Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [145]
Things like that we twenty million black people in America didn’t know our true identities, or even our true family names. And we were the direct descendants of black men and women stolen from the rich black continent and brought here and stripped of all knowledge of themselves and taught to hate themselves and their kind. And that’s how us so-called ʺNegroesʺ had come to be the only race among mankind that loves its enemies. Now, I’m the kind that catches on quick. I said to myself, listen, this man’s saying something!
He later claimed that it was “the first time I ever felt spiritual in my life.” Soon he started reading Muhammad Speaks regularly and developed friendships with NOI members, eventually coming to the attention of Jeremiah X, Atlanta’s minister and the NOIʹs regional boss, who traveled to Miami on several occasions to see him. Through Saxon, Clay obtained the services of a Muslim cook, who helped him observe Muslim dietary requirements.
To Malcolm, Clay was a jovial, “clean-cut, down-to-earth youngster.” He saw through Clay’s clown routine, which perhaps reminded him of his own comedic antics as Sandwich Red while serving whites on trains during the war. After their introduction at the luncheonette in early 1962, the two men stayed in contact throughout the year, and soon Malcolm asked his friend Archie Richardson (later Osman Karriem) to watch over Clay in Miami. Malcolm sensed that Clay had potential as a fighter; his conversion to the NOI could allow the sect to reach an entirely different audience. Ferdie Pacheco, Clay’s trainer, later observed, “Malcolm X and Ali were like very close brothers. It was almost like they were in love with each other.” To Clay, Malcolm was “the smartest black man on the face of the earth.” Even Pacheco was impressed. “Malcolm X was bright as hell, convincing, charismatic in the way that great leaders and martyrs are. It certainly rubbed off on Ali.”
Four days after Clay’s fight with Moore, Malcolm touched down in Los Angeles, where, according to the Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch, he would be helping out with a fund-raising drive and teaching classes for two weeks. But this was only part of Malcolm’s new plan. He had decided to quietly countermand Elijah’s ban on cooperation with civil rights and non-Muslim groups. To that end, between November 19 and 24, he participated in forums on “Integration or Separation” and “Militants in Negro Leadership,” the latter largely organized by the Afro-American Association. Founded earlier in 1962 by activist Donald Warden, the association was a progressive network of largely militant black students. Some of the activists who emerged from this group would soon have a major impact on the Black Freedom Movement. The association chapter in the Bay Area claimed future Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton as a member, and in Los Angeles the local leader was Ron Everett, who subsequently became the high priest of black cultural nationalism, known as Maulana Karenga.
Although the conference and rally managed to bring out only four hundred people—much smaller than the thousands of Harlemites that Mosque No. 7 regularly massed—it attracted the attention of the New York Times as well as the national black press. The daylong program featured a series of workshops under the theme “The Mind of the Ghetto.” In the plenary session, Wilfred Ussery of the Afro-American Association vigorously propounded COREʹs nonviolent approach, but the crowd was overwhelmingly for Malcolm. The Times observed, “There appeared to be a considerable number of Black Muslim supporters, judging from shouts of approval that punctuated the statements made by Malcolm X.ʺ
The cheers reflected the increasing complexity of Malcolm’s relationship with the leftmost wing of the civil rights movement. Unlike the NAACP, whose discrete units largely moved in lockstep thanks to its rigid, multitiered hierarchy, CORE had a freer organizing structure with less oversight from national headquarters. Local branches often