9781422277799

Malcolm X’s ultimate goal was the liberation of black Americans from what he believed was a brutally oppressive, white-dominated power structure. While less revolutionary black leaders, especially the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., struggled to bring about greater racial integration in American society, Malcolm X repeatedly stated that the old order must be completely destroyed and replaced with new political and economic systems that allow blacks and whites to share power equally. Knowing how unlikely it was that the old structures would collapse, he often called upon black Americans to cut their ties with their country and found a separate nation. Yet as his flight from Algeria touched down at the airport, he was returning to a country that was still far from ready to accept his radical programs. WhenMalcolmX emerged from the international arrivals gate, hewas greeted by his wife and children and a group of his close associates. There was a sudden, excited bustling in the lounge area as the reporters caught sight of the tall, lean man with a wispy new beard. They flocked around him and unleashed a barrage of questions. Only after Malcolm X seated himself at a nearby table and faced the reporters would he allowhimself to be interviewed. He had become amaster at using themedia to publicize his political message, treating press sessions like a kind of game. The game was a serious one, though, for its object was the creation of a black political revolution in the United States. The first question posed to Malcolm X was about the Blood Brothers, to whom he supposedly had ties. Indeed, he was the first black leader to have made a public statement calling for blacks to form gun clubs to protect themselves. If Malcolm X supported the Blood Brothers, one reporter asked, was he not “a teacher, a fomentor of violence?” Malcolm X answered by pointing out what he believed were contradictions in the way the press—mainly the white press—wrote about the issue of self-defense in the case of racial attacks. It was considered normal for whites to buy guns for their self-defense, he said, but when blacks took up arms to protect themselves against

CH A P T E R 1 : T H E C I T I E S A R E B u R N I NG

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