THIS IS BLACKSIDE’S PRODUCTION OF MALCOLM X. ONE K REFERENCE TONE RECORDED AT MINUS EIGHT DB. RUNNING SPEED SEVEN AND A HALF IPS. SIXTY HERTZ CINC. SOUND ROLL ONE FIFTY, CAMERA ROLL ONE FIFTY-FOUR ON SOUND ROLL SEVENTY-SIX. THIS WILL BE INTERVIEW WITH MR. PETER BAILEY.

SPEEDING. MARK. ONE.

And uh, next day, rather than unpacking and do all that stuff, I decided to just walk around through the community. And I walked down Lenox Avenue and got to a Hundred and sixteenth Street and I saw a crowd of people gathering, and I asked what was happening. A friend of mi’-, my friend and I, we asked what was happening, and they said that Malcolm had just gone to speak. Now,[[7578 at that time um I had just heard about him, of course almost, almost all negative because it was CD 7587 what I was hearing on television or reading in the new’-, you know, in the newspapers, and I guess my response to, was basically the same as most people, you know, like this guy, you know, is calling white people devils and this kind of thing. éc that I came to hear what, you know, to basically to hear was he really doing this, you know, or, or to hear him do it, or to, to kind of uh, you know, Cluck my, you know, my teeth at, at this man CD 7622 saying these terrible things, you know.]]7627 It was that kind of attitude that 1 had. And uh so when uh my roommate and I said, "Well, why don't s'—, you know, let's hear what he has

to say.", and uh, and he spoke.” And that was my first time hearing him speak, and [7644 I knew [ after about five minutes into his lecture that, that, that, that what they had been saying was simply not true because he spoke with clarity and forcefulness and, and truthfulness and he literally compelled you to at least think about whatever positions you had, vis a vis the movement and um racism and white supremacy, and those kinds of things.] Uh,[I came away from that rally CD 7686feeling that with him, once you heard him speak, you never went back to where you were before. You had to, even if you kept your position, you had to rethink it. And you realized that you had to get it better organized and more together if you were going to be able to deal with, with the analysis that he was making of the system.] I think the most important that he did for, for me was to rid me of this idea that uh white CD 7733 supremacy was something believed in and practiced by a few aberrant George Wallace type white people.]7744 He talked about the system. I had never heard anyone talk about

the system, and of course when he did that, and you listened to him, it beca’—, you talk about the system, it becomes somewhat, things became, came much clearer, and, and you develop, you develop a kind of a, a philosophical position that you could operate from and then you could move.] I mean, you're talking about an individuals, then you run . into an individual who doesn't do what it, it is said done, then you start questioning, "Well, maybe, maybe, ther’-," no it, but once you talk about the system, then you can CD 7788 account for those few individuals who were not uh white supremacists in their beliefs and attitudes. And you went on uh and dealt with the rest of the, most of who, who were and who did believe in it. 7804[ So it was a, it was a, it was a wa’-, it was an ’-, it was literally an awakening and after that I wou’— , I would go down every Saturday uh to his, of course he would speak every Saturday down there, and I would go down there every CD7817 Saturday to listen to him, and if he mentioned a magazine article or a book, you know, we would rush right out to, to the uh,

to the library the next week and try to get that, that book or the library article and ead it. ] 7835

way, the type of thing that those, you know, that the great the great Baptist orators use CD 7907 when they uh, you know, when they're dealing with people, and be used, he used it the exact same way. ]]7914 Uh, if he had wanted to, he probably could have been a great, great Baptist preacher because he had the style, he had the, the command of words, the use of the knowle'—, you know, of anecdotes, and, and those, and that kind of thing, you know, to, to make 7938[uh something come alive when you re spoke, and you could see.‘ He drew, he drew CD 7944 pictures with words, very good at that, very good at drawing. He was very clear when you, about what he was saying and the point that he was trying to make.]] 7957

more than anything else, that's what he was. And why his loss...

promises of not res’-, taliating if anyone pushed you or called you names, uh which we did, you know, and uh, um it was not easy sometimes, you know, ’cause there were people at these, as you walk around, people was, and this is like, we talking sixty, sixty, sixty, when that first happened. And uh, and, and people would call me all kinds of names and, you know, and sometimes we'd push. And then this one man told me that he was going to spit in my face, and I told him that if he did I was going to knock him upside his head, CD 8177 because I told the leader of the group that I, you know, I was, I would be willing to take the pushing and the name-calling, but that guy was not going to spit in my face, you know. So he to’-, he said that if you feel as though you can't do it, you got to get out of the line, you know that kind of stuff. But I, I walked again, and I looked the man right dead in his eyes, and he saw that it, that, that he saw murder in my eyes, CD 8202 and so he never made any effort to spit, he kept just name-calling, you know. So I was a part of the, that was the movement I was a

part of, I was very caught up, you know that, in that...

stay there for a semester before going back to Howard. And I basically ended up never going back, and so I kept getting involved in different things. I was involved with Jessie Gray with the rent strikes. I was involved CORE, uh so, so I was moving to, I guess you would say, toward the more, the more activist groups, and who bas’-, although they practiced the non-violent, same non—violent thing that King was practicing, uh you, obviously they did not believe in it with the CD 8307 same kind of intensity, it was just part of a, of a you know, of a strategy. And that's where I was when uh, but uh, but there was always just something that was no overall [8323 uh, see [ I didn't, I didn't believe uh in integration. I never did that, even the days when we were picketing. Integration as a goal, and so it was always bothering me, you know, talking about just doing something for integration purposes, because there was no CD 8348 larger philosophical move. So when I heard Brother Malcolm speak, uh that, I said, "0h, that's what I'm talking about,] you know?]8357 Uh, I'm not talking about we're out here

picketing because, you know, for instance um we all want to go to UVA rather than Virginia Union. I just don't want you to be in the position to tell me I can't go to UVA. Then once that's settled, then I'd go to Virginia Union ’cause I want to go to a black college. That was always my attitude. Um, 8386[uh [I don't mind sitting on the back of the bus, but I don't want you telling me that I have to sit back there. So um, in that sense, that was, you know, that was, that was always my CD 8399 attitude ] when I was a part, or even part of, whe'-, when a brother, when I met with brother, let, begin to hear Brother Malcolm and hear the things that he was talking about. ]8410 And the, and he had a, a whole kind of philosophical ideological position that fitted where, where my, you know, where I was. And uh, I had no trouble accepting any of his, his ideas, I mean, I didn't find 8434myself in any conflict with any of them. Uh, 8434 CD 8434[[some people got upset about the, you know, the, some of the harshness of his speeches. But, I always tell people who tell me that, "You look at the times. That was a very

harsh times, and there were some, some really, really vicious things going on, and nobody was being punished for it." So I think his positions were very, very, and those speeches that he made fit right into what he was responding to.]] 8465

WE'RE OUT.

SPEEDING. MARK. TWO.

trying to make, especially the black people, understand, that, you know, Woolworth’s is a chain store, so if you, if you, if you hit ’em all over the country, then it would be much easier, you know, to effect what was happening down in North Carolina. But uh, it took a while to get people to understand that. ’cause they would, you know, some of the black people were being very hostile, they, you know, why, they could go to the Woolworth’s in Washington, so why are we picketing? You know, we had just as bigya CD 8621 time dealing with them, you know, as we did uh sometimes with some of, you know with the whites. I mean, not verbal abuse, but questioning as to why, you know doing this in Washington, when uh they could go to the Woolworth’s in Washington. But eventually, I think people began to understand, ’cause we would go out there every Saturday, over a CD8647 period of weeks, you know, and I noticed that uh, as we went on and on and on, that, that people begin to, to uh black people begin to stay away, and, and to respond to what was going on.

and sixteenth Street and, uh you know, and Lenox Avenue, which was, you know, ar’-, the area around there was supposedly, was pretty rough, but nobody, that's when I begin t o realize that, you know, that people who were junkies are not crazy, 'cause they wear more sense than to bother with, with the Fruits of Islam or with the Muslim women.] They could walk around and do nobody was, [nobody was going to be snatching no pocket books from no Mus’-, Muslim sister in, you know, in Harlem. They just was not going to do it, 'cause they were very, very impressive, very impressive. knew that if they did, they would be in CD 8784 trouble.]]8785 And uh, and it's the same with the Fruit, they did not bother people, at least when I saw them, I, 'cause I'm watching them, you know, uh from a distance uh being around. 8799 [ But [I was impressed with just how they responded and how they acted and how absolute, I mean they looked, they looked like somebody took them and, and put so’-, CD 8810 shined them up every morning, you know? They were, they looked so healthy, that's what it was. It was they looked healthy, but they were very, very impressive, very impressive. ]] 8821

And I really and truly believe that, that um when the Nation started, you know, playing down the Fruit, they made a big mistake. 8836[ 'Cause[ I think that that was what was attracting a lot of the, the young brothers, especially to become members.]]8845

we used to bring that up every time right after a joke where'd they'd have have a good laughing and joking about how these big, bad, you know uncontrollable uh, uh drug, drug addicts, you know, would never, under no circumstances mess with, with them, and their, and their possessions, you know. And, and they were respectful when they were around that Mosque. You know, I have seen occasions when they'd be, if some brothers CD 8935 they, they'd be out in front of the Mosque, and uh guys be on the corner cursing them, they would say something to them, and they would stop immediately, or they would move somewhere else. 8944[ But [the area around the Mosque was almost like, you know, like this is sacred ground and there will be no cursing and swearing and carrying on, you know, down here, uh around our area./ It was, it was, they, I mean, uh, it wa’-, it was very 8968 impressive, very impressive.]8968 And, and when I CD 8970 used to go hear Brother Malcolm speak, I used to watch, when they marchedmin, when they, when they came in together, you know, uh I was, was uh not prepared to become a Muslim, myself, but I was very i’-, impressed with

the way they, way they, way they responded to what they were doing.

that was a big, big uh difference and change. Uh, and Brother Malcolm could speak to all of these people, he was one of the ones who because of his whole interna'-, he, he had this international uh, uh posture in this international uh, uh point of, point of view ]] 9165 And, and that was another thing that I, that I learned from him. You begin to think, as he told us, you begin to think internationally. [[9176 we are a world class CD 9178 people, we are not just confined within the United States. And uh, so you begin to expand, and you begin to meet people, you know from different parts of the world. And to me, that was one of the things that made New York so attractive to me. ]] 9199

Q: Um, talk about also why, why it's important that Malcolm is based in New York, in terms of what you talk about, the communication gap, but what is that, that...

involved with him, is that we don't try to make these grandiose claims. For instance, we don't try to claim that, that he was the first black person to ever believe it and espouse the positions that he was taking. He was not. It goes all the way back, at least to Martin Delaney. I consider him a direct descendant of, of blood brother, of Martin Delaney, and right down the line. And uh...

developed all this, this, this new knowledge that nobody had ever exp’-, this Pan- Africanism. Uh, uh that no one every experienced before.] But [what was different was that at the time when Brother Malcolm was doing this, there, the communications had, had increased tremendously around the world, so that the world was much closer together. Uh, so what he was saying, he was able to reach more people with it, than, than the brothers who preceded him. And then CD9335 secondly, transportation. I mean, you could be in, you know, and he could be in Harlem one day, and the next day be on the African continent, you know, a couple hours he'll be down, you know, in the Caribbean. So those two things, the changes in the three areas, made his, gave him the ability to take that message and reach moreflpeople with it than. his predecessors.]]9369 And but, and that's what, that's what made him unique. But the message CD 9377 was a message that, that, that black people had been pushing for, you know, for hundreds of years. It wasn't, it was not, you know, completely new. I mean there were some new

angles to it, but it was basically that, but he was able to reach more people with it because of communications and transportation.

where everything, you know, everything is in terms of the, the communications. ]] 9479

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ON CAMERA ROLL ONE FIFTY-SIX. SHIT.

SPEEDING. MARK. THREE.

being able to do something or not doing something was, was, I remember was tremendous.]0087 And, and I was of the, uh what happened is that, at this time of course, I still had not met Brother Malcolm at this time, this is ‘cause we're talking 1963. But what happened is that Jackie Robinson who, of course, was, I think he was then oh uh, uh an executive with Chock Full 0’ Nuts, I think he, by that time, he was doing that. But he was also not, not very strong supporter. In CD 0121 fact, he was very hostile towards Brother Malcolm's pol’-, politics. I'm not saying he was hostile toward him as a person, but he used to speak out against um Brother Malcolm, probably quite often. But he also understood that if he was going to have a rally on a Hundred and twenty-fifth Street that he had to have uh Brother Malcolm as a part of this, of this rally. 0146[ So[ I remember uh when the rally occurred, it was a rally to, you know, CD 0151 in response to um, to this bombing, the killing of these little girls down in Birmingham. And uh, Jackie Robinson, Brother Malcolm, if I remember correctly, Brother

Malcolm spoke first, he spoke first. And pulled page then other speakers came, and I don't remember all the different speakers that came on, but I do know that he spoke first. And when the last speaker was finished, uh the crowd, and there was several thousand people there, we were right in front of the Hotel Teresa, the crowd uh started yelling, "We want Malcolm X! We want Malcolm X! We want Malcolm X!" And, they wanted him to speak again. And I can remember Jackie Robinson CF0217 getting up, ’cause there was like a flat truck they were using, and he was trying to say that the rally was over, and all of a sudden the people started running through the streets and stopping traffic and, and uh, you know, all the while, you know, "We want Malcolm X!" And Brother Malcolm, uh got back up on the flat truck and said, "Brothers and sisters, you know, uh, uh the rally is over. Uh, I think we should all, you know, go CF 0257 home.", or something to that effect. "Uh, thanks for coming out and, you know, and uh, uh some’-, it's been, you know, you've been very supportive, and, and it’s very good to

see people," you know s’-, some ki’-, you, I know I'm not using the exact words, but to that effect. "But I think it's time, you know, to go home." And boom, everything just quieted down, and people just moved, went out. And that was my first time uh of seeing how the people responded to him.] I mean, they just stopped and moved onwout. And that was the end of all of it ’cause they had actually been jumping on top of people's cars.] You know, and stopping traffic and CF 0313 climbing up on people's cars whether we end them, and jumping up and down, you know, on them, and it just stopped,[ And uh, people moved on their way. ihnd thathwas my first time seeing, you know, people, how people responded to him. And uh, and it always 0334 stayed in my mind.]]6334 I alwa'-, I never forgot that. It wa’-,...

he went up on that, on that platform, because he, when he had, the presentation he had made, I mean, he had outlined and put into context why that Birmingham bombing had occurred, and that this was not just, you know, that person who did it, but this was, this was the whole system that was protecting. And people saying that there's nothing we can do, and the President saying that this is a state thing, the state must deal with this, and the, and of course, the CF 0469 state was, you know, was, was, was uh saying that they couldn't find the, the people who did it. I mean, no one was, to this day was punished as far as I know, has been punished some talk, for that. There have been talks, that they're still sayingithat they know who did it and this kind of thing, 0489[but[no one to this day, has been punished for bombing the Church and killing four little girls. And uh, and so he outlined all of this, again, CF 0504 putting into the context of the system. We're not up against individual white supremacists, we're up against the system that reinforces and supports. And that's

what you, you could only, if you, if you don't, if you look at it that way, then you make your plans on that level. And uh, and people understood this and responded to it ]] 0537 And, and they always uh, uh, and so they listened. So if he said, that, you know, we got to stop this, and it was time to go, then they would, they would do it. No one, Jackie Robinson couldn't stop it.

Malcolm, that it may have happened. It may have happened. But he, he was not a believer in spontaneous action that was not planned, because he was, it was his position that sometime the, the police would deliberately try to, to, to uh bring about certain things, to smoke certain people out. So his, his thing was like you know, uh "Don't be a part of what you didn't start." think at the Red Assembly he said 0653[[ "Will you believe in the ballot or the bullet. Aim well. Don't go after the puppet, go after the puppeteer." CF0666 That was the way, that was the way he, he believed. And um, and so he was not, you know, he was not one of these people who believed in just, you know, action, fo’-, just to ge’-, you know just to get off you know some frustration. It had to be planned, calculated, and if you decide to, to have an uprising, then the uprising should be, you know, it should be something that was planned] and, and carried out]0699. You know, that was, CF 0701 and I think people understood that. They understood that. And uh, and a lot of people who blame him for certain things that were,

that were happening uh did not understand how he felt about this. You know? And I, and I found out, you know, when the course, when the Harlem uprising occurred and he told us to, you know...

the Birmingham bombing, Bull Conner, and the, CF 0790 the fire hoses, and the dogs, I mean all these things, I think by this time, yes, Medger Evans had been assassinated. I mean, all these, I mean that summer of nineteen sixty, sixty uh three and, well I'm sorry, I, I really am, that period that we're talking about,nas I sai'-, I had mentioned that earlier, 0817[[that period we're talking about, there were a lot of really vicious things going on, and President Kennedy was saying that there's nothing the federal government CF 0836 can do. That this is a state problem. The federal government can't intervene. I mean he intervened finally in Birmingham, only when the rumor began to get around that the brothers on f'-, I think it was Fourth Street in Birmingham, which is like Birmingham's equivalent of a Hundred and twenty—fifth Street had decided that they, you know, that they were going to start retaliating, and CF 0862 next thing you know, the Alabama National Guard was nationalized. Before that, Kennedy was saying he couldn't do that. You know, so all of these things, and there was a whole

climate, I mean of just, of just vicious violence going on. And Brother Malcolm's position was that if you allow this type of climate to be created, you don't know where it's going to stop. And since Kennedy had allowed this, and eventually the violence consumed him, and so, it was a question of the chickens coming home to roost. ] 0916

level of, of, of that national level, other than Brother Malcolm uh who was saying, ’cause he, he, you know, those of us who, who, who were listening to him and participating with him, we would never, we were always aware of the Kennedy, and of course some of the things that have come out since then, I mean it was Robert Kennedy who gave the FBI permission to bug Martin Luther King, you know the first time. And so, you know, we, we never regarded the Kennedy's as CF 1005 friends. out ] There were certain things they might do for a political reason, but they were not friends. And Brother Malcolm understood this very early in the game, and was saying it on a consistent basis. And so, and, and of course, when he made that statement, then, you know, even, even some CF 1032 black people who would say, "Well, generally I agree with him, but I think it's terrible for him to say that." Because the way it was presented was though he was almost exulting him...

MOVING ON TO CAMERA ROLL ONE FIFTY-SEVEN ON SOUND ROLL SEVENTY-SEVEN.

kind of listen to what he was saying, uh found themselves at, you know, being horrified that he would make such a statement,]]1137 because they were not, the thinking that if something comes out on the New York Times or is put on CBS, that somehow, this is the gospel truth, uh and uh so you, you know, you had to sit down and tell them, and put them, and put the speech into the context, and tell them exactly what he was saying and why he was saying it, and then they would, you know, then they, they CF 1162 would understand it. But you think of all the people out there who, who uhm, who may not, no one was there to tell them that, and uh so I think it 1178 really, [I think [ for a while, uh that was a set-back to Brother Malcolm in terms of the uh, of, of reaching the, you know, the black community. Because there were many black people who regarded John F. Kennedy as some kind of hero ] again, because they really had not really closely looked at CF 1202 his record as opposed to his words, and the words of the people, you know around him.] 1208 Uh, and of course, 1213[uh your, [Elijah Mohammed

and the Nation of Islam, and, and probably rightfully so, they feared that uh, that a statement of this type could, would bring down, would, would give the government uh an opportunity to smash them, and, and uh, and, and people would not, people would say almost, "Good!" You know, because of the, the nature of it, and that whole thing around Kennedy being, you know, being assassinated. So, I mean, as I look back on it now, you CF 1264 know twenty—seven years later, I can see where, you know, uh, uh Elijah Mohamed, you know, could probably feel that way. You know, and be very nervous about that and wanted to distance himself, you know, from that statement.] uh, and uhm,[ Brother Malcolm probably, as you look back over it now, probably should not have said that, even in the conte'-, although it was in the context, with his knowledge of how the press operates, CF 1298 I would say now that he probably should not have said that, even with the context. ‘Cause you know they're gonna take it out and present it, you know, in a way to try to hurt him.]]1313

"What are they doing?" You know? This is the person who is, who, who, who is there spokesperson and the person who is, who is drawing the most attention and what I felt, positive attention to the organization. That was, that was my uhm, I couldn't believe it. I was, I was really shocked. And, ’cause it never, I, and, and, but when I say shocked, now, it never, I was not shocked at him. I, I never questioned, to me he was right. Brother Malcolm was right, you know. I had no problems with that statement the first CF 1435 time I heard it, ‘cause I knew exactly what he was talking about. And plus I was no, you know, John, John F. Kennedy to me was, was not a god to me. I can remember one time, uh at, Kennedy came for the UN in the Fall, that's, I think it was that same Fall. But uh earlier that Fall, but I, I got, went over there, and I was standing in an area right where the car had to slow down to make a CF 1480 turn, and when they went by, everybody was clapping, and I booed as loud as I could. I mean, I'm s’-, but I was crazy. ’Cause I was there by myself, nobody else was with me, and

I’m standing in this of folks and I let out this loud "Boo!" And I can remember the uh, you know everybody immediately turning and giving me these hostile glance, and even the people who were, you know, the, the, the uhm, the secret service people were looking over there where I was, where I was standing. I, I'd, you know, I always remember that, uh and it was like an almost, a spontaneous thing, CF 1527 and I, but what else I did, I say to myself, "Oh my God! Are you saying this? Are you standing up by yourself?" And those people, they were really angry with me. So I finally just kind of slowly slipped on out of the crowd and moved on away before uh, you know, I get myself smashed down there in that, in that scenery, but, but...

would make sure I was there. Uh, so it was kind of a distant uh, uh dealing with him.]]1683

me to go. And when I got in there, I saw several people I knew, there were about, I think I remember there was about eight or nine, ten people, eight to ten people. Couple of people I knew, uh John Henry Clark, uh John Killins was there, a sister named Nan Bow that I knew was there. There, I think there were about three people that I knew, uh and then the sister who had in’-, who had invited me. So there were four out of about 1804 nine, ten people that I, that I knew there. CF 1804 [And[we were sitting around talking, you know, and uh just kind of chatting with each other. And after I had been there maybe about twenty minutes or so, uh Brother Malcolm came in with uh about three or four brothers. And uh, I said to myself, I remember saying to myself, you know "ph oh, You know, this is going to be serious." ’Cause I had, until then, I had no idea that this, you know that CF 1844 he would, that this was going to be an organization that he was forming. ]1848 And we sat down at the table and began to talk about it, you know, forming of the OAAU. And because I was one of the youngest people there and so I

was just kind of, I'm sitting there just dazzled, you know, and listening, and, and every now and then saying something if I asked directly, but I was not, you know, I was too dazzled to uh, to be a part of the, you know, the general, overall conversation, initially. And uh, and, and, and he, and I sat there and I watched them and people would make suggestions, and I noticed then as, you know, how, as I said before how he listened. He would, he would listen to what someone said and then he'd respond to it. Uh, and I CF 1907 got for, that was the first time that I had seen him in a small setting. Uh, other times it had just been at rallies and, and things of that type where I had seen him speak, but this was watching him, you know, with a small group, you know laughing and joking and talking about the organization, just like you would do when you're organizing, you know, you're organizing something. So, uh it was CF 1936 another whole look at him. And as I said [[1939one of the things that impressed me was the way he listened, and he ask you a question, and he would, you know, he would listen very

carefully to what you were saying.]]1951 And, and, as, and everyone would speak, began to speak up as, you know, after I been there a while, I beg’—, even began to start making little comments about, you know, about the organization and how, what we thought we'd be doing, and we begin to talk about the formation of it, and then we would, we'd probably, we, I think we stayed about two hours and then we would meet again. You know, and we did this until we, until the organization was publicly announced. But uh CF 1981 it was, it was uh, you know I think back over it now, and I say to myself, "Man, why weren't you taking notes, or, or you know, doing something?" You know, just, did you really, well at the time, I'm never thinking historically. I'm just thinking now, you know, this is going on, and, and this is unbelievable, and this is, there's something else going on here, you know? But I, if I had had the type of uh, because I wasn't even CF 2022 a journalist then. If I had even been a journalist then, I probably would have had been more aware of the need for documenting

this more. But I d1dn’t do anythlng except talk.

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THIS IS BLACKSIDE'S PRODUCTION OF MALCOLM X, SOUNDROLL SEVENTY~EIGHT ON CAMERA ROLL ONE- FIFTY-EIGHT, CONTINUATION or INTERVIEW WITH PETER BAILEY.

ANYTIME.

but who were not prepared to become Muslims in order to do so.]]2590 Now, within the nation, with the kind of set-up that they had, there was no way that he could tap the energy and the resources and the, you know, and the commitment of the- of these people. And I think that was one of the things, you know, that, it was probably not the major thing, you know, uh when he, when he was moved from the nation, but I do think it was a part of that. From what I have heard, there were people in within the nation, within the CF 2628 structure, who felt as though this thing should be just, he was getting too political. Uh, uh, involved in too much, that he don't want to be a part of this. Uh, he was almost become, they considered him as becoming almost a part of the civil rights movement. And they were hostile to that kind of move. And, but but he, uh, also saw that there there were people out there, you know, who, CF 2662 who had, you know, who are committed to something and who want to work with me, and how can I do it. So[ when he was left the nation of Islam, was suspended and left the

nation of Islam, he formed two organizations. He formed the Muslim Mosque, Incorporated, which was set up for those people who were just, who were mainly interested in the Is- the Is- religion of Islam. Uh, and then he [formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity, uh, for those of us who were interested in his political, economic and cultural programs.] Now, of course, there was some overlapping. There were some brothers CF 2708 who were members of the, of Muslim Mosque, Incorporated who were also uh in the OAAU. Uh, I don't think, as far as I know, the the key people around the OAAU who were not Muslims, I don't remember any of them becoming Muslims during the time that, you know, that we worked together. Uh, it may have happened, but I don't remember anyone becoming Muslim. But we, so, so, and that was a very, very smart move, and no one else, CF 2749 no one else is has done it. I noticed that, you know, since then, the the different uh Muslim groups in the country, none of them have done that. You still have to become a Muslim to really get in-, you know, work with

them. So they didn't really pick up on that, on how he, on how he did that. No one else has done that.

uh, which had just been founded earlier that year. And uh, for the African countries. And so, to me, that provided my way of working something I had been wanting to do ever since 1962, when I first heard him speak. It was an opportunity, you know, to work with him. And uh, so, you know, that to me was, for me personally, that was a very smart move, uh, and a and a move that I CF 2871 greatly jumped at, the moment that it, you know, that it happened. And I became a, you know, very, very, 2882[ you know, [I was, I mean, working on a job. And I would work that job, and didn't think nothing of coming back and putting in six to eight hours, you know, working with the OAAU, you know, after I finished my regular job. I mean, that's how CF 2899 enthusiastic we were about, about this whole thing. So, so, it was, it was, it gave us a, an opportunity to work with him, and that's what we had been looking for.] That's what we had been looking for.] 2919

people, actually the offices were gonna be manned by people who were being paid to do that. But at that time, we didn't. You know, uh, people were doing it on a volunteer basis, and those of who work, and we got outta work, then we went to the office. And we would be there ’til late in the evenings, you know, doing different things that needed to be done. Uh, but you didn't even think about that. I don't ever remember saying,3036 oh, what am I, you know, all this time. [3036 I mean,[ you felt as though you were a part of something important. That's the only way I CF 3046 can describe the feeling that I had. And I assumed that the the rest of the people had, too, because they were putting in just as much time as I was. We really felt as though 3060 we were a part of something important.]3060 And, even when he wasn't there, you know, you know, youmwould, he would call the office from wherever he was, you know, so he, you know, he was in constant touch with the CF 3077 office. You know, he was in constant touch with the office. So that you really felt as if you were part of, and you didn't think

think of it that you were working fourteen hours a day. You know, it just never even crossed your mind, ’cause you were doing something that was, you know, productive and exciting, and uh, and and that you felt, you know, that we felt, you know, was important.

At this time, I had never done anything that could be remotely called Journalism. I wasn't even on my high school, you know, newspaper. I was not on the, you know, the student newspaper when I was at Howard. I had never done anything that it could've been remotely called Journalism. But there were two things that I think I had going for me. One, I loved to read. Ever since I was a kid, I was a voracious reader. Two, I like CF 3223 research. And I could write. I could not write that, I I had not learned Journalistic writing, but when I was in school, and especially when I was at Howard, you know, when I had to write papers, I got very good grades on it, because you know, doing research and writing, I I liked that. So it it, so I kind of, you know, backed into became the editor of the of the Blacklash. And I used to write the editorials, you know, CF 3262 for the Backlash, and uh, be in charge of the overall production of it. We did nine issues, we you know, put ’em out on a mimeograph machine, the old mim-, that you had to turn by hand. Tells you how long ago

that was! And uh, and we were printing it, we would know when was traveling into state, that he'd be presenting it at the OAAU meeting. We, at the OAAU meeting in Cairo, we ran it, we were the only para-publication running these things in the, in their entirety. And uh, uh you know, I wrote the editorials, and we would take them to the rallies and sell them for a nickel a piece. And sometimes we'd give them away. We would try to build up a subscription list. I mean, I and people were actually writing in, and CF 3317 calling for it, and asking to get their names put on the subscription list. So it became a, you know, uh, the publication of the of the Organization of Afro—American Unity. And one of the things that, of course, his his goal, and what he definitely was planning on doing, was to make the Backlash into a a tabloid. Now, whether or not he was going to keep the name the Blacklash, I don't know. CF 3353 We had come up with that name kind of as a reaction to all the talk about the white backlash. That's, that's really how the name Blacklash. I don't know who came up with the

name, but that's how, I know how it came up. It was a reaction to all this talk about the white backlash. So we decided to call our publication the Blacklash. Uh, and eventually it was going to be a tabloid newspaper. But that was my first, it just like Mohammed Speaks. It was gonna be a publication similar to what Mohammed Speaks was. That that type of paper is called a tabloid. And uh that was my first CF 3407 Journalism. And as I said before, up until that time, I had not, you know, studied. Growing up in Tuskeegee, you didn't even think about being a journalist. You know, that was just not one of those things that you even thought about as an option, so...Uh, it was, it was completely new to me. But I I moved right into it, and once I got into it, CF 3435 I saw that hey, this is it for me, this is where I, you know. Writing, and doing research and this kind of thing, is what I like to do best.

WE'LL BE MOVING ON TO CAMERA ROLL ONE-FIFTY- NINE.

READY WHEN YOU ARE.

MMM.

ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT I'M HAPPY TO BE A PART...[LAUGHTER]

even those, some of them, you know, were supportive columnists. You know, there were some columnists. Not very many, but there were some, you know. But most of them were were uh, what he may be saying has some truth to it, but his approach to it is all wrong. Because it will, you know, it will get people hurt. And, you know, it was that, it was that kind of approach. Uh, they were afraid, to a large degree, to just come out and totally condemn him with the same kind CF 3653 of, the way that the white media was doing, because, after all, you know, they lived in, they were in the black community, and they knew that there were many people in the black community who were listening to what he was saying. So they, they uh were very, very wary, and and qualifying in their, in their uh, you know, in their attacks on him. But I think that they, they were mainly af—, they CF 3683 were afraid, I think, like many black.. [3690..But [the black media, I think, like many blacks, they were afraid that if we listen to what Malcolm X is saying, we may have to do something. You know, we may have to get up

off our behinds and do something. And we may have to start dealing with reality and stop, you know, singing, and thinking that if we just protest a little bit that things are gonna change. We may have to start doing some serious consideration as are we involved in a serious movement. And they didn't want to do that.] And especially up here. They wanted to make us, you know, they they were very prepared to support that kind of movement down in Mississippi, but uh, they didn't wanna hear nothing about New York CF 3750 City, you know, right to privacywhite supremacy in New York City. You know, they just did not want to hear it. And then they didn't want to report on it. [They wanted to make it sound like he was exaggerating. He's exaggerating the problem, was was something that you would often hear uh these columnists in the black press say. Or, he, by making those kind of CF 3777 statements, he is just hurting the relationships uh between the groups, you know, between the races., And what he is saying is not contributing to goodwill. You know, and this kind of thing. These were

basically the kinds of approaches that they were taking and uh, you know, and going after him.][ I remember Jackie Robinson used to do this quite a bit in his column. He had a column in the uh, I think it was the Herald Tribune, uh or the New York Post. I'm not sure which one, but he had a column in one of them, eh where he would use it every now and then to get on Brother Malcolm's case.] 3825

submerge not nobody. [[3888 Very few were willing to submerge and understand that this man has, not better than we are, but he just simply has more knowledge, more wisdom, more leadership abilities, and is better able to translate what we believe in such a way as to build an organization. But they, you know, they they couldn't deal with it.] And of course, then the leadership, [ I guess the CF 3929 mainstream black leadership, again, took the same kind of attitude the black press did. The would make these qualifying attacks. They never used out—and-out attacks because they knew they, you know, that there was enough appeal, he had enough appeal to enough people in the black community, they were very wary about making any broadside-type attacks.]] 3962

the nation of Islam, the media, of course, CF 3991 the thethey attempt to isolate him uh, make him seem something that black people should not pay very much attention to continued. But what they also tried to was to start trying to say that he was being inconsistent. They were just constant. If he made any kind of small change in saying what he was saying as opposed to what he said yesterday, it became like a big thing, uh, as though he was being CF 4026 inconsistent,] rather than as a person who was dealing, who was constantly dealing with the reality that he was confronted with.]4035 Brother Malcolm had was always dealt with the reality that he was confronted with. And uh,4044[ but [the media tried to push this as though he was doing these flip-flops. You know, and I told people as far as I was concerned, that Brother, that Brother, the Brother Malcolm that I heard speak in 1962, that summer, was CF 4062 the same Brother Malcolm that was speaking in 1965,] when he was assassinated. I mean[, he had made some, you know, minor adjustments, but I mean, the whole question about uh, when white people who accept Islam. Now that's

what he said. But you never hear that who accept Islam. Now, how many white people in America accept Islam? So, he is still eliminating, in that statement, about ninety- ninety-nine percent of the white people in this country. But they wo efer that he had made some major uh flip. ]’ That's like, I read a guy in the Richmond newspaper, said that he had become almost like Martin Luther King by the time he was assassinated. ]4172 Which CF 4123 shows you how much, you know, and I don't know whether this guy's doing it out of ignorance. I was, from this columnist, knowing him from reading his column last few years since I've been in Richmond, I would say he was doing it out of ignorance. But if it was a New York columnist, I would say they were doing it deliberately, because they want CF 4143 to sh-, you know, he's inconsistent, you know, he's, he's, we we we we're making him gi-, you know, give up some of his ideas. Uh, he's trying to be more respectable. You know, this kind of thing.

believed in Islam. That was his religion, and he believed it. He really, truly believed in it.4232[ So of course, when you get over to to Mecca, and you see white people, you know, going to Mecca, how can you then continue saying that all,[you know, you know, [making a statement that all white people are, uh are devils, or or have no, no way of of changing. You just simply, logically cannot CF 4272 do that. So how do you do it? You say, those white people who accept Islam, he had found, have the ability sometimes to transcend the uh the White supremacist view that is so dominant among people of European descent. And you keep on going. You cannot CF 4304 be illogical if you are a, you know, a a a learned thinking person. And Brother Malcolm was a learned thinking person]4322 And he saw this reality when he went to Mecca.

were people in Harlem who got upset behind this statement. You know, oh, now so he's been co—opted, and he's softening his viewpoints,] and and uh uh that, you know, that kind of thing.]4369 Uh, and you tried to ex- , you know, you put, you try to put it into the context, and if people kept doing it, then you just had to keep on going. You know, you could not stop something because some people were, you know, were uh just, were not gonna, you know, just follow just total, you know, what your eyes have seen, CF 4398 you know? There are white Muslims, and if you are a Muslim, then you have to accept that there are some white people who are Muslim, and who uh uh who you can say that you believe that, because you believe in Islam, and that Islam transcends these, you know, these racial—type things, and that, that they have, that they they because they've accepted Islam, they're able to CF 4436 transcend some of these things. And that's what,he was saying. Uh, and those people who 4445[you know, [there were some black people who got, you know, very upset./ But again,

they just read what they saw in the New York Times, or saw on tele-, because as I said before, what these people who were reporting was trying to do is, see, he's being inconsistent. You know, he's softening up. No. That w s the way they were trying to report it. ]4471 Rather than as a, you know, a learned, thinking person, you know, dealing with uh, you know, with with reality that was there.

THIS IS BLACKSIDE’S PRODUCTION OF MALCOLM X, SHOW 800, MOVING ON TO CAMERA ROLL 160 ON SOUND ROLL SEVENTY-NINE.

into various parts of the world. And this is in, has in no way been taught in the schools. In Richmond, Virginia, where I live, I saw something recently talked about Thomas Jefferson's--

truth, it happened. It is taught, you know, it is taught, it is demanded to be taught in schools, whereas slavery is, at best, at best, is minimized. There’re always qualifiers. Slavery was bad; however, the Africans got this from it. Nobody would say that the Holocaust was bad; however, the Jewish community benefited, you know, in this kind of way. So, you, so that's the point that he was making. That there's this CF 5188 tendency to downplay slavery. In Richmond, Virginia, where I live, they talk about, they use the word servant instead of slave. Now, a servant, I looked it up in the dictionary this week to put it in my column. A servant is a person who is employed by another person. A slave is a person who is considered the property of another person. And so that's that kind of-- OK.

MARK IT.

unity, they have made it just about impossible to criticize the Jewish community in any kind of way without being branded anti-Semitic. They've made it just about impossible. All I'm saying that Brother Malcolm was saying is we need to be able to do the same thing. We need to be able to present our position, and have it in such a way that, if you, no matter how, if you say anything, we'll call you a white supremacist. Because that's that's propaganda. That's the CF 5319 way the system functions. And the Jewish community, with its, with its great uh awareness and knowledge about communications and propaganda and image—creating are aware of this. And they make it just about impossible. So of course, when they considered him as a threat, because there's a lot of,5345[[ there there's a very tremendous, CF 5347 especial1y in the civil rights movement, there was a tremendous amount of Jewish influence in the civil rights movement, in such a way that there never wasn't the same kind of black influence in the Jewish movement. It simply would not have been

tolerated. You could support it, but you're not gonna be the president of the of the Anti-Defamation League. Or you're not even gonna have a major say in how the Anti- Defamation League is run. But there were Jewish people in this country who had a great say in how those black civil rights organizations were functioning and running. If you raised that issue, you were branded as being anti-Semitic.]] 5397

taught. And it should not be all these added qualifiers that are always made; that slavery was bad, however...; it may have been brutal, but...You know, which is basically the way it is taught in the American school system. But you know, nobody teaches the Holocaust like that. And it was an un-, as far as it is taught, as an unmitigated evil that must never be allowed CF5459 to be repeated. And Brother Malcolm was saying that slavery should be taught in the same kind of way. ]] 5469

uh the position, of course, their position always is, was that this boy had a weapon, uh a knife, I think it was supposed to have been, and had threatened the cop. Evidently, what was happening, the policeman was watering, uh watering something, and splashed water on the boy. And it started some kind of, and they ended up with the with the boy getting getting getting shot. Now, the reaction in Harlem was immediate. You know, uh I remember going and talking to these CF 5549 youngsters. I talked to some of the youngsters who were there, and uh and I came away convinced that this boy had no weapon. ’Cause the weapon, as far as I know, it was never found. Uh, Brother Malcolm was in Cairo at the time.5567[[ You just knew, it was that you knew something was gonna happen. I lived in Harlem, and you could feel it in the air, that that something was gonna happen. CF 5579 And it and it really blew, I I think that when it really blew was at the funeral. That's when everything started. It didn't start the day of the sh— of the of the shooting. It was the day of the funeral. ] If

I, and I'm almost certain that I'm that I remembering this correctly. ]5602 It was the day of the funeral when when when the when the the eruption occurred. And then it it it went on. [5613 Uh,[at the time, Brother Malcolm was in Cairo at the OAAU meeting. Although some of the New York City newspapers were claiming that he was over in Queens somewhere, directing the uprising ] And [Brother Malcolm would would called in every day, and we would kind of give him a report on on the uprising. And that was where he CF 5641 made the point to us that, you know, that, you know, keep the OAAU people out of it. Because, you know, this may have been deliberately provoked, so that to smoke certain people out, ]]5660 so that they can all be picked up or heads bashed, you know, and heads bashed in. That was the, and and so we had the function of trying to keep our, especially the younger brothers, who were ’round, just like you, in their teens. I was CF 5675 one of the younger, but there were brothers, there were people younger than me who were beginning to hang around, to try to keep them

out of it. And so we, we monitored it. I used to stand right down by Harlem Hospital every night, ’cause our, if they ever took the Blacklash, and Malcolm's not there, by this time, you know, I'm into my Journalism thing, and I'm down there watching them drive people up in ambulances, and and I was, I was in the streets. But I was, but I was watching, and you know, and monitoring, and keeping an eye on things. And uh, Brother Malcolm uh, the brilliance of Brother Malcolm,I found this this time also. [5721 'Cause CF 5722[ the first issue of the Blacklash, there's an article about this whole situation, you know, that I wrote. And in it, I used the word, ‘the murder’ of this boy. And Brother Malcolm said to me, at the time, when I read it to him over the phone, he called from Cairo, and each person would give kind of a report in their particular area, and so it was my turn, I was speaking about, you know, CF 5757the you know, the Blacklash. And uh uh, he said Brother Peter, you can't use the word murder. Murder is a legal term. And if you call him a murderer and he's acquitted, and

we know he's gonna be acquitted, then he can sue you for libel, and defamation of character. So uh, we went to the Blacklash and scratched out the word murder.] We didn't have time to redo them all, we didn't have the money to redo them all, ‘cause we had run off about, I think about five hundred copies at this time.]5795 So this other brother and I, who worked with me, we went through and and and took ink pens and blotted out the word killing, and wrote the word mur-, I mean, blotted out the word murder, and wrote the CF 5809 word killing 5811['cause [ he told us to refer to it as a killing, and the policeman as a killer, because if you kill someone, you are a killer, no matter what the circumstances, and it's a killing. Now that, and so, and sure enough, when the policeman was acquitted, he sued SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Martin Luther King's organization, and he sued the CF 5841 Congress of Racial Equality Corps. for defamation of character, because they had distributed leaflegs g¢ntifying and calling him a murderer.]]5854 And, uh that was my first

instance of seeing, and the other time, with the with the Birmingham, I mean, with the the rally, where he quieted the crowd down, was my chance of seeing his, you know, his ability to move you. This was my first time of seeing the intellect, you know, the the knowledgeable, the intellectual Brother Malcolm, the other person who understood this country's legal system. So as a result, we never got in trouble for what we said. It was the same way he told us, if you're in a meeting, and someone standing around the CF 5897 meeting and saying we oughtta go bomb the subways, he told us to get that person out of the meeting right away. He said nobody who's serious is gonna stand in a public meeting and talk about bombing the subways, and anyone who's doing it, nine times out of ten, is a plant put there by the police. And if we'd, you've discussed it even a minute, everybody in that room can be picked up and CF 5925 accused of conspiracy, which happened to other organizations. And so, again, you know, those are the kinds of things why we were able to do things, and conversation, we

knew, he knew just what to say and how to say it without getting caught up in the legal system defending what you said, rather than what you did.

racial groups. This causes a serious problem, when you start talking about doing things.

things within the community that made it a neighborhood should be owned and controlled by the people who live there./ Now, with every other neighborhood, this is considered almost like, oh, this is what happens. ’Cause you remember, now, we're not talking about the big downtown area, you're talking about the neighborhoods. But within the black community, somehow, it is considered almost abnormal for the black community to talk about owning these kinds of things CF 6179 within their own community, because it’s so unusual. /As a result, uh, [[6186 other ethnic groups, other ethnic and racial groups, come into our community and own the stores. They run the schools, they they they they run the supermarkets, they own the movie theaters, they own the uh, you know, the the almost anything in the community that is that is generating income is owned by outsiders. The CF 6214 AAU made it a part of its goals and objectives that was in our constitution, that there should be black community control of these kinds of things.]]6229 And our rational was, was that you cannot imagine black people

going into a a white ethnic or racial or religious neighborhood and buy and owning all of the stores and everything. It just simply would not happen. Not even once store, I don't think that they own. So that's what community control meant; It means you know, it meant that feeling that,6255[ you know, this is your area, and you control who has at least some amount of control over what happens there, over the destiny of the area in which you live. Uh, this was very, very important. CF6270 And until you develop that ‘kind of thinking, and the OAAU’s, one of the things we were trying to do was to develop that kind of thinking, you know, within the black community. ‘Cause [some black people ask me, who who who does it matter who owns the stores? I mean, they would say that to you! They don't see no re—, all I wanna do is go in there and be able to buy myself some CF 6293 oranges. They see no addition between owning those that store may mean that, you know, what kind of oranges you get to by. Whether your son or daughter can get a job in that store working, you know? Whether that money

that is being made in that store is then being spent back in the area, you know, in other places, or being put into the bank within that, you know, the local community, or whether all of this is going outside. Community control means keeping your resources, as much as possible, within your neighborhood.]] 6339

got out to them that if they came back again, they would not get out, they they would not be able to leave so easily. And they never came back again.] See, because they, they are not that, theabig giants.[I always say about them, and I said this even before I met Brother Malcolm, that they had always been willing, they had always shown, the Klan was quick to show they're prepared to kill for their rights. But they never had been able to prove they Qére willing to die for them!]]6419 CF 6420 And and our position was, that our commu-, our self-defense position was that a Klan, the wife of a Klansman, or any other kind of white supremacist was gonna have to go through the same things that a black wife or mother had to go through, if if a black person went out and starting raiding through other people's neighborhoods and community, beating people up and everything. One, it's CF 6456 the way it, way it was, and the way it would continue if we did non-violent thing was, he could say honey, I think I'm gonna go out and beat some niggers up tonight. I'll be back about ten o'clock. She'd say OK, just make

sure you, you know, come back at ten o'clock. Because she knows nothing is gonna happen. But when she has to start wondering, wait a minute, my man, you got a wife and three children here. You ain't going nowhere. Which is what the black woman had to tell her husband and her sons to try to keep them cool so they wouldn't get killed. So our position was that the white mother and the white wife should have to go through that same kind of thing. If you come into the black CF 6505 neighborhood to de- hurt people, to burn crosses, to beat people up, to shoot people down, she's gonna have, and if you tell your wife, your white supremacist tell your wife, I'm going out to be a part of this, she may have to wonder if you're gonna make it back. That's what self-defense was.

those goals, to use the means necessary to achieve those goals. [[6649 If you can do it by skipping rope, you sk rope! If you can do it by teaching, you teach. If you can do it by walking a picket line, you walk a picket line. If you can do it by praying, you pray. And if you have to defend yourself against adversaries and people who are trying to hurt you, then you also be prepared to do that. And but you don't know what we gonna do. All you know is by any means necessary. And now CF 6690 you go back and think about that when you start, when you start planning your little stuff, you you go back and try to figure out what that means, as you make your plans.]]6702 And that's gonna make you think a little bit, rather than, well, I'm going in there, ’cause they ain't gonna do anything. They believe in non-violence. I'm gonna go in there and CF 6710 beat up a few people, and burn a few crosses, and then go on back home and go to bed. No. You were not gonna have that luxury, according to the 0AAU's philosophy. You were gonna have to think.

there, with the where the children may have been killed, was a whole, you know, for me, was a whole different thing. Because, you know, as an adult, you accept the possibility that if you're involved in something, or you're working with him, that, you know, there may be some danger involved. I mean, I don't think I ever really thought that it was, you know, that I was seriously in danger, but I do know there was some risk, you know, you know, in to involved in CF 6848 everything. 6858[[But it’s a different thing, you know, when the home was firebombed, because the children were there. And a pregnant, and a pregnant, you know, a pregnant uh wife.]]6862 You know, uh. So, I did not see him after the firebombing until that following Saturday, when he came by. So, ’cause I, see. I have to make it very clear, in the OAAU, [6880 I was a part of the OAAU, but [ I was not a part of the inner core group. That was mainly those brothers who had been with him in the CF 6892 nation, who had left the nation with him. You know, they were, that was that, they were the real core group, who were both in the

Muslim Mosque incorporated and the OAAU.]]6908 Uh, I I wa-, so so he, I think if when something like that happened, I would not be one of the people that he would auto-, you know, that would be automatically called to the meeting. But I did see him the following Saturday, when he came to the OAAU’s office.

Malcolm with the rifle. They know nothing of the context of why, you know, what was going on there. So for them, that just confirms everything, that everything was true about him being violent and talking about shooting white people.

THIS IS, THIS IS UH CAMERA ROLL ONE-SIXTY- TWO, SOUND ROLL EIGHTY, BLACKSIDE’S PRODUCTION OF MALCOLM X, SHOW NUMBER EIGHT MUNERED, CONTINUATION OF INTERVIEW WITH MR. PETER BAILEY.

WHAT HAVE WE GOT, ABOUT/TEN?

THANKS.

direct—, needed 9/situation whereby, if anyone messed/with us, then white folks, you know, wherever they roamed around the world, would/not be safe. ’Cause wegwould have allies, and we'd be ready to move. He w ould’ve had that kind relationship.

Africans that the the the people that you were dealing with over here and the Colonialism are the same people that the movement back in in America's dealing with. You're talking about the same people. So so we have this, that's that's another connecting link. So that was basic-, it was, it was based on very, very practical considerations, you know? And then of course, there was also the emotional uh CF 7608 element involved. But it was not just an emotion, which is, a lot of people have just that emotional thing. That, his his his his uh African positions was based on that very practical feeling that that that this was was to be our ultimate security. So that if there was ever an attempt to move on us, then that would be a place that would react and respond, and and do something about it.

happening in the Congo to what, and they were, a couple of them were very specific, to what was happening in Mississippi.] And if you know the summer of 1964 ou know what was happening in Mississippi.]7854 And so, thi- and this was revolutionary. This was a revolutionary. This was, had never happened before. The African diplomats had not made that direct connection. They would talk in these kind of oblique terms, but in this instance, several of them made the direct CF 7880 connection. 7882[And [I strongly believe that that's when the United States Government realized that, we gotta watch this man. This man is dangerous to our foreign policy on the African continent. I think before that, they had kind of regarded Brother Malcolm as a nuisance.]]7908 You know, and can causes, you know, sayifig all that stuff, we involved in this, see. And and you have to put, you have CF 7918 to understand that that the Cold War was in its height during that time. So you had this these different European people, the Russians and the Americans, involved in this intense struggle over who was gonna control the world

and the world's resources. And so what, and so there was this, you know, there was this conflict going on. All of that has to be put into context to understand. And Brother Malcolm, of course, was using this. He was using this. He was very well, well aware of this. He was using this. But he did not want a a a country from the Russian bloc to present, to take the United States in front of the World Court. He probably could have easily got one, but he didn't want that. He wanted an African country to do it. He wanted an African country to do it. And he CF 7983 wanted an African country to do it, of course, for racial reasons. And see, we regarded the battle between the Americans and the Russians as as a civil war within the European people. We did not regard it as East versus West, and Communism versus Capitali-. We regarded this as a civil war between major groups of European people over CF 8008 who's gonna control the resources of the world. They've been fighting each other over this for about five or six hundred years, by this time. So it was nothing. That's the

way we looked at it. Uh, so we could not be branded as Red. They they could never brand us as as as Red. Because we were not tied, you know, we were not. And and uh, and so, with that8039[[with those speeches, with those speeches, and that connection made, I think it shook Washington. And I really believe that he was doomed, from that time on. ]]8062

Brother who was a member of the OAAU in Paris. /We had an OAAU branch in Paris. I finally tracked Carlos, his name was Carlos Moore. I tracked Carlos down. And Carlos told me that that what had ha- , what he had seen, he was glad to see me, because I gave him first—hand, you know, the thing about the assassination, and he gave me first-hand information about this. /He said that that they had seen Brother Malcolm get off the CF 8153 airplane. They were they had been in the, they had been in the, you know, in the airport waiting on him. ’Cause they were, they were hosting a rally that evening, the OAAU in Paris was hosting a big rally that evening. Uh, uh, and Brother Malcolm was gonna be the guest, you know, the main speaker. And/ he said that that that they were waiting on him, and they and they were inside the terminal, and they heard a French CF 8186 diplomat, a French journalist say to some other people, they're not going to allow Brother Malcolm in. So they then went outside the terminal, and they could see the plane, and they saw him get off, and they saw

'em put in a car, drive down to the other airport, and put him on another plane. And that plane was going back to London. So they never got a chance to say anything to him or anything. They could just, they could just, you know, this is a distance, but they they saw the...Carlos said they ran inside the, you know, the uh terminal, and they called London, called the brothers in London, told them that he was on his way back. But Carlos CF 8229 said the French government, the reason that they gave was that they did not want, you know, he he, they didn't want him to speak. And what had happened is that the OAAU in Paris, Carlos told me, that they had a very difficult time getting a place to hold the rally. The Communist Party in France did not want him to, would not let him use any of their places. And of course, the regular CF 8259 people wouldn't. So they finally found a Catholic organization, a Roman Catholic organization that agreed to let them use a hall for him to speak in.

didn't want him either, I mean, 8356[’cause [he was trying to organize the Africans in Paris. That's what the OAAU meet- , the OAAU Paris was organizing the Africans, there are a lot of Africans in Paris. And the French don't want these people, you know, organized. So they, you know, they also had a, you know, they were not particularly interested in seeing him, you know, build up an8383 CF 8379 organization, you know, in Paris.]]8383 So they would, they would've been very open to a request of that type from the United States.

there used to be a phrase, "you don't have a Chinaman's chance." And he said that |out now the--

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twentieth, 1965, the day before the CF 8581 assassination, waswanfiarticle that he gave me as a result of my having bugged him about doing something for the Blacklash. And the focus of the article, there were several things in there, but the focus was his, the rationale for his foreign policy about developing a closer relationship with Africa. And to to provide an example of what he was talking about, he said that he can remember growing up and hearing people say that you CF 8617 don’t have a Chinaman’s chance, which meant that you didn't have a chance at whatever it was, with you you the chances of practically accomplishing what you were trying to do was practically nil. He said, now you don't hear that anymore. And the reason you don't hear it is that China is now a force on the world scene, and as a result, people of Chinese descent are respected, if not liked, all over CF 8651 the world. And people are afraid to, they don't, they're hesitant about, about messing with people of Chinese descent, because they I know that China's there to look out after them. And so, his he's was saying that we

should have that same kind of relationship with the African continent.]]8675 That was...and that's that's a part of that last, that last uh uh article.

about the the uh the being banned from France, uh the firebombing, things around that, all of these was gonna be a part of his presentation on that day. So there was a lot of excitement about it.]]8762 And I remember that um, when he came in, when Brother Malcolm came to the Audubon that Sunday, I was in the uh in the back, or I guess it's the front, you know, it's the front of the Audubon, when where you come in. And there's a little alcove, like, there, like a little hallway or CF 8790 room was, whatever you wanna call it. And you come there, you you go through there, and then you go into the main auditorium, which is huge. And I was in there when he came in. And he saw me when he came in, and he spoke to me, and I spoke to him, and then he said, he said, when you get a chance, come backstage. I want to uh to talk to you. So I told him OK. And I guess about ten minutes later, I went backstage. And when I got back CF 8823 there, I found out that what he wanted to talk about was uh to make sure that I understood why he had asked me not to distribute a press release that I had written

at the rally. And again, it was ’cause of something that I had said. I don't even remember right now, ’cause I've never been able to come up with a copy of that release. But it was something in it that I had said, and it was a fiery release, basically saying that despite the firebombing and the, you know, the banning, and the increased pressures, that our support for him was as strong as ever. That was the thrust of it. But it was something in it that I had said, CF 8877 where he raised the same point about being able to get us in a jam because of something that we said rather than something that we did. So that's why he had asked me to. So he was concerned as to whether I really understood what he was talking about. He said, I know you put a lot of work into what trying to do, and I told him, of course I understood what he was saying. You know, and and so it didn't bother me, uh, that he had, CF 8906 you know, that he had asked me not to distribute it. And then we talked about several other things. I showed him a copy of the, I had clipped an article from the New

York Times dealing with the founding of the Deacons for Defense of Justice down in Louisiana. This was a self-defense group of brothers who had said they were just, they were just tired of of, you know, the whole non-violent approach, and not being able to defend their communities and their neighborhoods and their people. So they had formed this group called the Deacons for Defense of Justice, which I, first of all, I thought was one of the great names for an CF 8950 organization. And uh, and when I read it, I said, I'm going to take this to the rally, and show it to Brother Malcolm, in case he don't get a chance to read it. And when I showed it to him, he had not had a chance. This was in that morning Sunday New York Times. And he read it. He took time out and read it, and he was, as he was reading it, he If was commenting, you know, he was saying, CF 8975 that’s good, that's good. And when I, and when he finished, he said, you know, now that's that—, you know, something to the effect, you know, this is what we, this is a self--defense. This is the type thing we been

talking about. And uh, he felt as though more and more people would begin to, you know, especially since it was happening in Louisiana, and and and these were not people who were in any associated with him. They didn't even, when they formed the organization, they didn't say, we're forming this because Malcolm X said to form it. They were, I guess they were smart enough not to say that. They were just reacting to a very bad situation. And uh, and then we, you CF 9022 know, there were other thi—, you know talk about general things. Uh, I think he mentioned, we talked about making the the Blacklash into uh a tabloid again. He brought that up again, ’bout he really had some plans on doing that. And he talked about making a trip down uh to Mississippi at the invitation of SNCC, the Student Non- violent Coordinating Committee, to speak. CF 9050 And uh, just, you know, just different. It was just conversation. It was conversation about the things that we were doing, and you know, and that that kind of thing. It was never anything that I felt. I can I can I

can truthfully say, without, you know, I'm not gonna say, now, in hindsight, oh, well, I felt as though something. Because I really didn't. 9086[[I I didn't feel as though it was just another Sunday, because of what things that had happened. You know, I I didn't feel like that. But I did not feel that there was gonna be anything happening that that day.]] 9106

said earlier, I think that the fact that the firebombing had threatened his children and his pregnant wife, that, you know, that lays another whole burden on a man. I mean, you can deal when you were doing things, and it's you're the one, the target. But if you're a sensitive person, and that's what he was, then that had to have had some kind of of very very serious, laid some serious pressures and you know on him. As as a CF 9195 father, you know, and and and as a husband. 'Cause you know,9200[[ he wasn't just a leader of blacks. He wa ather and a husband. Uh, and and you saw that. I think that that was. And I've heard, if I could say anything that was different, that was it. The fact that the children had been endangered. And I think that that, more than anything else, was the reason for that, you know, that harried CF 9227 kind of, harried look that he had that day. ]] 9231 Uh, and I don't mean disheveled. I'm using the word harried deliberately. It is not disheveled or anything like that. I'm sure people understand, you know, how you have things on your mind, when there's a lot of

pressure on your mind. And uh...we we, see, we cou-, there were other people there besides me, and they were talking about the things that they were involved with, and talked to with him. 9268[[But I do remember uh after a while uh he, Reverend Milton Galamos was was supposed to come and speak that Sunday, and make an appeal to the audience for support for his wife and children./ You know, all their clothes had been burned up. CF 9292 So they need- for Malcolm's wife chi1d- . So they needed, there were things that they needed, and the he was gonna make an appeal to the audience]. And [Brother Malcolm asked did anyone there recognize Galamos. Did any one of us. And I said that I did, ’cause from seeing his picture in the papers, and from seeing him on television, I knew what he looked like. So, he said, OK, so you go back out front, where I was when he came in, and when he comes in, bring him backstage. And CF 9331 so I left and went out to do that. And I would say it was maybe ten to fifteen minutes after I left was uh when I heard Brother Malcolm, you know, say Asa Lam A Leico (?) to

the audience. And the next thing I heard was the shooting. And uh, of course, you know, immediately, you that was it. You know, you knew. Your mind said, you know, they're shooting at him. You know, you didn't think there was anyone else they would be shooting. And I didn't think that there was some kind of gunplay in the audience. My mind said that sh- . So I ran through these, there were these swinging doors. And I ran through the swinging doors into the Audubon ballroom. CF 9388 And uh, by this time, people are running toward, screaming, any you st- I'm still hearing shooting.]]9395 And what I found out later, of course, is that the the uh the assassins were shooting in the air as they were leaving, in order to keep people scattered and out of their way, so nobody would, you know, would try to to move on them.

know, like he was gasping for breath]]9502 And I was, I was just looking right down on it. I wa- even standing|out close enough to that I could actually see him, you know, and I was looking down on him.

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uh frustration, uh that this had happened.] I remember all these things going through my mind.]0066 And uh, then I remember I remember saying, you know, someone must get a stretcher, and I jumped down off the stage, ’cause I knew, you know, Columbia Presbyterian was right across the street. But someone said to me that someone has, they've already gone to get one, and that's when I saw the brothers coming through, at this time coming into the uh uh into the Audubon with one of those rolling stretchers. And they rolled it up and put him on it. And CG 0100 then they rolled him out. And uh, at this time, the audience, the people were still, 0112 [[you could hear crying, and uh, I mean some really, some people were really crying. I mean, some people just had tears running, but some people were really sobbing, and uh, you know, people was kind of walking around not quite knowing what was going on. ’cause you CG 0137 know, chairs were all knocked over,] and uh I don't know, I assume that I may have seen some people wounded, but I don't remember. Uh,[ I just remember walking around in the

middle of all of this, you know, really in a complete daze, uh about what was, you know, what was going on. And uh, so it was, well, I got, it was some of the most intense grief and uh and frustration, uh, the anger came, I think, kind of later, when you really thought about it. But, initially, it was grief and frustration that he had been shot down right in the middle of the afternoon, before about five hundred people.]]0193 So...

watching each other, you know, thinking that everybody is a, is a, you know, is an agent. And then, I think it was designed to cause a shoot—out between the members of the nation of Islam and the OAAU. Members of the OAAU. And everybody who survived the shootout was gonna be picked up and put in jail. And two organizations would have been completely wiped out, physically.] The organizations were, ultimately, when you think about it, uh CG 0287 [neither organization has recovered from that. There were literally two organizations destroyed that day, the OAAU and the nation of Islam. ’Cause even now, it is just not the same. It was never able to again achieve that kind of thing that it had before.]] 0315

know exactly what time, but it had to B probably have been very late at night. [[3044 My first reaction was, boy, the ones, the people who who were behind the assassination, uh, seeing that the shootout did not occur, then burn the mosque down, with the hopes that this would cause the shootout. And luckily, there were cooler heads in both organizations, where this did not happen.] A Because [I just don't believe that it is any way known to man that anybody remotely CG 0376 associated to Brother Malcolm could’ve got near, close enough to Temple Number Seven to have burned it the way it was burned. I I just don't believe that. Nobody will ever make me believe that.]] 0392

and confusion. And the confusion around, you know, that that the question of the Nation of Islam doing it. You know, were they the ones who did it? And if you had been able to, see, if it had happened, let's say, on some road when he was going home at night, or something like that, someone could’ve said the white people did it, and there would've been no confusion. But because of the, you know, the way that it happened, there was a CG 0459 lot of confusion. People were really confused.] And so it blurred the, you know, their response. You would, who you gonna strike out at? ]] 0477

(unintel)use to be very critical of Baptist funerals, because you know, the with all of the emotionalism. But I realize now that there's something to that. For me, personally, I found grother Malcolm's funeral...it wasn't, there wasn't enough emotion. You know? It was just...I mean, it was, it was very proper, and well, because Islam don't do that. You know. And because it was mainly Islamic. And they don't do that. But, you know, I mean, I was ready CG 0757 for, you know, I was in the mood for a, for a, I guess, like a Baptist-type funeral, you know. I I mean I really was. I I I missed that part of it. And I think a Baptist funeral can be one that's very, without, you know, the extra hoopla. But the one thing I have found about Baptist funerals is that when you leave them, you have left, you've gotten it all out. They literally make you. CG 0802 They sing the songs that they know will, you know, you're not gonna walk out of there without some kind of emotional response. They've got it set up there. And then when you come outta there, it's over. You know,

at least that part of it is over. I mean, there are other things that go involved. And and so I I I I thought the funeral, it was, I mean, it was Islamic. I didn't understand it that well, because I had never been to a Muslim funeral before.

you know, the the Iman, uh the spiritual leader, you know. But I don't remember uh, but I do remember what, you know, Ozzie Davis’ uh uh presentation.

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than I even felt when my grandmotherfather died. And I was very close to my grandfather. My grandfather was eighty, and had lived a full life. Brother Malcolm was thirty-nine, and so your mind kept going to Gngg, you know, he was going to do, and what he, you know, what he could do, and and so there was a tremendous feeling that that that something very, very important had been stopped.]]1155 'cause I think I had believed then that it could never be the same, you know, with nobody else. I mean, people say that, well, CG 1165 you know the movement has outlasted the leader. That may be true, but you the leader, the personality, uh is still very, very important, I think. And uh, and so I just felt as though it was never gonna be the same. No matter what we did, you know, we we tried to continue, it was just not going to be the same. I remember feeling that very, CG 1195 very clear- . [1196 And when we came, I had no fear. My mother was extremely, [I wouldn't even tell my mother I was gonna be a pallbearer, 'cause I knew how, you know, she would've been a nervous wreck. And uh, I

found out later that she was at work, she was a, and they called her, when we were coming out of the church, and she saw me. The first one comes to the door, because we I think by height, and I was one of the shorter people who was a pallbearer. And she told me that she screamed. Because she just knew that someone was across the street somewhere, you know, a sniper or something, and was going to shoot me. ]] 1247

assigned there by the government. so they were nominally members of the Nation of Islam.[[1301I personally, do not believe that Brother Malcolm was assassinated by re- people driven by some kind of religious fervor. I don't believe that. You know. I think these were professional killers. Uh, people driven by religious fervor, you know, might have tried to assassinate Brother Malcolm walking down the street or something. CG 1325 This was a planned execution,] and uh, [the people who did it, I think, were being paid, just like, you know, you do a job and you get paid for it. And and that's what I believe. I believe that the people who did it were nominally members of the Nation of Islam, uh but with the organization being as infiltrated as it was, you don't know whether they really they were believers, or whether they were just in the organization, you know, CG 1362 to cause trouble. And and and I believe that the United States Government, it is no way that that could've happened without the for knowledge of the United States Government.]] 1377

at one time, ran over to this drawer and I pulled out these photographs of his body from the autopsy, and starts showing them, shoving them in my face, saying, look what they did to your leader, and ah, you know. And so, you know, and I just sat there and looked at it, because you know, I I felt like saying to him, you know, you you don't really understand that uh Brother Malcolm had warned us about people like you. So, you know, we CG 1492 were aware of, you know, they'd little tricks. Like the person who was coming in, they would try to make you believe, oh, we just talked to so-and-so and so-and—so, so you know, so you would believe that this person had just told them a whole lot of stuff. And I would say, yeah? You know. And so it was, it was uh, by this time, you know, I you know, you, ’cause it happened, this is like maybe three or four weeks after CG 1526 the assassination. I I'm not sure of the time, but I think that's what it was. And so, you know, you were ready. You know, you went in there to deal with it knowing what

the deal was, and knowing and ready, and they they-—

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organization, I ask them, what organizations? These are the people they left behind. What are these organizations doing that is so important, you know? So it it, uh, these are people who never understood that [ our 1622 position, Brother Malcolm's said it, is for a battle of for the mind. They think that that if every black person in America had a Ph.d from Harvard and a big car and a big house, we would have no problems. that's a lie. We still have to deal with white supremacist. CG 1691 And Brother Malcolm understood that that and that one of the methods, and the reason for success that the white supremacist have had, because they understood very early you gotta get people's minds.]]1705 And so, we gotta reign, there's a const fort to reign this. And and you see t his right today. There’re some people walking around today who're supposed CG 1720 to be very, very black, but their minds are not, you know, are not there at all. And Brother Malcolm understood that. He understood that then. fixgu know, he understood that then. [1740 And I think that that to me, that is the most important. [He was a

master teacher. He taught. He taught by example, and he taught in the regular classroom way.]]1756 You know, and and I believe that because’6fJthat, I have learned, and I have been been able to tell talk to other people, and I know it's, I can name at least a half-a—dozen younger brothers and sisters who I know I had a direct influence over, in terms of things that they are now doing, because of what I learned from Brother CG 1782 Malcolm. So that we're we're weakening the links, and one day that chain is going to be snapped. See, we one of the things that we had in the Sixties, and it's young, we were young, you if you do something today, you wanna see the results at least by next week. We don't understand that this is a long, drawn—out struggle. And and I think that that that having developed some experience and some age, you begin to understand that. CG 1825 And so I I do laugh at people who say that he was not important. Because, you know, they they you know they're lying because uh of the things that have happened. And they've not been able to find anything on him. You

know, if they had any kind of gossip and dirt, they would've by now put it out. It's twenty—seven years later, they haven't been able to come out with nothin’. ‘Cause he told all that in the autobiography. He got rid of all that. Here it is. You know. And uh, his integrity is still there, his commitment, uh his uh his wisdom is still, is influencing people right now. 1875[ And so, uh[ he may not have left a building, you know, or something like that, but he sure left some CG 1885 some very, very enlightened people, and uh that's uh that's a very, very important part of what what's going to eventually uh, you know, break those chains, those mental chains.]] 1904

he would say something like, man, you know you don't wanna hear that, you know? And then, you know, we would laugh. Uh, he would say uh, something to the effect that yeah, I saw, you know, I saw y'all tippin’ out last night, you know, and going down...you know, that kind of of using humor to, you know, to tell a story. ’Cause he was a great story—teller. [[1954 He was a great storyteller. And that's why his people responded the way they did, because when he would speak, man, CG 1963 you could visualize what he was talking about. And and and then and when his voice got that steel in it, you could see it in his voice and in his eyes. You know. But he was not always like that, which is the picture that everyone tried to portray of him. I mean, he used to crack jokes.]]1989 You know, we used to...I mean, he was, he used to, sometimes you when you would go to the rallies, you would hear the people laughing CG 1996 out loud at some of the cracks that he was making about people, you know, his descriptions of people, you know, and some of the things they were doing. I mean, the

whole thing about uh, you know, the Hill the Hill Negro |out and the House Negro. I mean, that's a, you know, the way he would say that when he said it, I mean, you'd be laughing, the way he would, you know, draw the words out, and and the way he would, you know, use his facial expressions. Uh, I knew he was CG 2037 talking about a very serious thing, but he was presenting it in such a way that we laughed. He was a funny person. He was funny! He would, he could make you laugh.