Me, West, NOI, relativism, & other dead horses

[Rakesh Bhandari]

> 
> FBI Memo 5/17/61 (From Clayborne Carson's "Malcolm X: The FBI File"):
> 
> [BUREAU DELETION] advised on January 30, 1961, that certain Klan officials
> met with leaders of the NOI on the night of January 28, 1961, in Atlanta,
> Georgia. One of these NOI leaders identified himself as MALCOLM X of New
> York, and it was the source's understanding that MALCOLM X claimed to have
> a hundred seventy-five thousand followers who were complete separationists,
> were interested in land and were soliciting the aid of the KLAN to obtain
> land. During this meeting subject stated that his people wanted complete
> separation from the white race, and that land obtained would be occupied by
> them and they would maintain their own businesses and government...
> 
> ******
> 
> Now the first observation one can make is that either Rakesh was speaking
> out of ignorance when he says that this meeting was about "cooperating"
> with Klan terror or just trying to pull the wool over people's eyes. 

Louis, in order to get the Klan to cooperate in getting that land and
setting up a govt (probably for a few select NOI leaders who could then
employ and govern oppressed black people), what did the NOI have to
promise to the Wizard and his buddies? Perhaps that the NOI would turn a
blind eye to Klan terror against integrationists  or that Malcolm would
encourage his NOI base  not to lend support to the integrationists, facing
violence and terror? Maybe such acts should not be construed as an act of
cooperation.

I differ and so did Malcolm X who describes his relationship with the Klan
at this point as one of "tacit agreement." What did he do or agree to do
that he felt so "shameful"  about? 

At any rate, I am not sure that Malcolm clearly abandoned the lunacy of
creating a separate all black nation in the South. His calls for guerilla
warfare in the South may indeed only be a radicalisation of separatist
struggle. 


> 
> I regard most Malcolm X biographies as fairly hostile to him, but on this
> particular question, none that I have seen consider Malcolm's actions to be
> other than reflecting his submission to NOI discipline. Furthermore, they
> point out that it was Malcolm himself who subsequently revealed to the
> world that these overtures had taken place, at GREAT RISK to his life.

So we go from debating whether Malcolm X cooperated or tacitly agreed with
the Klan to the question of whether he only did so due to NOI discipline. 

I just don't get why he is more well known or a greater hero than those
who would never have lowered themselves into entering into any kind of
relationship with the Klan and had been facing that terror straight on all
along--Bob Moses, Forman, Baker, Len Holt.  

However that he was willing to expose Elijiah Muhammed for his
and his own "involvement" with the Klan may indeed be a greater
contribution than his criticism of the March on Washington. 

I am sorry I don't still have the article with me. I lent it to someone
and never got it back. Nor do I have any Carson book but his history of
SNCC. At any rate, I did check with someone at home about whether I had
remembered Carson's claim about Malcolm X's involvement with the Klan
correctly. I had no intention of being dishonest, and I appreciate your
typing in the FBI record in Carson's book. Does Carson himself make any
substantial comments on that record? Would you be kind enough to
reproduce more of his comments than you already have? 

Yours, Rakesh