,

England,
because
the
actual
Englandwas quitedifferentmdeed,yet,
he says, we maypardon thosewho
domakethemistake,
itis a desirable mistake to make.
In many ways, Trdlings major
pointmaybesaid
to b e that aculltureto
which we maycommlt
ourselves, which hasan
order and a
conceptlon of manners--m
short,a
rataonale-is
a szne qua non, and
thatitisthe
task of educationat
least to put theposslbility
o f , one
within reach of &e studentsminds.
But he 1s equally engaged by the notion of what he calls our adversary
cultureWhathe
apparentlycannot
stand, .or understand,isthat
i t is
possilble (perhaps evennecessary) to
know the
irrational
components
of
our culture without giving in to them,
he has gone too far in assuming that
the teachers rostrummightlead
to
dlreclaction,
to thestoning
of embassiesandtheburning
of libraries,
unlessindeedthe
dignitiesarepreserved andthe
Austen idyll isat
leastwithinthereach
of themagination.
I am, of course, also ateacher of
modernliterature,and
I happen to
believe that It can
and
should be

taught. $ButI: do not believe it should

be taught in such, a manner as Trilling seems to think J t wopld be taught,
were i t b u t , taught well.[ .It is quite
possible to teach Naked Lunch1 and
Corydon and Death. in Venice-that
is, to commanlcate
with
students
withrespect
,to. , them, beyodd the
merely
new
crihcal.
technicditles,
withoutbelngtainted
by whatever
infechons they maycontain
In the
satme line of thinking; the fullest significance of our great classics
1s just
asexploswe,ifmdeed
not more so,
and
the
fullest
communicatlon
of
their explosive nature 1s our privilege
and our duty, T? commumcatethe
greathumanand
socialsigmficance
ofsour literature is a seyious, a necessary, and, a possible circumstance.
Neither our privilege nor ourobliga-
tionsin
thisrespect
arelimited
by
a matter of past or present.Trilllng
too ,oftenappears
to want to save
himself not from the obligations but
from the ultimate commitment which
thehumanistlcengagement
involves
His position has become all too similar to the ones takenby persons in
theacademewhofeel
thatan emotion, because i t fs strong, must thereforebecrude,
an,d cannot therefore
be tolerated.

Delinquents Progiess
THE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

MALof
by M. S
455 pp.

COLM X. Withtheassistance

Alex HaleyIntroduction
Handler. Grove Press.
$7 50.
~

T r u m a n Nelson
Thisisthe
story of a man struck
down on
his
way to becommg
a
a liberator of hls
revolutionaryand
people. It 1s the, real Americantragedy: a fall
from
great
heights
of
promise, not from inner
weakness or
self-betrayal, but
because
assassins
stood up in plainsight,like
a firing
squad, and put thirteen shotgun slugs
inlo his chest and bullets
in his legs
and thlghs as he lay dying
Malcolm had
known
the
white
mans violence from Infancy . Fwe of
hisIathers sixbrothers died by violence;onewaslynched,another
killcdby
white police. Hisfabher,
very
strong, very black,
gun-carrying
a
Baptist mlnlsterand
a Garveyite or-

Trumalr Nelson i s the author of The

Surveyor, a lzfe of John Brown (Doubleday).

936

ganlzer, was killed by having

his
head bashed in and he then was laid
on a car track to be cut in half The
white
insurance
company
called it
sulclde When Malcolm, hisfathers
seventh
child,
dled
in Harlem
on
accused
February 21, 1965, hewas
by thewhitepress
of having, initiatedviolence.
His mobher was nearly white, looked white, but she could not keep a
Job when any of her black children
showed up, or her, small-townemployers f,oundout whose widow she
was Keeping food onthetableand
some dlgnrty around i t for a famdy of
eight was a n insoluble
problem
in
the 1930s. I t drove her into insanity
The family wasbroken up, and Malcolm
beg5n
a delinquents
progress
throughthe
ghettos of Boston and
a
NewEork,
with conked redhair,
sky-blue zoot suitandorange
knobtoed shoes,all
so grotesque on his
6-foot-5 gangling frame ,that he would
stop traffic crossing
the
street. He
became a hustler, a pimp, a narcotics
addict and peddler,apetty
thief and
armed robber.

stupendous
The transforination
came whde he was serving a ten-year
sentence for armed robbery 111 MassachusettsHehad
become the prototype of the hustler, by his own definitaon: The hustler out there in, the
ghetto Jungle has less respect for
the
white power structure than any other
Negro m America.He
1s internally
restrained by nothing. To survive he
isout
there
constantly
preying
011
others, probing for any human weaknesslike a felrret . . . forever frustrated, restless andanxiousfor
some
actzon. Whatever heundertakes,
he
commits
himself
to it fully,
absolutely.
A man who calls himself EhJah
Muhammad knew how to get through
to the Malcolms, the
hustlers,
the
wretched of the earth. He is the leader of a n m&ge,nous Muslim group
He has a touch of genius. He knows,
likeLutherbeforehim,
how tolook
in the+mud for the fallen and redeem
them. Hewrote
to every Negro he
a llttle
knew of in prison,senteach
money and a lot of message. Hls
contactwith
Malcolm broughtthat
unregeneratehustler to an instanta- 1
neousconversionequal
to those described m the pages of Wilham
Jamess
Varieties
of Relzgious Experience. James would haveunderstood MT. Muhammad better than his
critics: James alwaysargued that the
significance of a belief should not
be Judged by its source, but Its fruits.
Regardless of E l l ~ a h Muhammads
historicaland
theological eccentnclties-all religions havetheirabsurdities-he
has transformed
many
of
theworst
of menInto
some of the
best
Malcolm began to write to Mr
Muhammad every day. He had t o
study so he would have something
to say to him He had to study because he had virtually forgotten how
to write I n theprisonhbrary
there
happened to be a r a r e , collectlon o
old anti-slavery tracts. Malcolm there
honed his new
revolutionaryedgeon
the
abrasive
rhetoric
of the
great
Philabolltlonlsts, on Garrisonand
lipswbosevolcaniceruptions
on the
shameand
gullt of theslaveholdcr,
them to
and a nationthatsuffered
hve,have
never beenequaled.This
became hisbasic
vocabulary of assault.
When he was
released he had impacted in him two explosive elements;
the blessed assurance of the converted man;and a place in a community
which
was
believed to be

The

NATION

II

destined to r&xm a n Dpprcssed people In three

magnificent
chapters

titled Saved, Savior and Minister

Malcolm X, themaking
of anew
Malcolm is revealed. (The
.reader
must put aslde any prejudice he may
have about a book as told to someone. You can hear and feel Malcolm
in this book, it is a superb job of
transcription. (The tapes
seem to run
conto thepaperwiththeclackingefficiency of a wire-service machine.)
Malcolm was satred because Mr Muhammad convmced him
that
no
Negro has to fear
the
mtellectnal
power of any man whotries
to defend or justifywhathasbeen
done
to the black m a n by the white man
in ,this(country:
saved because he
wastaughtthathehadsinnedand
fallen in a world hehadnotmade,
andhadno
power to shape or correct in any way whatsoever.
So Malcolm wentfromthe
anonymousbrutality! of prison lifetohis
brothers #Muslim household i n Detroit, with
its
beautiful
disciplines
and dignities. where the father is ,the
first to rlse in the
morning
and
preparethe
way for the family. to
live out theirday i n cleanliness, order and love, and
with
passionate
loyalty toward one another. He began
to functioninthe
Detroitghetto
as
amissionary. His message was simple but overpowering:
The
Honorus
able Elqah
Muhammad
teaches
that since
Western
society
is deteriorating, it has become overrun
wlthimmorality and God is going to
judge
it,
and
destroy it. And the
only way the black people, caught up
in this society, canbe saved is not
to integrate into acorruption, but to
separatefromit,
to a land of their
.own where we can reform ourselves,
lift up our moralstandardsand
try
to be godly.
IMr. Muhammad was reviving revolutionary separatism, which h e believes to be the only way a persecuted
minority
can
liberate
themselves.
Along wlthit,
Mr. Muhammadhad
to w r i t e his new testament. A people
who have
had
their
history
st,olen
from them usually embrace a n apocryphal one until they are
strong
enough to wrestthetruthfromits
suppressors. And to achieve t h x
strength they have to be made -to -believe, somehow, that they are the
chosen people of God The more one
questions Mr. Muliamrnads history,
the more one, is forced to admit,Malcolms ge~iius in defending it and
of such
building on it amovement
regeneratink dynamism.
I

November 8, 1965

Fishing Por- men in thc ghettos o l

Detroit, Boston, New York, Phlladelphla
and elsewhere, ~Malcolm
changedalittlestore-frontcultinto
a powerful rehglon wiBh morethan
a hundred places ,of worshipspread
over the fifty states. ,Mr. ,Muhammad
was the Messenger; he gave him the
WORD; lbut Malcolm was pre-eminemtly the Missionary. \He knew the streets
as a hustler does, how to work the
shifting, indeterinmate fringes of public Black Nationalist or civil rlglits
gatherings.
He
caught
the
people
comingout,withunanswered
questions, demands,yearnings
from the
Chrisflan.
churches
The. Muslims
grew from 400 to 40,000.
Their suddenly visible strength
attracted thewhite mass media, looki n g fornewsensabons
to merchandise. A nabon-wide TV program called The Hate That Hate Produced
startedareaction
that hegan to portray
the
Muslims as a potential
source of violence, the shock troops
of black racism. Malcolm, rushing to
theirdefense,becamedisastrouslydiverted fkom the necessary organizing
(of his own people. He became a victim of thegreatAmerican
Emage
psychosis iHe began to hustle again,
but this .time amongthewhites.He
thoughthewasexplainingand
defending the Honorable EliJah Muhammad,buthewai,only
playing the
oppressors game, Qn battlefields they
were
choosing:
With
his consciousness
that
their
history,
their
humanibes;
their
constitutions
and
ahurches were all part *of an ideology
(of lies, easily exposed when examined
in prachce, he wonPyrrhicvictories
befme miczophones, T V cameras and
forums, butthishad
verylittle
to
do withbuildingaliberationforce
amonghis own people. Theexpanding nation of Islam,the only genuine
movementof;
by andforthe
black
people since the deportation of Marcus
Garvey, came to a halt.The Musllm
ministers, hcluding Mr. Muhammad,
were too busyexplainingthemselves
to people who d i d s t give a damn
about them, but only wanted to assess
how deeply they should be feared
Doubtsbegan
to creep into Malcolms own mind. He heard that Mr.
1Muhammad was beginning to disapprove of his many public appearances
before whites. He thought i t was
jealousy. Theoutsidepressureupon
the Muslim movement, the mixed
adulation and horror, began
to disintegrate it For hisstatement on Kennedys assagsination, Malcolm was

silenced, . then expelled. Again lhe7-e

were the white reporters at his elbow,
urging hlm, daring him to talk, explain, justify! Malcolm never lost his
real power of presence and personallty, but, expelled from the Muslims,
he lost his base. Mr. Muhammad
taunted lurn brilliantly: Who 1s
Malcolm leading?Who
is he teaching? He h a s no truth. I am not going to l e t thecrackpotsdestroy
the
goad things Allah sent to you and
me.
Malcolm became convinced that the
Muslimswere going to kill him He_
felthehad
to r a s e acounterforce
strongenough t o protecthimself.He
tried to recruit in Harlemamong
thispotentml of a million followers.
Butagamhewasdrawn
off into a
tragic diversion: a pilgrimage to Mecca to prove that
he,
n o t EhJah
Muhammad,
was
the
real
Muslim.
This had no relevance to the streets
of Harlem.There,theythought
he
wasrunning
away. Malcolm was
notaware
of thedisintegration
that
had taken place in him after 1us god
had cast him out He ,was so dynamic
thatfragments of him- seemed mpre
powerful than thewhole. In fact, he
r

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337

was hke some exploding piece of fireworks, withitsfieryparticlesdying

in the sky.
b
Hewastalkingintegration
now,
under the banner of the True Islam
Whites again took uphistimewith
interminablediscussions of religious
and ethzcal abstractions And always
he felt stalked by killers hired by h i s
chosenfatheronearthandhis
own
beloved brothers and sisters.
The complexities of hissituation
were unbearable. He would have had
to leave Muhammad anyway, he had
outgrownhim. He had internationalized himself. Always he traveled, back
and forth across the continent, abroad
for eighteen weeks again,andthen
back to Harlerh for some pathetic
efforts a t organizing by a handful of
his faithful. And t o write this marvelous book that is not a book but a
man, a hagic, agonizing,
palpable
1nan.
,
He ended i t in chapter
a
called
1965. It is unresolved. He is admllhng he needs much more time to
reflect, to clariy . . . if he could only
study, rest a while from
this
intermninable explaining, this mania for
Justification. Heknewhehadnot
gathered a n adequate protective force.
Almost hhe last senfence of the book
is: . . . societies often: have killed ;the
people who have helped change them.
I

But the great revelation comes

in the Epilogue by hls perceptive and
enormouslyskillfulamanuensis,
Alex
Haley. Maloom wasinvited to speak
in France by a group of African students. He had beentalking,
inlate
64, of ,thegreat power of the black
and yellow races when seen interna~tronally.I heardhim in Harlem, on
a platform with Babu,theZanzibar
revolutionary, say the problem is pow
simply %he oppressedagainst the oppressor. He had begun to renew himself, and his regenerated purpose
began to take form, a pohticdform.
Hewastalking
now likeamember
of a revolufionary majority. When he
auived
in
France,
the
government
bannedhim as anundesirableperson. Hewaswrathfuland
puzzled
,when he came back to New York.
On Saturday, February 20, he made
a most significaxt phone call
to Alex
Haley. Im gmng to tell you something, brother. The more 1 think about
what is happening lately, Im not at
allsure
its the Muslims. , I know
what they can do andwhat
they
,cant do, and they can? do,some of
the stuff thats happening to me lately. Themore I think o whathapI

338

pened to me illFranc& I think Im

gomg to quit saying its the Muslims.
. . . Jm glad that Ive been the first
to estabhsh official ties between AfroAmericans and bur blood brothers in
Afrlca. Then he hung up.
Twenty-four hours
later,
in
the
dressingroom of theAudubon, Ballroom, he said he was ,going to, anhad been too hasty
nouncethathe
in accusing Ithe MGslims because,
things are hapyening, that are bigger
than they can do
in fact, Im
going to easesome of thistension
by telling the 9bIack man not to fight
that its all part of the I
himself
white mans. M g , maneuver, to keep
1

.- .

...

us Tighling against ourselves. But

before he could get this noble resolve
on the record, the executionersrose
111 the first row and the sentence was
carried out.
Viewed in its complete historical
is indeed a great book.
context,
Its dead-level honesty, its passmn, Its
exalted
purpose,
even
Its
manlfold
unsolved amblguitie? will make i t
standas
a monument t o themost
painful of truths.thatthiscountry,
thls people, thisWestern
world has
practicedunspeakablecrueltyagainst
a race, an individual, who mlgh! have
made Fts fraudulent
humanism
a
reallty.

Berkeley: Free Speech and Free

Donald Wesling
The crackle of &emP . A. system carryingfor
blocks as a fewhundred
people stand outsideSproul
Hallat
noonbeingaddressed
by w t t y Free
Speech Movement leaders on the state
of Californias revenge atthe
trespassing trial; a couple in, the library,
their feet blackened by barefoot walking,she takks a rubberstamp from
the reserve desk, sits on the floor and
ankles
and
stamps HOLD on her
calves; in a lecture Allen Ginsberg
describing how he was deported from
Havanafor advocatingpot and pederasty, later elected Kmg of the May
by the students of Prague,before he
was expelled by tNeir government;
Charles Olson stripping off his jacket
&&-smoking, conwhilelecturing,
,fessing he has been visited .by spirits.
A t , Berkeley, such observations explode the accepted notions of campus
hfe; they
contradict
Hearsts dominating clock tower with its evening
carillon, the
artificial
brook and
wooden bridges, frat boys and coeds
on thetrimmedlawns,thevaulted
reading room of a s e a t library, the
radiationlabontheheights
clicking
and shiningallnight.Perhapsfrom
such Observations and the political
realities they imply there will emerge
a new form of college myth, an uncritical romanticizing of the New Left
whlchthis brief report does not entirely avoid.
For now, at this volatile university,
theissuds of freedomand
authority
are clearer because of the hardening,
the exaggeration; of both sides in the
free-speech debate. O n a first visit
I

D o d d Weding teaches English at

the University of California, La JoZla.

of only a few days, I saw at Berkeley

more of the university ascrihcand
corrector of outside society than I
had seen over aperiod
of years at
privateuniversities in bhe East.And
having gone to hear the second week
of readings and lectures in the Berke:
,
ley Poetry Conference, I wasunexpectedly and deeply impressed by the
seemingly
programmatic
congruence
of free speech
with
free verse as
Olson, Gmswritten by such men as
berg, Robert Duncan,EdwardDorn
and Robert Creeley. Most of these
poetsarehalfreluctantly
becoming
political
rhetoricians
and prophets,
developing a n epicsense
of thedcbasement of AmericanIanguageand
landscape.
Certainly
the
Berkeley
student
audience
received them
as
genuineexperimenters,evenheroes,
because in lives andpoemswhere
every successive momem is conceived
as polemicaltheywere
makingauthentic-and
bhus, in the bestsense,
unconventional-choices.
Ending his introductionto Ginsbergs
massive reading, Professor ofEnglish
Thomas Parkinson said
t h a t i t didnl
bother him a bit, he was glad to ~ Q W
Allen as afriend.The
defensiveness
of that,the
forcedcolloquialism
of
the whole. introduction,
were
clear
symptoms of thedifficultposltion
of
llberalfacultymembersat
;Berkeley.
Freespeech for students, poets, and
themselves as teqchers is
anr;ideal
most Berkeley professorswoulddefend. Nevertheless- the faqulty- wants
settled conditions Tor dhe proces;es of
teaching and research, and ofteil
enough,wrongly or no?,it identifies
the privilege to do thest+t?&gs;
with
the alleged right of the dniversiiy to

TZLe NATIoN
!