Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [222]
But Malcolm wasn’t yet ready to concede. He pointed out that he actually held two formal positions within the NOI: minister of Mosque No. 7 and national minister. He had been suspended, technically, as Mosque No. 7’s head, but Muhammad had never abolished the national ministerʹs office. He argued that the East Elmhurst residence agreement was exclusively “between me and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” that the place had been “purchased for me,” and that the Messenger “told me the house should be mine.” Elijah himself had emphasized that this was truly a gift to him personally: “He told me over and over that it should be in my name, that it was for me because of the work I was doing and had been doing.”
Williams tried to undercut this argument by implying that Malcolm had been skimming money from the Nation for years—much of his public speaking honoraria surely had gone into his pocket. He tried to present Malcolm’s life in the Nation as a long, cushy ride on the organization’s dime, asking, “Isn’t it also a fact that every mosque you go to, that the mosque themself [sic] takes care of your expenses?” Malcolm fought back, denying such claims as slanderous, and asserting that the real reason for his “suspension” in December 1963 was due to a “very private” matter. “I never sought to gain anything personally from the Nation of Islam. This is why I lived [at the beginning of his ministry] in a room and then lived in three rooms.” But Williams continued to question Malcolm’s motives. “Now, sir, when this house was being purchased,” he noted, “you were not even around when they met to buy this house. When they had the first discussion in the mosque about the house, you weren’t around, were you?” He was astutely using Malcolm’s proselytizing travels to establish his lack of interest in the acquisition of the property.
Malcolm must have been in anguish, sitting before a white judge, listening to himself being accused of theft and corruption in an organization for which he once would have gladly sacrificed his life. He could accept many things, but not dishonor. And the legal maneuvering was merely a way of avoiding the central issue, the real reason for the split, which he remained hesitant to bring up on the record. He told Williams that the funds purchasing the residence never came from the incorporated Mosque No. 7; no mosque trustees met to issue a check covering the home’s down payment. “It came from the spiritual body from the Muslims.”
Then, after nearly two hours, he finally told the court that “the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had taken on nine wives besides the one that he had. . . . This is the reason for my suspension.” He emphasized that he had been prepared to keep “the whole thing secret and private if they would give me a hearing. . . . They would rather take the public court than keep it quiet among Muslims.”
What Malcolm may not have fully appreciated until the trial was that the ideological campaign against him was turning into a religious jihad, and the issues raised by the Queens trial only increased the tensions between the two camps. On the first day of courtroom proceedings, 180 men attended Mosque No. 7’s regular FOI meeting, whose topic was “So What if He [Elijah Muhammad] Is Not All Pure, Look What He Did for You and I [sic].ʺ During this lecture, the speaker asserted, “We should destroy Malcolm.” An FOI captain at the meeting—probably Joseph—instructed the Fruit, saying, “Malcolm is not to be touched, the rest is okay”—a statement that amounted to a declaration of open season on any Malcolm