WEBVTT - Malcom X 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:02.920 Welcome to Stuff you should know. 0:00:03.320 --> 0:00:13.200 A production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast Son, Josh, 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.240 And there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, just being quiet 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:18.960 as a church mouse. And this is stuff you should know. 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:21.560 It's because he told her to zip it. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.760 I was gonna leave that part out. You're gonna get 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:26.720 hate mail for that one. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:29.280 I'm surprised we're just now getting to this. 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:34.360 I went through a Malcolm X phase in college. I 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:36.479 wasn't one of those guys walking around Georgia with a 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:37.519 Malcolm X hat on. 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:41.560 You weren't wearing like, Okay, I have a great story, 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:42.320 but please go ahead. 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:46.280 It was after I saw the movie because I was 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:48.159 a big you still am big Spike Lee guy. So 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:50.120 I saw the movie in ninety two and then read 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:55.760 the autobiography that with Alex Haley right after that, Yeah, 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.240 and was just super into a story at the time. 0:00:58.280 --> 0:00:59.240 It's been a while, though. 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:04.240 Well, I have just entered my Malcolm X's face. I uh, 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:09.080 just researching him. I accidentally got radicalized, and I've got 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:11.920 his autobiography on the way. It should get here today. Great, 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:17.280 but it's it's crazy, Chuck, because like, especially as just 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:23.119 white people of our generation, if you hadn't already gotten 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.600 into him and like seing the Spike Lee movie and 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.320 read his autobiography and just started to read his speeches 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.760 and stuff, if you just kind of knew him like 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.039 I had up to this point, Like you knew him 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.479 as the guy who said, like by any means necessary, 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:41.400 that he was he was militant, that he was essentially 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:46.839 the foil to doctor Martin Luther King Junior, and that 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.640 he and King kind of represented these two this fork 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.920 in the road that America had to kind of choose between, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:56.600 because there was at this point in like the fifties, 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.080 starting in the fifties, there was no way for America 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.600 to just stand there at the crossroads any longer. Like 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:04.559 like America as a whole had to make a choice 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:09.920 which way we're gonna go race war or integration, peaceful integration. 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.880 And that's what Malcolm X represented to white America. Race war, 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:21.480 like black militants taking over killing white people mercilessly, ruthlessly 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.280 because white people had it coming. Or you know, everybody's 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.560 much more familiar with the Martin Luther King Junior way, 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.440 but there's so much more to it than that, and 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:35.079 just researching this this guy, I like, I'm I don't 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:36.600 even want to say a fan, because I think that 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.760 kind of undermines like the respect I have for him now, 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.080 Like he's he's an amazing figure. 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.320 It turns out, yeah, for sure. 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:46.639 And you know, when I was in high school, there 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.440 was a big This Is you know, I graduated eighty nine, 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:51.440 the movie was ninety two, so this was leading up 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.000 to the film, which obviously put things on a much 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.120 bigger sort of platform. But it was a big deal 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.440 in the eighties. Like, there was a big sort of 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:04.200 at least in the South. I don't know how it 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.960 was everywhere else, but there was a big movement among 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.079 you know, the black students at my school to get 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.760 in touch with the African heritage. Malcolm X hats were 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.480 all over the place in my school, and he was 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:17.880 just sort of in the forefront, I guess, kind of 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.320 like my junior and senior year. So it was striking 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:23.960 to me that we didn't learn about him in high school. 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.480 Yeah, but if you step back and really think about it, 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.920 it's not very surprising, you know. 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.160 Well, I mean looking back at the substandard public school 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:35.160 education I got. 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.480 Correct, Yeah, but also the white washed and sanitized version 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:40.880 where it's like, Okay, we'll tell you about Martin Luther 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.240 King Junior, but don't ask about Malto's. Yes, you don't 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:44.040 want to know about him. 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:47.760 He was a rough dude, but he yes, or anyone else. 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:49.920 It was just Martin Luther King exactly. 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.760 Yeah. He did the whole thing by himself, it turns out. Yeah, 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:58.120 so yeah, I remember that same era as well. Okay, 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:00.720 so I say we get into this because we could 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:02.600 probably sit here and do an intro and it would 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.360 end up being the entire thing. Well, let's jump in 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.400 and everybody else can kind of make up their own 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.680 minds about how you feel about Malcolm X and just 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.840 kind of asit decide to start. I would definitely recommend 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.760 going and watching the documentary on him. That American experience 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.880 did I think in the nineties, make it plain. And 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.600 then I read a bunch of articles and the best 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.640 one I read was the Achievement of Malcolm X by 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.000 John J. Simon. That was in the Monthly Review. That 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:33.960 was a really good comprehensive one too. 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.279 Yeah, and see that's Spike Lee movie Exception. I've not 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:39.720 seen it, man, you gotta check it out. 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:40.360 That's great. 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.159 I will. Okay, So we're talking about Malcolm X. If 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.360 you hadn't figured that out by now, and you may 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.040 or may not know that Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little. 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:53.279 That was his given name. He was born back in 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:59.160 nineteen twenty five in Omaha, Nebraska, and from the outset, 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:03.680 he was essentially raised in a very black conscious family, 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:07.839 so he was aware of the state of racial affairs 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.279 in the United States as a very young person and 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.160 oppression that black people lived under at the time and 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:14.760 still do him many ways. 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:18.719 Yeah, for sure. His dad, Earle was a Baptist lay speaker, 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.719 his mother Louise Little. They were both members of the 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:27.520 Universal Negro Improvement Association, which was a Marcus Garvey joint 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.120 someone else we never learned about in high school. And 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.240 they moved to Milwaukee for a little while. Then eventually 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.680 in nineteen twenty eight, when little Malcolm was three, landed 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:40.720 in Michigan, and they landed in a white neighborhood and 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.640 that was a big problem because they were not wanted there, 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.880 and Earle Little was not the kind of guy to 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:48.920 just pack up and leave because his neighbors didn't want 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:53.159 him there, so he stayed and the community had a 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:57.279 clause in their hoa covenant that said that basically no 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.960 one was allowed to sell a house to non white people, 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.240 and so they sued to a victim. And while that 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.560 was kind of going through, even before the eviction was finalized, 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:09.159 a group of white men burned their house to the 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:11.960 ground without any firefighters even showing up. 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:14.680 Right, So whether they wanted to move or not, they 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:16.960 had to now, and they moved a little further out 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.960 of where they lived, still in the Lansing area, And 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.320 I don't know when the house burned, but just within 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.080 a year or two maybe less. Malcolm was six years 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.760 old and his father died. He died in a mysterious, 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:36.000 bizarre streetcar accident where he was run over by a streetcar. 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.360 And that's just the official line on the whole thing. 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.680 In fact, I think it was. It ended up being 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:48.120 ruled a suicide. But according to Malcolm his family, his mother, 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.880 like his father, was murdered, probably by a clan affiliated 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.800 group called the Black Legion who operated in Michigan back then, 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.279 and that was pretty much what the family was convinced of, 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.640 that his father had been murdered. Then, on top of that, 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:04.680 no one would admit that his father was murdered, which 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:06.960 I'm sure makes that kind of experience that much harder. 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.040 Yeah, I mean there was actual evidence that was ignored. 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:16.239 He had clearly been beaten and placed on the tracks, 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:18.960 so it was kind of just brushed under the table. 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:21.480 It was very upsetting for a young Malcolm because that 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.720 was like the rumor. It was all around the school 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.680 and everything, so he was hearing all these stories and 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.440 it was, you know, definitely a big early sort of 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.000 kind of forking the road for him, and that his 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:35.679 family was left without their dad. 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:38.840 They, like you said, ruled it a suicide. 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.920 But I think she got like one thousand dollars in 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.480 one life insurance payment. Louise did, which would be about 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.120 twenty five grand a day, but was denied because of 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:54.200 the suicide claim, a much larger insurance claim. So she 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.240 didn't have a lot of dough to feed. 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:57.720 What was eight kids? 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.520 Eight kids, man, and now she suddenly on her own 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.600 and she had a nervous breakdown, is what you would 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.480 call it. I think that she was diagnosed as paranoid 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:12.040 and was transferred to this state hospital in Kalamazoo where 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.559 she stayed. This is in the mid thirties. She stayed 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.800 there until nineteen sixty four, I think like twenty six 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:23.400 years or something like that, and all of a sudden, 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:27.760 Malcolm and his seven siblings are without parents. They're orphans essentially, 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:30.920 and they become wards of the state and they're broken up. 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.280 So just in a very short time couple of years, 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.120 Malcolm goes from having a stable home life to his 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.880 father being murdered, his mother having a nervous breakdown and 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:44.600 being institutionalized, and his siblings being spread out throughout the 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.959 foster system around Lansing. That's just what happened to him. 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.640 And if you know a little bit about Malcolm X, 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.160 you might know that he started out as a criminal. 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.840 What's astounding, Chuck, is this is not when his life 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.199 of crime began. He actually went the exact opposite. 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.240 Route, well a little both. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.880 He started stealing stuff when he was nine because he 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.520 had to do something to provide for their family. But 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.360 he never got caught there And you know, wil Gover's 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:15.959 his former formal rap. 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:16.920 Sheet here in a minute. 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:23.080 But he was sent to a juvenile detention center in Mason, Michigan. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.200 It was about ten miles south of Lansing, and he 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.760 went to a white school, and he did a great job. 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.560 He was he's a really you know, was a really 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:36.520 smart guy, a really smart kid, and made really good grades. 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.640 He was very charismatic from the beginning. He was elected 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.880 class president. Yeah, and had dreams of going to law 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.240 school before his white teacher said a pretty terrible thing 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:46.600 to him. 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.360 Yeah, it was an English teacher. And this is a 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:51.679 one of the probably one of the This is the 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.520 second pivotal moment in his life where he had the 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:56.400 rug pull out from under him, He had the wind 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.960 taken out of his sales. He got punched in the 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:03.280 bread basket you want to put it because the English teacher. 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:05.480 He told the English teacher that he was dreaming of 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.200 becoming a lawyer, and the English teachers like, I think 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:12.240 America would accept you more as a carpenter, Like that's 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:14.520 the kind of profession you need to go in, you 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.559 need to be realistic about. And then essentially being a 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.200 black person in America, it's not, the teacher said, but 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:27.240 the point was the same, and it just completely sucked 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.920 the life and enthusiasm for learning that he had up 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:32.400 to that point right out of him. 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:35.440 Yeah, he quit school. He never went to school again 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.839 after that. And he had a very promising academic career 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.400 in front of him, which is super sad. So at 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.280 fifteen he goes to live with his half sister in 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:49.640 Boston and eventually would get a job working at the railroad. 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:53.680 So he started traveling around some and by seventeen found 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.360 himself living in Harlem. And this is where he got 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.760 the name that stuck with him. You know, during his 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.080 sort of early tea or later teenage years. 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:04.720 I guess Red. 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.320 He had this red hair, so he was either Detroit 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:09.920 Red or Big Red because he was a tall guy. 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:10.800 He's six foot four. 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.160 In just a little fun side note, while he was 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.760 in Harlem, he was working at a chicken shack with 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.240 a guy named John Sandford, and he was Chicago Red 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:26.280 and Malcolm was Detroit Red. And he was trying. John 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.000 Sandford was trying to be a stand up comic and 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:29.559 that ended up being Red Box. 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.679 That's right of Sandford in something. Yeah, I love that 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:37.480 little fact. So yeah, he was. He became a I 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:39.360 guess he'd call him a petty criminal, but he was. 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:41.559 He took all of that kind of charisma and charm 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.080 and initiative and turned it. He directed it toward a 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.120 life of crime. He's often described as a pimp, although 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:49.920 he was never a pimp. He seemed more like the 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.920 kind of guy who just knew where to get whatever 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:57.920 you wanted, and that included sex workers, that included drugs. 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:03.120 He loved pot, he loved gambling, and he actually committed 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.319 a lot of his crimes like burglary, theft, that kind 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:10.680 of stuff just to support his habits, which eventually turned 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.839 into cocaine, which even back then was more expensive. And again, 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.200 he loved to gamble, so he needed to keep both 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.400 of those things up, and that was a large reason 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.960 why he was such a prolific criminal during this time. 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.920 Another reason is that he just the options that he 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.559 had hadn't really panned out very well for him. Like 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:31.920 he had a few jobs up to this point, but 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.040 he realized, like, I'm not going to get anywhere serving 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.880 sandwiches on a train, I'm not going to get anywhere 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.480 shining shoes, Like I might as well make away for myself, 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.040 and the only way to make away for myself in 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:44.280 this situation is crime. 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.800 Yeah, for sure. He was arrested a couple of times. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:53.199 He was arrested at nineteen allegedly stealing his half sisters 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.000 for coat, whom he lived with pretty low hanging fruit. 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.720 Got arrested again when he allegedly mugged a friend of 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:04.440 his at gunpoint, and neither one of those amounted too much. 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:06.680 But finally he was arrested for a third time after 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:10.200 he'd been doing a series of burglaries of wealthy homes 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.800 with a kind of a small crew. It was him, 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.640 it was another black man and three white women. Yeah, 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:19.760 and I mentioned everyone's race there, because when they got 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.800 caught on this one, the three white women just got 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.120 slaps on the wrist and basically got let go, and 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.400 the two men were sentenced to eight to ten in 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:28.040 the Hoofscow. 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:32.240 Yeah, and they would have gotten much worse than that 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.760 documentary make it plain. The other guy, his friend, Malcolm Jarvis. 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.320 He said that they tried to get the women to 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.320 say that the Malcolm X and Malcolm Jarvis had raped 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.160 them and had all they had to do was say that, 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:47.320 and they would have been convicted of that and sentenced 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.200 to a couple more decades for that. And luckily they 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.960 were tight enough with these women that they said, no, 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:56.120 we're not going to do that, despite the pressure that 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:56.720 they were under. 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:01.200 Two Yeah, for sure. So prison is where a lot 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.320 happened to him. In prison sort of one of his 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:07.960 first big transformations. He spent about almost seven years there 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.760 for that burglary, and he was about twenty years old 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.320 at the time, and it was in prison where he 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.960 really kind of found himself for the I guess for 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.440 the first time as an adult, and that he remembered like, Hey, 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:26.520 I'm a smart guy, and I used to love academia 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.680 and learning. So he started he became a voracious reader 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.800 again in prison. He apparently tried to memorize the Dictionary 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.800 in prison and was reading anything he could get his 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:41.640 hands on, including, eventually which would really transform his life, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.240 the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, who was a leader of 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:46.680 the Nation of Islam at the time. 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.560 Yeah, and before he kind of came on to those 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.480 teachings from his siblings, I think who encouraged him to 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.680 start looking into that. And he had a real aversion 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.360 to any kind of religion. He was actually known as 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:04.280 Satan by the other prisoners in the correctional facility he 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:07.280 was in. But the reason he was able to read 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.280 so much, Chuck, is because he happened to be in 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.480 MCI Norfolk in Massachusetts, and it's well known to have 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.360 a lot, like a huge library, connections with like MIT 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:19.440 and Harvard and all that stuff. So it was actually 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.160 the perfect prison for him to land in. So he 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:25.400 was able to kind of educate himself from that point on. 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:27.920 And then when he finally did start taking up the 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:33.520 teachings of Elijah Mohammad, it just clicked. And it was 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:38.240 even further, I guess reinforced when he started writing letters 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.760 to Elijah Mohammad and Elijah Muhammad started writing back to him. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.160 That really encouraged him big time. 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.200 Yeah, you know why because he didn't have to write 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.400 letters to get those books like Andy Defrain, Yeah in 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:51.840 the Shawshing. 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.160 Redemption, No, they just threw them at you. 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.120 Yeah, he was of course because it was Massachusetts. 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.120 So yeah, he started, you know basically it became a 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:04.760 pinpal with Elijah Mohammed and really became a hardcore Muslim 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:09.040 pretty quickly after reading you know, his works, and became 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:13.440 an ascetic. So that means no drugs, no booze, no pork, 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.880 no movies or music, no gambling, no dancing, like the 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.560 real straight and narrow. And you know, we'll later find 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:23.640 out that that became a bit of a riff later on, 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.200 because he didn't think Elijah Muhammad at one point was 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.200 sort of walking the walk where as he really was 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:30.920 from the beginning. 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.840 Yeah, for sure, like and he did throughout too. Like 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.000 the FBI tried and tried and tried to get something 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.160 on him, and they couldn't get anything. Like, He's just 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.920 that upstanding and moral from that point on. I also, 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.840 I had never even thought to wonder, but I had 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.200 no idea why his last name was X. I was 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:51.760 pretty surprised to learn this, But it makes a lot 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:52.200 of sense. 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.360 You didn't know that, no, Okay, I thought that would 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:59.880 have been sort of just the basic common knowledge. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:00.760 But maybe not. 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:06.000 I mean, maybe it is, but I'm I'm pretty uncommon, right, You're. 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:06.880 An uncommon podcaster. 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.359 So yeah, he dropped the name little because and a 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:13.040 lot of people in the Nation of Islam did and 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.840 do this because that was he thought that was his 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.080 slave name, so he rid himself of that name and 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:20.320 replaced it with an X. 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.920 Yeah. He also one of the reasons he despised religion. 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:26.720 He despised Christianity in general because he considered that the 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.879 slave religion that was given to the African slaves to 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:36.920 essentially keep them in line, and so it was actually 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.240 it was a big deal that he became this devotee 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.480 of this religion and this particular religion. Just really quick, 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:47.879 if you're not familiar with the Nation of Islam, it 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.600 is not the same thing as Islam that was that 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.680 emerged out of the Middle East several hundred years ago. 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.679 It bears like a slight resemblance to it, but it 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:04.360 is essentially a completely altered version that has a lot 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.879 of theology that seems very odd to outsiders. 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.239 Yeah, I mean they were Muslim, but you know, I 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:13.879 know you've and this is stuff I didn't know that 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:18.280 you found some stuff about Elijah Muhammad's original beliefs that 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:20.920 I was I was just sort of shocked by. 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.960 Yeah, so you've heard white devils before. I mean, you 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.080 have to was listening to like ICEQB. He always talks 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:31.320 about white devils. But that is actually a teaching from 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.880 the Nation of Islam from Elijah Muhammad, and it predates him. 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.880 The Nation of Islam had been around for a few 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:43.760 decades before Elijah Muhammad was its prophet. But the reason 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:48.080 that they call white people white devils is because, according 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:53.240 to black Muslim theology. There was a genius named yaka 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:58.240 Black Genius who created white people by bleaching black people 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:02.679 and he mutated them into white, blue eyed devils. And 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.480 the reason why is he wanted to basically put the 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.960 black race to the test, so he put them in 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.919 a subjugated position because he allowed these white people to 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:17.080 be devils, to basically act like white people have treated 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:22.320 black people since time immemorial. And that this rain would 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:26.520 last about six millennia, and that the six millennia were 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.640 almost up, and that this was the time when the 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:34.280 black race would rise and take over from the white devils. 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:37.840 Who would who would really regret the stuff that they 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.080 had done up to that point after. 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.920 That ye, which would have placed it about nineteen seventy. 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:48.119 And so white Americans hearing this at the time, they 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.160 thought that's when like the race war was coming. 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.359 Was was nineteen seventy or thereabouts. 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.840 Yeah, and we talked about that before and like, I 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.479 never really understood it, but this is a big, big 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.200 reason that white America was like, there's go to be 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.399 a race war. It's like coming, it's inevitable. That was 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:06.320 a big part of it. So, yeah, this was and 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.679 this wasn't like metaphorical. This is from what I understand, 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.280 it's a it's a literal interpretation of where white people 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.679 came from six thousand years ago. So this was the 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.720 This was what Malcolm X was being indoctrinated into. And 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.920 he was a smart guy, so he he had to 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:25.439 submit himself, like he had to take parts of his 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:29.040 brain and just turn them off. The suspicious part of him, 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.159 as far as like what he was being taught had 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.360 to be turned off, the critical thinking part, as far 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:38.040 as anything goes with the religion that he took on. 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.440 He was able to compartmentalize, turn it off, and throw 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:46.080 himself fully into it. And he was for the first 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.000 decade essentially that he was a black Muslim, the best 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:52.960 thing that ever happened to the Nation of Islam by far. 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.160 Yeah, for sure, that seems like a pretty good place 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:57.600 for a break. 0:20:57.640 --> 0:20:58.280 I agree. 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:00.560 All right, we'll be right back, everybody with more on 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:21.800 Malcolm X. So Malcolm X is granted parole in nineteen 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.000 fifty two. He gets out of prison a completely different 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:29.640 person than who entered prison almost seven years earlier, and 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.160 he was on a mission to recruit and get as 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.040 many people as he could to join the Nation of 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:40.399 Islam and had a direct sort of go get him 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:44.040 tiger from Elijah Muhammad, And so as soon as he 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:48.439 was paroled, he joined Temple Number one in Detroit. He 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:52.360 traveled to Chicago to meet Elijah Mohammad in person, and 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.080 he said, like I said, he said, you know, go 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:56.679