Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [177]
To his critics inside the Nation, Malcolm was simply going through the motions, only appearing to be contrite. He had informed Mosque No. 7 officials that he had begun working on a manuscript based on the wisdom expressed by Elijah Muhammad during their many dinner conversations over the years, yet beyond making rough outlines, Malcolm never really worked on the project. Instead, he continued to express himself in the national press, against Muhammad’s order. In the Chicago Defender, for instance, he blasted black Republican Jackie Robinson for negative comments he had made against Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and the Nation of Islam. Dripping with satire, his polemic ridiculed the former baseball great as someone who never knows “what is going on in the Negro community until the white man tells you.” He accused Robinson of attempting to influence blacks into supporting New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, asking, “Just who are you playing ball for today, good friend?” He also warned Robinson that if he ever dared to exhibit the militant courage of a Medgar Evers, “the same whites whom you now take to be your friends will be the first to put the bullet or the dagger in your back, just as they put it in the back of Medgar Evers.” Further, Elijah Muhammad probably was not pleased when the Amsterdam News reported that Doubleday was planning to publish Malcolm’s autobiography. Muhammad reaffirmed to the press that his troublesome deputy still retained the title of minister, “but he will not be permitted to speak in public.”
Malcolm felt almost completely adrift. After years of traveling cross-country to make speeches and organize the Nation’s affairs, he now found himself saddled with a new and oddly unpleasant burden: free time. To keep occupied, he answered letters. To an African-American student at Colgate University who had expressed interest in starting an Islamic society on campus, he explained that while the acquisition of knowledge was commendable, to be useful, education had to be culturally relevant. “Our cultural roots must be restored before life (incentive) can flow into us; because just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without cultural roots are automatically dead.”
The best evidence of Malcolm’s state of mind is in an interview he gave to Louis Lomax, in which he vigorously denied implying “that Kennedy’s death was a reason for rejoicing.” His central point was that the president’s assassination “was the result of a long line of violent acts, the culmination of hate and suspicion and doubt in this country.” Muhammad “had warned me not to say anything about the death of the president, and I omitted any references to that tragedy in my main speech.” While he accepted his suspension, he assured the journalist that “I don’t think it will be permanent.” Most significantly, when Lomax inquired about “differences” that were rumored to exist between himself and Muhammad, Malcolm snapped, “It’s a lie. . . . How could there be any difference between the Messenger and me? I am his slave, his servant, his son. He is the leader, the only spokesman for the Black Muslims.”
Elijah Muhammad was at first satisfied with the general reaction to Malcolm’s suspension. In telephone conversations recorded by the FBI, he described his punishment of Malcolm as an act of parental authority: “Papa” had to discipline the child, who would receive even more censure “if he sticks out his lip and starts popping off.” But as the Kennedy controversy faded from the headlines, Elijah was confronted with other concerns. The continued shunning of the Nation’s golden child