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By Root 1970 0

’s vote” that secured the Kennedy-Johnson ticket victory in the previous presidential election. But he impressed on the crowd that of voting or violence, the United States was sure to get at least one. The writing was on the wall, with young black boys in Jacksonville throwing Molotov cocktails in the streets. “It’ll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month, something else next month,” he assured the crowd. “It’ll be ballots, or it’ll be bullets.” Yet as ominous as this message sounded, it still represented a step back from the brink of inevitable violence suggested in “Message to the Grassroots.” The ballot offered a way out: Malcolm was suggesting that if the federal government guaranteed full voting rights for African Americans nationwide, it could avoid a bloody conflagration. What was also significant about the address was what was now missing: no longer did Malcolm claim that Elijah Muhammad possessed the best program addressing blacks’ interests.

The small cadre of Trotskyists at the Cory Methodist Church were thrilled with Malcolm’s presentation, which seemed to confirm their own theory that revolutionary black nationalism could be the spark for igniting a socialist revolution in the United States. The Militant’s coverage of the Cleveland event highlighted approvingly Malcolm’s castigation of “the Democratic party; the ʹcon game they call the filibuster,’ and the ‘white political crooks’ who keep the black man from control of his own community.” At times in the talk, Malcolm appeared to move away from a race-based analysis toward a class perspective. “I am not antiwhite,” Malcolm insisted. “I am antiexploitation, antioppression.” The Militant mentioned Malcolm’s support for the creation of a black nationalist party and his call for a “black nationalist convention by August [1964], with delegates from all over the country.”

Malcolm’s lecture was tape recorded, and soon thousands of record copies were being distributed. Second only to “Message to the Grassroots,” “The Ballot or the Bullet” would become one of Malcolm’s most widely quoted talks. The FBI monitored the lecture, and appeared to recognize Malcolm’s new appeal to a growing number of whites. The Bureau focused on two of his central arguments: that the civil rights bill being filibustered before the Senate either would not be passed or, if signed by President Johnson, would not be implemented; and that African Americans should initiate gun clubs. “It is lawful for anyone to own a rifle or a shotgun and it is everyone’s right to protect themselves from anyone who stands in their way to prevent them from obtaining what is rightfully theirs,” Malcolm was reported to have said.

By the beginning of April 1964, Malcolm eagerly looked forward to leaving the country; several days after the Cleveland speech, he purchased a plane ticket to travel throughout the Middle East and Africa, with tentative stops including Lagos, Accra, Algiers, Cairo, Jeddah, and Khartoum. If the trip promised spiritual restoration, it also offered a practical respite, giving him at least a month away from his increasingly combative relationship with the Nation and its representatives. The break was much needed. After his March 9 split, he had spent the rest of the month watching tensions escalate. Elijah Muhammad had pressured two of Malcolm’s brothers, Philbert and Wilfred, ministers of the mosques in Lansing and Detroit respectively, to publicly denounce him as a hypocrite and a traitor. Worse, the Nation soon took aim at Malcolm’s refuge. The day after Handlerʹs Times article appeared announcing the split, Captain Joseph had turned up at the Elmhurst home demanding the Mosque’s incorporation papers and other valuables, which Malcolm reluctantly turned over. On the last day of March, attorney Joseph Williams, on behalf of Mosque No. 7 secretary Maceo X Owens, filed papers in Queens County demanding the eviction of Malcolm and his family from the house. Outraged, Malcolm secured Harlem civil rights attorney Percy Sutton to oppose the suit, but the squabbling soon left