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By Root 1777 0

by important Christian groups brought it closer to that goal. To this end, Malcolm organized events that brought groups of Muslims to a black church, where he would deliver a sermon focused on the connections between Christianity and Islam. Probably the first of these occurred on June 16, 1961, at Elder Solomon Lightfoot Michaux’s New York Church of God. In his sermon, Malcolm exuded praise “to Allah for putting into Elder Michaux’s heart to invite those of us who are Muslims here this evening to explain what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is teaching.” He explained that the NOI did not believe in politics, because no “president that has ever sat in the White House” has ever kept his promises to black people. Instead, he advised, we must “turn toward the God of our forefathers,” by emulating what “Moses taught his people to do in the house of bondage four thousand years ago.” If these interfaith gestures brought new respect to the Nation from outsiders, Malcolm’s internal speeches often undermined their sincerity. Speaking on July 14, only four weeks after his eloquent appeal at Elder Michaux’s Church of God, he bluntly told followers at the mosque that “Christianity is evil and also America is evil.” And he continued to characterize as “Uncle Toms” the mainstream civil rights leaders and integrationists, many of whom professed a deep Christian faith.

Increasingly, Malcolm had to address a growing variety of competing issues and demands: problems within the NOI, street demonstrations, debates with civil rights leaders and organizations. But he continued to balance these new obligations with his commitment to building Mosque No. 7. He still set aside a significant share of time for the Nation, even if his extensive travels in the early sixties left relatively little room for his mosque. His first sermon there after his January 1961 meeting with the Ku Klux Klan had been on February 6, when he melodramatically asserted that if a white man should hit a Muslim in the South, it could very well be “the start of a holy war.” But the next controversy involving the NOI did not begin in Dixie, but rather on Manhattan’s east side.

In the early dawn of independence in postcolonial Africa, Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba came to be recognized as a symbol for postcolonial African aspirations. He would not be beholden to colonial Western powers or the United States. On January 17, 1961, he was murdered by Belgian mercenaries in Congo’s Katanga province. The delayed news of Lumumba’s death was finally announced on February 13, leading to militant demonstrations throughout the world. The Soviets blamed UN troops stationed in the Congo for failing to protect Lumumba, and demanded secretary Dag Hammarskjöld’s firing. On February 15 a coalition of widely divergent groups put up several long picket lines blocking the entrance to the UN building in New York. One organization taking part, the Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage, included an individual who would later influence Malcolm’s life: the writer Maya Angelou, the association’s director. As the crowd grew, scuffles broke out between demonstrators and security guards. In the ensuing mêlée, forty-one people were injured, including eighteen UN personnel. Reporters and press photographers claimed they had been attacked by rioters with brass knuckles and knives. United States diplomats accused the demonstrators of being “Communist-inspired, linked [to] mob violence against Belgian embassies in Moscow, Cairo and Warsaw over the death” of Lumumba. New York police commissioner Stephen P. Kennedy blamed the rioting on the “Muslim Brotherhood, a fanatic Negro national cult, which is one of the most dangerous gangs in the city.” Somehow the police along with the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Adlai Stevenson, believed that the Muslim Brotherhood “gang” was affiliated with the NOI and Malcolm X. “It wasn’t us,” Malcolm responded bluntly. “We don’t involve ourselves in any politics, whether local, national, or international.” But Malcolm could not resist expressing Pan-Africanist