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By Root 1980 0

James 67X was outraged: “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I said, ‘I’m riding the number seven bus, and I’m supposed to contribute to his Lincoln Continental?’” The Nation had changed; for some members, it seemed as though the national leadership increasingly viewed the rank and file as a cash register, and resentment began to grow. At the dinner, however, anger over extortion soon gave way to confusion as the Sharrieffs launched into a pair of bizarre and inappropriate monologues. Ethel addressed the audience first and, according to James, “publicly started talking about some of the men not being able to fulfill the sexual requirements of their wives.” Even more surprising was her husband’s speech. The stern FOI leader came to the speakerʹs podium and began riffing on his wife’s talk, “making jokes about sexual nonperformance.”

The ribald, sex-oriented burlesque was designed to humiliate one person alone—Malcolm. The Sharrieffs had evidently read Malcolm’s heartfelt March 1959 letter to Elijah Muhammad about problems in his marriage. They wanted Malcolm to understand that there was no privileged communication with the Messenger. They also apparently wanted to convey their total contempt, and to ridicule him as a man. For Malcolm, the whole performance must have contributed to his doubts about his role within the NOI.

At some point in 1961, Elijah Muhammad may have briefly reduced Sharrieffʹs authority over the FOI by making local captains directly responsible to Malcolm. If this is true, it might explain Sharrieffʹs behavior. However, Malcolm had no ambitions to run the FOI; his interests were pastoral and political. At Mosque No. 7’s regular FOI meeting on December 18, he seemed to confirm Joseph’s role as boss of all NOI captains nationally; it is unclear what that would have meant for Sharrieff’s continued authority. Possibly, the endorsement was based merely on Joseph’s effective management.

What is certain is that, by 1962, the internal life of the Nation had moved to a new and unsettled place. Elijah Muhammad now spent most of his time in Arizona; when in Chicago, he was preoccupied with one or more of his mistresses in his hideaway apartment on the South Side, largely divorced from the Nation’s growing business affairs. Freed from his oversight, Sharrieff and John Ali became the de facto administrative heads of the NOI, and they reinvested the incoming cash from the members’ tithing into Nation-owned businesses and real estate of all kinds. Muhammad’s sons also took on a greater role in the NOIʹs affairs. Elijah, Jr., despite possessing a mediocre mind and poor language skills, traveled across the country as an enforcer, pressing mosques to produce more revenue for the Chicago headquarters. Malcolm was asked to cede editorship of Muhammad Speaks to Herbert Muhammad, who quickly made it clear to all mosques that they were expected to increase their quotas of newspapers, with all revenue remitted to Chicago. The success and growth of the NOI ironically created new problems with old business partners, who increasingly viewed the group as a competitor. Papers that for years had provided generous coverage to the Nation, such as the Chicago Defender and the Amsterdam News, sharply restricted their coverage with the emergence of Muhammad Speaks. By 1963, the Cleveland Call and Post, a black Republican paper, declared that the NOI was encountering “growing disenchantment among the masses they would lead to a black Utopia.”

Mosque No. 7 did not experience the intense upheaval that characterized many mosques during these years. Despite their personal feelings of hostility, Malcolm and Captain Joseph appeared to work closely together in public and generally agreed on all mosque matters. By 1962, only a minority of congregants could remember Joseph’s 1956 trial and humiliation. And as hundreds of new members continued to pour into the mosque, memories of the old conflicts faded. By 1959, Temple No. 7 had 1,125 members, 569 of them active. By 1961, the renamed Mosque No. 7 had 2,369 registered members, of whom