Malcolm X
Page 14
Editor’s note. “The so-called Negro is so hard-hearted, so in love with his enemy [that] he does not even know who is his enemy,” the file quotes Malcolm as saying before announcing the subject of his sermon, which is “why”—why it is that black Americans so love their enemy when “every other black race on earth [is] trying to separate [itself] from the white race.” He then points out that most blacks define civil rights as the right to intermarry, particularly the right of black men to marry white women—a line of reasoning that prompts Malcolm to ask why blacks in America are so much against their own kind. Malcolm continues, according to the file, by saying that the time for white people has expired and that America is doomed, that all white people and also all the so-called Negroes who love them are doomed. “Join into your own kind,” he tells his audience, “and reclaim that which belongs to you—the whole universe.”
The above information was verified in substance on November 3, 1958, by [BUREAU DELETION]
At New York, New York
On February 9, 1959, [BUREAU DELETION] furnished information concerning a meeting of the NOI in New York on February 8, 1959. [BUREAU DELETION] stated that MALCOLM X spoke as follows:
Self preservation is the first law of nature, preservation of family and preservation of people as a race.
The wars of 1914 and the Second World War have weakened the white race. God bless Japan for bombing Pearl Harbor. We should thank them. The only way Japan was conquered was through the atom bomb. The third and last war is the fight between the darker nations and the white race.
On March 26, 1959, [BUREAU DELETION] furnished information concerning a meeting of the NOI in New York on March 22, 1959. [BUREAU DELETION] stated Minister MALCOLM asked if there were any representatives from the FBI or any detectives or cops present. [BUREAU DELETION] stated a member of the police force identified himself. MALCOLM welcomed him and stated that he wished more would come and visit the temple. MALCOLM also stated that the officer should report that they are law abiding people and they do not teach their people to love “white folks.” MALCOLM further stated “man you should arrest them.” We were kidnapped. We were not brought here on the Queen Mary or the Mayflower.
The above information was verified in substance on March 23, 1959, by [BUREAU DELETION]
On March 31, 1959, [BUREAU DELETION] furnished information concerning a NOI meeting held in New York March 29, 1959.
[BUREAU DELETION] stated Minister MALCOLM spoke and stated the sooner the so-called American Negro realized that what is wrong with us is not the color of our skin or the texture of our hair, but rather the condition of our minds and take steps to rectify this condition, the sooner we can have a race of which to be proud. MALCOLM stated that the Negroes should sit and wait without violence because the white man will destroy himself.
This document contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of any kind. It is the property of the FBI, and is a loan to your agency; it and/or its contents are not to be distributed outside your agency.
FBI
Date: 7/13/59
Transmit the following in PLAIN TEXT
Via AIRTEL ______________
TO:
DIRECTOR, FBI (25-330971)
FROM:
SAC, NEW YORK (105-7809)
SUBJECT:
NATION OF ISLAM
IS-NOI
(OO: CG)
On 7/13/59, [BUREAU DELETION] advised that he learned from a member of NOI, NYC, that MALCOLM X LITTLE was in Africa and had an audience with NASSER of Egypt. This audience was to set up meeting between NASSER and ELIJAH MUHAMMAD. [BUREAU DELETION] didn’t know source of member’s info.
[BUREAU DELETION] also learned from above member that NOI, NYC, planning “major boycotts” of stores in Harlem, NYC, to get better jobs for Negroes.
OFFICE MEMORANDUM
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO
:
DIRECTOR, FBI (25-330971)
DATE: 7/16/59
FROM
:
SAC, NEW YORK (105-7809) (412)
SUBJECT
:
NATION OF ISLAM
IS-NOI
(OO: CHICAGO)
ReNYairtel, 7/14/59
As the Bureau has been advised, MIKE WALLACE on his News Beat show on WNTA-TV, Channel 13, New York, 6:30 P.M.-7:00 P.M., during the week of 7/13–17/59, is showing a five-part report which he calls “The Hate That Hate Produced.”
The following is a substantially verbatim account of the first part of this report which was shown on 7/13/59.
Copies of this letter are designated for Detroit in view of the fact that NOI parochial schools in Chicago and Detroit were mentioned.
WALLACE:
Tonight we begin a five-part series which we call “The Hate that Hate Produced,” a story of the rise of Black Racism, of a call for black supremacy among a growing segment of American Negroes. While city officials, state agencies, white liberals and sober-minded Negroes stand idly by, a group of Negro dissenters are taking to street corner stepladders, church pulpits, sports arenas and ballroom platforms across the nation to preach the gospel of hate that would set off a federal investigation if it were to be preached by southern whites. What are they saying? Listen—
“I charge the white man with being the greatest liar on earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest drunkard on earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest ... on earth. Yet the Bible forbids it. I charge the white man with being the greatest gambler on earth. I charge the white man, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, with being the greatest murderer on earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest ... on earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest adulterer on earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest deceiver on earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest troublemaker on earth. So therefore ladies and gentlemen of the jury I ask you to bring back a verdict of guilty as charged.”
WALLACE:
The indictment you’ve just heard is being told over and over again in most of the major cities across the country. This charge comes at the climax of a morality play called The Trial. The plot, indeed the message of the play, is that the white man has been put on trial for his sins against the black man. He has been found guilty. The sentence is death. The play is sponsored, produced by a Negro religious group who call themselves the Muslims. They use a good deal of the paraphernalia of the traditional religion of Islam. But they are fervently disavowed by orthodox Moslems. Negro American Muslims are the most powerful of the black supremacist group. They claim a membership of a quarter of a million Negroes and our search indicates that for every so-called card carrying black supremacist there are perhaps ten fellow travelers. Their doctrine is being taught in fifty cities across the nation. Let no one underestimate the Muslims. They have their own parochial schools like this one in Chicago where Muslim children are taught to hate the white man. Even the clothes they wear are anti-white man, anti-American like these two Negro children going to school. Wherever they go the Muslims withdraw from the life of the community. They have their own stores, supermarkets, barber shops, restaurants. Here you see a progressive modern air-conditioned Muslim department store on Chicago’s South side. Their story of hatred is carried in many Negro newspapers. Here you see their Minister MALCOLM X proudly displaying five of the biggest Negro papers in America. Papers published in Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Newark, and Negro politicians, regardless of their private beliefs, respectfully listen when the leaders of the black supremacy movement speak. Here you see Borough President HULAN JACK shaking hands with ELIJAH MUHAMMAD, who is the leader of the Muslims, and here you see NAACP Director ROY WILKINS greeting Minister MALCOLM, the heir apparent to ELIJAH MUHAMMAD. Four or five times a year the Muslims assemble in one of America’s major cities to hear their leader, ELIJAH MUHAMMAD. Here you see them arriving at Washington’s Uline Arena for a meeting held only five weeks ago. Every devout Muslim attends the
se rallies, for sometime between now and 1970 and at just such a rally as this, the Muslims expect that ELIJAH will sound the death knell of the white man. Every precaution is taken to protect their leader. As you will shortly see, the Muslims, men and women both, submit to a complete search before entering the meeting hall. Some ten thousand persons attended the rally that you see here, all of them searched like this man. This began almost three hours before the meeting started. They are waiting now for ELIJAH MUHAMMAD, founder and spiritual leader of their group. And here he comes. He is actually ELIJAH POOLE of Georgia. During World War II, MUHAMMAD was arrested and charged with sedition and draft dodging. The Department of Justice finally dropped the charge that he advocated defeat of the white democracy and victory for the colored Japanese, but MUHAMMAD and his followers did serve time in the federal penitentiary for refusing to register for the draft.
But of more interest to New Yorkers is Minister MALCOLM X, the Muslims’ New York Minister, who you will shortly see. This is a remarkable man, a man who by his own admission to “News Beat” was once a procurer and a dope peddler. He served time for robbery in the Massachusetts State Penitentiary. Now he is a changed man. He will not smoke or drink. He will not even eat in a restaurant that houses a tavern. He told “News Beat” that his life changed when the Muslim faith taught him no longer to be ashamed of being a black man. Reporter LOUIS LOMAX asks Minister MALCOLM X to further explain MUHAMMAD‘S teachings. The conversation you will hear took place as LOMAX and Minister MALCOLM X were discussing the teachings of ELIJAH MUHAMMAD.
LOMAX:
Mr. ELIJAH MUHAMMAD teaches that his faith, the Islamic faith, is for the black man. The black man is good. He also uses the Old Testament incident of the serpent in Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and he sets up the proposition there that this is the great battle between good and evil and he uses the phrase “devil” and he uses it almost interchangeably and synonymously with the word snake. Now what does he mean there?
MALCOLM:
Well, number one he teaches us that this individual was a real serpent.
LOMAX:
It was not a real serpent.
MALCOLM:
That one in the garden.
LOMAX:
What was it?
MALCOLM:
But as you know the Bible is written in symbols, parables, and this serpent or snake is the symbol that is used to hide the real identity of the one that this actually was.
LOMAX:
Well, who was it?
MALCOLM:
The white man.
LOMAX:
I want to call your attention, Mr. MALCOLM, to one paragraph in this column. He says, and I quote him, “that only people bom of Allah are the black nation of whom the so-called American Negroes are descendants.”
MALCOLM:
Yes.
LOMAX:
Now, is this your standard teaching?
MALCOLM:
Yes. He teaches us that the black man by nature is divine.
LOMAX:
Now, does this mean that the white man by nature is evil?
MALCOLM:
By nature he is other than divine.
LOMAX:
Well, does this mean that he is evil. Can he do good?
MALCOLM:
By nature he is evil.
LOMAX:
He cannot do good?
MALCOLM:
History is best qualified to reward all research and we don’t have any historic example where we have found that they collectively for the people have done good.
LOMAX:
Minister MALCOLM, you now, in Chicago and Detroit, have universities of Islam, have you not?
MALCOLM:
Yes, sir, in Detroit and Chicago.
LOMAX:
And you take your parishioners, you take children from the kindergarten ages and you train them right through high school. Is this true?
MALCOLM:
Yes, sir, from the age of four up.
LOMAX:
And you have a certified parochial school operating in Chicago?
MALCOLM:
In Chicago.
LOMAX:
And in Detroit?
MALCOLM:
And in Detroit.
LOMAX:
And kids come to your school in lieu of going to what we call regular day school?
MALCOLM:
Yes, sir.
LOMAX:
What do you teach them there?
MALCOLM:
We teach them the same things that they would be taught ordinarily in school minus the Little Black Sambo story, and things that were taught to you and me when we were growing up to breed an inferiority complex in us.
LOMAX:
Do you teach them what you just said to me that the white man is somewhat evil?
MALCOLM:
You can go to any small Muslim child and ask him where is hell or who is the devil and he wouldn’t tell you that hell is down in the ground or that the devil is something invisible that you can’t see. He’ll tell you hell is right where he has been catching it and he’ll tell you the one who is responsible for him having received this hell is the devil.
LOMAX:
And he will say that this devil is the white man?
MALCOLM:
Yes.
OFFICE MEMORANDUM
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TO
:
DIRECTOR, FBI (25-330971)
DATE: 7/21/59
FROM
:
SAC, NEW YORK (105-7809)
SUBJECT
:
NATION OF ISLAM
IS-NOI
Remyairtel 7/16/59
The following is a substantially verbatim account of Part Three of “The Hate That Hate Produced.” Part Three was shown on 7/15/59 on the MIKE WALLACE “News Beat” show on Station WNTA-TV, New York.
WALLACE:
Tonight we take a look at the impact of the black supremacist movements upon the power structure of the New York Negro community. Not infrequently, when the Harlem leaders gather, JAMES R. LAWSON and Minister MALCOLM X are there. JAMES LAWSON is President of the United African Nationalist Movement. He is a man who said that ROY WILKINS is an “Uncle Tom.” He calls ARTHUR SPINGARN, President of the NAACP, a Zionist Jew. He calls United Nations Under Secretary RALPH BUNCH the “George Washington of Israel.” Minister MALCOLM X is the leader of the New York Muslims. They are the purveyors of the doctrine that the white man is evil by nature, that he is incapable of doing good, that he must be destroyed; and when these black supremacists hold their major meetings such politicians as ADAM CLAYTON POWELL and HULAN JACK and City Councilman EARL BROWN are not infrequently there. Here you see City Councilman EARL BROWN addressing a Muslim rally. He is at the podium. Note Minister MALCOLM X and Muslim leader ELIJAH MUHAMMAD in the background. Manhattan Borough President HULAN JACK was at that meeting and here you see him, his back, shaking hands with ELIJAH MUHAMMAD. It should be made very clear that none of these men, EARL BROWN, HULAN JACK, ADAM POWELL, is a black nationalist or Muslim; but they are politicians, leaders of mass movements, and they need votes and so sometimes they find it necessary to rub shoulders with the black supremacists.
On May 18 of last year, New York woke up to this news story:
HULAN JACK, the Negro who had been elected to the highest municipal office ever occupied by a man of his race in this nation’s history had been booed off a Harlem street corner by members of his own race. Clearly something was afoot in Harlem. No one seemed to know quite what.
“News Beat” reporter LOUIS LOMAX covered that story. LOU, what were the facts behind that story?
LOMAX:
To capsule it, MIKE, the Muslims were miffed with HULAN JACK because he had not attended some rallies that were held in Harlem; they organized the booing session. Minister MALCOLM X gave the signal by walking through a tavern door, and the booing began.
WALLACE:
LOMAX:
That is correct. They were celebrating the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision desegregating schools.
WALLACE:
And the Muslims organized the booing?
LOMAX:
Yes, they did. The booing signal was when MALCOLM X walked through the tavern door, and once the booing began, many non-Muslims joined in the well-organized spontaneous demonstration.
WALLACE:
Well then, what did HULAN JACK do to bolster his popularity in Harlem as a result of this booing incident?
LOMAX:
Well, I do not want to make any unwarranted conclusions, but the records show that within a week or two HULAN JACK hired a Negro public relations man. A month and a half later he welcomed Mr. ELIJAH MUHAMMAD, the leader of the Muslims, to New York.
WALLACE:
Well, what do you say?
LOMAX:
Just this. That there was unrest in the Negro community, that HULAN JACK was very unpopular, and that the Muslims were those who expressed this sentiment.
WALLACE:
And he wooed the Muslims?
LOMAX:
Yes.