Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [149]
At the convention, Muhammad’s family turned its embarrassment into angry tirades against Malcolm. Family members had sent notes demanding that Wallace Muhammad, recently released from prison, be permitted to address the assembly during Malcolm’s major Saviourʹs Day address. Yet Wallace, who had grown even more skeptical of his fatherʹs dogma while incarcerated, wanted no part of it, and he and Malcolm had agreed that Malcolm would find a way around the family’s demands. From the podium, Malcolm announced that, due to the program’s delayed start, there was no time left for Wallace to speak; but in a gesture of appreciation, he recognized Muhammad’s family members in the hall and solicited applause from the audience. It did little good: as FBI informants observed, “The family was especially resentful of [Malcolm’s] attempts to advise and tell the family what to do.”
Although there was pressing business at home, Malcolm remained in Chicago for several weeks, hoping to investigate for himself the rumors about Muhammad. The family thought that shortening the Saviourʹs Day program had solved the problem, but after Malcolm consulted with Wallace, who confirmed that the rumors were true, he knew that more needed to be done. In the next weeks, he met with three of Muhammad’s former secretaries, including Evelyn, and found they all had similar stories. Once their pregnancies had been discovered, they had been summoned before secret NOI courts and received sentences of isolation. Muhammad provided little or no financial support for his out-of-wedlock children.
The revelations should not have been a complete surprise to Malcolm, who first heard hints about Muhammad’s sexual misconduct in the mid-1950s. Yet for years, it had been impossible for Malcolm to imagine that the sect’s little lamb was using his exalted position to sexually molest his secretarial staff. Only when Malcolm confronted the women themselves did he see the truth—not just of the affairs, but of the way the Messenger had frequently talked him down to others. “From their own mouths I heard that Elijah Muhammad had told them I was the best, the greatest minister he ever had,” Malcolm recalled, “but that someday I would leave him, turn against him—so I was ‘dangerous.’ . . . While he was praising me to my face, he was tearing me apart behind my back.”
Hearing this broke Malcolm’s heart, but his greatest anguish was reserved for the violation of Evelyn, though she told him that she believed her pregnancy “to be prophetic” and reserved her hostility for the entourage surrounding the Messenger. Malcolm had known for years about Evelyn’s pregnancy and the birth of her daughter, but had simply assumed the father was a member of Mosque No. 2. Yet Evelyn was never far from his mind. At times, his unhappiness with Betty was so profound that he considered reestablishing his love affair with Evelyn. He even unburdened himself to Louis X, who sharply rebuked him, saying, “You are a married man!” Louis worried that Malcolm “would really hurt Betty.” Malcolm had agreed to back away from any involvement with Evelyn, at least for the time being. But now, with the realization that the father of Evelyn’s child was Muhammad, Malcolm must have felt a deep sense of betrayal. Two decades before, Malcolm had posed as a pimp, hustling prostitutes in Harlem. Now, unwittingly, he had been maneuvered into becoming Elijah Muhammad’s pimp, even bringing the woman he had loved to be violated.
Many NOI observers who did not know of Malcolm’s detective work interpreted his lingering presence in Chicago as a personal affront; to some it seemed he was merely indulging in media appearances. Spurred on by his angry children, Muhammad may have instructed Malcolm to return to New York City, which he did on March 10, canceling several scheduled appearances with the excuse that Betty had fallen and broken her leg. Arriving