• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1875 0

was an avowed integrationist. On the strength of Haley’s previous article, he and Balk were given substantial access to NOI activities throughout the country. Malcolm even agreed to give Haley a detailed interview about his life prior to becoming a follower of Muhammad. What the Muslims could not have known was that simultaneously Balk was talking to the FBI, meeting on October 9 with an agent in their Crime Research Section in Chicago. Balk explained that his and Haley’s story had “to give an accurate and realistic appraisal of the Nation of Islam” while illustrating “that many of the statements about the successes of the organization among the Negro people are also exaggerated.” The Bureau agreed to funnel them selective information about the NOI, based on its years of covert surveillance, but none of it could be attributed.

The Nation was facing unanticipated challenges resulting from its rapid expansion. The real estate investments and the forced “taxation” on NOI members to obtain thousands of Muhammad Speaks subscriptions—despite the resistance it raised in many members—generated impressive sums for the Chicago headquarters, and for Muhammad’s family. Raymond Sharrieff and John Ali had consolidated their control over the organization’s day-to-day operations, and they did not share the Messengerʹs paternal fondness for Malcolm, nor did Muhammad’s children appreciate the close bond their father had developed with his greatest protégé. It made for an awkward and strained relationship between the Nation’s largest branch, in New York, and Chicago. Malcolm’s tireless barnstorming over the previous few years and his magnetic personality had driven much of the Nation’s growth—and in turn the growth in its coffers—yet continued press speculation that he was Muhammad’s heir apparent challenged everyone’s sense of security, despite Malcolm’s constant efforts to keep the spotlight on Elijah.

By 1962, the secretary of every mosque was directly reporting to John Ali, who had become firmly allied with Malcolm’s critics. Farrakhan recalled that “the captains were under Raymond Sharrieff and Elijah, Junior . . . and the sister captains were under Ethel Sharrieff or Lottie, [the] Messengerʹs daughter. . . . They had these positions that they wanted to keep, [so] they began to persecute brother Malcolm from headquarters.” Muhammad Speaks began reducing its coverage of his speeches. “He would speak in places, and really he’d do a lot of great work,” said Farrakhan, “but our paper would hardly say anything.” Occasionally Malcolm expressed his disappointments to his Boston friend. “He would say things to me—he said, ‘You know, I work hard for the Nation, and, man, for me to be doing this and I get no recognition.’ So it began eating away at [my] brother.” Malcolm kept quiet about his unhappiness to his subordinates, but rather, following Muhammad’s instructions, began turning down college engagements—for instance, canceling a speaking event at the University of Bridgeport because of “throat trouble.”

To counter the animosity building against him in Chicago, he also drew closer to the allies that surrounded him in New York, chief among them Mosque No. 7’s assistant minister Benjamin 2X Goodman. Like many in the NOI, Goodman had come to the organization following an unhappy tenure in the armed forces during the years after World War II. Having enlisted in the air force in 1949, he was cited for “company punishment” four times before being court-martialed in August 1951 and discharged in late 1952. The experience hardly endeared him to white authority, and in 1957, shortly after his arrival in New York, he became a member of the Harlem temple. He showed immediate promise, and two years later, nearing his thirtieth birthday, he was named the instructor for the Great Black Man’s History course in Temple No. 7’s adult education program. To support himself, he started a bookselling business, and also found employment as a building supervisor. In 1961, NOI literature described Benjamin as manager of Crescent Book Sales, a “specialist in Islamic