Boxing’s savior he was. He had the golden touch, the Gorgeous George magic that put customers in seats. He displayed his special talent in November in Los Angeles against Moore, and then repeated it in January in Pittsburgh against Charley Powell, an exceptional athlete but not proficient enough a boxer to challenge Clay. A week after his twenty-first birthday, Cassius knocked him out in the third round. Yet in subzero weather, more than eleven thousand fans, a local indoor record, paid to boo the undefeated boxer.46
It was just before the Powell match that in a conversation with sportswriter Mort Sharnik, Cassius revealed a different side of himself. Without confessing his ties to the Nation of Islam, he began talking about spirituality. He wondered why he couldn’t have visitations from God. Sharnik recalled, “He was saying that Moses spoke to God and the prophets spoke to God, and why couldn’t he speak to God?” It was a curious observation. Sitting in a room in Pittsburgh, preparing to fight a powerful boxer whom he had dubbed “Frankenstein,” Cassius seemed more interested in his relationship with God. “I had the feeling he sensed he was a special vessel, that he might be ordained for special things,” the writer recalled.47
Sharnik did not understand the source of Clay’s power. He was unaccustomed to athletes speaking so openly about deeply personal matters. But Sharnik had not spoken so intensely with Malcolm X, for whom profound religious conversations were common. Malcolm knew a man who did speak with God. And in the months since he met Clay, he had followed the boxer in newspapers, watching his career blossom. It was time, Malcolm had decided, to visit Cassius, attend one of his fights, and talk about a new message.
Chapter Six
APOLLO
Coffee is the only thing I like integrated.
—MALCOLM X
I want to integrate my coffee. I don’t want to drink it black. Think I’ll have my coffee weak this morning.
—CASSIUS CLAY
Elijah Muhammad’s children distrusted Malcolm. They were certain that he coveted the Messenger’s throne. In early 1963, they became especially concerned about their father’s chronic bronchial asthma. If his health deteriorated, they wondered, who would lead the Nation? Thin as a scarecrow, weighing only one hundred and twenty-five pounds, Elijah couldn’t shake a persistent cough. He was so weak that he sent a telegram to Chicago informing his followers that he could not attend the annual Saviours’ Day convention, the holiest day in the Nation of Islam. In his place, Malcolm would serve as master of ceremonies, an appointment that drove an even deeper wedge between him and Elijah’s children.1
In late February, on the eve of the convention, Malcolm met with Elijah’s son Wallace to discuss the most urgent problem in the Nation: the Messenger’s affairs. Recently paroled after serving more than a year in prison for draft evasion, Wallace arrived in Chicago stunned by rumors of his father’s infidelities. He was shocked to see two women standing out in the cold on his father’s lawn, holding babies that they claimed belonged to the Messenger. The women said that they would not leave until Elijah acknowledged the children. Wallace knew the women, he said, and shortly thereafter confirmed to Malcolm that the children belonged to Elijah.2
During the convention, Elijah’s children complained that Malcolm had taken over. When they asked to hear Wallace speak on stage, Malcolm said that there was not enough time for him to address the assembly. The tension escalated when Malcolm called a family meeting, and announced his plan to confront numerous problems harming the Nation. Undercover FBI agents reported that the family “was especially resentful of [Malcolm’s] attempts to advise and tell the family what to do.”3
When his children grumbled about Malcolm’s lingering presence in Chicago, Elijah dismissed their complaints, reminding them that Malcolm was responsible for “boosting us up” throughout the country. On other occasions, though, he admitted that he had always known that Malcolm would breach his trust and that he had no business discussing “a family affair”—his affairs.4
On March 10, Elijah telephoned his son-in-law, Raymond Sharrieff. Raymond explained that Malcolm had not yet left Chicago and planned to make more public appearances later in the week. Elijah gave Raymond an order: tell Malcolm to go home and check on Betty.5
During the flight back to New York, Malcolm mulled over his conversations with Elijah’s former secretaries. The women told him that Muhammad had said that he was the best minister in the Nation but that his ambition made him “dangerous.” Someday, Muhammad predicted, Malcolm would leave him. It was only a matter of time. Listening to the women, Malcolm learned that while Elijah praised him to his face, “he was tearing me apart behind my back.” Just thinking about Elijah’s words made it hard to breathe. He felt betrayed.6