◆ SpookStack

Wud conted-up heir cad mot asil, Matrota af 15 bepes buctiing career. Malcolm X My mother said inter that she was taken by the police to the hospital, and to a room where a sheet was over my father in a bed, and she wouldn't look, she was afraid to. Probably ft wa: wise thar she didn't. My father’s skull, on one side, was crushed in. He had been bludg- eoned with something. And bis body was cul almost in half where he had been run over by the wheels of 2 streetcar. He bad been bludgroned by someone, and then fait across the tracks for the streetcar Lo mun over. He lived two-and-ahall hours in that comdition. (Negroes born in Georgia had to be strong just to survive.) it was morning when we children at home got the word that be was dead. | was six. My mother was 6 years of pow. She was very shook up. Some kind of a family routine got going again. And for as long es the fret insurance money lasted, we did all right. When the state welfare people began coming to our bouse, we would come home from schoo! sometimes and find them there talking with our ‘They were acting and looking at ber and ws apd around in our house in a way that had about it the feeling that we ware not people. We werr just shings, that wes all. ‘We swiftly began to go downhill. The phytical downhill wasn't as quick as the paychic. My mother was, above evory- thing che, a proud woman, and it took its toB on her that she was acocpting charity. And her feelings communicated fe oi, and among wi children. hh didn't hetp any when J began to get caught misling snacks from étores, and the wel. fare people began to focus on me. Ht was about this time that the large, He looked something like my father. He ‘was singic, and my mother was a woman. without a man, and the state people were bugging her. The man was independent; the would have admired that. She was having 2 hard time with disciplining us, and 6 big man's presence alone woukd! help. And if she had a man to provide, it would erase the state people in general. It went on for about a year, I guess. And then the man from Lansing jitted my mother suddenly. 11 was a terrible shock mee shee ee we pee a el "I was unique in class, like a pink poodle.” to her. 11 wns the beginning of the end of Peality for my mother. She began to sit around, or walk around, and tak to ber- . going to the detention home. It was about 12 miles from Lansing, in Mason, Mich. Lwas 13 years old. The detention home did other people. J see it now, My grades were among the highest in the school. | was unique in my class, tikes pink poodle, J am not going to say that J wasnt proud. Along toward the end of that year, our her, and she had suggested that I might keke to spend the summer holiday visiting ber in Boston. I famped at that chance. That summer of 1940 I caught the bus, with my cardboard suit- one bad hung the sign Hick on me, 1 ” gouldn't have looked much More obvious. Ele. met me. She took me home. The ouse was on Waumbeck Street, in Rox- fem of Boston. I saw, or a hundred people whose STOR ETELELE ula, lied Pee apedewe rE Bee bres 5 an g relay sflE Wi PAT sate ah ae Brt Zhe ei d : 5 ft ‘5 had the biggest stores that | end white poops mstaurents and boaris. On Massachusetts Avenue, next door to the Loce’s State Theater, was the big. exciting Roseland Sue Ballroom. Big posters advertised the nationally Eamous bands, white and Negro, that had been there, I saw that Cosanc Next Wen Lon Minister of the Harlem Mosque, ¢ sedate Malcolm escorts Eitjah and friend before fateful schism rent the Nafion of lsiam.