By midafternoon on November 22, the whole nation had come to a halt. Americans hovered near their radios or televisions while reporters and producers scrambled for news from Dallas. Shortly after two p.m., ABC Radio announcer Don Gardiner issued a special bulletin: “The president is dead. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a trying moment for all of us. Let us all pause and let us all pray.” When Malcolm heard the announcement, he remarked coldly, “That devil is dead.”26
Muhammad released a short statement expressing shock over “the loss of our President,” a surprising comment given his past diatribes against the government. Privately, he worried that the Nation would be implicated in some way over the assassination. He ordered all ministers to remain silent about the president, and on Sunday, December 1, before Malcolm’s speaking engagement at the Manhattan Center, he called to again remind him not to talk about Kennedy.27
After Malcolm’s talk, reporters asked him about the president’s assassination. At first, he refused to answer the writers’ questions, suggesting that the media wanted to trap him into exclaiming, “Hooray, hooray! I’m glad he got it!” But when the crowd laughed and clapped, it stirred something in him. He relished delivering a memorable line, and with a little more prodding from the press, he finally gave in. The president’s murder, he said, was a case of “the chickens coming home to roost.” Then, he added, “Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.”28
Malcolm believed that Kennedy and the CIA were behind the murders of South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba. He also thought that Kennedy had sat passively while whites murdered blacks in the American South. The president’s assassination was an inevitable result of America’s culture of violence.
Incensed at Malcolm’s comments, the Nation’s national secretary John Ali immediately telephoned Elijah. Malcolm had disobeyed Muhammad’s order, threatening the Nation’s reputation. Ali also advised Elijah that Malcolm’s comments would provoke closer scrutiny from the FBI.
Malcolm had made a fatal error: he had handed Ali, Sharrieff, and Elijah’s sons the wedge they needed to separate him from Muhammad once and for all.
The next day, Malcolm and Ali flew to Chicago for a meeting at Muhammad’s home. The morning edition of the New York Times quoted Malcolm, exacerbating Muhammad’s disappointment in him. After Muhammad and Malcolm embraced, they sat in the living room. Malcolm knew Muhammad so well that he could usually predict what he would say. But this time he had no idea what was coming.29
“Did you see the papers this morning?” Muhammad asked.
“Yes, sir, I did,” Malcolm answered.
“That was a very bad statement. The country loved this man. The whole country is in mourning. That was very ill timed.”
Malcolm agreed, adding that he understood he had made a mistake.
Muhammad stressed that Malcolm’s imprudent statement had consequences. “I’ll have to punish you for the next ninety days—so that Muslims everywhere can be disassociated from the blunder.” He was silencing Malcolm, muting a man whose voice defined him. Malcolm would rather lose a leg or an arm than his voice.30
But Malcolm had no choice. He accepted his punishment without protest. He would continue his administrative responsibilities at Mosque No. 7, but he would refrain from preaching or speaking to the media. Muhammad instructed Ali to release a public statement to the press. Denouncing Malcolm’s comments about Kennedy, Ali informed the media that Malcolm was suspended from public speaking for an undetermined amount of time.31
In the following days, writers speculated that Muhammad would permanently replace Malcolm as minister of Mosque No. 7. Journalists reported that the Nation would split into two factions: one in Chicago following Muhammad and another in New York supporting Malcolm. A writer called Muhammad to ask when he would lift Malcolm’s public speaking ban, but he refused to offer a deadline. “We are still brothers and I still think Malcolm is wonderful worker of mine,” he answered. “But . . . we have rules; we must obey them.”32
Muhammad was not so generous toward Malcolm when he spoke to his closest advisers. He told one aide that Malcolm “should have known better than to talk about the President.” But Malcolm gave Elijah no choice after he made him “look like a fool.” “Papa,” he said, had to “spank his son.” If Malcolm disobeyed him again, then he would receive “a worse beating the next time.”33
MALCOLM BELIEVED THAT if he was contrite, his suspension would not last the full three months. Muhammad had gone so far as to admit that he would have said the same thing about Kennedy—nonetheless, Malcolm had disobeyed him, and now Elijah would reassert his authority.