CHAPTER 13
“In the Struggle for Dignity”
July 11-November 24, 1964
Malcolm’s return to Cairo marked the beginning of a nineteen-week sojourn to the Middle East and Africa. In departing New York, he left behind two fledgling organizations whose success depended almost entirely on his personal involvement, and the toll his absence took on both the MMI and OAAU was considerable. Yet several important factors conspired to keep him away. For as much as he wished to lay a foundation for his ideas, he continued during this time to undergo dramatic life changes, completing a transformation that had begun with his departure from the Nation of Islam and accelerated with his recent trip to the Middle East. Now, charged with bringing to Africa his plan to put the U.S. government before the United Nations over human rights violations, he experienced for the first time the fullness and profundity of his own African heritage. If the hajj had brought Malcolm to full realization of his Muslim life, the second trip to Africa immersed him in a broad-based Pan-Africanism that cast into relief his role as a black citizen of the world.
In a whirlwind nearly five months, he would become an honored guest of several heads of state and a beloved figure among ordinary Africans of many countries. Though not every moment of the trip was easy, it presented a stark contrast to the difficult slog of building the OAAU amid constant threats of violence from the Nation of Islam. Indeed, another reason why Malcolm ultimately stayed in Africa so long was safety: he was convinced that the Nation would try to kill him as soon as he returned home.
He had planned his visit to Egypt to coincide with an OAU conference (July 17-21) in Cairo, but eventually stayed in the city longer than originally planned, believing that the friendships he was forming would yield dividends in the long run. During the first two months, he threw himself into a detailed course of study prepared by Muslim clerics, associated with the Cairo-based Supreme Council on Islamic Affairs (SCIA). According to Dr. Mahmoud Shawarbi, the SCIA was also largely responsible for subsidizing Malcolm’s expenses in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe during his second tour. He was also in frequent communication with the Mecca-based Muslim World League (Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami) founded in Saudi Arabia in 1962 to promulgate religion and oppose the threats represented by communism. By seeking recognition from such organizations, he hoped to destroy the NOI's access to the orthodox Muslim world, as well as elevate his own position as the most prominent Muslim leader in the United States.
Most important of all to Malcolm, this was also a journey of self-discovery. As an NOI minister, he had preached a theology grounded in hatred. Only now, as his separation from the Nation of Islam grew wider, did he feel the urgent need to reexamine his life. If he packed away the starched white shirts, bow ties, and dark suits, how would he now convey his identity?
Malcolm arrived in Cairo after midnight on July 12, and stayed initially at the Semiramis Hotel. In the days that followed, as he waited for his clearance to attend the OAU conference as an observer, he occupied his time by getting settled in and making contact with key leaders. The evening after his arrival he contacted Dr. Shawarbi, who was so eager to engage him in political conversation that he and a small entourage of mostly African Americans drove over to his hotel lobby, where they talked together until three in the morning. Malcolm also met with a number of dignitaries, including the Kenyan political leader Tom Mboya as well as Hassan Sabn al-Kholy, director of Nasser's Bureau of General Affairs, and he dined with Shirley Graham Du Bois, whom he had previously met in Ghana. He visited Cairo University, the pyramids, and other sites (with an ABC cameraman in tow), and he gave interviews to the London Observer and UPI.
Once at the conference, he immediately began to circulate a memorandum, calling upon newly independent African nations to condemn the United States for its violations of black human rights. “Racism in America is the same that it is in South Africa,” he argued. He urged African leaders to embrace Pan-Africanist politics by endorsing the struggles of African Americans. “We pray that our African brothers” have not escaped the domination of Europe, Malcolm observed, only to fall victim to “American dollarism.”
In the end, Malcolm failed to persuade, though not for any great flaw in his argument or ebbing of his passion; his rhetoric simply could not overcome the cold logic of international politics. In the bipolar political world of the 1960s, backing a formal resolution that sharply condemned the United States for its domestic human rights violations would have been seen by the American government as an act of partnership with the Soviet Union or the communist Chinese. The OAU did pass a tepid resolution applauding the passage of civil rights legislation, but criticizing the lack of racial progress. By late July, media analysis of the meeting had filtered back to the United States, where Malcolm was generally described as having failed. A sympathetic New York Times analysis by M. S. Handler did, however, appear; after examining Malcolm’s eight-page memorandum, U.S. government officials said that had Malcolm “succeeded in convincing just one African Government to bring up the charge at the United Nations, the United States Government would be faced with a touchy problem.” The United States could be held in the same category as South Africa as a violator of human rights.
After the conference ended, Malcolm paused, deciding what to do next. The refusal by African governments to back him could only be overcome, he must have reasoned, by his visiting key countries to lobby for their support. Arranging the tour’s logistics and connecting with dozens of local contacts throughout Africa in advance would take at least one month to accomplish. The list was long, including: in Ghana, Maya Angelou, Ghanaian Times editor T. D. Baffoe, writer Julian Mayfield, and Alice Windom, recently appointed as administrative assistant for the UN Economic Commission for Africa; in Nigeria, scholar E. U. Essien-Udom; in Saudi Arabia, Prince Faisal, Muhammad Abdul Azziz Maged, and Omar Azzam; in Tanzania, Abdulrahman Muhammad Babu, minister of economic planning and foreign affairs; and in Paris, Alioune Diop, publisher and editor of Présence Africaine, the preeminent journal of Francophone black culture. Then there was the planning of accommodations and travel.
In a letter to Betty dated August 4, beginning, “My Dear Wife,” Malcolm instructed her to tell Lynne Shifflett to cooperate with attorney Clarence Jones and others in helping to bring racial issues before the United Nations. He indicated he would probably return to the United States sometime in September. Malcolm asked Betty to tell Charles Kenyatta that he recognized the difficulties in remaining abroad for so long, but “the gains outweigh the risks.”
He wanted to use his remaining time in Cairo to reexamine his identity and practices as a Muslim and as a person of African descent. During his twelve-year stint in the Nation, obeying the strict dietary instructions of Muhammad, he had eaten only one meal each day, surviving on countless cups of coffee. What if, he now asked himself, these rules in running one’s life and body were broken down, made less rigid? Egypt’s unique blend of Arabic, Islamic, and African cultures also created an environment very different from that of the United States. Meetings advertised to begin at six p.m. might not start until an hour and half later, if not beyond that; many people usually took midday naps and ate a late dinner. Social and public life had their own, slower pace.
Malcolm’s travel diary entries reveal that within several weeks he was experiencing a cultural metamorphosis. For example, he began eating lunch daily, a radical break from NOI orthodoxy. He started taking midday naps, usually between two and five p.m., and would generally dine with local contacts and friends at nine p.m. or later, returning to his hotel usually after midnight. He put away his starched white shirts and purchased Arabic- and African-style tunics and pants, which also underscored his appearance as a Pan-Africanist and Muslim. And he seized the opportunity to immerse himself in the culture, viewing many movies and plays—anathema to the NOI—including one, The Suez and the Revolution, at an outdoor theater. This is not to suggest that Malcolm withdrew from active political life; to the contrary, des
pite his changing habits he kept extremely busy—writing essays for the Egyptian press; giving interviews to newspapers, television networks, and wire services around the world; monitoring the activities of the OAAU and MMI and forwarding orders; meeting with African and Arab educators, political leaders, and government representatives; and studying the Qur’an. He met frequently with Elijah Muhammad’s youngest son, Akbar, who was enrolled in Cairo’s Al-Azhar University and had just resigned from the Nation of Islam over his father's failure to address the charges of immorality. What was new in his life, however, was the release he granted himself—his short trip to Alexandria to see the city’s aquarium, say, or his tourist junket to the Aswan Dam and Luxor at the end of August.
Malcolm’s public presence at the OAU conference also generated critical scrutiny back in the United States. One example of this was a Los Angeles Times column by Victor Riesel, with the provocative title “African Intrigues of Malcolm X.ʺ Riesel, who claimed to have been an observer at the Cairo conference, insisted Malcolm was not there: “He prepared a series of inflammatory anti-U.S. documents here . . . [giving the impression] that he attended the conference. This is nonsense. He did not get near the parley. He was not accredited to it.” Riesel believed that Malcolm was in league with the Chinese communists, whose “broadcasts have been featuring him and his splinter sect.” He had also observed Malcolm having dinner with Shirley Graham Du Bois, whom he accused of having been “long active in world communist circles.” A fervent anticommunist, Riesel probably drafted his columns using information taken directly from the surveillance of Malcolm that only the CIA would have had. He characterized Malcolm as an even greater menace to U.S. national security than he had been in the Nation of Islam: “I ran into his trail in several cities—especially in Ibadan, Nigeria, where he delivered speeches so anti-U.S., so incendiary, that they could be printed only on asbestos.”
A high point for Malcolm during his Egyptian stay was a reception in his honor in Alexandria, hosted by the Supreme Council on Islamic Affairs on August 2. More than eight hundred Muslim students representing ninety-three countries were present to hear the SCIA announce that it would award Malcolm’s organization twenty tuition-free scholarships to attend Al-Azhar University. Malcolm was overwhelmed, writing to Betty that the event was “the biggest and warmest reception of my life.” The fact that Elijah Muhammad had been able to send only one African American to study at Al-Azhar—his son Akbar—while the MMI would soon be sending twenty students to enroll was certainly a “wonderful blessing.” A low point came several days later, on August 6, when at an Alexandria restaurant he ate an exotic dish called “spanish.” By midnight he was vomiting, with diarrhea and colic fits. In his diary, he admitted being “so miserable I thought I was really dying.” A physician finally arrived the next morning to give him a painful injection and some pills, but as if to prove his indestructibility, he did not scale back his schedule. Weeks later he would come to suspect he might have been poisoned deliberately.
By the second week of August Malcolm’s life had begun to settle into a routine. This included travels to the ancient port city of Alexandria, which held a special fascination for Malcolm. He enjoyed frequently taking the train there, eating at its restaurants, and making new contacts with scholars and local leaders.
On August 11 he leisurely munched watermelon at the Hilton restaurant with David Du Bois, Shirley’s son. Du Bois interviewed Malcolm for the Egyptian Gazette, along with another lengthy interview by a different Gazette reporter, and he did not return home until midnight. The next day, Malcolm began writing an article for the Gazette.
In the afternoon on August 15, Malcolm met with Sheikh Akbar Hassan, the rector of Al-Azhar University. Sheikh Hassan handed Malcolm a certificate granting him the authority to teach Islam. Soon, Malcolm would learn what the friendship of the Nasser government could mean, when he was moved to a luxurious suite at the Shepherd Hotel as a guest of state. Overwhelmed, Malcolm declared in his diary, “Allah has really blessed me.”
On August 19, Malcolm spent part of the day touring the Egyptian Museum and once more visited the pyramids, but he also discussed the U.S. political situation and the OAAU with local contacts Nasir al-Din and Kalid Mahmoud. Once again Malcolm met with David Du Bois. On August 21 he released a press statement in the name of the OAAU, summarizing the recent OAU summit.
First, his intended audience was, as he put it, “the well-meaning element in the American public.” Echoing Kwame Nkrumah, he called for continental Pan-Africanism, some kind of federation that could unite all countries. He praised President Nasser’s role in laying the foundations for a United States of Africa, and he was impressed by the African delegations’ commitment to overthrowing the apartheid regime of South Africa, as well as the African guerrillas battling European colonialism in countries like Angola and Mozambique. He also acknowledged that many summit participants “recognized that Israel is nothing but a base here on the northeast tip of the mother continent for the twentieth-century form of ‘benevolent colonialism.’”
But the most interesting features of the statement were Malcolm’s justifications for his presence at the conference, and the connections he drew between a united Africa and the interests of black Americans. “My coming to the Summit Conference was not in vain, as some elements in the American press have tried to ‘suggest,’ but instead . . . proved to be very fruitful.” He emphasized the political solidarity African delegates expressed to him: ʺI found no doors closed to me.ʺ
Malcolm’s article for the Egyptian Gazette, “Racism: The Cancer That Is Destroying America,” was duly published, to his pleasure. “I am not a racist,” the essay began, “and I do not subscribe to any of the tenets of racism. . . . My religious pilgrimage to Mecca has given me a new insight into the true brotherhood of Islam, which encompasses all of the races of mankind.” He went on to separate himself from any black nationalist agenda, insisting that all Negroes desired the same goals. “The common goal of 22 million Afro Americans is respect and HUMAN RIGHTS. . . . We can never get civil rights in America until our HUMAN RIGHTS are first restored.” He also characterized the differences among civil rights organizations as merely over “methods of attaining these common objectives” and employed an argument made several years earlier by Frantz Fanon, about the destructive psychological impact of racism on the oppressed: “The denial of HUMAN RIGHTS psychologically castrates the victim and makes him a mental and physical slave of the system. . . .ʺ
From August 26 to August 29, he again became the eager tourist, visiting Aswan and Luxor by plane and spending the night in Luxor in some luxury at the New Winter Palace hotel before moving on to Tutankhamen’s tomb and other ancient temples in the Valley of the Kings. It was while sightseeing at Luxor that Malcolm expressed his fears in his diary that he may have “overplay[ed] my hand” by remaining abroad for so long.
Back in Cairo, a letter from Reuben Francis informed Malcolm that Muslim Mosque, Inc., had been admitted to the Islamic Federation of the United States and Canada, and that Malcolm was also named to the federation’s board of directors, two important stamps of legitimacy. MMI was now in the position of being the conduit for Arab financial aid and, indirectly, political support to African Americans. The federation’s actions would have the effect of isolating the Nation of Islam, making it difficult for Elijah Muhammad to develop major initiatives in, or even send delegations to, the orthodox Muslim world. Such success may also have sealed Malcolm’s fate among NOI leaders.
But the mail also contained troubling news. On September 1, Judge Maurice Wahl issued an order in favor of the Nation of Islam over Malcolm’s house; he and his family were ordered to vacate their Queens home by January 31, 1965. Meanwhile acting attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach wrote to J. Edgar Hoover suggesting that the FBI explore whether during his stay in Cairo Malcolm had violated the Logan Act, which made it illegal for citizens to enter into unauthorized agreements with foreign governments. Katzenbach’s letter
establishes that both the FBI and the CIA were monitoring Malcolm in Africa. What is most remarkable about this was the David versus Goliath dimension. Malcolm had few resources and was traveling without bodyguards, yet the attorney general and the FBI director were so fearful of what he alone might accomplish that they searched for any plausible grounds to arrest and prosecute him upon his return to the United States.
With the onset of fall, the 1964 U.S. presidential election drew nearer, and President Johnson and the Democratic Party courted the civil rights movement, hoping to secure the black vote. As Malcolm watched from Africa, he may have factored the election into his plans to remain abroad until November. Nearly alone among prominent black leaders, he continued to support Barry Goldwater as the better candidate to address blacks’ interests. Yet Goldwater's opposition to the Civil Rights Act made him the de facto candidate of Southern white supremacists, and the overwhelming majority of African Americans embraced the Democratic Party. Dr. King and other mainstream civil rights leaders had even decided to call a moratorium on demonstrations throughout the fall, in order to help Lyndon Johnson win. Malcolm must have recognized that his argument for Goldwater would have garnered little support. It was better to avoid the debate and not criticize civil rights leaders. The extra weeks abroad would give Malcolm even greater opportunities to make contacts with African political elites.