The Messenger, page 21
Surely, if the Father of the two people (black and white) was the same, the two would love each other. In a family where the children are of one father, they love each other because they are of the same flesh and blood.… The argument here between Jesus and the Jews is, the Jews claim they all were the same people (children) of one God or Father, but this Jesus disagreed with and proved they were not from the same Father (God). He, having a knowledge of both Fathers, knew their Father (Devil) before his fall, and before he had produced his children (the white race) of whom the Jews are members. Here, in this chapter (John 8), it shows there was no love in the Jews for Jesus.4
Perhaps because of the Messenger’s unorthodox opinions on race and religion, the column quickly came to the attention of the FBI. Ostensibly out of concern that Islamic nations were financing the NOI, the Bureau placed a “mail cover” on Muhammad’s home in Chicago.5 “Mail cover” is a misnomer, since what the Bureau did was to open the mail. Sometimes it made summaries of a letter’s contents; at other times, a letter was photographed or otherwise copied in its entirety. The issue often came up when Muhammad spoke to ministers around the country. One minister’s suspicion was aroused when he received a letter from Muhammad that had been opened and resealed with cellophane tape. He called to ask Muhammad if he had tampered with the package after sealing it, but the latter couldn’t recall having done so.6
The Messenger made some of his harshest statements about Jews during the Saviour’s Day Convention of 1958. The crowd of nearly 3,000 inside Tabernacle Baptist Church in Chicago rose to its feet as the Messenger made his way down the aisle toward the stage. Visitors and Muslims stood and clapped for nearly fifteen minutes before the Messenger could deliver his address. “Jesus was not a Jew,” he said to the astonishment of many non-Muslims. “Jesus could not have been a Jew because he was born in Palestine,” and claimed that no Jews were born in Palestine at the time.
The Jews are not God’s chosen people nor the seed of Abraham because Jesus said the Jews did the work of the devil and not the work of Abraham. The Jesus who died 2,000 years ago will never return. We must follow the teachings of Master Wallace Fard Muhammad, who is our God and who was born on February 26, 1877, in the holy city of Mecca.… If you can accept Abraham and Moses and Jesus as prophets, why can’t you accept me? I am here to do as Moses did—to tell Pharaoh to let my people go. All prophets before me were persecuted and finally killed, but no one can lay a hand on me because I am protected by Allah. All the other prophets had seen a revelation and were only revealing what they saw, but none besides me was taught directly by God.7
For many of the Christians and even the agnostic visitors in the auditorium, much of what the Messenger said sounded like the blasphemous rantings of a man overcome with delusions of grandeur. Some left after Muhammad’s speech, while others trickled out over offense taken from statements of the ministers who followed on the program, among them James (Anderson) Shabazz, Malcolm X, and Wallace Muhammad. Malcolm asked rhetorically in his introductory speech: “How can you worship a man who doesn’t look like us, who doesn’t act like us, who doesn’t talk like us and who doesn’t walk like us or even smell like us. There are over 17,000,000 so-called Negroes in America, but still we have to look to the white man for everything.”
A few weeks before the convention, Malcolm X had made similar remarks in a speech taped by the FBI. Echoing a statement Elijah Muhammad had made many times about President Eisenhower, Malcolm X told a filled temple that “a Jew is in the White House, Jews are in the State House, and Jews run the country. You and I can’t go into a white hotel down South, but a Jew can.”8
The Bureau’s suspicion that foreign money was behind the spurt of antisemitic statements being made by Muslim leaders was heightened by a cablegram from an Arab head of state. As Malcolm X read the cablegram, which he had sent to black-oriented newspapers as a public relations measure, a hush fell over the conventioneers; no one wanted to miss a word. Dated January 23, 1958, the message from President Gamal Abdel Nasser of the newly formed United Arab Republic read:
Mr. Elijah Muhammad
Leader, Teacher and Spiritual Head of
the Nation of Islam in the West
I have received your kind message expressing your good wishes on the occasion of the Afro-Asian conference. I thank you most heartily for these noble sentiments. May Allah always grant us help to work for the maintenance of peace which is the desire of all peoples. I extend my best wishes to our brothers of Africa and Asia living in the West.9
Nasser despised America as much as he hated Israel. A veteran of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, he was convinced that the only reason that Israel survived the conflict was because of European and American arms support:
Israel got all the arms and ammunition she wanted, and her Arab foes were denied them. Imperialism conspired to turn us into weaklings who seek its protection. But how could we seek protection from those who created Israel and turned it into a menace against us.10
His hatred of America was further inflamed by America’s attempt to block Arab nations from forming a Middle East version of the United States, which Nasser called the United Arab Republic (UAR).11 While the Saviour’s Day convention was in progress, Nasser was in Syria working out details of that country’s decision to join with Egypt to create the UAR when he learned of a CIA plot to have him assassinated. According to Syrian Colonel Abdel Hamid Serraj, the CIA had conspired with King Saud’s family to overthrow or kill Nasser to prevent the Egyptian-Syrian union.
The plot was part of Operation Omega, launched in 1956 by American and British intelligence units. Both President Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden agreed that “Nasser must be got rid of,” but only Eden favored assassination.12 “It is either him or us, don’t forget that,” Eden told intelligence officials. Eisenhower favored a plan that called for a coup and for King Saud to replace Nasser as head of the growing United Arab Republic. Serraj produced documents revealing that the two nations had offered King Saud the presidency of Syria and $60,000,000 for disposing of Nasser. Upon his return home, Nasser denounced the Eisenhower administration and labeled King Saud a traitor who had been “bought by United States money.”13
Back at the convention, James R. Lawson, president of the United African Nationalist Movement in Harlem, read a similar message from Nasser to the congregation and another message from President William Tubman of Liberia.14 On the final day of the convention, Muhammad unveiled his “Blueprint for the Blackman’s Future.” With the support of African Americans and Muslims throughout the world, the Messenger said he hoped to build a $3,000,000 complex in Chicago that would include a “religious, educational, and business center” by 1961.15 He told the gathering that newly acquired apartment buildings and the Temple grocery and market were an infinitesimal indication of the economic power in the hands of African Americans. Under his guidance, a new nation could be established within America, he said. The only reasons similar empire-building plans by Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey failed was because of “the lack of knowledge of self.”16 During the convention, Louis X sang, “Pharaoh, Let Us Go,”17 which was appropriate given what was transpiring outside the convention hall. While Louis X was singing about freedom from oppression, FBI agents and local police were conducting a “fisur,” an acronym for physical surveillance. Essentially, agents and police roamed the parking lot and noted the license plate number of every car. Some took photographs of anyone who might be a dignitary, while others monitored eavesdropping equipment set up to record the speeches inside.18
The exchange of messages between Nasser and Muhammad was part of the Messenger’s attempt to establish a relationship with the Muslim nations emerging from colonialism. His first step in this regard involved a contract with Abdul Basit Naeem, a Pakistani journalist living in Brooklyn. In May 1957, Naeem signed a contract with the Messenger to produce a glossy ninety-page booklet, The Moslem World and the USA, focusing on international Islamic affairs but featuring the last Saviour’s Day convention as its centerpiece.19
In July 1957, Malcolm X met with Achmed Sukarno during the Indonesian’s visit to Adam Clayton Powell Jr.’s Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Sukarno, who hosted the Bandung Conference in 1955, was highly impressed with the NOI, particularly with Malcolm X. Malcolm, who had journeyed from a prison cell to the halls of the United Nations in five years, was equally enamored of the world leaders he was beginning to meet regularly. During Sukarno’s visit, Malcolm said publicly to Powell:
You show great wisdom and foresight, inviting these leaders from Asia into Harlem to study the conditions here firsthand.… The 80 million Muslims in Indonesia are only a small part of the 600 million more in other parts of the dark world, Asia and Africa.… We here in America were of the Muslim world before being brought into slavery, and today, with the entire dark world awakening, our Muslim brothers in the East have great interest in our welfare.20
Just as Malcolm X had assumed the mantle of diplomat, Naeem filled the role of publicist. He contacted Muhammad again in June to see whether he was interested in publishing a second edition of the magazine to cover the upcoming Afro-Asian Festival at the Park Palace Recreation Center in New York City.21 This time, Muhammad seemed hesitant. The 100,000 copies of the first issue had not sold well, and he was reluctant to make another questionable investment. First, he would have to see how the festival turned out. More than 2,000 New Yorkers participated in the affair, and a few of America’s most highly regarded black celebrities were on hand, including bandleader Noble Sissle, president of the Negro Actors Guild.22 Although the affair was long on speeches—it was one of the rare occasions when Clara Muhammad addressed a large audience—no one complained. Clara received sustained, thunderous applause, but the person who won the day was Dr. Thomas N. Matthews, the neurosurgeon at Coney Island Hospital who had performed a series of successful operations on Johnson X Hinton’s skull. Matthews, who sat next to his white wife, received a ten-minute standing ovation. Foreign dignitaries also were on hand, including Rafik Asha of the Syrian Mission to the United Nations, A. S. Chauvize (editor of Al Islaam), and Ahmed Zaki el-Borai, Egyptian attaché to the United Nations.23
Aside from the highly publicized attack on Hinton, the thing that alerted Muslims at the United Nations to the NOI’s presence was Muhammad’s newspaper column, which ran in the New York Amsterdam News under the title “Islamic World,” and featured a small photo of the Messenger. Some dignitaries mistook the Messenger for an Asian, just as the FBI had a decade earlier. Malcolm X tried to correct this perception by addressing the issue of Muhammad’s race in one of his columns. “The Messenger might pass as an Oriental. But his sympathies and outlook are those of a Black Man.”24
Ambassador Asha was in search of American allies of whatever hue as his diplomatic battle with Israel over the Lake Hula area grew more contentious. The dispute involved the lake and a small tract of land in the demilitarized zone between Syria and Israel. According to Syria’s formal protest, Israel had violated the recent truce by building a bridge there and evicting Muslims from the Lake Hula area, which the Israeli government wanted to convert into farmland.25 While Israel denied that it was trying to occupy the land, Asha noted that the bridge was built to be strong enough to carry heavy military vehicles. Israel refused to rebut the Syrian charge directly. Rather, it claimed that the bridge was needed to get construction equipment to the location. The Israeli ambassador also conceded that three Israeli settlements had already been established in the area from which Muslims had been evicted. The mainstream media’s reports on the dispute seemed to favor Israel’s interpretation of the issue. To level the playing field, Asha and Nasser looked to the NOI (which, given the word “Nation” in its title, a foreigner might have mistaken for a genuine province or territory within the United States) as a possible vehicle for airing Arab concerns. “Nasser … has confirmed the importance he attaches to American Nationalist Negroes to serve as a minority pressure group,” a BOSSI report noted. “The Egyptian diplomatic people have been instructed to show courtesies to Negro Nationalists.”26
Muhammad’s column suggested that he would make a good ally in a country where the word “Muslim” was rarely mentioned in a favorable light. When a Jewish writer complained about the tone of the column, for example, Muhammad wrote an unapologetic reply:
Mr. Emmanuel Rosenfeld … who fears that my articles in this paper (which teaches my people the truth) will stir up hatred in the hearts of my people towards the White people would like to see my articles discontinued. Let us ask Mr. Rosenfeld: Who stirred up hatred of the White Race against we so-called Negroes? The Bible says: Do unto others as you would like others to do unto you. This mistreatment of our people by the Caucasian Race will be given back to them in full. A token of it is now going on.27
In April 1958, the NOI broadened its international appeal to Muslims by hosting a conference in Los Angeles to celebrate Third Pakistan Republic Day.28 The gathering, which also focused on the upcoming tenth anniversary of Israel, featured Mohammed Mehdi, head of the Arab Information Center, Pakistani government officials and students, and several Muslim ministers from the West Coast. Mehdi argued that there would never be peace in Israel:
If the Zionists, as they claim, have not forgotten Palestine over the last 2,000 years, it is reasonable to assume that the Arab refugees of Palestine, who were born in Palestine … will not forget their home. The return of the Arab refugees, as resolved by the United Nations, will be the first vital condition for peace.29
Mehdi charged that the reason Americans had not heard the Palestinian side of peace equation was “the complete control the Zionists have over the media of communication in America.” Malcolm X, who said he was speaking for the Messenger, concurred:
It is asinine to expect fair treatment from the white press since they are all controlled by Zionists.… Arabs must—if they are to escape atomic death and destruction—make an effort to reach the millions of people of color in America who are related to the Arabs by blood.30
Sepia, a progressive black-oriented magazine, was first to make the charge of Arab influence on Muhammad. In October 1957, it ran a story implying that the NOI’s growth was the result of financing by Muslims from the Middle East. “Mr. Muhammad’s new temples of Islam are more closely connected to foreign sources and are believed to be a carefully plotted campaign by Moslem leaders to get a foothold in America.”31
The FBI had come to a similar conclusion. Officers in the COINTELPRO section thought initially that the key to crippling the NOI was the removal of Wallace Muhammad from under his father’s wing. In January 1958 the Chicago field office sent a letter to the director suggesting that it was woefully mistaken in this assessment, and that it now believed Malcolm X would replace the Messenger should the ailing leader die suddenly.32 The Bureau was caught off-guard by these concerns, as it felt certain that Muhammad would hand over the reins only to one of his sons, and that the one he preferred was prison-bound. The effort to disrupt the NOI by removing Wallace had been for naught, the Bureau discovered, because the Messenger was seriously mulling over the idea of cultivating Malcolm X as his heir.33 Marie Pool, the Messenger’s mother, began calling Malcolm X her “son” soon after she met him because she sensed there was something special about him. Following her lead, Elijah and Clara also began referring to Malcolm as their “son.” The endearment moved the former orphan deeply, though he feared that it rankled Muhammad’s real sons.34
The secret to disabling the movement, therefore, lay in neutralizing Malcolm X. Four months after the FBI’s re-evaluation of his importance, Malcolm X’s home resembled a scene from an Ian Fleming novel. On the morning of May 14, 1958, two BOSSI detectives went to the East Elmhurst apartment building that Malcolm X and his wife, Betty Shabazz, shared with three other couples: John Ali and his wife, Minnie, and John X Mollette and his wife, Yvonne, who owned the property. Neither Malcolm nor John Mollette was home. The detectives said they were there to arrest a postal fraud suspect named Margaret Dorsey. They were informed that no such person lived there. The detectives, who had no search warrant nor an arrest warrant for anyone, then asked if they could come in and look around. When their request was denied, they left angrily, promising to return.
By the time the detectives returned with a postal inspector, Mollette was home. He inspected the warrant for Dorsey’s arrest, which indicated that Dorsey lived in a first-floor apartment of the Mollette house. Mollette assured the officers that they had the wrong address. At that point, one of the detectives pushed Mollette aside and barged into the house.35 Another ran up the back stairs leading to Malcolm X’s office on the second floor, although, according to the warrant, Dorsey lived on the first floor. After shattering a rear window, the officers fired several shots into the office. One bullet lodged in a bedroom wall where the women and children were huddling. Betty, who was pregnant with her first child, opened the bedroom door after one officer threatened to continue firing. After they opened the door, Betty and Minnie were placed under arrest. “If you don’t move faster,” a detective said as they walked down the rear steps, “I’m going to throw you down the steps.”36
By the time the detectives returned to the first-floor apartment, where Mollette was struggling with one detective, a crowd of Muslims and their neighbors had the house surrounded. Two detectives were hospitalized after being beaten senseless. The melee ended with the arrival of additional police, who arrested Betty, the Mollettes, Minnie Ali, and another couple. They were indicted in June on charges of assault, conspiracy, resisting arrest, and obstructing a police officer in the performance of his duty.37
