Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [108]
Perhaps because the trip marked the beginning of Malcolm’s private concerns with the NOIʹs organization, he was virtually silent about it in the Autobiography. He could obviously see the discrepancies between what he had been taught by Elijah Muhammad compared to the richly diverse cultures that he had observed. All Muslims clearly were not “black.” Malcolm’s letter to the Pittsburgh Courier, however, as well as stories he recalled of his experiences, conveyed how vividly the trip impressed itself on his mind. Its lessons continued to be heard in the developing philosophy that he expressed through his public speeches.
Malcolm’s 1959 tour was widely publicized both within the NOI and by African-American newspapers. Yet after he returned on July 22, he spoke only briefly about his trip, focusing instead on the controversy created by The Hate That Hate Produced. He tried to convey what he had learned about the Islamic world to Temple No. 7 members, and even then he spoke carefully, perhaps trying to avoid presenting ideas that might seem at odds with the NOIʹs basic tenets. “Muslims in the Far East,” he said, “were intensely curious to learn how it was that he professed to be Muslim, yet spoke no Arabic.” He had explained to them that he had been “kidnapped 400 years ago, robbed of his language, of religion and robbed of his name and wisdom.”
Plans moved forward for Elijah Muhammad to make his own trip. Sometime during the first half of November 1959, Muhammad set out with two of his sons, Herbert and Akbar. He later claimed to have accomplished a hajj, but because his journey to Mecca took place outside of the officially sanctioned hajj season, technically he had made umrah, a spiritually motivated visit, even though the umrah is widely accepted throughout the Muslim world as a legitimate pilgrimage. More important was the official acceptance of Muhammad and his small delegation by Saudi authorities, who controlled access to the city for worshippers.
Muhammad arrived back home on January 6, 1960. Like Malcolm, he had been profoundly affected, and set about implementing changes to give the NOI a stronger Islamic character. At the next month’s Saviourʹs Day convention, he ordered that the NOIʹs temples would henceforth be called mosques, in keeping with orthodox Islam. More significantly, the pace of Islamization was accelerated. Arabic-language instruction increased, and he sent his son Akbar to study at Al-Azhar University in Cairo; yet he must have seen, as Malcolm had, that his own position presented special challenges when it came to reconciling the NOI with orthodox Islam. His authority, and indeed much of the wealth and property he had accrued, derived from his special (if fictive) status as Allah’s Messenger—a status he had no intention of relinquishing. To maintain his supremacy while remaking the face of the NOI would prove a difficult balancing act.
“1960 may well prove to be a year of decision for the American Negro.” Thus spoke radical attorney William Kunstler, opening a debate between Malcolm and the Reverend William M. James on New York City’s WMCA radio early that year. Across the South sit-ins and protests had been multiplying, with Negro students refusing to vacate their seats at lunch counters that would not serve them and standing firm in stores that asked them to leave. The mixed experience Malcolm had had with The Hate That Hate Produced reinforced the value of presenting the NOIʹs views in a favorable light, so when early in 1960 New York local radio station WMCA proposed a debate between him and James, the liberal pastor of Metropolitan Community United Methodist Church in