Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [3]
Although the afternoon’s program had been advertised to begin at two, by the starting time barely forty people had passed through the main entrance. The sparse early turnout may have been a reaction to fears of possible violence. For months, the Nation had been engaged in a well-publicized feud with its former national spokesman, and Malcolm’s followers in Harlem and other cities had been physically assaulted. Only a week earlier, his own home, located in the quiet neighborhood of Elmhurst, Queens, had been firebombed in the middle of the night. To guard against a public confrontation, the NYPD had assigned a detachment of up to two dozen officers at OAAU rallies whenever held at the Audubon. One or more policemen, usually including the day’s detail commander, would be stationed on the second floor in the business office, where they would have an uninterrupted view of everyone entering the main ballroom. Many of the others were prominently stationed at the main entrance, or located outside, directly across the street in a small playground area residents called Pigeon Park. On this particular afternoon, however, not a single officer was at the Audubon entrance, and only one, briefly, was stationed in the park. No one was seen inside the business office. In fact, just two uniformed patrolmen were placed inside the building, both having been ordered to remain in the smaller—and but for them unoccupied—Rose Ballroom, at a considerable distance from the featured event.
The absence of a substantial police presence would prove critical, because earlier that morning five men who had been planning for months to assassinate Malcolm X met together one final time. Although the venue of that meeting was in Paterson, New Jersey, all five were members of the Newark mosque of the Nation of Islam. Only one conspirator was an official of the mosque; the others were NOI laborers and assumed that their actions had been approved by the Nation’s leadership. After meeting at the home of one of the conspirators, where they went over each man’s assignment one final time, the five men then got into a Cadillac and headed for the George Washington Bridge. They exited in upper Manhattan and found a parking spot close to the Audubon that would also provide quick access back to the bridge, and an easy escape to New Jersey.
The sole security force inside the Grand Ballroom and at the main entrance was about twenty of Malcolm’s followers. The head of Malcolm’s security team was his personal bodyguard, Reuben X Francis, who earlier that afternoon had told William 64X George that the day’s team would be undermanned, and that he would need his help. Usually, the dependable William would stand next to the speaker’s podium (placed directly in the front center of the stage), where he could view the entire audience. On this particular day, however, Reuben instructed him to stand at the front entrance—about as far as he could have been from the stage.
Reuben also delegated some decisions to the event’s security coordinator, John D. X, whose job was to supervise guards around the Grand Ballroom’s perimeter. The normal protocol was for security teams to stand for up to thirty minutes—a demanding assignment, especially for those with no prior experience in policing crowds. Usually the most important positions went to former NOI members, all of whom had both security experience and martial arts training. If a known NOI sympathizer attempted to enter an event, he was to be questioned, quietly but firmly. Nation of Islam members who had personal histories of violence or were known for hostility toward Malcolm would be escorted from the building.
One such man was Linwood X Cathcart, a former member of Malcolm’s Mosque No. 7 who had recently joined the