Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [66]
The Massachusetts Parole Board certified Malcolm’s discharge from parole on May 4, 1953; Michigan’s discharge followed shortly thereafter. Malcolm X—as he was now known within the Nation of Islam—was free to travel throughout the United States. One day that same month, during his work shift, he was pulled off the production line by his supervisor. Waiting to see him was an FBI field agent, who ordered Malcolm to accompany him to his supervisor’s office. Once there, he was asked why he had not registered for the Korean War draft. Malcolm was aware that Elijah Muhammad had encouraged the evasion of the draft during World War II, but instead of citing the Messenger ’s example, he informed the agent that he had just been released from prison and thought that former prisoners were not allowed to register. He was allowed to leave, and a few days later registered at the local Selective Service office, claiming conscientious objector status. According to FBI records, he wrote that his country of citizenship was Asia. He also asserted that his “mental attitude and outlook in general regarding war and religion” merited “disqualification from military service.” On May 25 he was given a physical exam for the draft and failed: the subject “had [an] asocial personality with paranoid trends.”
That summer, Malcolm became Detroit Temple No. 1’s assistant minister. He was already commuting regularly between Detroit and Chicago, where he was preparing for the ministry, much of his tutelage being directly under the supervision of Elijah Muhammad. “I was treated as if I had been one of the sons of Mr. Muhammad and his dark, good wife Sister Clara,” Malcolm recalled fondly. “In the Muslim-owned combination grocery-drug store on Wentworth and 31st Street, Mr. Muhammad would sweep the floor or something like that . . . as an example to his followers.” Malcolm relished the opportunity to ask questions of the man he believed to embody perfection. “The way we were with each other,” he recalled, “it would make me think of Socrates on the steps of the Athens marketplace, spreading his wisdom to his students.”
In June, Malcolm quit his job at Gar Wood and began working full-time for the Nation of Islam. Technically, NOI clergy were not employees; the income they received from temple offerings was deemed an informal contribution for voluntary services. Throughout the remainder of that year, Malcolm continued to steer scores of fresh converts into Detroit’s temple. He also gained confidence in his ability to speak in public, lecturing on a range of topics. By late 1953, Elijah Muhammad decided that his protégé should be promoted to minister and be assigned to establishing a temple where the Nation of Islam had few followers. Boston was the logical choice: Malcolm had lived there for several years and had numerous relatives and old friends in the city. One NOI member who lived in the city, Lloyd X, agreed to house him and invite small groups to his home to hear the young minister. Years later, Malcolm could recall the appeal he delivered to one such gathering in early January 1954. What he could not have known was that within his audience was an FBI informant. The fact that the Boston field office of the FBI thought it prudent to conduct surveillance even of tiny NOI gatherings, in their homes, reveals just how potentially dangerous the sect was believed to be.
Within the Nation of Islam, each successful temple had four decision-making officers who exercised authority over routine activities, though always under Muhammad’s autocratic guidance: the minister, the temple’s secretary-treasurer, the women’s captain of Muslim Girls Training (MGT), and the men’s captain, the head of the Fruit of Islam (FOI). These personnel were frequently selected directly by the national secretariat in Chicago, which in effect included Muhammad, national captain of the Fruit of Islam Raymond Sharrieff, Sharrieff’s wife and