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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know.

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Speaker 2: A production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast Son, Josh,

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Speaker 2: And there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, just being quiet

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Speaker 2: as a church mouse. And this is stuff you should know.

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Speaker 1: It's because he told her to zip it.

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Speaker 2: I was gonna leave that part out. You're gonna get

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Speaker 2: hate mail for that one.

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Speaker 1: I'm surprised we're just now getting to this.

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Speaker 3: I went through a Malcolm X phase in college. I

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Speaker 3: wasn't one of those guys walking around Georgia with a

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Speaker 3: Malcolm X hat on.

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Speaker 2: You weren't wearing like, Okay, I have a great story,

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Speaker 2: but please go ahead.

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Speaker 3: It was after I saw the movie because I was

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Speaker 3: a big you still am big Spike Lee guy. So

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Speaker 3: I saw the movie in ninety two and then read

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Speaker 3: the autobiography that with Alex Haley right after that, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and was just super into a story at the time.

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Speaker 3: It's been a while, though.

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Speaker 2: Well, I have just entered my Malcolm X's face. I uh,

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Speaker 2: just researching him. I accidentally got radicalized, and I've got

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Speaker 2: his autobiography on the way. It should get here today. Great,

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Speaker 2: but it's it's crazy, Chuck, because like, especially as just

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Speaker 2: white people of our generation, if you hadn't already gotten

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Speaker 2: into him and like seing the Spike Lee movie and

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Speaker 2: read his autobiography and just started to read his speeches

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Speaker 2: and stuff, if you just kind of knew him like

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Speaker 2: I had up to this point, Like you knew him

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Speaker 2: as the guy who said, like by any means necessary,

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Speaker 2: that he was he was militant, that he was essentially

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Speaker 2: the foil to doctor Martin Luther King Junior, and that

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Speaker 2: he and King kind of represented these two this fork

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Speaker 2: in the road that America had to kind of choose between,

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Speaker 2: because there was at this point in like the fifties,

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Speaker 2: starting in the fifties, there was no way for America

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Speaker 2: to just stand there at the crossroads any longer. Like

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Speaker 2: like America as a whole had to make a choice

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Speaker 2: which way we're gonna go race war or integration, peaceful integration.

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Speaker 2: And that's what Malcolm X represented to white America. Race war,

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Speaker 2: like black militants taking over killing white people mercilessly, ruthlessly

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Speaker 2: because white people had it coming. Or you know, everybody's

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Speaker 2: much more familiar with the Martin Luther King Junior way,

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Speaker 2: but there's so much more to it than that, and

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Speaker 2: just researching this this guy, I like, I'm I don't

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Speaker 2: even want to say a fan, because I think that

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Speaker 2: kind of undermines like the respect I have for him now,

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Speaker 2: Like he's he's an amazing figure.

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Speaker 1: It turns out, yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 3: And you know, when I was in high school, there

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Speaker 3: was a big This Is you know, I graduated eighty nine,

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Speaker 3: the movie was ninety two, so this was leading up

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Speaker 3: to the film, which obviously put things on a much

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Speaker 3: bigger sort of platform. But it was a big deal

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Speaker 3: in the eighties. Like, there was a big sort of

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Speaker 3: at least in the South. I don't know how it

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Speaker 3: was everywhere else, but there was a big movement among

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Speaker 3: you know, the black students at my school to get

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Speaker 3: in touch with the African heritage. Malcolm X hats were

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Speaker 3: all over the place in my school, and he was

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Speaker 3: just sort of in the forefront, I guess, kind of

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Speaker 3: like my junior and senior year. So it was striking

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Speaker 3: to me that we didn't learn about him in high school.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you step back and really think about it,

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Speaker 2: it's not very surprising, you know.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean looking back at the substandard public school

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Speaker 3: education I got.

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Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, but also the white washed and sanitized version

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Speaker 2: where it's like, Okay, we'll tell you about Martin Luther

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Speaker 2: King Junior, but don't ask about Malto's. Yes, you don't

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Speaker 2: want to know about him.

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Speaker 3: He was a rough dude, but he yes, or anyone else.

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Speaker 3: It was just Martin Luther King exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. He did the whole thing by himself, it turns out. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: so yeah, I remember that same era as well. Okay,

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Speaker 2: so I say we get into this because we could

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Speaker 2: probably sit here and do an intro and it would

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Speaker 2: end up being the entire thing. Well, let's jump in

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Speaker 2: and everybody else can kind of make up their own

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Speaker 2: minds about how you feel about Malcolm X and just

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Speaker 2: kind of asit decide to start. I would definitely recommend

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Speaker 2: going and watching the documentary on him. That American experience

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Speaker 2: did I think in the nineties, make it plain. And

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Speaker 2: then I read a bunch of articles and the best

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Speaker 2: one I read was the Achievement of Malcolm X by

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Speaker 2: John J. Simon. That was in the Monthly Review. That

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Speaker 2: was a really good comprehensive one too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and see that's Spike Lee movie Exception. I've not

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Speaker 3: seen it, man, you gotta check it out.

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Speaker 1: That's great.

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Speaker 2: I will. Okay, So we're talking about Malcolm X. If

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Speaker 2: you hadn't figured that out by now, and you may

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Speaker 2: or may not know that Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little.

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Speaker 2: That was his given name. He was born back in

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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty five in Omaha, Nebraska, and from the outset,

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Speaker 2: he was essentially raised in a very black conscious family,

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Speaker 2: so he was aware of the state of racial affairs

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Speaker 2: in the United States as a very young person and

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Speaker 2: oppression that black people lived under at the time and

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Speaker 2: still do him many ways.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. His dad, Earle was a Baptist lay speaker,

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Speaker 3: his mother Louise Little. They were both members of the

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Speaker 3: Universal Negro Improvement Association, which was a Marcus Garvey joint

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Speaker 3: someone else we never learned about in high school. And

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Speaker 3: they moved to Milwaukee for a little while. Then eventually

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Speaker 3: in nineteen twenty eight, when little Malcolm was three, landed

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Speaker 3: in Michigan, and they landed in a white neighborhood and

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Speaker 3: that was a big problem because they were not wanted there,

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Speaker 3: and Earle Little was not the kind of guy to

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Speaker 3: just pack up and leave because his neighbors didn't want

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Speaker 3: him there, so he stayed and the community had a

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Speaker 3: clause in their hoa covenant that said that basically no

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Speaker 3: one was allowed to sell a house to non white people,

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Speaker 3: and so they sued to a victim. And while that

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Speaker 3: was kind of going through, even before the eviction was finalized,

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Speaker 3: a group of white men burned their house to the

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Speaker 3: ground without any firefighters even showing up.

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Speaker 2: Right, So whether they wanted to move or not, they

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Speaker 2: had to now, and they moved a little further out

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Speaker 2: of where they lived, still in the Lansing area, And

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Speaker 2: I don't know when the house burned, but just within

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Speaker 2: a year or two maybe less. Malcolm was six years

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Speaker 2: old and his father died. He died in a mysterious,

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Speaker 2: bizarre streetcar accident where he was run over by a streetcar.

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Speaker 2: And that's just the official line on the whole thing.

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Speaker 2: In fact, I think it was. It ended up being

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Speaker 2: ruled a suicide. But according to Malcolm his family, his mother,

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Speaker 2: like his father, was murdered, probably by a clan affiliated

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Speaker 2: group called the Black Legion who operated in Michigan back then,

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Speaker 2: and that was pretty much what the family was convinced of,

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Speaker 2: that his father had been murdered. Then, on top of that,

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Speaker 2: no one would admit that his father was murdered, which

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Speaker 2: I'm sure makes that kind of experience that much harder.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there was actual evidence that was ignored.

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Speaker 3: He had clearly been beaten and placed on the tracks,

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Speaker 3: so it was kind of just brushed under the table.

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Speaker 3: It was very upsetting for a young Malcolm because that

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Speaker 3: was like the rumor. It was all around the school

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Speaker 3: and everything, so he was hearing all these stories and

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Speaker 3: it was, you know, definitely a big early sort of

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Speaker 3: kind of forking the road for him, and that his

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Speaker 3: family was left without their dad.

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Speaker 1: They, like you said, ruled it a suicide.

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Speaker 3: But I think she got like one thousand dollars in

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Speaker 3: one life insurance payment. Louise did, which would be about

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Speaker 3: twenty five grand a day, but was denied because of

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Speaker 3: the suicide claim, a much larger insurance claim. So she

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Speaker 3: didn't have a lot of dough to feed.

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Speaker 1: What was eight kids?

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Speaker 2: Eight kids, man, and now she suddenly on her own

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Speaker 2: and she had a nervous breakdown, is what you would

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Speaker 2: call it. I think that she was diagnosed as paranoid

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Speaker 2: and was transferred to this state hospital in Kalamazoo where

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Speaker 2: she stayed. This is in the mid thirties. She stayed

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Speaker 2: there until nineteen sixty four, I think like twenty six

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Speaker 2: years or something like that, and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 2: Malcolm and his seven siblings are without parents. They're orphans essentially,

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Speaker 2: and they become wards of the state and they're broken up.

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Speaker 2: So just in a very short time couple of years,

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Speaker 2: Malcolm goes from having a stable home life to his

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Speaker 2: father being murdered, his mother having a nervous breakdown and

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Speaker 2: being institutionalized, and his siblings being spread out throughout the

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Speaker 2: foster system around Lansing. That's just what happened to him.

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Speaker 2: And if you know a little bit about Malcolm X,

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Speaker 2: you might know that he started out as a criminal.

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Speaker 2: What's astounding, Chuck, is this is not when his life

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Speaker 2: of crime began. He actually went the exact opposite.

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Speaker 1: Route, well a little both.

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Speaker 3: He started stealing stuff when he was nine because he

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Speaker 3: had to do something to provide for their family. But

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Speaker 3: he never got caught there And you know, wil Gover's

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Speaker 3: his former formal rap.

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Speaker 1: Sheet here in a minute.

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Speaker 3: But he was sent to a juvenile detention center in Mason, Michigan.

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Speaker 3: It was about ten miles south of Lansing, and he

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Speaker 3: went to a white school, and he did a great job.

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Speaker 3: He was he's a really you know, was a really

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Speaker 3: smart guy, a really smart kid, and made really good grades.

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Speaker 3: He was very charismatic from the beginning. He was elected

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Speaker 3: class president. Yeah, and had dreams of going to law

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Speaker 3: school before his white teacher said a pretty terrible thing

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Speaker 3: to him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was an English teacher. And this is a

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Speaker 2: one of the probably one of the This is the

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Speaker 2: second pivotal moment in his life where he had the

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Speaker 2: rug pull out from under him, He had the wind

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Speaker 2: taken out of his sales. He got punched in the

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Speaker 2: bread basket you want to put it because the English teacher.

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Speaker 2: He told the English teacher that he was dreaming of

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Speaker 2: becoming a lawyer, and the English teachers like, I think

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Speaker 2: America would accept you more as a carpenter, Like that's

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Speaker 2: the kind of profession you need to go in, you

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Speaker 2: need to be realistic about. And then essentially being a

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Speaker 2: black person in America, it's not, the teacher said, but

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Speaker 2: the point was the same, and it just completely sucked

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Speaker 2: the life and enthusiasm for learning that he had up

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Speaker 2: to that point right out of him.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he quit school. He never went to school again

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Speaker 3: after that. And he had a very promising academic career

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Speaker 3: in front of him, which is super sad. So at

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Speaker 3: fifteen he goes to live with his half sister in

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Speaker 3: Boston and eventually would get a job working at the railroad.

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Speaker 3: So he started traveling around some and by seventeen found

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Speaker 3: himself living in Harlem. And this is where he got

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Speaker 3: the name that stuck with him. You know, during his

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Speaker 3: sort of early tea or later teenage years.

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Speaker 1: I guess Red.

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Speaker 3: He had this red hair, so he was either Detroit

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Speaker 3: Red or Big Red because he was a tall guy.

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Speaker 1: He's six foot four.

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Speaker 3: In just a little fun side note, while he was

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Speaker 3: in Harlem, he was working at a chicken shack with

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Speaker 3: a guy named John Sandford, and he was Chicago Red

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Speaker 3: and Malcolm was Detroit Red. And he was trying. John

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Speaker 3: Sandford was trying to be a stand up comic and

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Speaker 3: that ended up being Red Box.

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Speaker 2: That's right of Sandford in something. Yeah, I love that

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Speaker 2: little fact. So yeah, he was. He became a I

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Speaker 2: guess he'd call him a petty criminal, but he was.

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Speaker 2: He took all of that kind of charisma and charm

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Speaker 2: and initiative and turned it. He directed it toward a

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Speaker 2: life of crime. He's often described as a pimp, although

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Speaker 2: he was never a pimp. He seemed more like the

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Speaker 2: kind of guy who just knew where to get whatever

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Speaker 2: you wanted, and that included sex workers, that included drugs.

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Speaker 2: He loved pot, he loved gambling, and he actually committed

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Speaker 2: a lot of his crimes like burglary, theft, that kind

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Speaker 2: of stuff just to support his habits, which eventually turned

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Speaker 2: into cocaine, which even back then was more expensive. And again,

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Speaker 2: he loved to gamble, so he needed to keep both

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Speaker 2: of those things up, and that was a large reason

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Speaker 2: why he was such a prolific criminal during this time.

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Speaker 2: Another reason is that he just the options that he

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Speaker 2: had hadn't really panned out very well for him. Like

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Speaker 2: he had a few jobs up to this point, but

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Speaker 2: he realized, like, I'm not going to get anywhere serving

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Speaker 2: sandwiches on a train, I'm not going to get anywhere

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Speaker 2: shining shoes, Like I might as well make away for myself,

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Speaker 2: and the only way to make away for myself in

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Speaker 2: this situation is crime.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. He was arrested a couple of times.

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Speaker 3: He was arrested at nineteen allegedly stealing his half sisters

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Speaker 3: for coat, whom he lived with pretty low hanging fruit.

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Speaker 3: Got arrested again when he allegedly mugged a friend of

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Speaker 3: his at gunpoint, and neither one of those amounted too much.

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Speaker 3: But finally he was arrested for a third time after

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Speaker 3: he'd been doing a series of burglaries of wealthy homes

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Speaker 3: with a kind of a small crew. It was him,

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Speaker 3: it was another black man and three white women. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and I mentioned everyone's race there, because when they got

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Speaker 3: caught on this one, the three white women just got

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Speaker 3: slaps on the wrist and basically got let go, and

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Speaker 3: the two men were sentenced to eight to ten in

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Speaker 3: the Hoofscow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they would have gotten much worse than that

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Speaker 2: documentary make it plain. The other guy, his friend, Malcolm Jarvis.

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Speaker 2: He said that they tried to get the women to

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Speaker 2: say that the Malcolm X and Malcolm Jarvis had raped

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Speaker 2: them and had all they had to do was say that,

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Speaker 2: and they would have been convicted of that and sentenced

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Speaker 2: to a couple more decades for that. And luckily they

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Speaker 2: were tight enough with these women that they said, no,

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Speaker 2: we're not going to do that, despite the pressure that

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Speaker 2: they were under.

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Speaker 3: Two Yeah, for sure. So prison is where a lot

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Speaker 3: happened to him. In prison sort of one of his

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Speaker 3: first big transformations. He spent about almost seven years there

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Speaker 3: for that burglary, and he was about twenty years old

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Speaker 3: at the time, and it was in prison where he

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Speaker 3: really kind of found himself for the I guess for

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Speaker 3: the first time as an adult, and that he remembered like, Hey,

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Speaker 3: I'm a smart guy, and I used to love academia

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Speaker 3: and learning. So he started he became a voracious reader

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Speaker 3: again in prison. He apparently tried to memorize the Dictionary

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Speaker 3: in prison and was reading anything he could get his

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Speaker 3: hands on, including, eventually which would really transform his life,

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Speaker 3: the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, who was a leader of

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Speaker 3: the Nation of Islam at the time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and before he kind of came on to those

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Speaker 2: teachings from his siblings, I think who encouraged him to

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Speaker 2: start looking into that. And he had a real aversion

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Speaker 2: to any kind of religion. He was actually known as

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Speaker 2: Satan by the other prisoners in the correctional facility he

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Speaker 2: was in. But the reason he was able to read

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Speaker 2: so much, Chuck, is because he happened to be in

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Speaker 2: MCI Norfolk in Massachusetts, and it's well known to have

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Speaker 2: a lot, like a huge library, connections with like MIT

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Speaker 2: and Harvard and all that stuff. So it was actually

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Speaker 2: the perfect prison for him to land in. So he

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Speaker 2: was able to kind of educate himself from that point on.

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Speaker 2: And then when he finally did start taking up the

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Speaker 2: teachings of Elijah Mohammad, it just clicked. And it was

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Speaker 2: even further, I guess reinforced when he started writing letters

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Speaker 2: to Elijah Mohammad and Elijah Muhammad started writing back to him.

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Speaker 2: That really encouraged him big time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know why because he didn't have to write

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Speaker 3: letters to get those books like Andy Defrain, Yeah in

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Speaker 3: the Shawshing.

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Speaker 2: Redemption, No, they just threw them at you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he was of course because it was Massachusetts.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, he started, you know basically it became a

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Speaker 3: pinpal with Elijah Mohammed and really became a hardcore Muslim

302
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Speaker 3: pretty quickly after reading you know, his works, and became

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Speaker 3: an ascetic. So that means no drugs, no booze, no pork,

304
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Speaker 3: no movies or music, no gambling, no dancing, like the

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Speaker 3: real straight and narrow. And you know, we'll later find

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Speaker 3: out that that became a bit of a riff later on,

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Speaker 3: because he didn't think Elijah Muhammad at one point was

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Speaker 3: sort of walking the walk where as he really was

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Speaker 3: from the beginning.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, like and he did throughout too. Like

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Speaker 2: the FBI tried and tried and tried to get something

312
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Speaker 2: on him, and they couldn't get anything. Like, He's just

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Speaker 2: that upstanding and moral from that point on. I also,

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Speaker 2: I had never even thought to wonder, but I had

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Speaker 2: no idea why his last name was X. I was

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Speaker 2: pretty surprised to learn this, But it makes a lot

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Speaker 2: of sense.

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Speaker 3: You didn't know that, no, Okay, I thought that would

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00:16:55,400 --> 00:16:59,880
Speaker 3: have been sort of just the basic common knowledge.

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Speaker 1: But maybe not.

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Speaker 2: I mean, maybe it is, but I'm I'm pretty uncommon, right, You're.

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Speaker 1: An uncommon podcaster.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, he dropped the name little because and a

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Speaker 3: lot of people in the Nation of Islam did and

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Speaker 3: do this because that was he thought that was his

326
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Speaker 3: slave name, so he rid himself of that name and

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Speaker 3: replaced it with an X.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. He also one of the reasons he despised religion.

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Speaker 2: He despised Christianity in general because he considered that the

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Speaker 2: slave religion that was given to the African slaves to

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Speaker 2: essentially keep them in line, and so it was actually

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Speaker 2: it was a big deal that he became this devotee

333
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Speaker 2: of this religion and this particular religion. Just really quick,

334
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Speaker 2: if you're not familiar with the Nation of Islam, it

335
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Speaker 2: is not the same thing as Islam that was that

336
00:17:51,680 --> 00:17:54,680
Speaker 2: emerged out of the Middle East several hundred years ago.

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Speaker 2: It bears like a slight resemblance to it, but it

338
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Speaker 2: is essentially a completely altered version that has a lot

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Speaker 2: of theology that seems very odd to outsiders.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they were Muslim, but you know, I

341
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Speaker 3: know you've and this is stuff I didn't know that

342
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Speaker 3: you found some stuff about Elijah Muhammad's original beliefs that

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Speaker 3: I was I was just sort of shocked by.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've heard white devils before. I mean, you

345
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:27,080
Speaker 2: have to was listening to like ICEQB. He always talks

346
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Speaker 2: about white devils. But that is actually a teaching from

347
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Speaker 2: the Nation of Islam from Elijah Muhammad, and it predates him.

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Speaker 2: The Nation of Islam had been around for a few

349
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Speaker 2: decades before Elijah Muhammad was its prophet. But the reason

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Speaker 2: that they call white people white devils is because, according

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Speaker 2: to black Muslim theology. There was a genius named yaka

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Speaker 2: Black Genius who created white people by bleaching black people

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Speaker 2: and he mutated them into white, blue eyed devils. And

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00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:05,480
Speaker 2: the reason why is he wanted to basically put the

355
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Speaker 2: black race to the test, so he put them in

356
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Speaker 2: a subjugated position because he allowed these white people to

357
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Speaker 2: be devils, to basically act like white people have treated

358
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Speaker 2: black people since time immemorial. And that this rain would

359
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Speaker 2: last about six millennia, and that the six millennia were

360
00:19:26,560 --> 00:19:29,640
Speaker 2: almost up, and that this was the time when the

361
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Speaker 2: black race would rise and take over from the white devils.

362
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Speaker 2: Who would who would really regret the stuff that they

363
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Speaker 2: had done up to that point after.

364
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Speaker 3: That ye, which would have placed it about nineteen seventy.

365
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Speaker 3: And so white Americans hearing this at the time, they

366
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Speaker 3: thought that's when like the race war was coming.

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Speaker 1: Was was nineteen seventy or thereabouts.

368
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and we talked about that before and like, I

369
00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:57,479
Speaker 2: never really understood it, but this is a big, big

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Speaker 2: reason that white America was like, there's go to be

371
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:03,399
Speaker 2: a race war. It's like coming, it's inevitable. That was

372
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:06,320
Speaker 2: a big part of it. So, yeah, this was and

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00:20:06,359 --> 00:20:09,679
Speaker 2: this wasn't like metaphorical. This is from what I understand,

374
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Speaker 2: it's a it's a literal interpretation of where white people

375
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Speaker 2: came from six thousand years ago. So this was the

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Speaker 2: This was what Malcolm X was being indoctrinated into. And

377
00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:22,920
Speaker 2: he was a smart guy, so he he had to

378
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Speaker 2: submit himself, like he had to take parts of his

379
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Speaker 2: brain and just turn them off. The suspicious part of him,

380
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Speaker 2: as far as like what he was being taught had

381
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Speaker 2: to be turned off, the critical thinking part, as far

382
00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:38,040
Speaker 2: as anything goes with the religion that he took on.

383
00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:41,440
Speaker 2: He was able to compartmentalize, turn it off, and throw

384
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Speaker 2: himself fully into it. And he was for the first

385
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Speaker 2: decade essentially that he was a black Muslim, the best

386
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Speaker 2: thing that ever happened to the Nation of Islam by far.

387
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Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, that seems like a pretty good place

388
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Speaker 1: for a break.

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Speaker 2: I agree.

390
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Speaker 3: All right, we'll be right back, everybody with more on

391
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Speaker 3: Malcolm X. So Malcolm X is granted parole in nineteen

392
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Speaker 3: fifty two. He gets out of prison a completely different

393
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:29,640
Speaker 3: person than who entered prison almost seven years earlier, and

394
00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:33,160
Speaker 3: he was on a mission to recruit and get as

395
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Speaker 3: many people as he could to join the Nation of

396
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:40,399
Speaker 3: Islam and had a direct sort of go get him

397
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Speaker 3: tiger from Elijah Muhammad, And so as soon as he

398
00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:48,439
Speaker 3: was paroled, he joined Temple Number one in Detroit. He

399
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:52,360
Speaker 3: traveled to Chicago to meet Elijah Mohammad in person, and

400
00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:55,080
Speaker 3: he said, like I said, he said, you know, go

401
00:21:55,119 --> 00:21:56,679
Speaker 3: out there and do your thing. Like he knew he

402
00:21:56,720 --> 00:21:59,600
Speaker 3: had a sort of a shining star because he was again,

403
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:02,080
Speaker 3: he was taugh he was handsome, he was charismatic, he

404
00:22:02,240 --> 00:22:06,919
Speaker 3: was super smart. And within a year there were only

405
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,040
Speaker 3: about four hundred members of the Nation of Islam at

406
00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:11,680
Speaker 3: the time. Within a year he brought that to about

407
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 3: a thousand, but that would grow to six thousand by

408
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:18,720
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty five, and then in the early nineteen sixties

409
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,560
Speaker 3: about seventy five thousand, up from a four hundred when

410
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:24,800
Speaker 3: Malcolm X came on the scene. So a lot of that,

411
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:26,919
Speaker 3: not all of it, obviously, but a lot of that

412
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:30,040
Speaker 3: is really due to him being the face you know,

413
00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:32,080
Speaker 3: I guess sort of the second face and then ultimately

414
00:22:32,240 --> 00:22:33,679
Speaker 3: the face of the Nation of Islam.

415
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:36,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, his rhetoric, the things he was saying,

416
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:39,000
Speaker 2: and like you said, the charisma and just how well

417
00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:41,639
Speaker 2: spoken he was, and the points he makes, it's like,

418
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 2: you can be white and he's talking about you being

419
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:47,879
Speaker 2: a white devil. Sorry, you all white people are white devil's.

420
00:22:47,880 --> 00:22:51,200
Speaker 2: He was uncompromising in that right. It wasn't like, yeah,

421
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 2: I mean some of them are okay. No, white people

422
00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 2: were okay in this philosophy. And he in addition to

423
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 2: that rhetoric, he also just knew how to work the

424
00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:06,760
Speaker 2: media and what you know, levers to pull, and he

425
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 2: pushed Elijah Muhammad way out of his comfort zone to

426
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:13,040
Speaker 2: allow him to do new stuff with the Nation of

427
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:15,840
Speaker 2: Islam that helped bring in tons and tons of people.

428
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 2: One of the first big ones was a documentary from

429
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 2: Mike Wallace of all People back in nineteen fifty nine

430
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:26,879
Speaker 2: called The Hate that Hate Produced, and it just basically said,

431
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 2: look at these guys, but at the same time, listen

432
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:32,600
Speaker 2: to what these guys have to say. And it exposed

433
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 2: the world to black Muslims and it really helped drive

434
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:38,200
Speaker 2: up membership.

435
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:41,679
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, he was not trying to make friends

436
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:44,959
Speaker 3: in his job, even within his own community. You know,

437
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 3: we talked about him being a hardliner and ascetic, and

438
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:53,760
Speaker 3: he said that everyone should practice asceticism. And you know,

439
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:56,159
Speaker 3: he went to Philadelphia at one point in nineteen fifty

440
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:58,920
Speaker 3: five and said, all right, everyone here is.

441
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 1: Needs to get their act together. You need to lose weight.

442
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 3: Even he had leaders in Philadelphia weighing their members twice

443
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 3: a week, and there were penalties if you didn't lose

444
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 3: the poundage that he required because he wanted everyone to

445
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 3: look a certain way. About a year later, in nineteen

446
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 3: fifty six, he met civil rights activists Betty Sanders when

447
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:24,440
Speaker 3: she joined his temple, and two years later when he

448
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:27,400
Speaker 3: called her from a gas station phone and proposed. They

449
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,760
Speaker 3: married in January nineteen fifty eight, and later that year

450
00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:33,400
Speaker 3: had the first of what would be six daughters.

451
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, all daughters, right, the whole, all along the way,

452
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:40,400
Speaker 2: even twins. I think the last ones born were twin daughters.

453
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:44,159
Speaker 2: So yeah, you said that he wasn't really trying to

454
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 2: make friends, and he didn't care whether he ticked people off.

455
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:51,120
Speaker 2: So the old guard, the existing guard of the Nation

456
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 2: of Islam, who had been around long before Malcolm X

457
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:57,480
Speaker 2: came along, they were not happy with this. They did

458
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,119
Speaker 2: not like to be told that they were dowe and

459
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:03,639
Speaker 2: to diet or else they'd be suspended. But he was

460
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 2: attracting people who were very much in line with himself.

461
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 2: So very quickly, as he started to build up the

462
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 2: roles of the members of Nation of Islam, the philosophy

463
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 2: and the viewpoint of that group started to shift away

464
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 2: from the establishment that had been there up to that

465
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 2: point to this much more radical, much more politically active

466
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 2: version of the Nation of Islam. That was the Malcolm

467
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 2: X brand of Nation of Islam.

468
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Elijah Muhammad told him to stay out

469
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 3: of politics because he was a complete separatist. He didn't

470
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,680
Speaker 3: want to be involved in anything that the White America

471
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 3: was doing. But you know, Malcolm X basically started doing

472
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 3: his own thing. One of the big sort of early

473
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 3: things he did that ended up being a huge deal

474
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 3: was he founded their newspaper. It was called Mohammad Speaks,

475
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:57,159
Speaker 3: and it became a really it had a pretty wide distribution,

476
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 3: and you know, I remember, even growing up seeing on

477
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 3: the streets of Atlanta members of the Nation of Islam.

478
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:05,640
Speaker 3: I feel like they were giving him away. I don't

479
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 3: think they were selling them. But he had pretty firm

480
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 3: quotas established for members to give these things out and

481
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 3: had a pretty wide circulation.

482
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, he also would do things like debate white people.

483
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 2: He did at Oxford, he did at Harvard on race relations.

484
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:28,399
Speaker 2: He would take questions from white reporters. All of this

485
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 2: stuff was like not what Elijah Muhammad was jibing with,

486
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 2: but Malcolm X was getting such results that Elijah Muhammad

487
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 2: would just kind of be like, I don't want to

488
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 2: do in that. But then when Malcolm went ahead and

489
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 2: did it, there wouldn't be any real consequences for it. Right. So,

490
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 2: as he's doing this is becoming more and more emboldened.

491
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 2: And one of the things he sets his sight on, Chuck,

492
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 2: is that the American essentially the racial struggle in the

493
00:26:55,359 --> 00:27:00,040
Speaker 2: United States that was really beginning to become part of

494
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 2: the American preoccupation. At the same time in the fifties,

495
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 2: it was really civil rights movement was really starting to

496
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:09,679
Speaker 2: take shape. And this, again, this was totally opposite from

497
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 2: what you were saying Elijah Muhammad wanted, which was isolation,

498
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 2: separatism not just from white America, from non black Muslim

499
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 2: black America too. Like he had no inclination to join

500
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:25,359
Speaker 2: the civil rights Elijah Muhammad to join the civil rights

501
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 2: fight because they weren't black Muslims. So therefore they were

502
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,920
Speaker 2: essentially lesser versions of Black Americans.

503
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.

504
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,639
Speaker 3: You know, part of the complications of Malcolm X is

505
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 3: that he had some anti Semitic views at times.

506
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:43,920
Speaker 1: He had some.

507
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 3: Pretty dark views of Jews in America and I guess

508
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 3: all over the world, but specifically America. And this was

509
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 3: especially sort of a you know, a thumb in the

510
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 3: eye of Jewish people, because they were a lot of

511
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 3: Jewish people were the white people that were kind of

512
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,959
Speaker 3: really heavily involved in the civil rights movement. Obviously, there

513
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 3: were all kinds of people, but Jewish people were leading

514
00:28:06,640 --> 00:28:08,919
Speaker 3: the charge for white America and the civil rights movement

515
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 3: for the most part.

516
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why they were also really highly critical of

517
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 2: the naacp is because they essentially said white people had

518
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 2: they'd allowed white people to join the white people had

519
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 2: taken over and were now steering the boat. So you

520
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 2: could not be white and be joined the Nation of Vislam.

521
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, they would not let you in. Still won't

522
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:28,239
Speaker 2: as far as I know.

523
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:31,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. But the media was loving this.

524
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 3: The media loves to pit people against one another, so

525
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 3: they had two really clear like you, I think you

526
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 3: described him as spoils early on in doctor Martin Luther

527
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 3: King and Malcolm X because it couldn't be any more different,

528
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 3: not only in kind of the way they looked and

529
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 3: how they talked and the things they were saying, but

530
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 3: their ultimate goals. So you know, they painted doctor King

531
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 3: as a saint, they paid in Malcolm X as a pariah,

532
00:28:57,280 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 3: and the I don't know if it's irony, but something

533
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 3: you can't forget is that, you know, Malcolm X was

534
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 3: making some waves, but his reach was nothing compared to

535
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 3: what doctor King was doing. He Doctor King was much

536
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 3: more of a threat, if you you know, as how

537
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 3: they would have called it back then to white America

538
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 3: and integration than Malcolm X was because he was he

539
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 3: was a fringe revolutionary at the time, so he was

540
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 3: you know, he was kind of fortunate to be in

541
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 3: the newspapers at all, even though you know, the media

542
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:34,239
Speaker 3: was painting them as enemies and they kind of you know,

543
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 3: enemies is a weird word. They didn't hang out. Doctor

544
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 3: King didn't return calls. He was offered like debates for

545
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 3: Malcolm X and stuff like that, and he kind of

546
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 3: just didn't want anything to do with that brand because

547
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 3: he had such a sort of a good thing going

548
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 3: he had some momentum.

549
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was worried also that you know, it

550
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 2: would it would scare the white coalition that he'd helped

551
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 2: build to support this civil rights movement away from the

552
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 2: civil rights movement all of a sudden. He's like, oh yeah,

553
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 2: and also this guy's philosophy too, we're going to incorporate

554
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 2: the race war. Yeah. He had every reason to stay

555
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 2: away from Malcolm X, and frankly kind of wisely did.

556
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 2: But like you said, this was the media saying, like,

557
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 2: you got Malcolm X, you got MLK, and that was

558
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 2: like both of them kind of fostered that idea because

559
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 2: if you had Malcolm X, and you know, you didn't

560
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 2: listen to MLK, then we were going to go the

561
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: Malcolm X way as far as America was concerned in

562
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 2: the near future. So we should probably go the way

563
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 2: that Martin Luther King is suggesting.

564
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, reading this stuff, I always was hoping

565
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 3: that I would find out that they were secretly in

566
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 3: cahoots with one another, Yeah, doing sort of a good

567
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:54,800
Speaker 3: a good cop bad cop thing, because they were both

568
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 3: well aware of that, and I think they, judging from

569
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 3: what some of the quotes I've seen, they were both

570
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 3: aware that it was helping the cause ultimately. And even

571
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 3: Malcolm X, even though that's not what he was after,

572
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 3: he knew that there were gains coming on that side

573
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 3: because he was so scary to white America exactly.

574
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it was kind of like how food

575
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 2: companies price fixed. They don't have secret meetings, but they

576
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 2: just kind of make signals in the market in public,

577
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:24,800
Speaker 2: and that's kind of what they think they were doing.

578
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 2: They were working together without actively working together.

579
00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like food companies fixing grocery prices.

580
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 2: So yeah, and I mean, he was like really outspoken

581
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 2: about what he thought about doctor Martin Luther King. He

582
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 2: called them a fool and Uncle Tom. He also said

583
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 2: that he was subsidized by the white man, that the

584
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 2: essentially again that white people had taken over the real

585
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 2: levers of power with the civil rights movement and that

586
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 2: it was completely useless now. But even if that weren't

587
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 2: the case, he was such a critic of the civil

588
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 2: rights movement because he's he was basically saying, like, if

589
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 2: you're starting a revolution and the revolution's goal is to

590
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 2: love your enemy, like that's ridiculous, that's stupid, Like that's

591
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 2: never going to work. It doesn't even make sense. So

592
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 2: what are you doing? Like, all you're doing is distracting

593
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 2: and continuing to keep subjugated the people who you're supposedly

594
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 2: trying to liberate and integrate.

595
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, he called the March on Washington the farce on Washington.

596
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 3: Malcolm X did, and he said the quote was, whoever

597
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 3: heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing we shall overcome while

598
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 3: tripping and swaying along arm in arm with the very

599
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 3: people they're supposed to be angrily revolting against. Right, So,

600
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not taking sides, but he's making a

601
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 3: lot of good points at the time. You know, I

602
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 3: think the idea that you can catch more flies with

603
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,600
Speaker 3: honey than vinegar is true, But it was I think

604
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 3: they almost needed there almost needed to be two sides

605
00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 3: of the same coin happening at the same time.

606
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I no know.

607
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 3: It's pretty interesting how it all worked out. And if

608
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 3: you're wondering if the federal government was concerned, they absolutely were.

609
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 3: This started in nineteen fifty, when Malcolm X was still

610
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 3: in prison. He wrote a letter to Harry Truman, who

611
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 3: was president, and said, I'm a communist, I'm a post

612
00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 3: of the Korean War, and President Truman said, maybe we

613
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 3: should get a file going on this guy with the FBI,

614
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 3: and they did that a couple of years later.

615
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had also captured the attention of the NYPD

616
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 2: around that time where there was a protest because the

617
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 2: Harlem police had brutalized a member of the Nation of

618
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 2: Islam and there was just a bunch of people came

619
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 2: out on the street and were shouting about it because

620
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 2: the guy had been beaten so badly, off skull been

621
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 2: cracked open, and they wouldn't disperse. So Malcolm X was

622
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 2: inside essentially negotiating that the guy should get care and

623
00:33:57,040 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 2: taken to the hospital with the police officials and managed

624
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 2: to get them to agree to that, but the crowd

625
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,320
Speaker 2: was still angry, wouldn't disperse, and the cops were trying

626
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 2: it wasn't very effective. So Malcolm X went outside and

627
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,640
Speaker 2: apparently didn't say a word, just waved his hand and

628
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:18,319
Speaker 2: the crowd stopped yelling and just dispersed. And apparently the

629
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:22,359
Speaker 2: I think the police commissioner witnessed this and was like

630
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 2: that that's too much power for any one man to have,

631
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:29,359
Speaker 2: especially somebody who believes that the black race is going

632
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 2: to take over from the white race, and that the

633
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 2: white races all devils like that scared them tremendously and

634
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 2: it also really caught their attention. He It put him

635
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,280
Speaker 2: on their radar essentially forever.

636
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.

637
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,279
Speaker 3: And as far as the FBI goes he you know,

638
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:48,919
Speaker 3: like I said, they started a file on him, which

639
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 3: they also had on Martin Luther King and you know,

640
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 3: John Lennon and everybody else. We've talked about all this stuff.

641
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 3: But there was something they found out later from the

642
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,399
Speaker 3: files was at one point Jay Edgar Hoover told the

643
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 3: New York Agency Office they needed to do something about

644
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 3: Malcolm X. But like you said, early on, they had

645
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 3: a hard time doing anything because in nineteen fifty eight,

646
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:15,280
Speaker 3: an informant said that Malcolm X was of high moral character.

647
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:18,359
Speaker 3: He doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he's always on time

648
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 3: for appointments. He's kind of a stand up guy if

649
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 3: you if you're not listening to what he's saying.

650
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: White America. Of course, that didn't matter.

651
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 3: But they couldn't pin anything on him essentially, and they

652
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 3: even think, and I don't think it's a spoiler to

653
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 3: say that he was assassinated. But I feel like everyone

654
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 3: knows that, but they even think that the FBI, because

655
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:41,240
Speaker 3: they had so many informants inside the Nation of Islam,

656
00:35:41,600 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 3: that they knew about the plot to assassinate him and

657
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 3: just let it happen.

658
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that too, and not just the FBI,

659
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 2: but also the NYPD just let it happen. So just

660
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 2: real quick, Chuck, I say, we take a break in

661
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 2: a second and talk about his break with the Nation

662
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:58,879
Speaker 2: of Islam. But I just wanted to kind of give

663
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 2: a thumbnail catch of like what he was saying. You

664
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,760
Speaker 2: can go listen. You should start with maybe the ballot

665
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 2: or the bullet It is a great speech that gets

666
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 2: his point across from this era. But essentially what he

667
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 2: was saying is black people have to learn to do

668
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 2: for themselves. Integrating and then saying like you know, hey,

669
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 2: let's all just share from the same pot with white

670
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 2: people isn't going to work because white people will always

671
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 2: hang it over you. So we have to figure out

672
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:26,400
Speaker 2: how to do it ourselves. Using the Nation of Islam.

673
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:28,400
Speaker 2: That's how you prop somebody up, get them on the

674
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:30,840
Speaker 2: right path, put them on the moral path in a

675
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,359
Speaker 2: way from temptation, and then after that, you teach them

676
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 2: black nationalisms, so now they feel good about being a

677
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:38,920
Speaker 2: black person, and then from that point on they have

678
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 2: the dignity and the motivation to make something for themselves

679
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 2: as a community. That was his goal. That's ultimately what

680
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:50,399
Speaker 2: he was preaching. That was the kernel of the whole thing.

681
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: That's right.

682
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 3: So we're going to take that break and we're going

683
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 3: to come back with the sad end and the split

684
00:36:57,000 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 3: from the Nation of Islam right after this.

685
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 2: So Chuck Malcolm X has become He's the face of

686
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:22,760
Speaker 2: the Nation of Islam to the press, to the public.

687
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 2: People like they know the name Elijah Muhammad. You might

688
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:28,279
Speaker 2: even have seen him speak, but it's way likeli er

689
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 2: that you've seen Malcolm X speak, and that's who you

690
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 2: associate is the head. So if you're the protege and

691
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:38,280
Speaker 2: you become that the power kind of shifts like that.

692
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:41,279
Speaker 2: The mentor doesn't usually like that kind of thing. Then

693
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 2: on top of it, the mentor Elijah Muhammad was starting

694
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 2: to get on in age, and so the people around

695
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 2: Elijah Muhammad, including his blood family, were worried that Malcolm

696
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:54,359
Speaker 2: X would actually take over. So there was a lot

697
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 2: of reason for there would be jealousy, backbiting, court intrigue,

698
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 2: and get rid of Malcolm X one way or another,

699
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 2: and that's essentially what happened.

700
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, his kids thought that they were going

701
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:07,799
Speaker 3: to be next in line basically. And you know, I

702
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:10,720
Speaker 3: mentioned the FBI had lots of people on the inside

703
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 3: of the Nation of Islam. They use those people to

704
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:17,719
Speaker 3: kind of stoke that strife internally and you know, try

705
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:21,440
Speaker 3: and disrupt it from within, and we're fairly successful at

706
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:23,760
Speaker 3: that because it was not smooth sailing at this point.

707
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 3: So you know, the real fracture comes. You know, all

708
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 3: this is sort of leading up to what I think

709
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 3: was the real fracture was when Malcolm X finds out

710
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 3: about Elijah Muhammad having three children out of wedlock with

711
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 3: three very young members of the Nation of Islam and

712
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 3: essentially started looking upon him as a false prophet that

713
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:49,239
Speaker 3: was just sort of a guy in power that was

714
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 3: using that power to Philander and he was like, I

715
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 3: don't think he's fit to lead the Nation of Islam anymore.

716
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:58,919
Speaker 3: And in nineteen sixty three of April of that year,

717
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:03,359
Speaker 3: he can fronted Elijah Muhammad about this, and that was

718
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 3: not something that Elijah Muhammad wanted to hear.

719
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 2: No for sure, and now like now, Malcolm X was

720
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:11,760
Speaker 2: a big problem because this is not something that Elijah

721
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 2: Muhammad wanted out to the public. It would immediately discredit him.

722
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 2: And so do you remember kind of at the beginning,

723
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 2: I was saying how Malcolm X had to kind of

724
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 2: compartmentalize and turn off critical thinking and stuff like that

725
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 2: to allow himself to submit to Elijah Muhammad. After this,

726
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 2: after he realized that this guy's actually not the real deal,

727
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 2: he was able to kind of grow and spread like

728
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 2: one of those sponge dinosaurs that you put water on

729
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 2: and they grow, or a different analogy would be like

730
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:43,640
Speaker 2: Apache Chief in the Justice League when he grows like

731
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 2: really really big. Essentially, that happened the moment he realized

732
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:50,480
Speaker 2: that Elijah Muhammad was a false prophet and he was

733
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 2: able to finally grow and become the Malcolm X that

734
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 2: he always had the potential to be. He had thrown

735
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 2: off the shackles placed on him. He gotten out from

736
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 2: under the thumb of the leader of the Nation of Islam.

737
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 2: But that also, unfortunately meant he had no place in

738
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:09,280
Speaker 2: the Nation of Islam any longer.

739
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:12,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the final nail in the coffin was

740
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 3: when Kennedy was assassinated, he got explicit direction from Elijah

741
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 3: Muhammad to shut up about it, to not say anything

742
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,319
Speaker 3: to the press, to just let this pass because it

743
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 3: was such a monumental thing for all of America, certainly

744
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 3: for white America. And he was like, we need to

745
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 3: stay out of this if we know it's good for us.

746
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:35,840
Speaker 3: And Malcolm X did not do that. He went to

747
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 3: the reporters and he said that Kennedy's death was quote

748
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:42,240
Speaker 3: a case of chickens coming home to roost end quote

749
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 3: and Elijah Muhammad was super upset. He said, you're suspended

750
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 3: for three months. A month into that, he removed him

751
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 3: from most of his leadership roles and that was the

752
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:57,360
Speaker 3: writing was on the wall that that was really the

753
00:40:57,400 --> 00:40:58,840
Speaker 3: beginning of the final split.

754
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just one little aside about that, chuck him

755
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 2: saying a case of chickens coming home to rest. There

756
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:06,480
Speaker 2: is so much more background and subtext to it and

757
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:08,359
Speaker 2: all the stuff he was saying that led up to that.

758
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:11,239
Speaker 2: But that's the pull quote, right, that's the thing that

759
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 2: you just pull in. It sounds like a pretty awful

760
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 2: thing to say, or at least heartless, but if you

761
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:20,800
Speaker 2: go back and read that stuff you like, you find

762
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 2: there's so much more context to the stuff he was

763
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:27,560
Speaker 2: he's quoted for, and like you said, kind of toward

764
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 2: the beginning, a lot of it seems pretty reasonable when

765
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 2: you listen to the words he's saying.

766
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.

767
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 3: You know, after he was expelled basically not formally expelled,

768
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 3: but you know, removed from his formal duties, he went

769
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 3: down to stay with Cassius Clay future Muhammad Ali at

770
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 3: his place in Miami, and he stayed there per week.

771
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,399
Speaker 3: He was giving him a spiritual guidance leading up to

772
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 3: his heavyweight bout with Sonny Liston, and he had not

773
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 3: cleared this with Elijah Mohammad, and Elijah Muhammad got mad

774
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:02,359
Speaker 3: about that as well and left him off the guest

775
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 3: list for convention in February, where Cassius Clay you know,

776
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 3: had his coming out as Muhammad Ali.

777
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: So that was a very meaningful snub at the time.

778
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was disappointed in Muhammad Ali because he was

779
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 2: basically like, oh that sucks, man, Sorry, see you. Yeah.

780
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 2: So now this was the break, This was the schism,

781
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 2: and at this point now the Nation of Islam is

782
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,840
Speaker 2: doing everything they can to mock and discredit Malcolm X

783
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:31,280
Speaker 2: and say that he was a turncoat and a Benedict

784
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 2: Arnold and a hypocrite, and Malcolm xis gave it right back.

785
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,959
Speaker 2: One of the first things he did was to tell

786
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 2: the media that Elijah Muhammad had kids out of wedlock

787
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 2: with teenage girls that were around him. He said that

788
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:51,840
Speaker 2: he had eight kids with six teenage secretaries, and he

789
00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:54,799
Speaker 2: just told it to the press and that was a

790
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 2: really big deal. And I think at that point he

791
00:42:57,200 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 2: realized like he had just taken his life into his

792
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 2: own hands.

793
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's all basically sort of early through spring

794
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty four. Later in nineteen sixty four, a very

795
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:12,760
Speaker 3: important trip happened when he made the Haj to Mecca,

796
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 3: and this was, you know, kind of the final, big

797
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 3: life changing moment for him. He came back a Sunni

798
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 3: Islam member and he had changed his name from Malcolm

799
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:27,040
Speaker 3: X to El Haj Malik l Schabaz, and I believe

800
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 3: even his wife and daughters took the name Shabbaz, like

801
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:32,359
Speaker 3: you know, throughout the rest of their lives as well.

802
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 3: And while he was there, he had a transformation, another

803
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 3: transformation kind of like he did in prison. But the

804
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 3: other way, he came full circle and said, quote, he

805
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 3: had encountered pilgrims of all colors from all parts of

806
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 3: this earth, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood like

807
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 3: I've never seen before. And he essentially flipped and said,

808
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 3: you know what, there are good white people and we

809
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 3: can and should work together. And he came back and

810
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 3: started to do that work and really poured himself for

811
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 3: the first time into the legit official civil rightsman.

812
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:07,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, he told Martin Luther King, like I'm all in.

813
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 2: He founded the Organization of Afro American Unity. He was

814
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 2: trying to essentially teach Black Americans about their African heritage,

815
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 2: but that at the same time he had also zoomed

816
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:24,320
Speaker 2: in on this idea that he needed to take this

817
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 2: struggle for American civil rights to the world like the

818
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 2: UN or the African Congress and basically say, hey, this

819
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 2: is the same thing. This is part of the black

820
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 2: struggle worldwide, Like this is part of this global problem.

821
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 2: It's not separate, it's not its own thing. So we

822
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 2: need to figure out like all these other countries need

823
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 2: to get involved too and start pressuring the US to

824
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 2: do something about it, which is a pretty clever idea actually,

825
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,440
Speaker 2: and it was not something that Martin Luther King was

826
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 2: doing at the time from what I understand.

827
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure they would eventually meet. That was a

828
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 3: very famous single meeting with Martin Luther King Junior and

829
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 3: Malcolm X. It was not something they planned because it's

830
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 3: not like Martin Luther King Junior got on board immediately

831
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 3: and was like, oh, great, you're joining the movement. Like

832
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:12,479
Speaker 3: I don't think he still really liked him that much.

833
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 3: But they literally bumped into each other in the hallway

834
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 3: when they were at the Senate when the Civil Rights

835
00:45:20,480 --> 00:45:23,600
Speaker 3: Bill was being debated there at the Capitol Building, and

836
00:45:23,640 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 3: it was like, oh, it's you, and they shook hands.

837
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 3: I think he told him in person, I'm throwing myself

838
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:34,360
Speaker 3: into the heart of the civil rights struggle face to face.

839
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 3: There was a photographer there, so there's a very famous

840
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:41,040
Speaker 3: picture of them together. And then later that year in

841
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 3: July sixty four's when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act

842
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 3: and it was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. And

843
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 3: that was not the end for Malcolm X though he

844
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:53,800
Speaker 3: thought he was just getting started.

845
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,799
Speaker 2: Very sadly, Yeah, so this was you said, that was

846
00:45:56,840 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 2: May of nineteen sixty four. Within just a few months,

847
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 2: he would be dead. And it's just so sad that

848
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:08,120
Speaker 2: he underwent that transformation and all of a sudden his

849
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:10,520
Speaker 2: potential is really starting to blossom. He turned into like

850
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:14,839
Speaker 2: a full butterfly for the first time, and he's struck down.

851
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 2: The first thing that happened that kind of just foreshadowed

852
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 2: his death was his house was firebombed by he was

853
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 2: quite sure members of the Nation of Islam. Apparently one

854
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 2: of the bombs was thrown through a window that would

855
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:34,240
Speaker 2: have landed in and on the three of his little

856
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 2: girls in their room, but luckily it shattered on the

857
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 2: outside of the window and didn't make it through, but

858
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 2: it burned his house essentially down. And this was a

859
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 2: house that was owned by the Nation of Islam, so

860
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 2: they went as far as to accuse him of burning

861
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 2: it down because they had evicted him from the house,

862
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 2: and so out of spite, he burned it down, which

863
00:46:56,160 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 2: was obviously not true.

864
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:00,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is full circle because I don't think we

865
00:47:00,480 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 3: mentioned that when their house was burned down when he

866
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:06,040
Speaker 3: was a little kid, they actually accused his dad, Earl

867
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 3: of burning his own house down. So the same thing

868
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 3: happened all those years later. That was on February fourteenth,

869
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:15,919
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty five. On February eighteenth, they formally evicted him,

870
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:19,279
Speaker 3: and then on February twenty first, he was murdered. He

871
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:22,439
Speaker 3: was shot and killed in front of his in front

872
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 3: of Betty, in front of the girls. I think there

873
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 3: were four girls at the time, because Betty was pregnant

874
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:29,760
Speaker 3: with the twins that would be born after his death.

875
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:33,280
Speaker 3: And this was in Harlem at an organization of Afro

876
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 3: American Unity meeting, and they arrested three members of the

877
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:40,000
Speaker 3: Nation of Islam. One confessed and said the other two

878
00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 3: weren't involved, but the all three were convicted, even though

879
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 3: later on, I think in twenty twenty one, the other

880
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 3: two were exonerated after the Attorney General of New York

881
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 3: saw that they had buried some exculpatory evidence back when

882
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 3: it happened.

883
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:57,839
Speaker 2: Right, So you were talking about how the FBI let

884
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:01,879
Speaker 2: it happen. The NYPD apparently helped pave the way by

885
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 2: arresting a couple of his bodyguards on bs charges. So

886
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:10,720
Speaker 2: he was short security on that day and at his funeral,

887
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 2: like he had made quite a name for himself. I

888
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:17,360
Speaker 2: think fifteen hundred people showed up, which is a pretty

889
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 2: good turnout for your funeral. And Ossie Davis, who was

890
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 2: very much in with the Martin Luther King version of

891
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:28,800
Speaker 2: the civil rights movement, he led at Malcolm X's funeral

892
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:32,359
Speaker 2: because he was just that moved by him, even though

893
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:34,440
Speaker 2: he didn't see eye had eye on a bunch of stuff, Like,

894
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 2: he realized what a loss this was for the black

895
00:48:37,719 --> 00:48:38,880
Speaker 2: community in the world.

896
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.

897
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 3: You know, I mentioned that the twins were born after

898
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 3: he died. They you know, obviously grew up without their dad,

899
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,759
Speaker 3: and the other girls weren't that much older, and they

900
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 3: always just knew him as dad. He you know, I

901
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 3: think the ones that were kind of didn't even know

902
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 3: him at all. They weren't raised by Betty as like, hey,

903
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:04,399
Speaker 3: your dad was a revolutionary, he was this or that.

904
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 3: Apparently they'd learned about him mainly in school because Betty

905
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 3: always wanted him just to be a dad and my husband,

906
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:13,879
Speaker 3: and so they were. You know, they went on to

907
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 3: do a lot of great things as well. We should

908
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 3: probably do one on Betty Shabaz at some point. She

909
00:49:17,920 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 3: was a great woman, and his daughters all, you know,

910
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 3: became activists in their own way as well.

911
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 2: So yeah, I kind of mentioned like how just sad

912
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 2: this is that he was struck down, especially at the

913
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,879
Speaker 2: time he was struck down. But if you look back

914
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 2: at like the timeframe of all this stuff, this guy

915
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 2: changed the world or left such an indelible mark that

916
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 2: people are still learning from him all these years later,

917
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:47,400
Speaker 2: over essentially the course of ten years. That was about

918
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 2: the timeline that we're talking about, from when he took

919
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:55,279
Speaker 2: up the Nation of Islam's teachings to when he was

920
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 2: assassinated by the Nation of Islam. It was just about

921
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 2: a decade and that's how much of an impact that

922
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:02,000
Speaker 2: he made over just that time.

923
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a pretty great quote that who is

924
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:07,759
Speaker 1: this was this Julia.

925
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:09,439
Speaker 2: That helped us with you, Yeah, Julia helped uspeak time.

926
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, she found a great quote from a poet Maya Angelou,

927
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 3: who Malcolm X visited in at her home in Ghana

928
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:21,960
Speaker 3: at one point and basically kind of summarizing what guts

929
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:25,239
Speaker 3: it took to make that transformation in full public public view,

930
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 3: after being so public and militant. She said that it

931
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 3: takes an incredible amount of courage to be able to

932
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 3: say say everybody, you remember what I said yesterday, Well

933
00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 3: I found out that's wrong, and she just thought that

934
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 3: was an amazing thing to be able to do. And

935
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:42,399
Speaker 3: it really was. You know, not a lot of people

936
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 3: can can own up to kind of being on what

937
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:49,799
Speaker 3: they thought later was the wrong path.

938
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:54,279
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, it is remarkable. So you can go

939
00:50:54,360 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 2: read the autobiography of Malcolm X. Also, I've seen that

940
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 2: Malcolm X be is a really great book. I think

941
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:05,839
Speaker 2: it's his collected speeches. There's the Spike Lee movie, there's

942
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 2: Make It Plain, the PBS documentary, and then there's just

943
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:11,840
Speaker 2: tons of like his speeches are just all over YouTube.

944
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:14,319
Speaker 2: So if you're interested in this at all, like there's

945
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:16,919
Speaker 2: a lot you can still learn from Malcolm X, even

946
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:19,560
Speaker 2: with him being dead all these years.

947
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:22,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't recommend the book and the movie enough.

948
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 3: The book sold four hundred thousand copies. The Year was

949
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:28,320
Speaker 3: released in nineteen sixty seven and has sold five million

950
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:32,480
Speaker 3: to date. And the movie was a big kit too.

951
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 3: It grows close to fifty million bucks, which is not

952
00:51:34,600 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 3: bad for a long, you know, true story biopic like

953
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:42,680
Speaker 3: you know, with political overtones. It had a couple of

954
00:51:42,719 --> 00:51:47,400
Speaker 3: Academy Award nominees. Certainly Denzel because he was amazing as always,

955
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 3: and the great Ruth E. Carter for costume design. Even

956
00:51:50,600 --> 00:51:54,399
Speaker 3: though neither one would win, it was fairly controversial when

957
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:57,520
Speaker 3: al Pacino won for Scent of a Woman over Denzel Real.

958
00:51:58,520 --> 00:51:59,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was.

959
00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 3: People thought it was a pretty big snub, including Spike Lee.

960
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:06,839
Speaker 3: He thought it was due to the controversy of the film,

961
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 3: obviously in the character, and he also thought it was

962
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:11,960
Speaker 3: a bit of a makeup call for Pacino losing so

963
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 3: many times, so he would get some due though later

964
00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 3: in twenty ten, when the film was added to the

965
00:52:18,600 --> 00:52:23,960
Speaker 3: National Film Registry as being culturally, historically, or esthetically significantly beautiful.

966
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:28,040
Speaker 2: That's a great ending, Charles, You got anything else?

967
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:29,480
Speaker 1: That's it?

968
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:32,560
Speaker 2: Well, that's it for Malcolm X. Chuck just said that's it,

969
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:35,959
Speaker 2: So obviously everybody, it's time for a listener mail.

970
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:41,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one's a little long, but it's one of

971
00:52:41,719 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 3: the great emails we've gotten. Because after we did our

972
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 3: what I think was a really fun episode on the

973
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:52,920
Speaker 3: Fire Festival debacles, we heard, you know, in that we

974
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:57,680
Speaker 3: talked about the Magnesis credit card and we heard from

975
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:01,040
Speaker 3: an actual holder of that credit card, which was great.

976
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:02,800
Speaker 2: Did you see this, so I haven't seen that yet.

977
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:04,480
Speaker 1: It's pretty fantastic.

978
00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 3: So hey, guys here and you talk about this credit

979
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 3: card brought me back to some very special memories of

980
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 3: my early days in New York. When I first moved

981
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:15,120
Speaker 3: there in twenty fourteen, I stumbled upon the Magnesis and

982
00:53:15,239 --> 00:53:17,320
Speaker 3: thought it sounded like the perfect way to meet new people.

983
00:53:17,680 --> 00:53:20,320
Speaker 3: Since I was new, there in excess the cool and

984
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 3: exclusive parties and parts of the city, so I applied

985
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 3: and was surprised.

986
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:25,760
Speaker 1: To be accepted as a member.

987
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:29,240
Speaker 3: I quickly found myself at fun rooftop parties with open bars,

988
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 3: great tickets to shows and sports games, and snagging reservations

989
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:35,719
Speaker 3: for restaurants that were impossible to book, all of which

990
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 3: seemed to be too good to be true for the

991
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty dollars annual feet, which should have

992
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 3: been my first clue that something was wrong. The first

993
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:45,200
Speaker 3: reel crack came when I took advantage of an offer

994
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 3: to get floor seats to a Beyonce concert for only

995
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 3: two hundred dollars and had to obtain the tickets by

996
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:55,240
Speaker 3: meeting a quote Magnesis concierge and the parking lot outside.

997
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:55,760
Speaker 1: Of the indue.

998
00:53:56,800 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 3: The tickets I got felt like they had just been

999
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:00,000
Speaker 3: bought from a scalper, and they probably were.

1000
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 1: But it did work out and it was a great show.

1001
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: Not long after, I had.

1002
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 3: Will call tickets to an NBA game through a quote

1003
00:54:06,200 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 3: partnership they had with the team. When my friends and

1004
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 3: I showed up to grab the seats, know and behind

1005
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 3: the ticket counter, I had ever heard of Magnesis. That

1006
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:16,200
Speaker 3: was a moment I started asking questions, and when I

1007
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:19,360
Speaker 3: reached out about the issue and about canceling my membership,

1008
00:54:19,680 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 3: they actually refunded it almost immediately. In fact, they refunded

1009
00:54:24,040 --> 00:54:26,440
Speaker 3: my fees so quickly it was almost alarming, like they

1010
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 3: were hoping I'd just.

1011
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:28,440
Speaker 1: Quietly go away.

1012
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 3: Thankfully, I managed to exit the whole thing before the

1013
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 3: house of cards came crashing down. So hearing you guys

1014
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:37,480
Speaker 3: explain how the whole thing worked was fascinating and weirdly nostalgic.

1015
00:54:38,080 --> 00:54:40,120
Speaker 3: Despite the sketchiness at the end, I actually do have

1016
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:42,799
Speaker 3: some pretty fun memories from that brief period when it

1017
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:45,920
Speaker 3: felt like I had unlocked some secret VIP version of

1018
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 3: New York City.

1019
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:49,120
Speaker 1: Look forward to your next stop at the Bell House,

1020
00:54:49,239 --> 00:54:50,600
Speaker 1: and that is from Kevin.

1021
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:52,439
Speaker 2: Kevin, that really was one of the all time best

1022
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:53,440
Speaker 2: emails we've gotten.

1023
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:57,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was hoping a Magnusis member would write in,

1024
00:54:57,440 --> 00:54:57,920
Speaker 1: and we got it.

1025
00:54:58,000 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 2: Look at you. You should be playing the lotto.

1026
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 1: That probably should.

1027
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Kevin. If you want to be like

1028
00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:08,240
Speaker 2: Kevin and send us one of our all time great emails,

1029
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:11,160
Speaker 2: we always love those. You can wrap it up, spank

1030
00:55:11,200 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 2: it on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff

1031
00:55:13,239 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 2: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

1032
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:20,680
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

1033
00:55:21,160 --> 00:55:24,359
Speaker 3: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1034
00:55:24,560 --> 00:55:27,480
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.