Muhammad appreciating that the article kept my promise to be objective, and Malcolm X telephoned similar compliments. Muhammad Speaks" appeared in early 1960, and it was the first featured magazine notice of the phenomenon. When I asked if I could see Muslim activities in some other cities, he arranged with other ministers for me to attend meetings at temples in Detroit, Washington, and Philadelphia. He would sit with me at a white-topped table in the Muslim restaurant and answer guardedly any questions I asked between constant interruptions by calls from the New York press in the telephone booth. The subject of my writing an article somehow never got raised, but Malcolm X proved far more cooperative when I returned. "But I have no fear of any of them I have all that I need - the truth," Mr. and Internal Revenue Service close surveillance of his organization, and of a rumored forthcoming Congressional probe. I was aware that I was being carefully sized up while he talked primarily of F.B.I. Muhammad invited me to dinner with his immediate family in his mansion. The slightly built, shy-acting, soft-voiced Mr. I expressed willingness, an appointment was made, and I flew to Chicago. He said that I should talk about an article with Mr.
Even excellent weather was viewed as a blessing from Allah, with corollary credit due to "The Honorable Elijah Muhammad."įinally, Minister Malcolm X told me that he would not take personal responsibility. Their manners and miens reflected the Spartan personal discipline the organization demanded, and none of them would utter anything but Nation of Islam clichés. Meanwhile, he suggested that I could attend some of the Harlem Temple Number 7 meetings ("temples" have since been renamed "mosques") which were open to non-Muslim Negroes.Īround the Muslim's restaurant, I met some of the converts, all of them neatly dressed and almost embarrassingly polite. Malcolm X snorted that no white man's promise was worth the paper it was on he would need time to decide if he would cooperate or not. I said I had a legitimate writing assignment and showed him my letter from the magazine stating that an objective article was wanted, one that would balance what the Muslims said of themselves and what their attackers said about them. "You're another one of the white man's tools sent to spy!" he accused me sharply. Soon he came out, a gangling, tall, reddish-brown-skinned fellow, at that time thirty-five years old when my purpose was made known, he bristled, his eyes skewering me from behind the horn-rimmed glasses. Visiting the Muslim restaurant in Harlem, I asked how I could meet Minister Malcolm X, who was pointed out talking in a telephone booth right behind me. When I entered a civilian writing career in New York City, I collected, around Harlem, a good deal of provocative material and then proposed an article about the cult to the Reader's Digest.
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