The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

Wilfred meets Elijah in Chicago and helps recruit members. He helps the NOI spellcheck their pamphlets. He and his wife improve accounting processes. He also helped move the temple to a nicer location. Soon, he brings Philbert, Wesley, and Reginald into the religion.

In March of 1948, Malcolm transfers to Norfolk Prison Colony. Reginald visits and shows him some of Elijah’s teachings, including the idea that every white man is a literal devil. Malcolm accepts Elijah’s teaching and then writes to him. Elijah welcomes him. Malcolm joins the prison debate team and challenges Ivy League opponents. His rhetorical skill is formidable.

He converts inmates and argues for additional rights for Muslim prisoners. As punishment he is transferred back to Charlestown. The FBI starts paying attention when Malcolm writes to President Truman in opposition to the Korean War. This is when he begins signing Malcolm X on his letters, a convention encouraged by Elijah. The X shows that Malcolm rejects what he views as his slave name.

Malcolm is paroled in August of 1952. He returns to Detroit prepared to proselytize. He stays with a man named Moustafa Hassain and his wife. They are NOI members with a large house. Some members resent Malcolm’s recruiting success and his sharp demeanor. He insists that women be modest and wear longer skirts. He publicly criticizes anyone who argued. Some people tell Elijah that Malcolm wants to usurp his position. He tells Malcolm to leave Detroit and offers him the Boston temple.

The FBI notes the growth of the NOI. They question Malcolm on January 10, 1955. He denies being the leader of the temples and states that Islam is a religion of peace. Malcolm gains encyclopedic knowledge of American lynching and uses statistics to appeal to intellectuals. After he transfers to Philadelphia, Malcolm relaxes some of the NOI’s codes to appeal to younger prospects. He runs a weekly class to improve members’ oratory skills. Members tell Malcolm that Elijah is committing adultery with female temple members. He won’t listen. His devotion to Elijah is total.

In July of 1959 a documentary called The Hate That Hate Produced airs on a New York TV station. Elijah had cooperated, but wouldn’t allow white journalists to interview Muslims. In his interview, Malcolm states that whites were “evil by nature” (281) and had never done anything positive for Black people. He chastises organizations like the NAACP that promote nonviolence. The documentary is shocking but popular enough that the station broadcasts it twice.

Malcolm’s performance emboldens and inspires young activists. However, the gender separation and strictness of the NOI are unpalatable to many would-be acolytes who admire the social aims of the NOI but not its dogmatism.

In 1955 Malcolm visits Hartford on the invitation of a woman named Rosalie Bey Glover, a member of the Springfield temple. In the 1940s Elijah had tried to set up a temple in Hartford, but it was rejected. Black people in the 1940s had been optimistic about fleeing the South and were not receptive to messages of white people. Elijah tells Malcolm that Hartford is a waste of time, but Malcolm accepts the challenge.

The meeting is at Rosalie’s home on a Thursday. As the weeks pass, Malcolm’s Thursday teachings grow more popular. The FBI question people about the meetings as early as the second week.        

Malcolm proceeds gently with this new crowd. He is impatient with Hartford’s lack of discipline, however. He declines pork and tolerates their smoking. At one meeting, he begins his remarks with a discussion of Emmett Till’s murder. Emmett Till’s killers were acquitted. They then sold the story of the killing to an author since they could not be tried again for the same crime. The image of lynching was a symbol often used by the NOI.

This prompts Rosalie to tell him that on May 12, 1941, she heard gunshots in Quincy, Florida. Twenty-two year old A.C. Williams had been shot. Four white men had broken into the jail where Williams was being held on suspicion of an attempted assault on a twelve-year-old girl. They beat him, shot him, and left him in a ditch. He crawled out. Mrs. Glover called the police when she saw a neighbor take him into their house. Police arrested him again and sent him to a Tallahassee hospital. Four men stopped the ambulance and seized Williams again. His body was found on a bridge. The killing had the sign of the KKK. That was when Rosalie brought her family north.

The meetings move to a larger house when the audience grows. Malcolm finally introduces the concept of the white devil and makes many people uncomfortable. He tells them that separation from white people is critical. He suspects that some of the listeners are paid to pass information to the FBI. His charisma keeps people coming, even if they disagree with him. He discounts Martin Luther King’s approach as cowardice. He says that the Fruits of Islam—the Nation’s violent, karate-trained security force—will retaliate however they must.

Payne discusses the concept of the dead rising in the context of former Black Christians. They were called the “lost-found” or “the dead” (309). When they converted it was known as the dead rising.

Satisfied with progress in Hartford, Malcolm wants to return to Detroit and bolster the temple. Elijah is unhappy with this. The FBI notices the friction between them and plans to use it however they can.

Malcolm is preaching in Atlanta when a message from the KKK arrives. It is from a man named W.S. Fellows and implies that their groups have similar aims. Hoover knows about the telegram; he has over 1000 agents undercover in the Klan.

Elijah agrees to let Malcolm meet with them. He says to tell the Klan that they want the same thing: total separation. Malcolm is conflicted, feeling that they are joining an “unholy alliance” (339). He believes that meeting with the KKK diminishes his father’s death, which he still attributes to the Klan. He is beginning to doubt Elijah, who wants white Americans to give them land for a separate state.

Fellows agrees to meet in Atlanta on January 28, 1961, at the home of NOI member Jeremiah X. Ten cars park outside. Fellows tells them that his men will burn the house down if he is not outside in fifteen minutes. They shake hands. He refers to Elijah as “Ol ‘Lajh” the “most sensible black man in America” (345). After seeing that he is safe, Fellows brings several other men inside. One is an FBI informant.

Malcolm presents Elijah’s ideas about land and a separate state. The white members of the audience appear confused, considering the difference between separation and segregation to be semantic. Malcolm is not as aggressive as he would like, because Elijah ordered him not to humiliate the Klansmen.

Fellows mentions Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the mood changes. They ask Malcolm and the others for King’s schedule and address. Fellows believes that Malcolm views King as a common enemy. Malcolm notes that he inspires no anger in the Klan, while King makes them venomous. Malcolm refuses to help them find King but says that each group must take care of its own traitors.

Elijah approves of the reports but senses that Malcolm doesn’t like the way he had to handle it. Malcolm is repulsed by the cooperative southern strategy. Elijah assigns Klan follow up meetings to Jeremiah.

Chapter 14 details the differences between Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm. Most people are more aligned with King, who attacks unjust laws and praises Jesus while focusing on integration. Malcolm focuses on separation. He sees Jim Crow laws as proof that integration is a myth that is not worth chasing. He considers those who preach integration as race traitors.

In 1958 Malcolm marries Sister Betty X, born Betty Dean Sanders. He chooses Betty from a photograph because the NOI does not permit courtship. They have two daughters by 1962, Attallah and Qubilah.

Author Alex Haley illustrated the difference between Malcolm and King in an interview printed in Playboy. Malcolm’s young followers often ignite at his social message, then fizzle out when he reminds them that they were acting on behalf of Allah. Haley referred to Malcolm as the “heir apparent” (387) in the interview, which doesn’t help Malcolm. Members of Elijah’s inner circle and family constantly tell him that Malcolm is interested in replacing him. The FBI is invested in the growing tension. Malcolm tries to stop the growing dissent. He attacks King in public at every chance, calling him the white man’s greatest black ally.

On June 5th Malcolm lectures at Bushnell Memorial Hall in Hartford. The media speculates as to whether his crowd will be a greater draw than King’s. He rails at the media in his opening remarks. He asks why the Hartford media feels qualified to opine on racial issues in America without employing a single Black person. Black reporters tend to side with King: “Almost to the man they considered the Nation of Islam, and Malcolm X, an embarrassment to the race” (394).

Brian Steinberg, a white Communist dating a black woman, is a student in the audience. He was inclined towards King, but Malcolm impresses him. He now considers Malcolm a revolutionary. Steinberg asks Malcolm how they can acquire land for a separate state without starting a war they cannot win. Malcolm dodges the question because he has lost faith in Elijah’s idea for a black state.