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oe ee Pe Tae ee a kor | I remember Malcolm, too. Arguing cluil rights with™mNe Shortly before the 1963 march on Washington, he waved a hand toward the Justice Department and said; “The Negroes have been sugared to death by, elvil rights, When the sugar gets bitter in thelr: mouths, they'll taste if our way.” Behind his articulate speech was a dash of! contempt. It was there whenever I heard him talk- ing to white men he didn’t know. And because he was so intelligent, it hurt, lA FEW MONTHS after that interview, Malcolm,! Ih characteristically outspoken, called President Kennedy's death @ case of “chickens coming home to roost.” He was capable of even greater enar- tMmities, Allegedly because of that statement, but more: obably because he was gaining too much power} ‘the family-bond Black Muslim movement, Elijah ; Muhammad the sect’s leader, silenced him. His mosque was taken away and he began brooding over assassination. When it came in the. crowded leczire nail, two men identified by pollce’ as Black Muslims were among those accused of Killing him, | Malcolm's 38 years are chronicled superbly in “The Autoblography of Malcolm X,” written with Aiex Haley, It says everything that needs saying’ heiek + about why a poverty-stricken bul super-bright Negre turns to the bizarre Muslim creed. But this story is more about what Malcolm left behind, and in terms of material things, he didn’t leave behind much. Unlike many of the Muslim leaders, he never. Made any money from the religion he served and recruited for during almost a decade. Friends have started a fund to help his wife, Betty, keep the family together. And in terms of doctrine and or- ganizations, Malcolm’s legacy is equally bare. | T THE HOTEL THERESA in Harlem, the OAAU, headed by Maicolm’s half-sister in Boston, » Maintains a meeting reem—~—wastairs. On the door are signs saying it can be gented for $1.25 an hour as a rehearsal hall, If it has 150 dedi- cated members, that would surpriss Negro leaders. The Muslim Mosque Inc., which Malcolm founded to unify American Muslims—real Muslims—has col- lapsed, . Qn West 11th Street Muhammed Moasaue Se ee Se Ce ee ere eg Number Seven, where he had se often praised Eli- jah, is a charred shell, with a clutter of newspapers and beer cans inside its jarfmed front door, When Malcolm was meurdered, someone set tt afire and on the Winter day I visited it, the build- ing was silent as Malcolm's own dead lps. \ In Harlem and elsewhere, I spoke with men i Who had known Malcolm, They explained why he Teu.ains a symbol for the -beaten-down Negro in many Cities, despite, even because of, his violent, | sardoniea?-enti- -white tirades, Stee 53 a Fe much of it—was sound, “but his solutions L) | ‘Azar HEADQUARTERS In Harlem, execu- tive secretary Erle C. Swaby, who knew film as “Big Red” before Malcolm turned from crime to the Black Muslims, spoke feelingly: | “I's notat ali that he was just pright,but he was honest. He said what Negroes have b ante ing to say for years, but didn’t have the guis. ‘What hétett“tehind was = force: his nersenalftw< > heteff tehind 2 force: his personality, Black Muslims generally keep apart from Civil Rights demonstrations, but Swaby told how Mal- colm had gone to the rally in Foley Square for four little Negro girls killed in an Alabama Sunday school bombing. “Fle was beginning to change. His diagnosis was always letter perfect, but his cure wasn’t right.” Swaby's intent face broke up into a smile: “T wouldn’t have been surprised if in another year I could have gotten a membership (in the | NAACP) out of him.” Another Harlem friend of Malcolm was Dr, Josef Ben-Johanan, a leader of the African Nation- alists in America Inc.—one of the fast-spreading black nationalist groups. The Ethiopia-born Ben- Johanan said: “To the black woman, he ‘represented the has- band that she wanted, but perhaps does not have— ‘a ian who could spéak up for his race in the face of oppression by the whites.” Malcolm made a pilgrimage to Mecca to em= ‘brace traditional Moslem beliefs, and when he re- turned, said Ben-Johanan, “he was a different man, Since he has died, you cannot feel strength in the postin ” LEXANDER J. ALLEN, now East Coast head af the Urban League, agreed that Malcoim’s anale ete rt on ter uw af wae caus ‘for me made no sense. I think black chauvinism is just as bad as white chauvinism.” ‘ The ferocity of the criticism from his erstwhile colleagues in the Black Muslim movement is itself evidence of ihe power of Maicoim’s image. Elijah ‘Muhammad writes in his book, “Message to the iBlack Man:*~ - | “This chief hypocrite took a group with him to baild a ‘mosque in opposition’ to me and filled it with ali types of wickedness and dishelievere Hie himself.” The Muslim paper, "Muhammad Speaks“ which trong Must set up by Malcolm, follows this same