Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [204]
It was a thoroughly triumphal visit. As Alice Windom observed, Malcolm Xʹs “name was almost as familiar to Ghanaians as the Southern dogs, fire hoses, cattle prods, people sticks and ugly hate-contorted white faces, and his decision to enter the mainstream of the struggle was heralded as a hopeful sign.” Only two sour events blemished a near perfect week. The first was a negative encounter with Muhammad Ali, who was touring West Africa. As Malcolm was departing from his hotel on the way to the airport, the two men bumped into each other and Ali snubbed him. Later Ali eagerly expressed his unconditional loyalty to Elijah Muhammad, ridiculing Malcolm to a New York Times correspondent and laughing at the “funny white robe” his onetime friend wore and his newly grown beard. “Man, he’s gone. He’s gone so far out he’s out completely.” With words he would later regret, the boxer added, “Nobody listens to that Malcolm anymore.”
Then, within hours of leaving Ghana, Malcolm was attacked in the Ghanaian Times by Nkrumah’s ideological lieutenant, H. M. Basner. A communist, Basner accused Malcolm of failing to comprehend the “class function of all racial oppression.” Malcolm’s emphasis on black liberation instead of class struggle would only serve the interests of “American imperialists. . . . If Malcolm X believes what he says, then both Karl Marx and John Brown are excluded by their racial origin from being regarded as human liberators.” Julian Mayfield immediately responded to Basnerʹs critique. Mayfield argued that what was so upsetting to Basner was Malcolm’s rejection of the classical communist strategy telling blacks to unite with white workers to achieve meaningful change. “The black American has been down that road before,” Mayfield observed. “No single factor has so retarded his struggle as his attempt to unite with liberal or progressive whites.” The average black American worker “has no more in common with the white worker in America than he has in South Africa.” Leslie Lacy later recalled that what truly appalled the African-American expatriate group was that Basnerʹs criticisms of Malcolm had “appeared in a black, revolutionary, government-controlled newspaper. . . . No criticism, however objective, could have appeared attacking Nkrumah.”
Malcolm’s experiences in Ghana strengthened his commitment to Pan-Africanism. Writing to the MMI, Malcolm praised Ghana as “the fountainhead of Pan-Africanism. . . . Just as the American Jew is in harmony (politically, economically and culturally) with World Jewry, it is time for all African-Americans to become an integral part of the world’s Pan-Africanists.” He called for a return to Africa “philosophically and culturally.” Before he departed on May 17, the American expatriates in Ghana organized a “V.I.P. send off,” Malcolm wrote in his diary, adding that an enthusiastic “Maya [Angelou] took the bus right up to the plane.” When the airplane stopped briefly in Dakar, the French airport manager escorted Malcolm around the facility. “I signed many autographs,” Malcolm wrote, and he prayed with many others.
He arrived in Casablanca, Morocco, well after dark, where he would spend the next day quietly. After touring Casablanca by taxi, Malcolm joined his local contact, a man named Ibrahim Maki, and a friend. The three ended up in the Muslim district, the Medina, where they chatted and dined until late. “They were very race-conscious, proud