Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [182]
These notebook fragments are significant in explaining the differences that led to Malcolm’s split from the sect, and subsequently to his assassination. Most of Muhammad’s family and the Chicago secretariat opposed Malcolm for two basic reasons. First, they were convinced that he coveted the Messengerʹs position: that once Elijah was incapacitated, or dead, Malcolm would easily take command. Their material benefits derived from being the “royal family” would abruptly end. But equally important was the second reason: Malcolm’s militant politics of 1962-63 represented a radical break with the Nation of Islam’s apolitical black nationalism. Herbert Muhammad had already barred any publicity in Muhammad Speaks related to Malcolm one full year prior to the official silencing. To ensure that Chicago maintained tight control, officials increasingly deployed the Fruit of Islam as a surveillance and intimidation unit. As Malcolm noted, Joseph had “become a cop,” not a brother, a not so subtle reference to the beatings he inflicted. But Muhammad’s family totally misread Malcolm’s motives. He never saw himself as the heir apparent; if anyone should be groomed for the Messengerʹs role, Malcolm believed, it was Wallace. He preferred the itinerant life of an evangelist. He respected and loved Wallace and would have supported him as the successor had the Messenger died. Malcolm’s tragic mistake was believing that his militant political aims—the creation of an all-inclusive black united front against U.S. racism—could be constructed with the full participation of the Nation of Islam. The Nation was prepared to undergo Islamization, but it wasn’t ready for civil rights demonstrations, Third World revolution, or Pan-Africanism. It was politics, not personalities, that severed Malcolm’s relationship with the Nation of Islam.
Only in February 1964 was Malcolm emotionally prepared to contemplate the possibility of life after the Nation of Islam. Politically, he would have to relate to a range of activist organizations, from the NAACP to the socialist left, in an entirely new way. Like many Harlemites, he respected the antiracist political work the Communist Party had done over four decades. But dialogue with them was difficult: they were atheists and, even worse, staunch integrationists. Their key theoreticians on race, notably James E. Jackson and Claude Lightfoot, had examined the Black Muslim phenomenon, characterizing black nationalism as a “conditioned reflex to white chauvinism”: a response to Jim Crow, job discrimination, and the social isolation of the ghetto. However, the Black Muslim emphasis on the teaching of Negro history and culture, and its opposition to drugs, alcoholism, and black-on-black crime, were all positive contributions to the black community. So, on balance, while the communists vigorously disagreed with the sect’s tenets, they favored what Lightfoot called “united front” coalitions on a case-by-case basis. There is evidence that Malcolm may have met with the leaders of the Communist Party’s Harlem branch in mid-February. However, there were no subsequent sessions, even after Malcolm had established the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
Part of Malcolm’s inner turmoil over these months was caused by doubts about his faith. Leaving the Nation of Islam meant much more than departing a religious cult; he would be abandoning an entire spiritual geography. At many NOI lectures, a display about the future of black identity was depicted on a blackboard. On one side of the board was drawn the American flag, accompanied by a Christian cross and the words “Slavery,” “Suffering,” and “Death.” On the other was depicted the Muslim Crescent, with the words “Islam,” “Freedom,” “Justice,” and “Equality.” Beneath both sets of symbols and words was a question: “Which will survive the War of Armageddon? ʺ The Nation of Islam’s purpose here was twofold. First, Muhammad preached that not only was Islam the “natural religion” of all blacks, but it was only through the knowledge of Islam that African Americans