Latest / Gil I Am / Malcolm X condemns Elijah Muhammad (founder of NOI)
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody.
- 0:02Speaker 2: This is Gil and today I'm gonna give you a
- 0:04Speaker 2: little bit of Malcolm X, who is one of my idols,
- 0:08Speaker 2: my heroes. If you don't know about Malcolm, he had
- 0:12Speaker 2: some really harsh rhetoric when it came to whites, and
- 0:16Speaker 2: then he went to Mecca. And when he went to
- 0:18Speaker 2: Mecca everything changed. He said that for the first time
- 0:23Speaker 2: in his life, he saw whites and blacks and Jews
- 0:26Speaker 2: and Protestants and people going there. And it was wasn't
- 0:32Speaker 2: it just Muslims or black Muslims or Muslims of color,
- 0:35Speaker 2: but there were people of different religions who went to
- 0:37Speaker 2: experience Mecca. And when he came back from Mecca, his
- 0:41Speaker 2: whole attitude changed. And when his attitude changed, the support
- 0:46Speaker 2: from the Nation of Islam changed also. But this is
- 0:49Speaker 2: some of the stuff that led to his termination of
- 0:52Speaker 2: his relationship with the Nation of Islam and accusations against
- 0:56Speaker 2: Elijah Muhammad.
- 0:57Speaker 3: So this is it.
- 0:57Speaker 1: I'm giving that to you.
- 0:59Speaker 2: This is he wrote one of my heroes, Malcolm ICs.
- 1:04Speaker 4: Minister Malcolm, when you broke with Elijah Muhammad back in March,
- 1:07Speaker 4: you said it was because the black Muslims were too
- 1:09Speaker 4: narrowly sectarian and inhibited, and because Elijah Muhammad had become
- 1:15Speaker 4: blindly jealous of you and the personal following you had gathered.
- 1:18Speaker 1: MM.
- 1:19Speaker 5: That I said the first part, but the last part
- 1:21Speaker 5: I didn't say that Elijah Muhammad himself had become blindly jealous.
- 1:24Speaker 5: I mentioned that it was his family and the officials
- 1:27Speaker 5: in Chicago. Everything that I said always was designed to
- 1:31Speaker 5: protect mister Muhammad himself, primarily because the image that he
- 1:35Speaker 5: had created UH was the image that enabled his followers
- 1:39Speaker 5: to remain strong in faith and things of that sort.
- 1:42Speaker 1: And I didn't want to see any UH.
- 1:44Speaker 5: Adverse effect or negative result that UH developed in the
- 1:49Speaker 5: faith of all of his followers.
- 1:51Speaker 1: But actually, UH, despite.
- 1:53Speaker 5: The fact that I tried to protect the Muslim movement,
- 1:56Speaker 5: if you'll notice, they UH used their newspaper to slander
- 2:00Speaker 5: me and to label me as a hypocrite and UH
- 2:03Speaker 5: as a rebel, and Mter Muhammad himself said that I defected. Well,
- 2:07Speaker 5: in reality, I never even left the Muslim movement. They
- 2:10Speaker 5: put me out, and they put me out because of
- 2:12Speaker 5: what I knew, and what I knew was told to
- 2:15Speaker 5: me by mister Muhammad's son, UH Wallace Muhammad himself.
- 2:18Speaker 1: They put me out and they put him out.
- 2:21Speaker 4: Well, now, first of all, let's find out what it
- 2:23Speaker 4: is that Wallace Muhammad Delarga, Muhammad's son told you.
- 2:26Speaker 5: Well, Uh, number one, if you notice the the stick
- 2:29Speaker 5: that I always used in presenting, representing, and defending the
- 2:33Speaker 5: Muslim movement was the fact that it had the abilitary
- 2:36Speaker 5: ability to reform the morals of the so called negro community.
- 2:41Speaker 5: It eliminated drug addiction, alcoholism, UH, fornication, adultery, loose sex,
- 2:48Speaker 5: sexual behavior, which meant that uh I eliminated bastard babies,
- 2:53Speaker 5: illegitimate children. Well, as long as I knew that this
- 2:56Speaker 5: was what had represented, and it gave me a strong stick,
- 2:58Speaker 5: I could represent it and defend. But UH, we had
- 3:02Speaker 5: a law which UH meant, which means which was that UH,
- 3:07Speaker 5: whenever any UH Muslim became involved in any kind of
- 3:11Speaker 5: sexual relationship with someone to whom they weren't married, that
- 3:14Speaker 5: person would be brought before the Muslim comun community, humiliated
- 3:18Speaker 5: and then isolated for from one to five years.
- 3:21Speaker 1: This was our law.
- 3:23Speaker 5: Well, Uh, in nineteen fifty four, a teenage sister left
- 3:27Speaker 5: Detroit and became one of mister Muhammad's personal secretaries, and
- 3:31Speaker 5: UH there in the Chicago office. She became pregnant after
- 3:35Speaker 5: being there for a year and H she was brought
- 3:38Speaker 5: before the Muslim community and humiliated and isolated and UH
- 3:42Speaker 5: a year A year later, another secretary, this time one
- 3:45Speaker 5: from UH Lansing, Michigan, UH, came to Chicago. She also
- 3:49Speaker 5: became pregnant. She was brought before.
- 3:52Speaker 1: The community A and K humiliated and isolated.
- 3:55Speaker 5: And because the other person was never brought forth during
- 3:59Speaker 5: this UH court set, it was concluded by all of
- 4:02Speaker 5: mister Muhammad's followers that it was a non Muslim who
- 4:06Speaker 5: was the other party. Well, we grew so rapidly until
- 4:09Speaker 5: that in nineteen fifty seven or fifty eight, the UH
- 4:12Speaker 5: secretarial staff was expanded to I think eighteen age sisters.
- 4:17Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty nine, six of them disappeared.
- 4:20Speaker 5: Two of them reappeared in Philadelphia about.
- 4:23Speaker 1: Two or three months later, and they were all right. UH.
- 4:26Speaker 5: The other four reappeared in nineteen sixty. All four of
- 4:29Speaker 5: them had babies. All four of them had become involved
- 4:33Speaker 5: with someone and become pregnant and had these children. So
- 4:36Speaker 5: it was UH from what I now know, when the
- 4:39Speaker 5: four of them got back to Chicago and began to
- 4:42Speaker 5: compare notes, they found that the same man had told
- 4:45Speaker 5: all of them the same story and had made all
- 4:47Speaker 5: of them pregnant. That the same man was the father
- 4:50Speaker 5: of all four of their children, and had also been
- 4:51Speaker 5: the father of the che children brought forth by the
- 4:54Speaker 5: two secretaries who preceded them. So this story was kept
- 4:58Speaker 5: among these sisters until nineteen sixty two. Two of them
- 5:02Speaker 5: reveled against Uh, the person who was responsible, and began
- 5:07Speaker 5: to tell the story all over the.
- 5:08Speaker 1: City of Chicago.
- 5:09Speaker 5: It caused many of the Muslims in the Chicago Mosque
- 5:12Speaker 5: to leave and go back out in the street.
- 5:13Speaker 1: They knew it and it w I knew.
- 5:16Speaker 5: Nothing about it until nineteen sixty three when mister Mohammad's son,
- 5:21Speaker 5: who had been in prison, Uh came out, and he
- 5:23Speaker 5: was a He had been a minister. He was very
- 5:25Speaker 5: religious and spiritual, and when he began to hear these
- 5:27Speaker 5: rumors around Chicago, he went to one of the sisters
- 5:30Speaker 5: and the sister admitted to him that the rumor was true.
- 5:33Speaker 5: And it was he who first told me about it.
- 5:36Speaker 5: And when he told me about it, I took I
- 5:38Speaker 5: wrote to mister Muhammad and told him about it, and
- 5:40Speaker 5: he admitted that he had a knowledge of it, and
- 5:42Speaker 5: that uh he had given me a religious explanation that
- 5:45Speaker 5: would fit into prophecy and all of that. So I
- 5:47Speaker 5: was quiet, and it wasn't until October of nineteen sixty
- 5:51Speaker 5: three that it came up again. And when it came
- 5:53Speaker 5: up again, I realized that the same person who had
- 5:56Speaker 5: UH made these other sisters pregnant was still busy doing
- 6:00Speaker 5: the same thing.
- 6:00Speaker 1: He hadn't stopped.
- 6:01Speaker 5: Two of the sisters had two children by the same man,
- 6:04Speaker 5: and the two one of those two sisters was pregnant
- 6:07Speaker 5: still getting ready to have a third.
- 6:08Speaker 1: Child by the same man.
- 6:10Speaker 5: So when it was known among the Chicago officials that
- 6:13Speaker 5: I had a knowledge of this, they become very fearful
- 6:15Speaker 5: of me. They became very antagonistic towards me, and they
- 6:19Speaker 5: tried they had they had to do something to diminish
- 6:21Speaker 5: the authority that I.
- 6:22Speaker 1: Had, for fear that if this became public.
- 6:24Speaker 5: Knowledge, the followers would leave the Muslim movement and follow me.
- 6:28Speaker 5: And it was at that time that they used the
- 6:30Speaker 5: statement that I made against President Kennedy as a pretax
- 6:34Speaker 5: to cut my authority, And some other things happened that
- 6:37Speaker 5: finally produced.
- 6:38Speaker 1: The split or forced the split.
- 6:40Speaker 5: And when I made this split, the only reason that
- 6:42Speaker 5: I didn't make this public knowledge was I knew the implications.
- 6:45Speaker 5: And I felt that if the Muslims who were in
- 6:48Speaker 5: the nation of Islam knew it, that which enabled them
- 6:52Speaker 5: to be so strongly religious and exercise moral discipline would
- 6:57Speaker 5: be shattered, and it would cause all of them to
- 6:59Speaker 5: go right back and stop doing the things that they
- 7:00Speaker 5: had been doing previously.
- 7:03Speaker 4: Who is the father of all of these various children
- 7:06Speaker 4: whom you had enumerated.
- 7:07Speaker 5: Uh, The first one to tell me who the father
- 7:10Speaker 5: was Wallace Muhammad, and he told me that the father
- 7:12Speaker 5: was Elijah Muhammad.
- 7:13Speaker 1: Himself one of the sisters to UH.
- 7:15Speaker 5: He went to the home of one of the sisters,
- 7:17Speaker 5: and when he walked in the door, she says, I
- 7:19Speaker 5: wanna let you see something, and she uh t showed
- 7:22Speaker 5: him her child. She said, here's your brother, and your
- 7:24Speaker 5: father is the one. Your father is the father of
- 7:27Speaker 5: this child. And then I questioned the sisters myself because
- 7:31Speaker 5: it I was shook up, and they admitted to.
- 7:33Speaker 1: Me that Elijah Muhammad was the father of their children.
- 7:35Speaker 5: And I took it to him, and it was at
- 7:37Speaker 5: that time he told me that he was Muhammed the prophet,
- 7:41Speaker 5: and that Muhammad had nine wives. He also told me
- 7:43Speaker 5: that he was David, he was the modern David. Then
- 7:46Speaker 5: that he that he was the modern Solomon, and that
- 7:48Speaker 5: he he was meant. It was meant for him to
- 7:50Speaker 5: fulfill today all of the things that they did back there.
- 7:54Speaker 4: And how many of these illegitimate children did he father
- 7:57Speaker 4: with the sisters?
- 7:58Speaker 5: Well, he made uh uh six sisters pregnant.
- 8:02Speaker 1: They all had children. Two of those six had two children.
- 8:05Speaker 5: Uh Uh.
- 8:06Speaker 1: One of those two is having a child right now.
- 8:10Speaker 5: I am told that there is a seventh sister who
- 8:13Speaker 5: is supposed to be in Mexico right now, and she's
- 8:15Speaker 5: supposed to be having a child buying for one thing.
- 8:18Speaker 5: When you first separate from your wife, it's a physical separation,
- 8:22Speaker 5: but it's not psychological. You still have feelings for her
- 8:24Speaker 5: and you protect her.
- 8:25Speaker 3: Uh.
- 8:26Speaker 5: But after the physical separation has taken place for a while,
- 8:29Speaker 5: it becomes a psychological separation.
- 8:31Speaker 1: It was the same way with me and the Muslim movement.
- 8:33Speaker 5: When I first separated, it was a physical separation, but my.
- 8:36Speaker 1: Feeling was still there.
- 8:37Speaker 5: And it was only after my trip uh into the
- 8:40Speaker 5: Muslim world and then and my pilgrimage to Mecca that
- 8:42Speaker 5: I really was able to UH exercise the objective approach
- 8:46Speaker 5: to it that enabled me to see that something had
- 8:49Speaker 5: to be done to bring this to light, otherwise a
- 8:51Speaker 5: whole lot of innocent people would be killed needlessly.
- 8:55Speaker 4: Well, these revelations that you are now making about Elijah Muhammad,
- 8:58Speaker 4: what effect should they have on him following?
- 9:01Speaker 5: Well, I very much doubt that any of his followers,
- 9:04Speaker 5: who really UH are aware of what he has done,
- 9:08Speaker 5: would continue to follow him.
- 9:10Speaker 1: Uh. He may try and.
- 9:11Speaker 5: Justify it by saying that he's a Moslim, a Muslim,
- 9:14Speaker 5: and that a Muslim has a right to these wives.
- 9:17Speaker 5: If this were the case, he these sisters should not
- 9:20Speaker 5: have been humiliated. These sisters have been looked upon for
- 9:23Speaker 5: the past UH five years or six years or seven
- 9:26Speaker 5: years as uh being guilty of having committed uh fornication.
- 9:30Speaker 5: They have been debased, they have been degraded. I have
- 9:33Speaker 5: heard he I have heard him himself referred to them as.
- 9:37Speaker 1: Having disgraced him.
- 9:38Speaker 5: So, if they were his wives, he should have given
- 9:41Speaker 5: them a position of respect so that all of his
- 9:44Speaker 5: followers would r respect them and that they would have
- 9:46Speaker 5: his have the protection of his followers today.
- 9:49Speaker 4: Well, do you feel that you, then, perhaps now should
- 9:52Speaker 4: take over the leadership of the Black Muslims.
- 9:54Speaker 5: No, I have no desire to take over the leadership
- 9:56Speaker 5: of the Black Muslims, and I.
- 9:57Speaker 1: Have never had that desire. But I do have this desire.
- 10:00Speaker 5: I have a desire to see the Afro American in
- 10:03Speaker 5: this country get the human rights that.
- 10:05Speaker 1: Are his due.
- 10:06Speaker 5: I believe that the Islam religion is the best religion
- 10:09Speaker 5: for our people because it creates unity, and it gives
- 10:12Speaker 5: one uh uh dignity and racial confidence and all of
- 10:16Speaker 5: these things that are necessary to make a complete human being.
- 10:22Speaker 4: Are you not, perhaps afraid of what might happen to
- 10:25Speaker 4: you as a result of making these revelations?
- 10:27Speaker 5: Oh?
- 10:28Speaker 1: Yes, I probably am a dead man already.
- 10:31Speaker 5: Well, when you understand the makeup of the Muslim movement
- 10:36Speaker 5: and the psychology of the Muslim movement, as long as
- 10:40Speaker 5: any if I I myself, and by having confidence in
- 10:43Speaker 5: the leader of the Muslim movement, if someone came to
- 10:46Speaker 5: me and I had no knowledge whatsoever of what had
- 10:49Speaker 5: taken place, and they told me what I'm saying, I
- 10:51Speaker 5: would kill them myself. The only thing that would prevent
- 10:55Speaker 5: me from killing someone who made a statement like this,
- 10:58Speaker 5: They would have to be able to let me know
- 10:59Speaker 5: that it's true. Now, if anyone had come to me
- 11:02Speaker 5: other than mister Muhammed's son, I never would have believed
- 11:05Speaker 5: it even enough to look into it.
- 11:07Speaker 1: But I had been around him so closely.
- 11:08Speaker 5: I had seen indications of its, of its uh of
- 11:11Speaker 5: the reality of it, but my religious sincerity made me
- 11:14Speaker 5: block it out of my mind.
- 11:16Speaker 3: Have you received threats on your life?
- 11:17Speaker 5: Oh?
- 11:17Speaker 1: Yes?
- 11:19Speaker 2: Uh?
- 11:19Speaker 1: I first received threats on my life in December. Uh.
- 11:22Speaker 1: Rather no, yes in December. No, not in December.
- 11:24Speaker 5: In January, when I uh, when it first became known
- 11:28Speaker 5: that I had uh came back to come back to
- 11:30Speaker 5: New York and told the Captain of the Fruit in
- 11:32Speaker 5: New York, who was my right hand man formerly and
- 11:35Speaker 5: also the secretary of the New York Mosque, and the
- 11:38Speaker 5: minister in Boston. When it became known that I had
- 11:40Speaker 5: told them, Uh, then uh an effort was made to
- 11:44Speaker 5: shut me up. One brother UH encouraged to go out
- 11:48Speaker 5: to my house and shut me up and uh it.
- 11:51Speaker 1: Fortunately it was a brother who was well capable of
- 11:54Speaker 1: doing so.
- 11:55Speaker 5: But it was a brother who was highly uh intelligent.
- 11:57Speaker 5: He was academically equipped to think for himself, and what
- 12:01Speaker 5: he was told to do didn't add up. Unfortunately, he
- 12:05Speaker 5: was the one who put out a feeler to me
- 12:07Speaker 5: to find out what was wrong.
- 12:08Speaker 1: And I opened his eyes, and then he opened the
- 12:10Speaker 1: eyes of the same crew whose job it is to
- 12:13Speaker 1: do this kind of work.
- 12:14Speaker 3: You mean he was going to kill you?
- 12:16Speaker 1: Oh? Yes, Uh, one of them was.
- 12:17Speaker 3: Uh.
- 12:18Speaker 5: An attempt was made to get one of them to
- 12:19Speaker 5: wire my car with an explosive.
- 12:22Speaker 1: That one is with me right now.
- 12:24Speaker 3: Well.
- 12:25Speaker 5: Fortunately, while I was among the Muslims, I I never
- 12:28Speaker 5: uh lived beyond my means, and I have learned how
- 12:30Speaker 5: to live within means. And I still have the clothes
- 12:33Speaker 5: that I uh that was provided for me at that time.
- 12:36Speaker 5: I'm in the house that was provided for me, although
- 12:38Speaker 5: we're in a court battle.
- 12:39Speaker 1: They're trying to get it back, and I have made.
- 12:41Speaker 5: This statement to them concerning the house that they could
- 12:44Speaker 5: have it if they would take me back, that they
- 12:47Speaker 5: would permit me to come before the Muslim movement, the
- 12:50Speaker 5: rank and file and explain or defend myself against all
- 12:54Speaker 5: of the charges that they've made against me.
- 12:56Speaker 1: They could have the house, but uh, they are.
- 12:58Speaker 5: Going contrary to their own life laws by standing up
- 13:01Speaker 5: in the mosque and indicting me, but never giving me
- 13:05Speaker 5: a chance to defend myself. And they say that no
- 13:07Speaker 5: one can judge me but mister Muhammad. In this case,
- 13:10Speaker 5: mister Muhammad can't s sit as judge because he's involved
- 13:13Speaker 5: in the case.
- 13:15Speaker 4: Elijah Muhammad says of the Muslims, we carry no arms,
- 13:18Speaker 4: and we do not seek to win victory with arms.
- 13:21Speaker 4: We do nothing to others but that we would not
- 13:23Speaker 4: have done unto us.
- 13:25Speaker 5: The Uh two brothers were sent after me with revolvers
- 13:30Speaker 5: by Joseph, the captain of the Fruit.
- 13:33Speaker 1: In New York. They were armed when UH. When a
- 13:40Speaker 1: Muslim is attacked, and you find this to be the pattern.
- 13:44Speaker 5: When the Muslims were attacked in UH, Monroe, UH, Louisiana, UH,
- 13:48Speaker 5: Elijah Muhammad gave no signal to anybody across the nation
- 13:52Speaker 5: to come to the defense of their brothers. When our
- 13:55Speaker 5: brothers were attacked in Los Angeles, again, Elijah Muhammad gave
- 13:58Speaker 5: no signal to anybody to come to the defense of
- 14:01Speaker 5: those brothers. Never have the Muslims anywhere in the country
- 14:05Speaker 5: gotten any kind of instruction from the National Office or
- 14:08Speaker 5: headquarters on how to defend themselves. When they are attacked
- 14:11Speaker 5: by outsiders. The only times the Muslims have ever been
- 14:15Speaker 5: given any instructions to commit violence is when is when
- 14:18Speaker 5: that violence is directed against the fellow Muslims. His followers
- 14:23Speaker 5: are violent.
- 14:24Speaker 3: Against negroes, against negro.
- 14:27Speaker 5: Yes, his his, his followers will go out and attack
- 14:30Speaker 5: another Negro like they will attack me, or they will
- 14:33Speaker 5: or they will uh brutalize uh fellow Muslim who breaks
- 14:36Speaker 5: the law. But you don't find those same followers going
- 14:39Speaker 5: out in becoming involved in the Negro struggle in any way.
- 14:43Speaker 1: Whatso, in whatsoever? Now the violence that he accuses.
- 14:46Speaker 5: Me of is my uh uh tendency to want to
- 14:50Speaker 5: participate in the struggle of the Negro at all levels.
- 14:53Speaker 1: This is what he calls violence.
- 14:55Speaker 4: One question before we go further with that, has Wallace
- 14:58Speaker 4: Muhammad left the Black Muslims.
- 14:59Speaker 5: Walla Muhammad was put out of the uh Muslim movement
- 15:02Speaker 5: right along with me.
- 15:04Speaker 4: As far as you are concerned, you will accept the
- 15:08Speaker 4: fealty if you will, of any Negro anywhere under any conditions.
- 15:13Speaker 1: Uh. You have to uh v define fealty.
- 15:16Speaker 2: Well.
- 15:17Speaker 3: You won't want them to give you their.
- 15:20Speaker 5: Loyalty, not me their loyalty I'm not seeking for the
- 15:23Speaker 5: loyalty of any Negro, but I am seeking that negroes
- 15:26Speaker 5: for Negroes to learn how to be loyal to themselves.
- 15:29Speaker 5: And when the Negro learns how to be loyal to himself,
- 15:31Speaker 5: our problem is pretty well solved.
- 15:34Speaker 4: Mister Malcolm, you have suggested that there are are all
- 15:36Speaker 4: kinds of movements in Harlem growing that you and I
- 15:40Speaker 4: don't know about.
- 15:41Speaker 5: Oh yes, Uh, frustration itself has been s has been
- 15:45Speaker 5: s sufficient all that was necessary to make Negroes realize
- 15:49Speaker 5: the the importance of banning together.
- 15:52Speaker 1: And Negroes are banning together.
- 15:54Speaker 3: Banding together? And what kind of movements?
- 15:56Speaker 5: Uh, different kinds of movements, all kinds of movements, And
- 15:59Speaker 5: and they remain almost invisible. They remain almost unknown, but
- 16:03Speaker 5: yet they are there. When I say invisible, I mean
- 16:05Speaker 5: invisible in the sense that their existence is unknown, and
- 16:08Speaker 5: no matter how much you try and track them down,
- 16:10Speaker 5: you can't find 'em.
- 16:12Speaker 1: And never try and find them through the Negro leaders.
- 16:14Speaker 5: The Negro leaders are famous as apologists. If you recall,
- 16:18Speaker 5: one of the most famous Negro leaders in nineteen fifty
- 16:20Speaker 5: nine was asked by you uh about the Black Muslim
- 16:23Speaker 5: movement and he said he knew nothing about it, and
- 16:25Speaker 5: the next moment you flashed the picture on the screen
- 16:27Speaker 5: with him shaking hands with me. So U d uh
- 16:30Speaker 5: if you will recall, so this is what this is
- 16:32Speaker 5: their policy, this is their attitude or their reaction.
- 16:35Speaker 1: They never know what's going on in the Negro community.
- 16:37Speaker 4: And what form will the activities of these various so
- 16:42Speaker 4: called invisible movements take.
- 16:43Speaker 3: And UH, oh this.
- 16:44Speaker 1: Seller an example, UH Commissioner Murphy.
- 16:47Speaker 5: Almost every statement the Commissioner Murphy makes UH would give
- 16:51Speaker 5: you the impression that he's encouraging the police rank and
- 16:54Speaker 5: file policemen that UH to take whatever method or measure
- 16:58Speaker 5: is necessary to hold the Negroes in check.
- 17:01Speaker 3: Uh.
- 17:02Speaker 5: He feeds the type of statistics to the white public
- 17:05Speaker 5: to make them think that Harlem is a complete criminal area,
- 17:08Speaker 5: that everyone is prone toward violence.
- 17:10Speaker 1: This gives the police the UH impression that they can.
- 17:13Speaker 5: Then go and brutalize the Negroes, or suppress the Negroes,
- 17:16Speaker 5: or even frighten the Negroes. Whenever something happens twenty police
- 17:20Speaker 5: cars converge on one area.
- 17:22Speaker 1: This doesn't frighten Negroes. So it means that someone.
- 17:25Speaker 5: Is either misinforming commission of Murphy and making him use
- 17:28Speaker 5: tactics this year that he would not use four years ago,
- 17:31Speaker 5: or that com the former policeman.
- 17:33Speaker 1: Kennedy would not use.
- 17:34Speaker 5: And and this UH force that is so visible in
- 17:38Speaker 5: the Harlem community creates a spirit of resentment in every Negro.
- 17:42Speaker 5: They think they're living in a police state, and they
- 17:44Speaker 5: become hostile toward the policemen. They think that the policeman
- 17:48Speaker 5: is there t to be against them rather than to
- 17:49Speaker 5: protect them. And these thoughts, these prostrations, these UH apprehensions
- 17:55Speaker 5: automatically are sufficient to make this UH make these Negroes
- 17:59Speaker 5: begin to form means and ways to protect themselves in
- 18:03Speaker 5: case the police themselves get too far out of line.
- 18:06Speaker 4: You have called for self defense units, rifle clubs. You're
- 18:09Speaker 4: ready to execute on the spot those who threaten Negroes.
- 18:13Speaker 1: I don't think that I said that. Yes you did, No,
- 18:16Speaker 1: I don't think I said that.
- 18:17Speaker 5: Alright, I have called for rifle clubs that I think
- 18:20Speaker 5: negroes should UH in areas where the police, whether it
- 18:25Speaker 5: be federal, state or city, have proven their inability or
- 18:28Speaker 5: their unwillingness to defend Negroes. The lives and the property
- 18:32Speaker 5: of negroes. Then it's only intelligent and it's only right
- 18:35Speaker 5: that negroes protect themselves.
- 18:37Speaker 1: And I have.
- 18:38Speaker 5: Encouraged them to buy a rifle and a shotgun, which
- 18:41Speaker 5: according to the Constitution is legal for not buy a
- 18:44Speaker 5: pistol or or something like that, but a rifle or
- 18:46Speaker 5: a shot gun, which is constitutionally l legal for what person,
- 18:50Speaker 5: So that at any time anyone makes any effort, whatsoeffort
- 18:54Speaker 5: to brutalize them, or attack them, or endanger them, they
- 18:59Speaker 5: should have something to defend themselves. And in a country
- 19:02Speaker 5: that spends I think fifty billion dollars a year for
- 19:04Speaker 5: defense a loan, I'm shocked at a there's apprehension over
- 19:09Speaker 5: negroes trying to do something to defend themselves.
- 19:11Speaker 4: Well, who will determine when the negro is endangered?
- 19:15Speaker 5: I think that if the government is concerned, instead of
- 19:19Speaker 5: being so worried about what the negro is going to do,
- 19:21Speaker 5: the government should stop dragging its feet and take the
- 19:24Speaker 5: initiative necessary to eliminate the injustices that frustrate negroes and
- 19:29Speaker 5: drive them into a method of a p defense such
- 19:33Speaker 5: as this.
- 19:34Speaker 4: You've said, Minister Malcolm, you have to expect the Negroes
- 19:37Speaker 4: to rise up sooner or later.
- 19:40Speaker 3: Oh yes, what does that mean?
- 19:41Speaker 5: Well, just the same thing that it meant in UH,
- 19:44Speaker 5: South Vietnam and these other places where you find oppressed people,
- 19:49Speaker 5: Sooner or later they rise up against the oppressor.
- 19:52Speaker 1: When the Jews were being brutalized in Poland.
- 19:56Speaker 5: There came a time when they couldn't take it anymore
- 19:58Speaker 5: and they fought back.
- 20:00Speaker 1: They didn't have too much to fight with, but they
- 20:01Speaker 1: fought back. Ah. And I think.
- 20:03Speaker 5: Every oppressed people, no matter how meek and humble they are,
- 20:07Speaker 5: after you drive them so far, they're going to strike back.
- 20:11Speaker 4: Or does that mean that you expect you organize battalions
- 20:14Speaker 4: or uh paramilitary units in various Negro ghettos around the
- 20:19Speaker 4: country and establish th this coming summer for violent action.
- 20:23Speaker 3: No.
- 20:23Speaker 5: But I think that most Afro American so called Negroes
- 20:27Speaker 5: have reached the point of no return and are taking
- 20:31Speaker 5: it upon themselves to be prepared if the necessity ever
- 20:36Speaker 5: arrives where they will have to do something to defend themselves.
- 20:41Speaker 4: Well, there was talk a month ago, you remember, of
- 20:43Speaker 4: a group in Harlem called the Blood Brothers who left
- 20:46Speaker 4: the Black Muslims when you did, and then later parted
- 20:49Speaker 4: company with you, we are told because the tactics that
- 20:53Speaker 4: you espoused were too mild.
- 20:55Speaker 3: What do you know of them? The Blood Brothers?
- 20:58Speaker 5: Well, I certainly wouldn't apologize for them.
- 21:01Speaker 1: I think that uh the approach.
- 21:02Speaker 5: If ah, if such a group as blood Brothers exist,
- 21:05Speaker 5: does it?
- 21:06Speaker 1: I say, it's well, I think all Negroes are blood brothers.
- 21:09Speaker 1: Every Negro I know is my blood brother.
- 21:11Speaker 4: But Minister Malcolm dear, we're talking about a group said
- 21:13Speaker 4: to number of up to four hundred ofly more, who
- 21:17Speaker 4: confess themselves to be anti white as you are.
- 21:19Speaker 3: They disbelieve in non violence as you do.
- 21:22Speaker 4: One group among them is said to believe in violence,
- 21:25Speaker 4: even in murder, almost for violent's sake. Another group among
- 21:28Speaker 4: them are said to believe in violence only for retribution
- 21:31Speaker 4: to strike back.
- 21:33Speaker 5: Well, if such a group as the Blood Brothers exists,
- 21:36Speaker 5: it doesn't shock me. I would only be shocked at
- 21:40Speaker 5: white people being shocked, because the conditions that prevail, uh,
- 21:44Speaker 5: Mike Wallace are such that it's a miracle that such
- 21:47Speaker 5: group hasn't formed a long time ago.
- 21:49Speaker 3: But do they exist? To your knowledge?
- 21:52Speaker 5: I think every Negro in Harlem is a blood brother,
- 21:55Speaker 5: whether he admits it or not, will you find dissatisfied negroes.
- 21:59Speaker 5: That's Harlem and where yah. Whereas twenty years ago when
- 22:03Speaker 5: you'd have a little race riot, it was confined to
- 22:05Speaker 5: a community. Today, Mike, if you have any kind of
- 22:08Speaker 5: racial explosion, it will engulf the entire city and it
- 22:11Speaker 5: will have a chain reaction effect of spreading from city
- 22:14Speaker 5: to city and on an international scale, from country to country.
- 22:18Speaker 5: And I, for one, would not like to see it happen.
- 22:20Speaker 5: But I am a realist enough, and I'm mad enough
- 22:23Speaker 5: to face the fact that the uh potential ingredients for
- 22:26Speaker 5: this explosion exists, and I will never try and make
- 22:29Speaker 5: the public thinks that it doesn't exist. Well, when you
- 22:31Speaker 5: walk through the streets of Harlem, you hear this comment
- 22:34Speaker 5: and that comment, and you get the impression that everybody
- 22:37Speaker 5: is ready, they have arms. I think Harlem has always
- 22:41Speaker 5: been armed.
- 22:44Speaker 3: Do you look for violence in Halem the summer?
- 22:46Speaker 1: Look for violence? When you say Harlem? Mind you Halem
- 22:49Speaker 1: is New York City, Queens is Harlem. Uh, Brooklyn is Harlem,
- 22:52Speaker 1: the Bronx is Harlem. Westchester is Harlem.
- 22:55Speaker 3: I mean, could you not become the leader of this
- 22:59Speaker 3: kind of.
- 22:59Speaker 1: A group which kind of a group a violent group.
- 23:03Speaker 1: It's not a case of becoming a leader of a
- 23:05Speaker 1: violent group. Uh.
- 23:06Speaker 5: I don't think any group even that it's ready, wants violence.
- 23:10Speaker 1: It's a case of.
- 23:11Speaker 3: Is is this not, Minister Malcolm a uh?
- 23:16Speaker 4: A call to action of sorts that you are raising
- 23:18Speaker 4: here and now I don't have.
- 23:19Speaker 5: To raise a call to action. And this is what
- 23:22Speaker 5: I'm trying to make White people see. They they have
- 23:25Speaker 5: lost their ability to be objective where the race problem
- 23:28Speaker 5: is concerned, primarily because they know that no real, meaningful for.
- 23:32Speaker 1: Results have come from the Negro struggle.
- 23:35Speaker 5: And in defense of this, they always are tr call
- 23:38Speaker 5: it or label it violence.
- 23:39Speaker 4: You really believe that any meaningful result is going to
- 23:42Speaker 4: come from violence?
- 23:43Speaker 1: It's not a case of violence.
- 23:44Speaker 5: I think that uh uh, it's it's see, if you
- 23:47Speaker 5: could get away from looking at it as violence, then
- 23:50Speaker 5: you would be objective and see that actual Actually, all
- 23:53Speaker 5: it is is a tendency to react to what they
- 23:57Speaker 5: are confronting. White people don't realize it's how frustrated Negroes
- 24:01Speaker 5: have become.
- 24:02Speaker 4: I think they have become to under that, they have
- 24:04Speaker 4: come to understand the Negro's frustration, but they are also
- 24:08Speaker 4: of the opinion that no good can possibly come from violence.
- 24:12Speaker 1: And see are of that opinion, Mike?
- 24:14Speaker 5: If you think that uh the powder keg that's in
- 24:17Speaker 5: your house is going to explode under certain conditions, either
- 24:21Speaker 5: you have to remove the powder keg or remove the conditions.
- 24:25Speaker 5: You can't stand there and s and label the powder
- 24:27Speaker 5: keg as as an enemy when you have the ability
- 24:30Speaker 5: or have it within your power to change the condition
- 24:33Speaker 5: and it won't explode.
- 24:35Speaker 3: Do you know of any contingency plan for action?
- 24:39Speaker 5: No, I know I know of none, But I don't
- 24:42Speaker 5: think if you go and study the history of UH
- 24:45Speaker 5: oppressed people, usually their initial action is not a plan.
- 24:50Speaker 5: Usually it's a reaction, and it's on the part of
- 24:52Speaker 5: a few, and then everybody gets right on in with it.
- 24:55Speaker 1: And I think you'll find that if.
- 24:56Speaker 5: If Negroes ever have to resort to any kind of
- 24:59Speaker 5: physical action to defend themselves, many white people will be
- 25:02Speaker 5: on the side of negro Many white people are fed
- 25:04Speaker 5: up with the with what the Negro suffered. And this
- 25:07Speaker 5: is what I had to become aware of on my
- 25:09Speaker 5: pilgrimage to Mecca. I could see then that there are
- 25:12Speaker 5: many white people in this country who will side with
- 25:14Speaker 5: the Negro in whatever he has to do to protect himself.
- 25:18Speaker 4: You have changed your attitude about the white man in
- 25:20Speaker 4: the United States to some extent.
- 25:21Speaker 5: Well, I've broadened my scope. Travel broadens your scope. UH
- 25:24Speaker 5: gives you a wider understanding. And I have, in my
- 25:27Speaker 5: many lectures on college campuses, seen many whites, even as
- 25:31Speaker 5: a black Muslim, whose UH reaction to much of what
- 25:34Speaker 5: I had to say showed me that they were genuinely concerned.
- 25:37Speaker 5: Some weren't genuinely genuinely concerned, but many of them were.
- 25:41Speaker 1: And this element is increasing.
- 25:44Speaker 4: But that's a considerable change of opinion in Malcolm X.
- 25:48Speaker 2: No.
- 25:48Speaker 1: Today, I'm speaking for myself.
- 25:50Speaker 5: Formerly I spoke for Elijah Muhammad, and everything I said
- 25:53Speaker 5: was Elijah Muhammad teaches us thus.
- 25:56Speaker 1: And so I'm speaking now from what I think, from
- 25:58Speaker 1: what I have.
- 25:59Speaker 5: Seen, from what I have analyzed, in the conclusions that I.
- 26:02Speaker 4: Have reached, and the white man is no longer the devil,
- 26:04Speaker 4: and he is no longer bound to be evil.
- 26:07Speaker 5: The Holy Kawan teaches us to judge a man by
- 26:10Speaker 5: his conscious behavior, by his intention. And my reason for
- 26:15Speaker 5: going to Mecca wants to get a better understanding of
- 26:17Speaker 5: the religion of Islam and what the Qur'an teaches.
- 26:20Speaker 1: So I judge a man by his conscious behavior. I
- 26:23Speaker 1: am not a racist. I don't subscribe to any of
- 26:25Speaker 1: the tenets of racism.
- 26:27Speaker 4: And there are good whites and good blacks and bad
- 26:30Speaker 4: whites and blacks.
- 26:31Speaker 1: It's not a case of being good and bad good
- 26:33Speaker 1: or bad.
- 26:34Speaker 5: Blacks and whites. It's a case of being good or
- 26:37Speaker 5: bad human beings.
- 26:40Speaker 3: All right, And there you have it.
- 26:41Speaker 1: This is Gil.
- 26:42Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
- 26:43Speaker 2: Please like, subscribe, share, and comment. I'll have more information
- 26:47Speaker 2: for you and more cuts and videos and podcast episodes
- 26:53Speaker 2: in the future, but thanks for supporting me.
- 26:55Speaker 3: You guys. Take it easy later.