Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [93]
Still, the unusual way Malcolm proposed to Betty suggests that his former lieutenants may have had a point. Early in the morning on Sunday, January 12, 1958, he stood in a pay telephone booth at a gas station in Detroit, having driven all night from New York City. He reached her at her hospital dormitory and immediately blurted out, “Look, do you want to get married?” Betty, overcome, dropped the receiver, but as soon as she had it in hand again said, “Yes.” She promptly packed her suitcase and immediately flew to Detroit.
As soon as Betty was in Detroit, the young couple went together to the Malloys, who were stunned. Betty recalled leaving Malcolm in the living room as she retreated with her parents to the back of the house to tell them the news. They did not respond well. Helen Malloy sobbed uncontrollably, complaining that Malcolm was too old and “not even a Christian.” Her father was even more direct: “What have we done to make you hate us so?” Betty began to weep as well, but she was determined to have her way. What Malcolm surmised from the raised voices and gales of sobbing is hard to know. He simply recalled that the Malloys “were very friendly, and happily surprised.”
The news received a better reception from the Littles. Malcolm’s siblings in the Detroit area were overjoyed, and probably extremely relieved, that their thirty-two-year-old brother was finally settling down. On January 14, Malcolm and Betty drove to nearby northern Indiana, where liberal marriage laws would make it easy to wed quickly. However, the state had recently established a mandatory waiting period, so the two went on to Philbert’s home in Lansing, where they learned it was possible to marry within two days. They obtained the necessary blood tests, bought a pair of rings, and filled out a marriage certificate. Then came the ceremony itself, on January 4. Malcolm’s rendering is both semicomical and bittersweet, because it reveals little sense of joy. “An old hunchback white man,” a justice of the peace, performed the ceremony. Wilfred and Philbert were there, although in Malcolm’s version of events all the witnesses were white. Malcolm was most offended when the justice of the peace instructed him to “kiss your bride.” Malcolm protested, “I got her out of there. All that Hollywood stuff!” He ridiculed “these movie and television-addicted women expecting some bouquets and kissing and hugging . . . like Cinderella.” The newlyweds spent the night at a hotel, Betty flying back to New York the next day to attend her classes.
When the news of Minister Malcolm’s nuptials reached Temple No. 7, there was pandemonium, and not all of it celebratory. The NOI was predominantly an organization in which males fraternized easily with each other, hugging and embracing in public. While physical contact between genders was prohibited, male-to-male contact, especially within the martial arts context, was routine. It was not a surprise to Malcolm, therefore, when some brothers at Temple No. 7 “looked at me as though I had betrayed them.” Malcolm was seen as a modern-day Abelard, the priest who had surrendered to earthly passions, abandoning his true calling. But he was far more intrigued with the temple sisters’ response to Betty. “I never will forget hearing one exclaim, ‘You got him!’ That’s like I was telling you, the nature of women. That’s part of why I never have been able to shake it out of my mind that she knew something—all the time. Maybe she did get me!”
Evelyn, who was at the temple when the news of Malcolm’s marriage was announced, ran from the building screaming. Undoubtedly Malcolm felt guilty; if, as Farrakhan suggested, he continued to harbor feelings for her, the formal ending of their relationship may have been almost as difficult for Malcolm. But just as practical considerations had motivated his desire to be married, it now drove his resolve to restore