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By Root 1661 0

harassment and jailing of Muhammad Speaks salesmen, even participating in the Times Square demonstration of January 1963. By late that year he was growing impatient with the Nation of Islam’s gradualism, and now he was being asked to execute the one man in the organization who might push black politics forward. It was too much, he thought, “I got to break with all of them.” Out of loyalty to Malcolm, Luqman went and told him about Joseph’s order. In retrospect, it seems likely that the FOI captain did not intend to kill Malcolm at this time, but to lay a trap for him and Luqman. “Joseph was as slick as goose grease, man,” recalled James 67X. “He was no fool. Joseph told me once, ‘Generals come and generals go, but J. Edgar Hoover—he been there all the time. He ain’t been removed.’ ” Joseph already sensed where Luqman’s loyalties lay, that he would surely tell Malcolm about the car bomb. If Malcolm still intended to remain in the Nation, security protocol required him to report the alleged plot to Chicago. If he did not report it, he must be planning to leave.

Around this same period, Malcolm met with his old friend and protégé Louis X for the final time. By now, after Louis had reported back to Muhammad Malcolm’s discussion of his affairs, it had become clear that Louis’s loyalty to Elijah Muhammad was paramount. Still, though their friendship had been severely strained, the feelings between them persisted. Louis was asked to speak in Malcolm’s place on several Sundays during his suspension, and when Louis came down from Boston, he met with Malcolm despite the prohibition against contacting a member under sanctions. Malcolm even drove him to the mosque to deliver the Sunday speeches.

Farrakhan later came to interpret Malcolm’s split with the Nation of Islam in somewhat unusual terms: he believed that Elijah Muhammad had been testing Malcolm for leadership, and that he had failed that test. But by the time of their final meeting, Louis had already been chosen by Muhammad as Malcolm’s replacement speaker for the 1964 Saviourʹs Day, and the Boston minister was clearly being groomed to assume a significant leadership role, probably Malcolm’s. If his mentor had failed a test, it would be one that he himself would soon pass. He also believed that Muhammad’s impregnation of Evelyn Williams was a major source of Malcolm’s anger. After learning about the pregnancy, Farrakhan recalled, “Malcolm began speaking less and less about the teachings [of Elijah Muhammad and] became more and more political.”

On their last outing together, Farrakhan remembered, they cruised the city late into the night in Malcolm’s automobile.

He told me of his love for Evelyn and he was going to bring her to New York. I said, “Brother, please don’t do that, you would really hurt Betty if you did that.” I said, “It’s best that you leave Evelyn where she is.” We had that type of conversation. And he sat with me and he said, “Brother, my enemies will one day be your enemies.” He named people that I would have to look out for in the Nation. And then he said these words to me: “I wish it was you being an example for me, rather than me being an example for you.” That’s the last conversation that I held with my brother.

Malcolm not only foresaw Louis taking his place as the major national spokesman of the Nation, he predicted the hatred and hostility of Captain Joseph, Raymond Sharrieff, and other NOI leaders toward him. But what Farrakhan could not have anticipated was that, in little more than a decade, he too would be cast out.

Late in the evening of March 6, an audiotaped broadcast of an Elijah Muhammad address was aired on WWRL radio in New York City as well as on a Chicago radio station. Muhammad’s immediate purpose was to secure Cassius Clay’s continued allegiance. In doing so, he would take away Malcolm’s last chip. “This Clay name has no divine meaning,” Muhammad announced. “I hope he will accept being called by a better name. Muhammad Ali is what I will give to him as long as he believes in Allah and follows me.” Malcolm heard Muhammad’s address