Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [117]
By 1961, Muhammad had purchased a second, luxurious home at 2118 East Violet Drive in sunny Phoenix; NOI members were informed that due to the deterioration of Muhammad’s health from severe bronchitis, it was beneficial for him to spend most of the year in the arid southwest. The family home in Chicago, however, was retained. The new property also afforded Muhammad yet another layer of privacy for his sexual adventures. By early October the FBI counted at least five different NOI women who were regularly having sexual intercourse with Muhammad, two of whom were sisters. Like a young gigolo, Elijah tried to play one woman against the others as they competed for his affections.
Soon there were so many illegitimate children to take care of that new household arrangements were necessary. In October 1961, Muhammad telephoned Evelyn Williams in Chicago and asked her if she would be willing to raise and supervise his illegitimate children in a large home located on the West Coast. He approached with flattery, telling her that he needed to have his “Sweet and Honey come and stay with me for two or three months . . . or years.” Faced with financial burdens and a child, Evelyn agreed, but it didn’t take long for the new arrangement to sour. In July 1962, she phoned Muhammad demanding more money, and accused him of treating his illegitimate children like “stray dogs.” “You don’t allow your other children to live on $300 a month,” she argued. “All I want is money to pay the rent and to get some food and clothing.”
Muhammad once again complained of blackmail. “I won’t speak to you,” he told her, “or give you one red cent!” Stymied, Evelyn and Lucille Rosary took their children to Muhammad’s Phoenix home, and when no one answered the front door, they left the children at the entrance. Raymond Sharrieff eventually came to the front door and called out to the women to take their children back. Evelyn and Lucille refused, and left. Sharrieff went back inside and called the police, reporting that several small children had been abandoned on their doorstep. The children were subsequently turned over to social workers for investigation. The next day, Muhammad called Evelyn in a fury, but she refused to back down. “From now on, I’m not going to protect you in any way, shape or form,” she warned him. “If you want trouble, you’ll get it.” She told Muhammad that calling the police on his own children was “the dirtiest thing you could do.” Yet whether out of fear, love, or a lingering sense of loyalty, when police interrogated Evelyn about the father of her child, she would not divulge his name. Both Lucille and Evelyn were placed on notice for “child neglect,” but neither was formally charged. These emotional and legal conflicts could not be entirely suppressed or contained by national secretary John Ali, Raymond Sharrieff, or other Chicago officials. By mid-1962 rumors of Muhammad’s messy sex life were circulating widely in Chicago. Malcolm undoubtedly heard these rumors but continued to refuse to examine whether they were true and never imagined that Evelyn was involved.
Before leaving Atlanta during his travel to the South in January and February 1961, Malcolm attended an hourlong lecture delivered by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., at Atlanta University on January 17. At the time, Schlesinger was also a prominent adviser to president-elect John F. Kennedy. Schlesingerʹs talk, “America’s Domestic Future, Its Perils and Prospects,” was given before a standing-room-only