The 30 Minute Rule begins July 15 at 7:00 PM EDT. An Initial Bid Must Be Placed By July 15 at 6:00 PM EDT To Participate After 6:00 PM EDT
Page 25 from the original typescript of Alex Haley’s 1963 interview of Malcolm X for Playboy magazine, one page, 8.5 x 11, signed "Malcolm X" in the bottom margin (with a marginal line indicating his approval of the contents). In full: [Malcolm X] …have been mostly at the college level. Both students and professors. They have recognized that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is doing a job on the Negro that they could not do. They recognize us as a sociological phenomenon. It's hard to go into a white college and not find some student doing a term paper on us. Especially the sociologists, political scientists and mass psychologists.
[Haley] Mr. Malcolm, you used a phrase there with which a great many people would agree — that your leader is quote doing a job on the Negro. What do you mean by it?
[Malcolm X] The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is doing a job indeed, sir. He stops Negroes who join him from getting drunk, dope addiction, nicotine, gambling, stealing, lying, cheating, fornication, adultery, prostitution, juvenile delinquency.
I think about this every time there is something said about somebody investigating the Muslims. Why should they investigate the Honorable Elijah Muhammad? They should subsidize him. He's cleaning up the mess that the white men themselves have made. He's saving the government millions of dollars, taking black men off the welfare, showing them how to Do something for themselves. Removing a big burden from the white man's back. That's what Mr. Muhammad is doing.” In very fine condition. Encapsulated and graded by PSA/DNA as “NM - MT 8.”
Playboy's May 1963 interview with Malcolm X was one of the most famous of Haley’s career and gave most readers their first in-depth look at Malcolm X’s teachings and personality. Supporters and critics viewed the Muslim minister in very different terms. Admirers saw him as a courageous advocate for the rights of African-Americans and condemned crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism, black supremacy, and violence. Nevertheless, he has been described as one of the greatest and most influential African-American leaders in history. Within a year of granting this interview, with America still gripped by ever-growing racial tension, the once-combative black nationalist Malcolm X had repudiated almost every stance in the interview. He had broken with the Nation of Islam movement, fallen out with its leader, Elijah Muhammad, renounced black supremacy, and embraced racial equality and human rights. He was assassinated in Harlem in 1965.
The Marc and Mary Perkins Collection.
