Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [73]
Louis had enrolled in the Monday FOI class, and Joseph asked him to deliver a talk. His brief oration, which explained the reasons leading to his conversion, proved mesmerizing. Decades later, NOI veterans who were there could still recite Louis’s words: “I will take the message of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to every nook and cranny in the United States of America.” Louis’s talent as an orator convinced Malcolm to put the young apprentice into his small assistant minister class. It was here, during the first six months of 1956, that Louis flourished, carefully modeling his presentations on Malcolm’s, even studying his mentorʹs mannerisms and dietary habits. It was clear that he brought to the ministry certain skills from his nightclub act. Not only did Malcolm not mind; he took genuine pride in Louis’s accomplishments, and a bond developed. Eventually, Louis described Malcolm as “the father I never had.”
In June or July, Louis was named FOI captain for Boston’s Temple No. 11. In the years since Malcolm’s initial proselytizing efforts, the temple had suffered a membership decline and was in need of an energy boost. Within a year Louis was elevated to minister. Chicago officials were thrilled with their convert. They even allowed him to revive his singing career, but in the service of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad; he wrote and performed several “Islamic-inspired” gospel songs that became wildly popular among temple members.
Louis became Malcolm’s first true protégé. Many other young men would follow, fashioning their sermons and temple activities on Malcolm’s dynamic model. It was not long before they were widely, and sometimes disparagingly, known within the Nation as “Malcolm’s Ministers.”
Malcolm believed that Muslim clergy could be divided into two categories—evangelists and pastors. Few outstanding evangelists excelled as pastors, which called for skill in providing comfort and support to congregants, while relatively few pastors could call their congregations to embrace a spiritual vision in the manner of a great evangelist. “My desire has always been to be good at both,” he said. Several years later, he would equate himself with the greatest Christian evangelist of his time, Billy Graham.
He considered every sermon he delivered an evangelical opportunity, because usually the congregation included a small number of first-time guests. A typical NOI service was very different from most Christian services. The temple’s secretary or captains might open the meeting with announcements; then the minister would lecture, frequently using a blackboard or posters to reinforce points being made. Malcolm would encourage his audience to ask questions, and even welcomed banter and debate with visitors. At one typical Philadelphia meeting, Malcolm declared that the Nation was “the only place in the ‘wilderness of North America’ that the ‘black man and black woman’ [hear] the truth about themselves.” The lecture hammered at two themes. First, Malcolm repeatedly emphasized that blacks were spiritually dead as a group, and that their reawakening depended solely on their acknowledgment of the truth, represented by Elijah Muhammad. Second, Malcolm discussed the Nation’s expectations of how women and men should relate to each other. Urging men to “respect their women,” he also warned women to dress modestly. Women who attracted the amorous attentions