The Beatification of Malcolm X

Across the land last week, disciples of Malcolm X marked the third anniversary of the Negro militant's assassination by turning the event--just one day before Washington's Birthday--into what they hope will be a series of black holidays. "We need our days," said a Boston celebrant, "just as Jewish people have days to express their identity. At the time Washington was very busy being the father of our country, we were very busy being slaves. He doesn't have much relevance for us.

We hope to celebrate other days that are relevant--Nat Turner Day or Marcus Garvey Day."

The apostles of Malcolm X made their prophet's own speeches seem restrained by comparison. In New York City's Harlem, nearly 600 people packed an ultramodern public school building to celebrate a program attended by Malcolm's widow. Also on hand: Writers James Baldwin and LeRoi Jones, and Herman B. Ferguson, a former New York school official who faces conspiracy charges in a plot to murder moderate Negroes. Baldwin capped the program by calling the U.S. "the Fourth

Reich," and Ferguson urged Negroes to get guns for self-defense during next summer's "hunting season."

Spitting Fire. Elsewhere in Harlem, a Mau Mau guerrilla, toting a machete, bellowed: "We'll cut off whitey's head!" In Detroit, plans were announced for a convention to map out a separate black nation in five Southern states.

In Philadelphia, worried officials prevailed upon Presidential Candidate George Wallace to avoid a scheduled appearance that might have ignited the tense community. The rites in Boston's Roxbury district included a mural showing Malcolm "ripping the whiteness from the faces of black people who are discovering their own beauty," while his other hand spat fire at "the symbols of white America--the flag, the White House and the false God of Christianity as it is now practiced."

For all the incendiary oratory, a paradoxical atmosphere of decorum prevailed in most cities marking the day. In Los Angeles, poetry reading was the rule, including one eulogy, "It Was a Funky Deal," delivered under a banner of Malcolm's face. In Washington, two observances were marked by quiet meditation, and efforts to shut Negro classrooms and urge workers off their jobs for the day proved largely ineffectual. As his followers listened to tapes of the uhuru guru, the Black Power movement that he helped model was facing a conflict between its words and deeds.

Obviously many of the members want peaceful change; Black Power exponents pushed through an open-housing ordinance in Flint, Mich. On the other hand, the mood of ugliness was typified by H. Rap Brown, who went to court for bail-term violations and spoke up so harshly during a recess that he was charged with threatening a Negro FBI agent: "We are going to get you, and if you have any children, we will get them too."

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