The Autobiography of Malcolm X

by Malcolm X

We got off to a very poor start. To use a word he liked, I think both of us were a bit “spooky.” Sitting right there and staring at me was the fiery Malcolm X who could be as acid toward Negroes who angered him as he was against whites in general. On television, in press conferences, and at Muslim rallies, I had heard him bitterly attack other Negro writers as “Uncle Toms,” “yard Negroes,” “black men in white clothes.” And there I sat staring at him, proposing to spend a year plumbing his innermost secrets when he had developed a near phobia for secrecy during his years of crime and his years in the Muslim hierarchy. My twenty years in military service and my Christian religious persuasion didn’t help, either; he often jeered publicly at these affiliations for Negroes. And although he now would indirectly urge me to write for national magazines about the Muslims, he had told me several times, in various ways, that “you blacks with professional abilities of any kind will one of these days wake up and find out that you must unite under the leadership of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad for your own salvation.” Malcolm X was also convinced that the F.B.I. had “bugged” my studio; he probably suspected that it may even have been done with my cooperation.