Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [114]
Most devastating for Malcolm was that he knew Rustin was right. For all the strides the Nation had made in promoting self-improvement in the lives of its members, its political isolation had left it powerless to change the external conditions that bounded their freedoms. Malcolm himself had already embraced the necessity of direct political action when he marched down Harlem’s busiest thoroughfares and blockaded a police station to secure the safety of Johnson X Hinton. And the Third World movements he embraced—from the postcolonial struggles inspired by Pan-Africanism to his identification with Castro—were driven fundamentally by a commitment to politics. Rustin showed that Malcolm was defending a conservative, apolitical program that, by his own actions, he did not endorse.
Had Malcolm been quicker to grasp the practical implications of Rustin’s logic, he might have avoided one of the great disasters of his career. Soon after the debate, he was charged with leading the NOIʹs mobilization in Dixie. By the late 1950s, most civil rights organizations were devoting their resources to support campaigns across the South, and the NOI did not want to be caught out. In 1960 in Jackson, Mississippi, thousands of blacks had participated in an economic boycott of segregationist white merchants that proved to be 90 to 95 percent effective. That August NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers investigated and publicized police brutality cases in the state. CORE was also poised for growth, when in December 1960 the Supreme Court ruled in Boynton v. Virginia that racial segregation was outlawed in all interstate transportation terminals, much as the earlier Morgan v. Virginia had done for interstate bus travel itself. In early 1961, under new director James Farmer, CORE would initiate “Freedom Rides” of desegregationist protesters into the Deep South.
Unlike these civil rights groups, however, the Nation’s Southern strategy would be anchored to its program of black separatism. Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm had together constructed an anti-integrationist strategy that they hoped would find a receptive audience among Southern blacks. A key element of their approach was to brand African-American Christian clergy, especially those involved in nonviolent protests, as “Toms”—even though such an ugly attack directly contradicted Malcolm’s public commitment to the building of a black united front. The plan also called for the construction of new NOI mosques across the region.
In December, Malcolm traveled to Atlanta, announcing his presence there in an interview on that city’s WERD radio. He attended meetings and gave lectures at Atlanta’s Mosque No. 15 on at least five occasions, before moving on to an interdenominational ministers’ conference in Alabama and other meetings in Tampa, Miami, and Jacksonville.
Malcolm returned home for the Christmas Day birth of his second daughter, Qubilah, named in honor of Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, but by late January he was back in Atlanta, ostensibly to participate in local NOI meetings. The main purpose of this trip, however, was to establish an understanding with the Ku Klux Klan.
No single incident in Malcolm’s entire career has generated more controversy than his private caucus with the Klan in January 1961. Most of the details about the planning and logistics of this meeting are still sketchy. What is established is that, despite a previous exchange of hostile letters between KKK leader J. B. Stoner and Elijah Muhammad, both the Klan and the NOI saw advantages to crafting a secret alliance. On January 28, Malcolm and Atlanta NOI leader Jeremiah X met in Atlanta with KKK representatives. Apparently, the Nation was interested in purchasing tracts of farmland and other properties in the