PAGE SIX By RICHARD JOHNSON with PAULA FROELICH and CHRIS WILSON
Malcolm X's sexual suffering
MALCOLM X was a henpecked husband who couldn't keep up with his wife's sexual demands, he confided to Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad in a heartfelt 1959 letter.
The type-written, single-spaced missive was rescued by a lawyer for Muhammad's family as it was about to be thrown in the trash, and now it is up for sale for $125,000.
"This will change history's view of Malcom X," said memorabilia dealer Gary Zimet, who is marketing the very personal confession through his momentsintime.com Web site.
The letter begins, "My Dear Holy Apostle, I do not like to burden you with personal troubles of my own, but . . ."
Malcolm, who was assassinated six years later, seems aware that people were talking about his marital troubles. "I in no way said anything at any time to make my wife look bad," he writes. "But in attempting to carry the complete load with no explanation whatsoever of what made me act as I have . . . I would be doing myself some injustice."
The fiery black activist - lionized in Spike Lee's 1992 movie "Malcom X" - then defends himself against accusations of infidelity with other Nation of Islam women: "I have never made love to Sister Lucille, nor to Minister Robert's Sister (Betty Sue) . . . Sister Evelyn is the only one who had a legitimate beef against me."
Malcolm explains he married late on purpose: "I ducked, dodged, twisted, turned and ran from marriage as long as I could."
And he explains why he chose Betty Shabazz as his wife: "She was physically strong, near my height, looked something like me, and seemed to be able to produce children that would be strong and resemble us both . . . and she was the darkest of the three (she, Betty Sue and Evelyn), and I don't go too much for real light women as a wife."
Malcolm complains Betty expected him to drive her to work at 6 a.m., "which I refused to do. She had other luxurious tastes which I immediately began to curb. I really did keep her in 'jail' financially (compared to what she had been used to.)
"But the main source of our trouble was based upon SEX. She placed a great deal more stress upon it than I was physically capable of doing . . . At one time when I was going all out to try to keep her satisfied [sexually], one day she told me . . . I had never given her any real satisfaction."
After six months of abstinence, when she had her first of six daughters, the couple resumed relations. "Again she this time outright told me that . . . even though I could father a child, I was like an old man (not able to engage in the act long enough to satisfy her) . . . her remarks like this were very heartbreaking to me."