THIS IS A ONE K REFERENCE TONE RECORDED AT MINUS EIGHT DB. RUNNING SPEED, SEVEN AND A HALF IPS. SIXTY HERTZ, FM, NEOPILOT TONE, AND UH THIS BLACKSIDE’S PRODUCTION OF MALCOLM X. WE ARE IN CAMERA ROLL EIGHTY-ONE, SOUND ROLL FORTY-ONE. INTERVIEW WITH DR. MAYA ANGELOU.

AND UH PITCHING FOR US TODAY WILL BE MICHAEL CHIN BROUGHT TO US FROM THE TOKYO KINGS.

TAKE ONE

else's imagination. He sounded so mean and so tough and so cruel. I thought the white BB8593people, they made him up.] And I came to find that that was true. The Malcolm they were showing and talking about was a fictitious character. [ The real Malcolm, as I began to hear him speak, was a man of great profundity and great humor. Now I know often when people talk about Malcolm X, they make him seem larger than life, and that's dangerous. Because young people, hearing about him, this BB8659 larger than life person, are, will be led to think they could never be like him, you see. He's not then accessible. The truth is the man was as large as life, with a wonderful sense of a humor, and a loving sense of his 8695 people.] ‘So, I made uh, made it my business to hear him as often as possible on the streets of New York, and uhm to read everything I could find about him. And then when I finally met him, I was, it was under BB8731stress and he was very calming. So, I loved Malcolm. I love him still. And we had a wonderful brother—sister relationship.} not pulled

8955out. Baptists, Methodists, uh Holy Rollers, uhm Seventh Day Adventists, all the religious BB8966groups would be out and the two black atheists in the world would be there. There would be likely uh to be music. Somebody would ha’-, with a congo drum or with bongo drums would be pa pa ta ka ta ta ka pa ta ka and then languages. Your ears would be uh filled with the different languages: Spanish, English. Then English, American English, Southern American English, very heavy English from Mississippi where people just talk all back in their throat like that. And then there’d be that English which, which BB 9027just comes from Mexico, eh rather from Texas, where it's all, "Hey baby, whatchya doin’? And what's up that?" Wh’-, there’d be that, the sounds, then there would be aromas.]9043 There would be eh the people who sold tamales in pushcarts and hotdogs so there, and barbecue. so there would be these aromas and these sounds, and the air would pop like chewing gum. 9074[And when Malcolm would ascend 9074BB9081 the little platform, he didn't, he couldn't talk for the first four or five minutes, the people would be making such a praise shout to

him. And he would stand there uh not uh impatient. He would stand there taking his due. And then he would open his mouth. And after every sentence almost, there was a BB 9134praise shout.] And so this is, is so typically African American, the melody of the preacher and the rhythm of the preacher and whether we think about it or not, Malcolm X was a preacher andhad all that built-in, endemic, natural to the species rhythm. So he would say, "Rlamme something, something, something, something." People would say, "Yeah!" You know, "Roll in, and so in, so in, so in, and so." They say, "Whammo! Go on!" It was the most amazing, amazing, BB9201uplifting experience because the people participated with him and he knew they would ]9213

me my place. I belong in my people's world. BB 9272 It cinched for me that I belong here. I have a place.] It's very important. This is what I sense when I go into a black church. Tha’- , I don't care where it is. It can be Dallas, it can be San Francisco, New York, Raleigh, Winston, Salem, North Carolina. Once I enter the building and begin to hear the melody and the rhythm, whatever the BB 9317preacher is going to preach about, it's almost incidental. Almost, not really, but almost. But, [ I am confirmed that I am a black American lady with a place. So that's what hearing Malcolm on one hundred and twenty—fifth Street would do for me. Because his connection with the people, and our BB 9362connection with him confirmed us all. Not validated, but confirmed.]9374

blacks downtown upset everybody. So, the BC 0134police were out in force. There were black people down there who had never left Harlem. Uh, we managed somehow to get a number of the people into the general vicinity. We got like ten tickets and one of our people would go in with nine other persons, collect those tickets and come back and get ten more. We filled the place. Uhm, there was Carlos Moore who was a wonderful young brother and very active. In the end when Lemumba was mentioned,when his very name was mentioned, BC 2017 Adelaide Stevenson said, "I make this announcement and that Patrice Lemumba has been killed. Rosa Guy's sister screamed. And when she screamed, Pandemonium set in. People screamed, "You murderer!" And uh, "Brute and colonial pigsl", and so forth and so on.One woman who, whose name uh doesn't matter, I mean, one woman, a black lady, got out into the aisle and one of the guards was there. The guard sent, the United Nations at that time had no, no guns or anything, but BC 0303 this woman got out into the aisle and grabbed the guard right by his tie and Bam! she hit him. She said, "That’ll teach you to kill

BC 0327Lemumba!" So, I mean, it was just out. Uhm, it, the protest went on all day around the Belgian embassy uhm, uh or rather counsellor. So that evening we heard people uh put us down. Some black leaders said, "This is 0370unheard of. This is terrible. Uh, we are not a part of that." Some suggested we were communists. So, Rosa and I and Abbey we talked and we thought what can we do with this energy. So we thought we'd go up and BC 0389see Mr. Malcolm X. We called uh one of the restaurants, and we called the, the office and we were told that Mr. Malcolm X would meet us at a restaurant, a Muslim restaurant, so we went. And he was there in his dark suit and, and he stood, he greeted us with all the honor he always thought black ladies deserved. And that made us feel wonderful, I mean, suddenly we felt, I felt, I was under his umbrella, you see? Because he did stand for me, and I was young, and uh he had his friends and, and his guards with him. Uh, he BC 0475dismissed them and said that they may sit at another table, and he said, "Yes, ladies, now what is it you want?" So we told him that this thing had, we had thought that we would

have something which could be held in a handkerchief and it turned out that we had BC 0504 0500 something that a sheet couldn't hold and what could we do with it? Uhm, not that we wanted uhm to turn that energy into the Nation of Islam, we didn't know that. Or, we just wanted his advice, what could we do. So he said that the New York Times had called him and asked if uh the Muslims had led the protest. He said,"No. They had, did not. They didn't participate. That Muslims do not BC 0554do that sort of thing." Uhm, he was asked, "Well, do you think it was a communist or some outside agitators?" And he said, "No. I do not." Uhm, he said that it was typical and, he said, "It was typical and to be expected that uh some of the conservative leadership in the black community would 0590denounce us." That he had expected that from the first he heard of the protest. But he would not denounce us. He said there is a legitimate anger, a legitimate uhm rage in BC0624 the black community, and these women and men and were acting out of their legitimate rage. Uhm, we were, well first we were honored that he would see us. Uh, Abbey was known as a

0651 singer with her work with, with Max Rose, and I had some little name, very little, and Rosa hadn't published her book yet, so that he would take his time to see three uh black BC0681ladies who were not Muslims and who were not famous. That was first a part of his grace. And then he talked to us, very, very honestly uhm giving us advice, and very seriously. He took us serious, which was very important to us at the time.

0792called Swa’-, uh South Africa United Front or uh, uh yes. And under that agency there was BC 0808the ANC, the PAC, and the Indian Af’-, South African Indian Congress. Uhm, so he was a representative of the PACN, we moved to Cairo. And I had uhm young teenager, I think my son was maybe fourteen, and I just really didn't want to see my son grow up in the United States. I was afraid uhm I was, until of course I married Phys, I was a single BC 0862woman raising a black boy, and I was afraid his rage would either endanger his life or that I might lose him in any of the other traps there were. So I wanted to go to Africa, and I wanted to take him so as to remove the chance that he could say, "Well, I didn't do well ’cause I'm black.", you know? Or uh, uh which, in this country is about BC 0911ninety-eight percent true. So uhm, we lived 0916 in Egypt and then went to Ghana.

continent what is, what, what is the feeling that your people have?

Padmore, Kenyata, Jimo Kenyata, uhm Mr., Dr. Maconin in the West Indies uh had met to talk BC 1187about Pan-Africanism in the forties. So now here, and of course there was Tom Menbouya, as well,[so 1205 now [here in 1960, Pan-Africanism is blooming. The seeds had been planted. So, maybe five, s’—, five decades earlier and now they were, they, they were growing. So 1232Africans from all over the continent were to be found in Ghana. African Americans were to BC1243be found in Ghana. West Indians came to Ghana and we learned to, to feel that here we ge’-, upon this rock we can build a nation, a Pan-Africanist nation. I mean, the whole continent and Africans anywhere in the Diaspora. [It was heady, intoxicating, and into this boiling brew came Malcolm. Well, he was the man for the time. He was as large as, as the time. So I was one of a group of African Americans who came under his umbrella. and then put him under our umbrella.]]1340 So between us there was Sylvia Arden Boon and BC1352Alice R’-, Alice uh Win’—, Windham. There was Julian Mayfield and an Olivia Cudero Mayfield, and later there would be uh Tom Fieldings, Max Bond, and Max and Jean Bond.

1384 [ And we wrapped him up, carefully, as if he was the last raw egg in the world. Protecting him, and we took him around to venues where he could speak at the University BC 1420and at this gathering and at that gathering and he wove such magic and dressed, not only all of us African Americans, but all the Africans in this rich fabric of his intelligence and insight? ] 1444

human being knows how to lie, but I don't BC 1639 think Malcolmskne how to be ambiguous. He said it.]1647 He advised me on my love affairs. He advised me on my career. Uh, I would have a drink, he would have a cup of tea with lemon. And he would advise me on the raising of my son. Finally, [1686 in Ghana, on his last day, I had become very angry with uh an African American woman, and he talked to me and reminded me that we were a people in BC 1718process and that we needed to be able to accept each other on whatever level we met each other. Not to be ready to criticize, rather to be ready to help the other person to grow. I took that into myself, not just into my mind, I believe I have ingested that and it is a part of the muscle and the marrow in my bones. / One of the reasons I have access to the young people who seem to love me and to the old people who say, who show they love me, and to rich and poor blacks, and to literate and illiterate blacks, one of BC 1793 the reasons I have access to their hearts, is I listened to Malcolm X when he taught me that my people need everybody. We cannot lose, we cannot afford to lose one person. I

thank him for that]1826 And I thank you sir. I must, darling, I must.

Uhm, so many of the uh African students would ask Malcolm questions. Uhm, "Why can't you BC 1963 live in the United States? Why do you have to come to Africa?" And so forth, and "Do you really think old white people are devils?" Malcolm had made a change of course uh when he came. And he said, "I no longer believe that." He was big enough to say, "Hey, everybody, you remember what I said, I said that because I believed that then. I do not believe that now." He was that, had that BC 2005much courage.]2006 Uhm, the Ghana Press Club, uh was one of the scenes of Malcolm's uh,[out uh magic, it's too late. OK.

other African uh journalist began from that night on, to give Malcolm X more attention, BC 2726 more credit, more respect because he spoke to their own sensibility. He was able to speak to anybody on any level.]2745 All right.