Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [232]
Malcolm arrived in Cairo after midnight on July 12, and stayed initially at the Semiramis Hotel. In the days that followed, as he waited for his clearance to attend the OAU conference as an observer, he occupied his time by getting settled in and making contact with key leaders. The evening after his arrival he contacted Dr. Shawarbi, who was so eager to engage him in political conversation that he and a small entourage of mostly African Americans drove over to his hotel lobby, where they talked together until three in the morning. Malcolm also met with a number of dignitaries, including the Kenyan political leader Tom Mboya as well as Hassan Sabn al-Kholy, director of Nasserʹs Bureau of General Affairs, and he dined with Shirley Graham Du Bois, whom he had previously met in Ghana. He visited Cairo University, the pyramids, and other sites (with an ABC cameraman in tow), and he gave interviews to the London Observer and UPI.
Once at the conference, he immediately began to circulate a memorandum, calling upon newly independent African nations to condemn the United States for its violations of black human rights. “Racism in America is the same that it is in South Africa,” he argued. He urged African leaders to embrace Pan-Africanist politics by endorsing the struggles of African Americans. “We pray that our African brothers” have not escaped the domination of Europe, Malcolm observed, only to fall victim to “American dollarism.”
In the end, Malcolm failed to persuade, though not for any great flaw in his argument or ebbing of his passion; his rhetoric simply could not overcome the cold logic of international politics. In the bipolar political world of the 1960s, backing a formal resolution that sharply condemned the United States for its domestic human rights violations would have been seen by the American government as an act of partnership with the Soviet Union or the communist Chinese. The OAU did pass a tepid resolution applauding the passage of civil rights legislation, but criticizing the lack of racial progress. By late July, media analysis of the meeting had filtered back to the United States, where Malcolm was generally described as having failed. A sympathetic New York Times analysis by M. S. Handler did, however, appear; after examining Malcolm’s eight-page memorandum, U.S. government officials said that had Malcolm “succeeded in convincing just one African Government to bring up the charge at the United Nations, the United States Government would be faced with a touchy problem.” The United States could be held in the same category as South Africa as a violator of human rights.
After the conference ended, Malcolm paused, deciding what to do next. The refusal by African governments to back him could only be overcome, he must have reasoned, by his visiting key countries to lobby for their support. Arranging the tour’s logistics and connecting with dozens of local contacts throughout Africa in advance would take at least one month to accomplish. The list was long, including: in Ghana, Maya Angelou, Ghanaian Times editor T. D. Baffoe, writer Julian Mayfield, and Alice Windom, recently appointed as administrative assistant for the UN Economic Commission for Africa; in Nigeria, scholar E. U. Essien-Udom; in Saudi Arabia, Prince Faisal, Muhammad Abdul Azziz Maged, and Omar Azzam; in Tanzania, Abdulrahman Muhammad Babu, minister of economic planning and foreign affairs; and in Paris, Alioune Diop, publisher and editor of Présence Africaine, the preeminent journal of Francophone black culture. Then there was the planning of accommodations and travel.
In a letter to Betty dated August 4, beginning, “My Dear Wife,” Malcolm instructed her to tell Lynne Shifflett to cooperate with attorney Clarence Jones and others in helping to bring racial issues before the United Nations. He indicated he would probably return to the United States sometime in September. Malcolm asked Betty to tell Charles Kenyatta that he recognized the difficulties in remaining abroad for so long,