Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [71]
Despite Joseph’s hard work, nearly all the praise for the successes in New York centered increasingly on Malcolm. At this time, Joseph was living in a small basement apartment far uptown in West Harlem. He received no salary for his labors as FOI head and worked as a cook at a restaurant owned by an NOI member, the Shabazz restaurant on Fifth Avenue. Sometime during his assignment in Philadelphia, he started dating a woman in the Philadelphia temple, and by early 1956 she had moved in with him. If Joseph planned to start a family, Malcolm must have realized, the Nation owed him a more dependable income. Perhaps for these reasons, Malcolm started praising Joseph during his temple sermons or remarks to the Fruit of Islam. The Nation of Islam’s administrators in Chicago also recognized Joseph’s contributions and considered reassigning him to a more prestigious position. Two weeks prior to the Saviour’s Day convention in February 1955, Joseph was summoned to Chicago, probably by Raymond Sharrieff, and told of a new national program in which he would supervise the recruitment and training of a thousand recruits. For several weeks it appeared that he would be transferred, and at Temple No. 7’s Fruit of Islam meeting on February 21 members received word that he would no longer be with them. But, for reasons still unclear, in early March it was announced that he would be remaining in New York.
Malcolm and Joseph’s efforts in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, combined with other evangelical efforts by Malcolm in various cities, had increased NOI membership by perhaps a thousand new followers. This unprecedented growth signaled to the FBI, which had been tracking the Nation of Islam for decades, that something was stirring, something that they should take seriously. For years, the Bureau had monitored what it still described derisively in internal documents as the “Moslem Cult of Islam” (MCI). Its surveillance now indicated that an ex-convict, one Malcolm K. Little, was largely responsible for the cult’s new evangelical fervor. Malcolm had been on their radar, and under watch, since his letter-writing days at Norfolk and Charlestown, and on January 10, 1955, two FBI agents arranged to see him in New York. They subsequently reported that the subject had been “very uncooperative.” He “refused to furnish any information concerning the officers, names of members, to furnish doctrines or beliefs of the MCI or family background data on himself.” The ex-convict did, however, express several theological and political opinions, describing Elijah Muhammad as “the greatest prophet of all, being the last and greatest Apostle.” When the agents challenged him about the NOIʹs “alleged teachings [of] racial hatred,” he replied, “They do not teach hatred but the truth, that the ‘black man’ has been enslaved in the United States by the ‘white man.’” When asked whether he would serve in the armed forces, Malcolm refused to answer. “The subject did, however, admit that during World War II he had admired the Japanese people and soldiers and that he would have liked to join the Japanese Army.” Malcolm also denied ever having been a member of the Communist Party. His responses were far more confrontational than his interview with the FBI field agent several years earlier. He was unafraid to identify himself completely with Elijah Muhammad’s creed and his organization, regardless of the political consequences. Malcolm subsequently warned members of Temple No. 7 not to cooperate with FBI agents who might contact them.
The February Saviour’s Day convention of 1955 was symbolically Malcolm’s coming out party as the Nation of Islam’s uncrowned prince. In less than two years, he had tripled