over the country. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was in demand. Nobody was asking for Elijah Muhammed to speak, they were asking for 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm to speak. And naturally Malcolm got more involved with the civil rights struggle. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And his argument became more an argument that you would expect from someone who was in the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 civil rights struggle, then you would from someone who was following the honorable Elijah Muhammed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The 60s showed us the white man in an image that the Nation of Islam had cast him in. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the image of a brutal person, you know. Turning the dogs out on the demonstrators. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Using the fire hoses. All this helped the Nation of Islam charge against the white race. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And made it possible for the Nation of Islams spokesman, Malcolm X, to get the press, to get 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the camera on him and to state what he had confidence in, that was an alternative, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that was seperation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As muslims we believe that seperation is the best way, and the only sensible way. Not integration. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But on the other hand, when we see our people being brutalized by white bigots, white racists, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we think that they are foolish to allow themselves to be beaten and brutalized and do nothing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 whatsoever to protect themselves. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If a dog is biting a black man the black man should kill the dog. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Wheter if that dog is a police dog, a hound dog or any kind of dog. If a dog is ?? on a black man 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when that black man is doing nothing but trying to take advantage of what the government says is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 supposedly his than that black man should kill that dog or any two legged dog who ??? the dog on him. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When Malcolm talks, ??? talk, ?? articulate for all the negro people who hear them, who listen to him. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ?????? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ?????? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's Malolm's great authority over any of his audiences. He ??? their reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was probably about 14 years old and I was involved in a demonstration at this construction site. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The community was demanding integration of the work force. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We realized that Malsolm had come to watch the demonstration, when my shift changed I ran 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 across the street to talk to Malcolm. We had quite an argument that morning. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he tried to explain to me what was wrong with my laying down on the ground in front of a cement truck. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And Malcolm said if these are people who could lynch black people, murder black children, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 enslave black people, why couldn't they run over somebody with a truck? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he said: "They'd say it was an accident. Oops, my foot slipped, but you'd be " 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just as dead." And when he left and I turned around to go back across the street. I went back 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I got on the picket line, but I never laid down on the street in front of a truck again. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We were sitting across this table at the ????, talking about race relations in america and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm at one point said okay, what's your solution and he was not asking me for advice. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He just of wanted to put me on the spot for a moment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was at the time under the spell of Dr. King and his notion of the beloved society which 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 would be colorblind and in which color would not be a disability for anybody. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm was kind of looking back at me and said: "You're dreaming. I haven't got time for dreams." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The goal of Dr. King is full equality...- No. - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ...and full rights citizenship for negroes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The goal of Dr. Martin Luther King is to give Negroes a chance to sit in a segregated 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 restaurant beside the same white man who had brutalized them for 400 years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The goal of Dr. Martin Luther KIng is to get Negroes to forgive the people who have 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 brutalized them for 400 years by lulling??? them to sleep and making him forget what 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that whites had done to them. But the masses of black people in america today don't go for 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what Dr. Martin Luther KIng is puttin down. You said in one of your articles, his psychologically insecure 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or something like this. However you put it. But you didn't endorse what Martin Luther King was doing yourself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I do not reject his goals of full integration and full equality rights for american citizens, do you reject... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you don't think he's walking on the right road I'm quite sure you don't agree that he'll head to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the right place. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We were aware, or felt that it was somewhat dangerous to be too closely associated 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to Malcolm. He was saying some pretty rough things, particularly about whites. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Those of us who wanted to keep peace with the white world, some of us had our jobs in the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 white community. We didn't really get too close to Malcolm. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It has been suggested also that this movement teaches a gospel of violence, that... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 No, the black people in this country have been the victims of violence by the hands of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 white man for 400 years. And following the ignorant negro preachers, we had thought 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it was godlike to turn the other cheek to the brute that was brutalizing us. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And today the honorable Elijah Muhammed has shown black people in this country that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just as the white man and every other person on this earth has god given rights, natural rights, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 civil rights. Any kind of rights that you can think of when it comes to defending hiself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Black people should have the right to defend themselves also. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In August 1963, 250.000 americans for the march on Washington. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm came to us. He told us the story about the ????. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One thing I can say about Malcolm: Anytime he told us something he could back it up. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He had a ???? and he ??? said, I'm gonna tell you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know what I'm talking about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He says, who pays the bills for civil rights? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ??????? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You have to fight your battles. And it started in the street, but once you let them become integrated 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ???? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and than he relates it to a cup of coffee that is hot and as soon as you water it, put the milk in it cools down. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And these analogies Malcolm used sometimes were funny, but they hit home. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 KIng: ????? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Most of the people that we were organizing had also heard of Malcolm X, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and respected him and listened to him and anytime that he was going to be on 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they made an effort to hear those speeches. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And felt that he indeed understood what their problems were and that they needed to 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 be fought against. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I suppose not always non-violently. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nineteen days after the march of Washington a bomb blew apart the sunday school 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the 16th street baptist church in Bur???, Alabama. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 20 people were insured. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 4 little girls were killed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Here we're talking about bombing a church and killing 4 little girls. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the feeling of anger and not being able to do something or not doing something was 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 tremendous. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A lot of us sort of became desatisfied. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because sort of became desatisfied. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He never spoke of it,??? that we were doing anything to help our people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Who'd been brutalized by the whites and the police during the civil rights movement. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We felt that we should have gotten involved. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One white man named Lincoln supposedly fought the civil war to solve the race problem and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the problem is still here. And then another white man named Kennedy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 came along running for President and told negroes what all he was going to do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for them and they voted for him 80%. He's been in office now for three years and the problem 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is still here. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When police dogs were biting black women and black children and black babies in Birmingham, Alabama 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that Kennedy talked about what he couldn't do becasue no federal law had been violated and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as soon as the negroes exploded and began to protect themselves and got the best of the crackers 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in Birmingham, then Kennedy sent for the troops. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He didn't have any new law when he sent for the troops when the negroes errupted, than he had at 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the time when the whites had errupted. So we are within our rights, and with justification, when we 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 express doubt concerning the ability of the white man to solve our problem. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And also when we express doubt concerning his integrity, concerning his sincerity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because will have to confess that the problem has been around for a long time and whites 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 had been saying the same thing about it for the past hundred years and is no nearer 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to the solution today than a hundred years ago. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well, he has changed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Changed from religious talk to ??? talk. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To the point where I told him (Malcolm), that I listened to him when he first started 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I listen to him now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I hear a change. He says: "What kind of change do you mean?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I say: "Well, your talks when you first started out caused me to have chills when you speak. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because of the truth of what you were saying. But now I don't feel that anymore." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He told his answer to me: "Maybe you have lost your religion or your spirit" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I said: "Well, maybe I have, but I'm just letting you know how I feel." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 After a while we began to notice that there were some rumblings ?? from Elijah Muhammeds family. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Every now and then there'd be little things they would say to let you know that they got 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a problem with Malcolm rising up before the public like he's doing, because everybody had 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 began to recognize him now as the spokesman. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Spokesman" might be alright, but at the same time he's getting the public (s attention), 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the media has got him. Everybody is all "Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm X" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You're hearing Elijah Muhammeds name less and less. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm believed he could handle the jealousies within the Nation of Islam. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But tentions between him and the messenger would come to a head??? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in late November in 1963. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We're sittin in the restaurant, drinking coffee, having this meeting and the captain of the mosque, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Joseph, got a telephone call from his wife. He got up and went to the phone booth, took the call 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and he came back to the table looking visibly shocked. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He said, that his wife had just told him that Kennedy had been shot. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm sent somebody to get a radio out of the back and plugged in the radio and listened. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the announcer was saying: "To repeat. We're confirming that the president has been shot 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in Dallas, Texas. At this point we don't know how serious it is." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And Malcolm said immediately: "That devil is dead". 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Mr. Muhammed and his son called Malcolm and said: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Brother Minister Malcolm? My father told me to tell you and we're calling all over the country, that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 John F. Kennedy was assassinated. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that we should not say anything in a degradory way whatsoever, because the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 man was the president of the united states. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that people loved him." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The muslims had schedules a rallye at the manhattan center in new york city. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The day of the rallye the messenger called Malcolm to remind him to teach the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 spiritual side and avoid saying anything about the president's death. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But he was clearly nervois about what he might say. He spoke from a prepared speech. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Never specifically mentioned Kennedy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But then as if ??? courting desaster, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 he opened the floor up for questions. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Normally he would speak ????? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But this day he asked for questions and answer. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He went into this litany, comparing other leaders around the world who had somehow sufferd 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at the hand of the United States Government and his agents and how this compared to what 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just happened to Kennedy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he said: "Patrice Lamumba died and his wife became a widow, his people had their leader cut down 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the US Government had been involved in doing that." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he went through a ??? of these always winding up with the involvement of the 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 United States Government. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So that the final point when you do those kind of things all around the world you set up an 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 situation, an atmosphere, an environment in the world and sooner or later those chickens 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 come home to roost. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When he ??? I was really took ???. I didn't understand that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he answered the question: "Well, I know I'll get in trouble for this, but as far as I'm concerned 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's a case of the chickens coming home to roost." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ??? John Ali, the National Secretary was there. That's how Mr. Muhammed got the news so fast. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This ??? is from messenger Elijah Muhammed, the ??? muslim from america. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Mr. Malcolm ?? addressed in a public meeting at ?? center in New York City on Sunday, December 1st, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 did not speak for the muslims when he made comments of the ??? death of the president, John F. Kennedy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was speaking for himself and not muslims in general. And Mr. Malcolm has been 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 suspended from public speaking for the time being. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Muhammad on President Kennedy: Nation Still Mourns Death 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 While the Nation of Islam publicly ??? for the slayed president, the leadership announced 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the silencing of Malcolm X for 90 days. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He was to give no speeches and to have no contect with the press. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We were doing alot of Kennedy Stories and therer was going to be a little one talking about 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm having been suspended. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was expecting to pick up the phone and I'd get a quote and that would be it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This case he hold me on the phone for longer than I expected. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And he sounded upset, he sounded worried and it was the first time I ever sensed vulnerabilty 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in this guy who I've always been accustomed to ??? think of as an extremely strong man. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Will censure of Malcolm X lead to split in muslims? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Newspapers predicted a power struggle within the nation of islam. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was later learned the FBI fed stories to local reporters in an attempt to deepen the rift 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 between Malacolm and Elijah Muhammed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm, isolated and exhausted, accepted an invitation to Miami. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Where young heavy weight conteder Cassius Clay was training for his championship bout against Sunny Liston. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ??? member of the nation, Clay had been visiting muslim temples for two years and 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 had asked malcolm to help him mentally prepare for the fight against Liston. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well going to Florida for my family was honeymoon. My parents refered to it as a honeymoon. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Of course its significance of us going as a family was a much stronger and meaningful for them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For us it was just an opportunity to be with each other. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But as my mother and father talked about it it was the first time in their real life as a marital union. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that they had time for themselves. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Malcolm offered to bring Cassius Clay into the Nation of Islam in exchange for his own 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 reinstatement. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But the nations hirarchy ignored Malcolms offer. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 LIke most of america they saw the young boxer as a loud mouth with little chance of 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 beating Lister. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As Malcolm watched from ring side the young Clay wore down the older champion. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 At the beginning of the 7th round a batted Liston could not come out of his corner. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Clay had become the new heavy weight champion of the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ??? poetry on number seven. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He wanted to go to heaven, so I took him ???.