Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [209]
Larry vigorously contested the idea that Malcolm simply “outgrew” the Nation and that his departure was inevitable. As Larry recalled, the truly negative rumors began only in the days directly prior to Malcolm’s departure. Referring to young women Elijah Muhammad had bedded, Larry explained that Malcolm had known “about the wives” long before the silencing controversy. “Malcolm [could] see [that the NOI recruited] those dedicated young men, who came out of the streets of America, out of the prisons of America,” who benefited most from the Nation’s teachings. More educated converts, Larry conceded, may have “felt that the Nation was too confining, that they couldn’t make decisions for themselves.” When Malcolm formed Muslim Mosque but initially continued to praise Muhammad’s social program, Larry believed “that Malcolm felt he could direct people to the Nation . . . better from this [outside] position, because most people didn’t want some of the restrictions of the Nation. . . . That’s the way I saw it.”
The great changes in Malcolm’s life also landed hard on Betty, who now found herself forced to negotiate Malcolm’s five-week absence overseas with lieutenants in Muslim Mosque for whom she had little love. Before his departure Malcolm had instructed the leaders of MMI to provide security for his wife and children, knowing that while the Nation had yet to hurt the families of dissidents, they could not be trusted at this point to leave them alone. Charles 37X Kenyatta was designated to guard Betty and the children in their house, and no one else was permitted inside the home. Kenyatta would later claim that, at first, Betty resented his constant presence. “She hated me with a passion,” he recalled. “She didn’t like the role I was playing.” Betty similarly disliked James 67X, yet she knew that he represented Malcolm’s most likely point of contact in MMI, and she phoned him nearly every night during the weeks her husband was out of the country. In her efforts to keep tabs on him, she canvassed anyone likely to hear from him. Almost on a daily basis she phoned Haley, Malcolm’s attorney, Percy Sutton, and others who might have received letters or telegrams. Malcolm himself made an earnest effort to keep Betty informed through letters about the locations he was visiting, and he periodically phoned her as well. At home, she taped a world map on the living room wall so the children could chart the countries Malcolm had visited. Betty correctly sensed that her husband’s extensive new contacts with Muslims and others in the Middle East and Africa might liberate him from the Nation’s powerful influence. Attallah, the eldest daughter, would later express this sentiment: “The more he traveled, the freer he became, the freer we all became.”
Yet this freedom came at a cost, especially when Malcolm’s subsequent actions further fueled anger within the Nation’s ranks. On May 8, Muhammad Speaks featured the first of a two-part editorial attacking Malcolm by the “Minister Who Knew Him Best.” The editorial argued that the reasons Malcolm had given the white media for his “defection” were “filled with lies, slander and filth designed to cast aspersions upon Mr. Muhammad and his family.” Although Louis X was presented as the author of the polemic, the piece was likely ghostwritten by a Chicago NOI editor, a suggestion that gains credence from the misspelling of Louis’s name in the column as “Minister Lewis.”
In late April James 67X received a letter Malcolm had written just after his hajj experience, outlining his new views about race. Given the trend in Malcolm’s recent statements, James 67X was scared to open the envelope, knowing that the revelations contained in Malcolm’s communication could pose major problems with the MMI rank and file. Even James himself was hardly ready to embrace such a radical change. “I had come out of