But Malcolm was not the same man that he was in the picture, smiling with his friend while he hid his fears about a life outside the Nation of Islam. By the time he reached Ghana, his thinking about race, religion, and politics had evolved. After making the pilgrimage to Mecca, he completed his break from Elijah Muhammad’s brand of Islam. Years earlier, in 1959, he had traveled to Egypt and Saudi Arabia as Elijah’s emissary. During that trip, he witnessed orthodox Muslims of various races praying together and practicing rituals that conflicted with the Messenger’s teaching. Although Elijah taught his followers that Islam was the “black man’s religion” and that whites were devils, Malcolm had seen for himself that members of the ummah could belong to any nationality or race, as long as they performed the Five Pillars and observed other traditions. At that time he had avoided making the pilgrimage to Mecca because his “devotion to [Elijah]” made him “not want to go there ahead of him.” For years, he suppressed the truth about Elijah’s faith, denying the contradictions between the Messenger’s parochialism and the practices he encountered in Saudi Arabia. But when he completed the hajj in 1964, he finally accepted that Elijah’s orthodoxy was incompatible with the Koran.17
The hajj broadened his understanding of Islam and opened him to the possibility that blacks and whites could live together peacefully. When an Arab asked him what impressed him most about his experience, he answered, “The brotherhood! The people of all races, colors, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God.” Visiting the Holy City inspired him to write letters to American friends describing his spiritual transformation. During his holy pilgrimage, he ate from the same plate, drank from the same cup, slept on the same cot, and prayed on the same rug with white Muslims. For the first time in his life he did not see these men as “white” because they did not identify themselves as whites did in America. He knew that when his letter to the New York Times reached American readers, they would be stunned to learn that he now professed that Islam had cleansed him of his belief that all whites were devils.18
Yet he continued to rail against white Americans. The American white man was still his enemy. He could not absolve them of their sins against blacks; there was too much blood on their hands. Malcolm’s belief that whites were not inherently evil developed gradually, but this realization did not alter his political ideology. At his core, Malcolm was a Black Nationalist, a soldier at war searching for allies in the black liberation movement.19
In Ghana, he hoped to find solidarity with black expatriates and state officials. As the fountainhead of Pan-Africanism, Ghana had long served as a haven for expatriates like W. E. B. Du Bois, Richard Wright, and Julian Mayfield. After Malcolm spent a night at the Ambassador Hotel, Mayfield, Leslie Lacy, Maya Angelou, Alice Windom, and other exiles welcomed him “home.” As editor-in-chief of the African Review and one of Nkrumah’s advisers, Mayfield offered the kinds of connections that Malcolm needed to build diplomatic ties with African leaders.20
At Mayfield’s home, thirty to forty guests huddled around Malcolm as he described how the hajj had changed him. He said that he was still a Muslim but would no longer follow Elijah Muhammad, and that he intended to help unify “the various rights groups in America.” Maya Angelou could not believe that this was the same Malcolm who had served as “the bombastic spokesman” for Elijah Muhammad, preaching about the white man’s doom. The man sitting in Mayfield’s living room smiled easily, exuding a warmth and friendliness that she had never felt before in his presence. Freed from Elijah, Malcolm radiated a renewed energy, grinning and rubbing his sandy beard as he spoke about his new outlook.21
Malcolm toured Accra with his camera, snapping pictures like a tourist. He absorbed the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. Immersed in Ghanaian culture, he spoke to street vendors, students, and intellectuals. He gave interviews, delivered university lectures, and attended lunches and dinners with government officials and ambassadors from various countries.22
Before he arrived in Ghana, Malcolm had determined that he would expose the hypocrisy of white Americans who claimed that they supported Africa. He bristled at the sight of whites “who spit in the faces of blacks” back home but “are seen throughout Africa, bowing, grinning and smiling in an effort to ‘integrate’ with Africans.” Charging the United States as the “master of imperialism,” he urged African leaders to take a strong stand against the American government for violating blacks’ human rights.23