Big Moo
02-23-2005, 11:56 AM
AMY GOODMAN: We spend the hour today on Malcolm X, today the 40th anniversary of his assassination. Our guest is Columbia University Professor Manning Marable, writing a biography of Malcolm X, and also the editor of the magazine Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society. The winter 2005 issue, photograph of Malcolm X on the cover, and that's what the whole issue is devoted to, with a major article by Professor Marable. Let's talk about The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
MANNING MARABLE: Okay. The -- most people who read the autobiography perceive the narrative as a story that now millions of people know, and it was -- it's a story of human transformation, the powerful epiphany, Malcolm's journey to Mecca, his renunciation of the Nation of Islam's racial separatism, his embrace of universal humanity, of humanism that was articulated through Sunni Islam. Well, that’s the story everybody knows. But there's a hidden history. You see, Malcolm and Haley collaborated to produce a magnificent narrative about the life of Malcolm X, but the two men had very different motives in coming together. Malcolm did -- what Malcolm did not know is that back in 1962, a collaborator of Alex Haley, fellow named -- a journalist named Alfred Balk had approached the F.B.I. regarding an article that he and Haley were writing together for The Saturday Evening Post, and the F.B.I. had an interest in castigating the Nation of Islam, and isolating it from the mainstream of Negro civil rights activity. So consequently, a deal was struck between Balk, Haley and the F.B.I. that the F.B.I. provided information to Balk and Haley in the construction of their article, and Balk was -- Balk was really the interlocutor between the F.B.I. and the two writers in putting a spin on the article. The F.B.I. was very happy with the article they produced, which was entitled, "The Black Merchants of Hate," that came out in early 1963. What's significant about that piece is that that became the template for what evolved into the basic narrative structure of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
AMY GOODMAN: Did Alex Haley know about this relationship?
MANNING MARABLE: There is no direct evidence that Haley sat down with the F.B.I. Nevertheless, since Balk was the co-author of the piece and it was Balk who talked directly with the F.B.I. --
AMY GOODMAN: Did Haley know --
MANNING MARABLE: One can assume that Haley was involved in it.
AMY GOODMAN: Did Haley at least talk to Balk about -- did he know about Balk's relationship with the F.B.I.?
MANNING MARABLE: One can assume that Haley did because Haley and Balk co-authored the piece, traveled throughout the United States together and collected material together to form an article that they co-authored. It would be highly unlikely that Haley did not know.
AMY GOODMAN: Then the writing of the autobiography, Alex Haley and Malcolm X's relationship. How did they do it?
MANNING MARABLE: Over a period of --
AMY GOODMAN: And why did Malcolm X choose him?
MANNING MARABLE: Over a period of about year-and-a-half, Malcolm and Haley agreed to work with each other. They met usually after a long business day that Malcolm put in very tired. He would get there at about -- either at Haley's apartment or they would meet at then Idyllwild Airport at a hotel, and Malcolm would be debriefed by Haley. He would talk, Haley would take notes. Malcolm had a habit of scribbling notes in small pieces of paper that Haley would surreptitiously pick up at the end of their discussions. Malcolm's objective was actually to reingratiate himself within the Nation of Islam, that because he had emerged by the early 1960s as a very prominent figure outside of the N.O.I., there were critics within the organization that were saying to the patriarch of the N.O.I., the Honorable Elijah Mohammad, that Malcolm planned to take over the organization, which was not true. But nevertheless, Malcolm felt that if he could make a public -- a prominent public statement to show his fidelity to the Honorable Elijah Mohammad that that might win him back in the good graces of the organization. But there were internal critics, sharp critics, who were very opposed to him, and who were very -- some of them were members of Elijah Mohammad's family, such as Herbert Mohammad, Raymond Shareef, who was the head of the Fruit of Islam, the brother-in-law of -- the son-in-law of Elijah Mohammad. They isolated Malcolm X and kept him out of the newspaper of the organization Mohammad Speaks for over a year, which is kind of curious. He was the national spokesperson of the N.O.I., and he wasn't represented in their own newspaper for over a year. Haley's objective was quite different. Haley was a republican. He was an integrationist. He was very opposed to black nationalism. His objective was to illustrate that the racial separatism of the N.O.I. was a kind of pathological or a kind of -- it was the logical culmination of separatism and racial isolationism and exclusion. He wanted to show the negative aspects of the N.O.I.'s ideology, Yacub’s history, and all of the ramifications of racial separatism that he felt were negative, and that Malcolm, being as charismatic as he was, a very attractive figure, nevertheless, he embodied these kind of negative traits. Haley felt he could make a solid case in favor of racial integration by showing what was -- to white America -- what was the consequence of their support for racial separatism that would end up producing a kind of hate, the hate that hate produced, to use the phrase that Mike Wallace used in his 1959 documentary on the Nation of Islam. So, the two men for very different reasons came together. What is striking is that from almost from the very beginning of certainly by September and October of 1963, as the book was being constructed, that Haley was vetting -- asking questions to the publisher and to the publisher's attorney regarding many of the things that Malcolm was saying. He was worried that he would not have a book that would have the kind of sting that he wanted. He was also concerned, to use Haley's phrase, about the purported anti-Semitism of Malcolm X, and so he began to rewrite words or passages in the book without Malcolm's knowledge. And Haley, in his own -- this is prior to emails -- Haley had a tendency to write even more frequently and voluminously to his agents and his editors than he did putting pen to paper in his own books. So that one finds in Haley's archives, or the archives of Anne Romaine, who was going to be his biographer until her tragic death in 1995, one finds a copious series of notes from Haley to his editors and attorneys regarding the construction of the autobiography itself. He wanted to steer the book to accomplish his political goals, as well as Malcolm's goals.
MANNING MARABLE: Okay. The -- most people who read the autobiography perceive the narrative as a story that now millions of people know, and it was -- it's a story of human transformation, the powerful epiphany, Malcolm's journey to Mecca, his renunciation of the Nation of Islam's racial separatism, his embrace of universal humanity, of humanism that was articulated through Sunni Islam. Well, that’s the story everybody knows. But there's a hidden history. You see, Malcolm and Haley collaborated to produce a magnificent narrative about the life of Malcolm X, but the two men had very different motives in coming together. Malcolm did -- what Malcolm did not know is that back in 1962, a collaborator of Alex Haley, fellow named -- a journalist named Alfred Balk had approached the F.B.I. regarding an article that he and Haley were writing together for The Saturday Evening Post, and the F.B.I. had an interest in castigating the Nation of Islam, and isolating it from the mainstream of Negro civil rights activity. So consequently, a deal was struck between Balk, Haley and the F.B.I. that the F.B.I. provided information to Balk and Haley in the construction of their article, and Balk was -- Balk was really the interlocutor between the F.B.I. and the two writers in putting a spin on the article. The F.B.I. was very happy with the article they produced, which was entitled, "The Black Merchants of Hate," that came out in early 1963. What's significant about that piece is that that became the template for what evolved into the basic narrative structure of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
AMY GOODMAN: Did Alex Haley know about this relationship?
MANNING MARABLE: There is no direct evidence that Haley sat down with the F.B.I. Nevertheless, since Balk was the co-author of the piece and it was Balk who talked directly with the F.B.I. --
AMY GOODMAN: Did Haley know --
MANNING MARABLE: One can assume that Haley was involved in it.
AMY GOODMAN: Did Haley at least talk to Balk about -- did he know about Balk's relationship with the F.B.I.?
MANNING MARABLE: One can assume that Haley did because Haley and Balk co-authored the piece, traveled throughout the United States together and collected material together to form an article that they co-authored. It would be highly unlikely that Haley did not know.
AMY GOODMAN: Then the writing of the autobiography, Alex Haley and Malcolm X's relationship. How did they do it?
MANNING MARABLE: Over a period of --
AMY GOODMAN: And why did Malcolm X choose him?
MANNING MARABLE: Over a period of about year-and-a-half, Malcolm and Haley agreed to work with each other. They met usually after a long business day that Malcolm put in very tired. He would get there at about -- either at Haley's apartment or they would meet at then Idyllwild Airport at a hotel, and Malcolm would be debriefed by Haley. He would talk, Haley would take notes. Malcolm had a habit of scribbling notes in small pieces of paper that Haley would surreptitiously pick up at the end of their discussions. Malcolm's objective was actually to reingratiate himself within the Nation of Islam, that because he had emerged by the early 1960s as a very prominent figure outside of the N.O.I., there were critics within the organization that were saying to the patriarch of the N.O.I., the Honorable Elijah Mohammad, that Malcolm planned to take over the organization, which was not true. But nevertheless, Malcolm felt that if he could make a public -- a prominent public statement to show his fidelity to the Honorable Elijah Mohammad that that might win him back in the good graces of the organization. But there were internal critics, sharp critics, who were very opposed to him, and who were very -- some of them were members of Elijah Mohammad's family, such as Herbert Mohammad, Raymond Shareef, who was the head of the Fruit of Islam, the brother-in-law of -- the son-in-law of Elijah Mohammad. They isolated Malcolm X and kept him out of the newspaper of the organization Mohammad Speaks for over a year, which is kind of curious. He was the national spokesperson of the N.O.I., and he wasn't represented in their own newspaper for over a year. Haley's objective was quite different. Haley was a republican. He was an integrationist. He was very opposed to black nationalism. His objective was to illustrate that the racial separatism of the N.O.I. was a kind of pathological or a kind of -- it was the logical culmination of separatism and racial isolationism and exclusion. He wanted to show the negative aspects of the N.O.I.'s ideology, Yacub’s history, and all of the ramifications of racial separatism that he felt were negative, and that Malcolm, being as charismatic as he was, a very attractive figure, nevertheless, he embodied these kind of negative traits. Haley felt he could make a solid case in favor of racial integration by showing what was -- to white America -- what was the consequence of their support for racial separatism that would end up producing a kind of hate, the hate that hate produced, to use the phrase that Mike Wallace used in his 1959 documentary on the Nation of Islam. So, the two men for very different reasons came together. What is striking is that from almost from the very beginning of certainly by September and October of 1963, as the book was being constructed, that Haley was vetting -- asking questions to the publisher and to the publisher's attorney regarding many of the things that Malcolm was saying. He was worried that he would not have a book that would have the kind of sting that he wanted. He was also concerned, to use Haley's phrase, about the purported anti-Semitism of Malcolm X, and so he began to rewrite words or passages in the book without Malcolm's knowledge. And Haley, in his own -- this is prior to emails -- Haley had a tendency to write even more frequently and voluminously to his agents and his editors than he did putting pen to paper in his own books. So that one finds in Haley's archives, or the archives of Anne Romaine, who was going to be his biographer until her tragic death in 1995, one finds a copious series of notes from Haley to his editors and attorneys regarding the construction of the autobiography itself. He wanted to steer the book to accomplish his political goals, as well as Malcolm's goals.