Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [229]
Fulcher soon learned that wiretapping required diligence and an attention to detail that made the job difficult. “You had to listen to the bug all the time, and the minute you heard the phone ring you almost had to time with him picking it up,” Fulcher recalled. “And then I had to record, decide what I was putting on the [tape] reels.” At first, he proudly carried out his duties, believing that Malcolm hated whites and wanted to overthrow the U.S. government. “They are the enemies of police,” Fulcher stated, recalling his views in 1964 and 1965. “They [the police] would kill them every chance they have.” As far as the cops were concerned, Malcolm and his followers should be targeted.
Within a few weeks, as he listened to Malcolm’s telephone conversations, office meetings, and public speeches, “what I heard was nothing like I expected.” The officer was impressed by his subject’s political analysis and arguments. “I remember saying to myself, ‘Let’s see, he’s right about that. . . . He wants [blacks] to get jobs. He wants them to get education. Wants them to get into the system. What’s wrong with that?’ ” Fulcher soon concluded that Malcolm was not “the enemy of white people in general” after all, which led him to the further realization that the NYPDʹs entire approach to Malcolm, and more broadly the Black Freedom Movement, required rethinking. He raised his concerns with his superior officers but got nowhere. Inside BOSS, “all black organizations were suspect.” From then on, he kept his opinions to himself, while continuing his wiretaps and tape recordings. BOSS even placed a recording device under the stage at the Audubon, to ensure that law enforcement could transcribe and analyze Malcolm’s speeches.
The day after the OAAUʹs founding rally, Malcolm met with some members to take stock of the event and to begin planning for his second excursion abroad that year. That Sunday about ninety individuals filled out forms to join the OAAU, far fewer than anticipated. The New York Times had estimated the rally’s attendance at only six hundred. Malcolm was quick to attribute the low number of new members to the fact that most Harlemites did not have the initial two-dollar membership fee.
If the OAAU lacked for early members, it was not on account of any lull in the charge for civil rights. For the two weeks prior to the rally, news of the disappearance of three volunteers in Mississippi on the first day of the Freedom Summer project had gripped the nation, as activists across the country demanded a full investigation. King himself was still in Saint Augustine, in and out of jail and under tremendous strain. Early on the morning of June 30 Malcolm sent King a telegram expressing his concern about racist attacks against civil rights demonstrators in Saint Augustine. He indicated that if federal authorities were not willing to protect civil rights workers, then he was prepared to deploy his people in the South to organize self-defense units capable of fighting the Klan. To reporters, he characterized these groups as “guerilla squads. . . . The Klan elements in the South are well known. We believe that whenever they strike against the Negro, the Negro has a chance to strike back.”
Later that day he flew to Omaha, Nebraska, upon the invitation of the city’s Citizens Coordinating Committee for Civil Liberties. Upon arrival, he kept up his provocative banter, charging that “in Omaha, as in other places, the Ku Klux Klan has just changed its bedsheets for policemen’s uniforms.” After addressing a local audience at Omaha’s City Auditorium, he checked out of his hotel, at three a.m., and later that morning was in downtown Chicago. He was a call-in guest on a local radio program, which alerted thousands