In Chicago, Muhammad’s lieutenants carefully examined the applicants’ letters. If the letter was written without errors, then the truth-seeker received a questionnaire regarding his or her marital status, dependents, and employment. Upon completing the application process, new members immersed themselves in the world of the Nation, submitting completely to the teachings of Muhammad. Every follower was supposed to give up dope, tobacco, alcohol, profanity, and vice of all kinds. In return, the believer was no longer a wandering “Negro,” ashamed of his or her skin color, weakened by Christianity. After initiation, new disciples proclaimed their loyalty to the Supreme Minister. In exchange for their devotion, the true believer received a new life, a new identity, and a new name.17
All true believers retained their first name and accepted an X in place of their surname—their slave name. For example, in the New York temple, Joseph Gravitt, the FOI captain, became Joseph X. Benjamin Goodman, the second man named Benjamin to join Temple No. 7, became Benjamin 2X. Black people, Muhammad taught, did not know their true last name; it remained a mystery. The X was a temporary replacement until the Messenger gave the follower an Arabic name, their “original name,” such as Ali, Muhammad, Sharrieff, or Shabazz, though many of his disciples went years without replacing the X. In rejecting one’s slave name, the X signified crossing over and erasing the past, the legacy of slavery, and the life of self-loathing. It meant that a black man denounced what he was before he became a Muslim: an “ex-slave.”18
In two years, Benjamin 2X became one of Malcolm’s assistant ministers. During a weekly seminar, Malcolm quizzed his assistants about religion, history, geography, politics, philosophy, economics, and current events. For every class, he required that each student bring a notebook, dictionary, thesaurus, and library card. When Benjamin and the other ministers were not working at their day jobs, they diligently studied the Bible and the Koran; they read the New York Times, the London Times, and a variety of news magazines; and they prepared for debates. Wasting time on television, movies, parties, and sports was unacceptable. Once his assistants convinced Malcolm that they were ready to do God’s work, he took them out fishing on the streets of New York.19
Standing on congested street corners and stepladders, outside churches and drugstores, Malcolm courted lost souls, inviting them to hear the truth at Temple No. 7. Armed with a Bible and handbills, he worked the streets, talking to men who reminded him of a younger version of himself: hustlers, gamblers, and bottom-feeders, men searching for a way out of the ghetto. He understood these men, their frustrations, their anger, and their language. He spoke directly, never wasting a word, appealing to their experiences—experiences that he had lived. And anyone who listened to Malcolm was invariably transfixed by his stories of his own reinvention.
The path that led Malcolm to the Nation of Islam was a tortuous one. After bouncing around predominantly white reform schools and foster homes, Malcolm, three months shy of his sixteenth birthday, with only an eighth-grade education, eagerly boarded a Greyhound bus in Lansing and traveled to Boston. There, under the care of his twenty-six-year-old sister Ella, Malcolm gravitated toward the “hip” swindlers standing on the street corners, the gangsters and bookies, dope dealers and pimps. These men educated him on the life of a “hustler.” An older man who called Malcolm “homeboy” taught him the importance of performance when he was shining the white man’s shoes. Kneeling at a foot stand, Malcolm mastered the art of polishing, brushing, and shining shoes, snapping the rag across the leather, making it “pop like a firecracker.” That popping sound was pure “jive noise,” worth two extra bits.20
Whether he was shining shoes, cleaning dishes, or serving diners on Pullman cars, Malcolm hustled. He earned generous tips from white men by shucking with a sly smile, ingratiating customers with compliments. When Malcolm finished work he rushed to the nightclubs, where he danced and drank the night away, gambling his tips while he dreamed of hitting the jackpot.