MMM Reveals Malcolm’s Discontent

Saturday’s “Justice or Else” March to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March (MMM), reveals the substance of the discontent Malcolm X had with the Nation of Islam, which led to his November 1963 suspension from the Muslim sect.

Shortly after the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Malcolm X quipped that, Kennedy’s assassination was a case “of chickens coming home to roost.” He followed that statement by saying, “As an old farm boy, chickens coming home to roost never made me sad, they always made me glad.”

Prior to Malcolm’s comments on the assassination of Kennedy, Elijah Muhammad, the Messenger for the Nation of Islam, permitted and encouraged Malcolm to spout any vile rhetoric he wanted about America in general and “the white man” in particular.

However, fearing an FBI push back because of Malcolm’s strong, I don’t give a flip about the murder of the American president, Elijah Muhammad suspended Malcolm for 90 days, saying at the time that “This man [Kennedy] was loved by the people.”

As the 90 day suspension was about to come to an end, Malcolm sensed that he was not going to be reinstated as chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, so in March of 1964, he left the religious faith that had converted him from a smart street hustler into an articulate anti-integrationist.

The following month, he made his first Hajj to the Muslim holy land. But not before confronting the Messenger, Elijah Muhammad, with rumors of sexual misconduct with young women under his leadership.

Until the Nation of Islams’ Savior Day observance in 2009, Malcolm’s allegations as recorded in the Autobiography of Malcolm X, were categorically denied. On this occasion, Farrakhan introduced the Messengers’ other family to the Nation of Islam. However, any mentioned of it continued to draw the wrath of the Nation of Islam. Speaking at West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia two months ago, Minister Louise Farrakhan said Malcolm merited death because he disclosed private matters about his teacher[Elijah Muhammad] and that anyone in the “Nation” at that time would have been willing to kill him.

On Saturday, at the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March and 50 years after Malcolm’s death, Farrakhan had the children and some of the grandchildren of Elijah Muhammad, who were born to women other than Clara Muhammad, the woman the public knew as Elijah Muhammad’s wife, to come onto center stage for all the world to see.

They were scientists, musicians, engineers and teachers. All of whom had lived meaningful lives. At one point Farrakhan said these children had been of more service to carrying out the work of their father’s organization than the children of his “first family.”

He paraded them upon the stage to chastise Christian preachers who he said enter into selfish alliances with women in their congregations, and do not sow positive seeds into the women, or into any child who may be born of such a relationship.

Farrakhan told the world that “these children are the children of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s wives.”

Fifty years later the public gets the truth, Elijah Muhammad, according to American juris prudence, lived the life of a polygamist. It makes one wonder why did Malcolm have to die, in front of his wife and children, at the hands of black men in the Audubon Ballroom, February 21, 1965.

Harold Michael Harvey is an American novelist and essayist, the author of Paper puzzle and Justice in the Round. He can be contacted at haroldmichaelharvey.com .