◆ SpookStack

——_—_—_— 7 own dream world—Harlem. He became a waiter in Small's Paradise on 7th ave., but was fired when he arranged for a soldier to meet & prostitute. The soldier was a “eye “black tool of the white man.” - Malcolm became a full-scale “hustler,” selling “reefers” marijuana, He faked = crazy act to be classifed 4-F. Then he slid into robbery to feed his $20-a-day cocaine habit, and os wound up with a 10-year sentence after being caught in cor Boston. aes But the Massachusetts state prison at Charlestown be- ng came, for Malcolm Little, a strange sort of monastery. First, . he kicked the dope habit, “but even this was only part of the total transformation that was to come. over me." A Book Changes Him . His brothers and ‘sisters began writing te him aheant « GileTS BNA Sisters OFEaN Wig sum SDOUL & a “new" religion and about its leader, the Honorable Elijah wes Muhammad, who was once himself in prison as a draft- dodger. Malcolm wrote to Elijah and was sent the book which completed the transformation, a tract called “Yacub's This “history” Is the “detnonology” of the “new rell- gion,” and told of how an evil scientist, Mr. Yacub, created the white race from the world’s original inbabitants—the black race. Mr. ‘Yacub was cast out of the holy city of Mecca by Allah as a rebel and “decided, as revenge, to create upon - the earth a ‘devil’ race—a bleached-out white race of people.” . This weird “history” was given to Elijah Muhammad in . Detroit, Mich., by one “Master W. D. Fard," who is accepted as a god who ‘appeared om earth -He later “vanished, ” leay~ ing Elijah to carry on. “In bis cell, Malcolm Little swallowed this “history” com- pletely. He began trying to convert his hustler friends through letters, and this Jed him to read the dictionary—from A to Z.- And then came the final touch, a “vision,” whe aWaXEHed in his cell and sa@“S man sitting deside“m he er my ‘chalr.” Then the vision vanished. . “Later, of course, I learned that my ‘previslon war of Master W. D. Fard, the Messiah .. .” Changes His Name to X “In 1952, Malcolm was released and plunged into the work of Allah in Detroit, where he was paroled in the cus tody of his brother, Wilfred. sy Maleolm jpined Mosque No. 1 in Detroit, visited Chicago to meet Elijah, and was awarded his “xX,” becoming there+ after Malcohn x. “The X for the Muslim was 2 symbol for the true ‘African family name that he would never know,” Malcolm explained. “It would replace the white-slave-master name which had been imposed upon my paternal forebears by some blue-eyed devil.” Malcolm x rose swiftly, recruiting enough converts te triple the membership of Mosque No. 1 {rr a few months. He ‘was named assistant minister in 1953, and then moved to Chicago to be trained by Elijah. Once trained, Malcolm X was sent to Philadelphia to establish Mosque No, 12, which also flourished. - And thus, after only a month in Philadelphia, Malcolm K was sent on to establish Mosque No. 7 in New York City. By 1956, lt was well-established, but Malcolm never would say what its membership was, "All Witnesses Were Devils’ In January, 1958, Malcolm married “Sister Betty XX,” Griving to his relatives home in Lansing, Mich., for the event. “An old hanch-backed white devil performed the wed- ding.” he wrote. “And all of the witnesses were devils.” The Littles-—or Xs—had four children—attilah, a daugh- ter named after Attila the Hun ("He sacked Rome,” Maleolm explained; Quiblah, a daughter nemed after Kubla Khan: Dyasah, a son whose name is Arabic for Elijah, and another . daughter, Lermumpbgh. after the slain Congoless. Bre mjer Patrice Lumumba P —