In April 1962, one could still only glean kernels of that hidden self. Publicly, he emphasized his Christian virtues. “I live by the Bible,” he told Los Angeles Times reporter Paul Zimmerman. “My mother and father taught me to live right. ‘No stealin’, no cussin’, no drinkin’, no smokin’,’ the Bible says that he who reads the good book will understand to tell the truth.”43
But other times he hinted that his religious beliefs were not exactly the ones he had learned in Louisville. Even when he was not in Miami, he pondered what he had learned at the mosque and in his conversations with Sam Saxon and the Black Muslim ministers. During several talks with reporters he addressed the subject of pork. Once at dinner during a long train ride, Clay witnessed sportswriter Myron Cope cut into a roast pork loin. Cassius shuddered: “Poke give me a headache. . . . Doctors tell me poke ninety percent live cell parasites. Poke ninety percent maggots. . . . You let that poke lay two days, it get up and crawl. The hawg is an unclean animal. Cat, rat, dog, hawg—add ’em up.” It was the language not of his Baptist mother or his father but of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X.44
Chapter Four
IN COLD BLOOD
Because a man doesn’t throw a punch doesn’t mean he can’t do so whenever he gets ready.
—MALCOLM X
When Cassius Clay answered the telephone one day in early June 1962, he had no idea that the call would change his life. It was Sam Saxon, calling to invite him and his brother Rudy to Detroit for a Black Muslim rally. Over the past year, Cassius had attended more Muslim meetings outside Miami, but he had not yet heard Elijah Muhammad preach in person. With more than five weeks until his next scheduled fight, Clay could afford to spend a weekend with Saxon. So Cassius eagerly accepted his invitation, and a few days later, Sam picked up the Clay brothers in Louisville and drove them to Detroit. There was someone very important Saxon wanted Cassius to meet.1
When they arrived on Sunday, June 10, they stopped at a luncheonette crowded with black patrons. Sitting at a back table where he could watch the front door, surrounded by Muslim officers and an assortment of supplicants, Malcolm X noticed Sam Saxon accompanied by two handsome, athletic men walking straight toward his table. Malcolm could see that they were anxious to meet him. One of the brothers, a confident young man with the face of a matinee idol, pumped the minister’s hand and announced, “I’m Cassius Clay,” which he assumed said it all.2
For more than two years Cassius had been repeating his name, usually adding that he was “the greatest” and “the prettiest fighter” who had ever laced on a pair of gloves. When Malcolm met the Clay brothers, however, he did not realize that one of them was famous. He had not followed boxing, bet on matches, or read the sports page since he left prison. “Up to that moment . . . I had never heard of him,” he said later. “Ours were two entirely different worlds.” They spoke only briefly, as Malcolm had only a few minutes to finish preparing his opening remarks for the rally. But Clay had already made an impression on him. There was something about the young fighter—some “contagious quality . . . simply a likeable, friendly, clean-cut, down-to-earth” charm—that intrigued Malcolm. He did not know it yet, but he would soon understand that there was a place for Cassius Clay in his world.3
IN THE EARLY 1960S, as the civil rights movement intensified, so, too, did Malcolm’s violent rhetoric. The Muslims, he claimed, lived by lex talionis. “We believed in a fair exchange,” he said. “An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A head for a head and a life for a life. If this is the price of freedom, we won’t hesitate to pay the price.” When anyone questioned the Nation’s willingness to retaliate, he replied that a Muslim was like a boxer in the ring with his fist cocked, just waiting for the right opening. He warned, “You might see these Negroes who believe in nonviolence and mistake us for one of them and put your hands on us thinking that we’re going to turn the other cheek—and we’ll put you to death just like that.”4