Trevor Grundy
When Malcolm X met the Ku Klux Klan Book tells how the Klan supported Nation of Islam proposal for ‘complete separation of races’
T
he Black Lives Matter movement demands that white people lift the veils that have long hidden their racial arrogance towards people of different skin tones and cultures. South African apartheid was condemned by the United Nations as a crime against humanity. Now the field widens. How blacks fought white racism – or who thought they could change it from within rather from without – is a subject of unending interest. A new book by the deceased American reporter Les Payne and his daughter Tamara about the life of Malcolm X (born 1925, assassinated in America in 1965) gives a glimpse of how Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, whose members included not only Malcolm X but also boxer Muhammad Ali, made contact with the Ku Klux Klan with a view to setting up separate parts of America along racial lines. Elijah Muhammad would not have embraced the word apartheid. But what other word is there for what he advocated? But his proseparation views were compatible with those of some white suprema-
THE DEAD ARE ARISING: The Life of Malcolm X Les Payne Viking Press www. www.hurstpublishers.com £30
cists in America, South Africa and Rhodesia. This new book – The Dead Are Arising – The Life of Malcolm X, is the latest in a long list of books about a petty criminal called Malcolm Little who found the religion that turned his life around. Payne tells how, in 1961, Elijah Mohammed ordered Malcolm X to open exploratory talks with leaders of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Atlanta. How the talks went still remain unclear. Some students of that time in America believe Elijah
46 ColdType Mid-November 2020 | www.coldtype.net
Muhammad’s motivation was money and that he wanted farmland in Terrell County, Georgia. The author of the new book describes how Klansmen arrived at the home of a Nation of Islam minister, Jeremiah Shabazz, in the black Atlanta neighbourhood in a ten-car motorcade. Malcolm X is quoted as saying the meeting had been authorised by Elijah Muhammad. A Klansman identified as WS Fellows sought to break the ice by attacking Jewish people, and said blacks were not unhappy in the Southern States of the USA but that they were being stirred up by Jews to hate white people. At that meeting, Malcolm X made his case for “complete separation of the races as opposed to segregation or integration”. Fellows responded, saying – “Whatever you want. Call it what you like. As long as you stay over there and you’re glad to be black . . . good”. Some say the meeting was infiltrated by the FBI and reported to Washington. That shouldn’t be surprise: Jesus only had 12 disciples and one of them was Special Branch! CT
