-----Original Message----- From: Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Well, we agree that there was tacit agreement with the Klan. You try to
>construe tacit agreement to simply mean a meeting--a chewing of the fat
>with Klan buddies. But what was tacitly agreed upon in that meeting? Can
>that reasonably be construed as cooperation? I am putting forth the
>argument that what must have been tacitly agreed to can be so construed.
>And that is what Malcolm X was so shameful about.
I think the reality is part way between Louis and Rakesh, since there is no question the NOI was collaborating with both the Klan and the Nazi Party. And Malcolm knew about this and said nothing publicly as SNCC was terrorized down South. But Malcolm also cannot be completely dismissed as favoring such agreement with the Klan/Nazis.
A good example of this ambivalence is in Malcolm's relationship with James Farmer of CORE (see Farmer's autobiography p. 226). Farmer knew of the NOI/Nazi relationship from a mailing by the American Nazi Party's George Lincoln Rockwell back in 1961. Farmer privately confronted Malcolm with the letter which read in part, after discussing a meeting with Elijah Muhammed detailing the two groups mutual commitment to white-black separation:
"The Honorable Elijah Muhammed and I have worked out an agreement of mutual assistance in which they will help us on some things and we will help them on others. Can you imagine a rally of American Nazis in Union Square protected from Jewish hecklers by a solid phalanx of Elijah Muhammed's stalwart black stormtroopers."
At the time, Malcolm told Farmer he had not know of the meeting and that he would raise hell over the issue. Malcolm said nothing publicly so it is hard to say what part this conflict had in his pulling away from the NOI, but soon after the meeting with Farmer, he called Farmer to warn him that Nazi youth would be picketing CORE's offices. Whether he made simili ar warnings to other black activists based on internal NOI info on white racists, I don't know.
Malcolm's actions are shameful in any case and Rakesh is right that there are a range of militant activists like Foreman, Baker, and Hamer who should be respected at least on Malcolm's level. On the other hand, even a nice liberal like Taylor Branch in his recent installment of his King biography highlighted (sympathetically) how important Malcolm's voice was as a militant counterpoint to King, especially in the urban areas largely untouched by the early civil rights activism.
--Nathan Newman