AS CLAY CAME into his own, Malcolm hesitated, unsure of his future. Since he had returned from Chicago, all he could think about was the collateral damage from Elijah’s affairs. On the streets of Chicago and Harlem, blacks who were not Muslims told him that they had heard about Muhammad’s harem. He pretended that he did not know what they were talking about, but it was no use. He could no longer ignore the truth.
For years, he had built up the Messenger as an honorable man, the moral compass of the Nation. Every time he mentioned the Supreme Minister’s name, he referred to him as “the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” but Malcolm could no longer call him an honorable leader, knowing how he had disgraced the Nation. He hated to admit that Elijah was nothing more than an imposter hiding under the cloak of divinity because that meant that he, too, was a fraud.18
He realized that he had no choice: the only way he could deal with the Nation’s calamity and his own personal crisis was by confronting Elijah. He began by writing Muhammad letters, explaining his actions in Chicago. FBI agents listening to wiretapped lines between Chicago and Phoenix overheard NOI officials say that Malcolm was only “seeking, prodding, and prying” under the guise of helping. Muhammad assured the NOI officials that Malcolm would never discuss the “problems” in person, but his younger minister had already decided to fly to Phoenix to confront the issue before it was too late.19
When he arrived at Muhammad’s home, Elijah embraced him like a returning prodigal son. They walked through his backyard patio and settled into chairs near the swimming pool. “Well son,” Elijah asked, “what’s on your mind?” Malcolm spoke directly and plainly about what he had heard in Chicago, suggesting a biblical solution that justified Elijah’s indiscretions. He explained that he and Wallace had studied the Bible and the Koran for precedents that would justify Elijah’s fathering children outside his marriage. If necessary, he said, the ministers could tell the followers that the pregnancies were “the fulfillment of prophecy.” Elijah smiled and praised his loyal minister. “Son, I’m not surprised. You always have had such a good understanding of prophecy, and of spiritual things. You recognized that’s what all of this is—prophecy.”20
“I’m David,” he declared. “When you read about how David took another man’s wife, I’m that David. You read books about Noah, who got drunk—that’s me. You read about Lot, who went and laid up with his own daughters. I have to fulfill all of those things.”21
After their conversation, Malcolm felt unsatisfied. If Elijah had convinced himself that he was David, Malcolm was less sure that the Nation would accept this convenient allegory. Instead of denying his worst fear, Muhammad had confirmed it, leaving Malcolm and the other ministers in the untenable position of having to convince the followers of Elijah’s prophecy. Muhammad had instructed him to discreetly inform a few ministers about their conversation, but, he said, under no circumstances should he tell Brother Louis X. Do not tell Louis, he repeated.22
Malcolm returned to New York not knowing that Elijah was testing his loyalty. If Malcolm followed his orders, then Elijah would know that he could trust him. But the moment Malcolm attempted to “inoculate” the Nation from the “oncoming virus,” his enemies in Chicago would charge that he, not Elijah Muhammad, was the untrustworthy one.23
IN WASHINGTON, DC, where Muhammad had recently assigned him to build up the Muslims’ presence, Malcolm watched news footage of white police officers unleashing attack dogs on black teenagers who marched for freedom. He admired the courage of Birmingham’s youth, but he could not believe that Martin Luther King would allow them to march on the front lines, unable to defend themselves. Teaching nonviolence, he insisted, sedated blacks into passivity. For Malcolm, King’s willingness to turn the other cheek made him weak and cowardly, a message he shared with Cassius Clay. A real black man would never let a white man put a hand on him or “put their children on the firing line.” If a white man turned “his dogs on your babies, your women and your children, then you ought to kill the dogs, whether they’ve got four legs or two.”24
Despite Malcolm’s position on the outskirts of the civil rights leadership, his violent rhetoric shaped the contours of the movement. In the public mind, he became King’s foil, a dark and menacing alternative to the Christian philosophy of brotherly love. Malcolm’s public criticisms of King’s nonviolent philosophy moved him to the center of the national civil rights debate. The fact that reporters interviewed him, seeking his opinion about the Birmingham crisis, gave him further credibility and elevated his national profile.