After the murder of Macolm's father, his mother had a difficult time trying to make ends meet, what with eight children to raise, an insurance policy that pulled a fast one, and the throes of the Great Depression of those years.

"When the state Welfare people began coming to our house, we would come home from school sometimes and find them talking with our mother, asking a thousand questions. They acted and looked at her, and at us, and around our house, in a way that had about it the feeling -- at least for me -- that we were not people. In their eyesight we were just things, that was all."

Things got rougher economically, and worse than economics was the plummeting of their morale.

"My mother was, above everything else, a proud woman, and it took its toll on her that she was accepting charity."

"She would talk back sharply to the state Welfare people, telling them that she was a grown woman, able to raise her children, and it wasn't necessary for them to keep coming around so much, meddling in our lives. And they didn't like that."

"But the monthly Welfare check was their pass. They acted as if they owned us, as if we were their private property. As much as my mother would have liked to, she couldn't keep them out. She would get particularly incensed when they began insisting upon drawing us older children aside, one at a time, out on the porch or somewhere, and asking us questions, or telling us things -- against our mother and against each other."

"Then, about 1934, I would guess, something began to happen. Some kind of psychological deterioration hit our family circle and began to eat away our pride. Perhaps it was the constant tangible evidence that we were destitute."

Malcolm began to get into trouble. He began stealing food, watching his chance to steal a treat. "You know what a treat was to me? Anything!" [p 18]

"When I began to get caught stealing now and then, the state Welfare people began to focus on me when they came to our house. I can't remember how I first became aware that they were talking of taking me away. What I first remember along that line was my mother raising a storm about being able to bring up her own children."

Time went by, and some folks tried to help. The Seventh Day Adventists were an encouragement to Malcolm's mother.

"Meanwhile, the state Welfare people kept after my mother. By now, she didn't make it any secret that she hated them, and didn't want them in her house. But they exerted their right to come, and I have many, many times reflected upon how, talking to us children, they began to plant the seeds of division in our minds. They would ask such things as who was smarter than the other. And they would ask me why I was 'so different.'" [Malcolm was lighter than his brothers and sisters, but also at the time, getting into more trouble.]

"I think they felt that getting children into foster homes was a legitimate part of their function, and the result would be less troublesome, however they went about it." "And when my mother fought them, they went after her -- first, through me. I was the first target. I stole; that implied I wasn't being taken care of by my mother." [p 21]

The state Welfare people attacked and ridiculed Malcolm's mother on account of her dietary practices, eschewing "gifts" of pork and other food objectionable to Seventh Day Adventists.

"They were as vicious as vultures. They had no feelings, understanding, compassion, or respect for my mother. They told us, 'She's crazy for refusing food.' Right then was when our home, our unity, began to disintegrate. We were having a hard time, and I wasn't helping. But we could have made it, we could have stayed together. As bad as I was, as much trouble and worry as I caused my mother, I loved her."

"the home wreckers took cover for a while" [p 22]

His mother was overwhelmed, and no one would help.

The state people saw her weakening, and took every chance to exploit her helplessness, her vulnerability.

"We children watched our anchor giving way." [p 23]

So Malcolm was moved into a foster family. He liked them. He was about twelve years old.

"Soon the state people were making plans to take over all of my mother's children." As her deterioration under the pressures of it all increased, the meddling of outsiders increased also .... "and there was a crowd of new white people entering the picture -- always asking questions."

"the court orders were finally signed" [p 25]

"A Judge McClellan in Lansing had authority over me and all my brothers and sisters. We were 'state children,' court wards; he had the full say-so over us. A white man in charge of a black man's children! Nothing but legal, modern slavery -- however kindly intentioned."

"there was nothing I could do" [p 26]

"I truly believe that if ever a state social agency destroyed a family, it destroyed ours. We wanted and tried to stay together. Our family didn't have to be destroyed. But the Welfare, the courts, and their doctor, gave us the one-two-three punch. And ours was not the only case of this kind."

"They looked at us as numbers and as a case in their book, not as human beings."

"My mother was a statistic that didn't have to be, that existed because of a society's failure, hypocrisy, greed, and lack of mercy and compassion. Hency I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight." [p26-27]

The Autobiography of Malcolm X
As told to Alex Haley ~ pub 1964

the great Malcolm ~ a prince of the earth


El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

---

Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seem'd as if a burden'd heart
Was breaking in despair.

Saw you those hands so sadly clasped --
The bowed and feeble head --
The shuddering of that fragile form --
That look of grief and dread?

Saw you the sad, imploring eye?
Its every glance was pain,
As if a storm of agony
Were sweeping through the brain.

She is a mother pale with fear,
Her boy clings to her side,
And in her kyrtle vainly tries
His trembling form to hide.

He is not hers, although she bore
For him a mother's pains;
He is not hers, although her blood
is coursing through his veins!

He is not hers, for cruel hands
May rudely tear apart
The only wreath of household love
That binds her breaking heart.

His love has been a joyous light
That o'er her pathway smiled,
A fountain gushing ever new,
Amid life's desert wild.

His lightest word has been a tone
Of music round her heart,
Their lives a streamlet blent in one --
Oh, Father! must they part?

They tear him from her circling arms,
Her last and fond embrace: --
Oh! never more may her sad eyes
Gaze on his mournful face.

No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks
Disturb the listening air;
She is a mother, and her heart
Is breaking in despair.

"The Slave Mother"
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

Ossie Davis' moving eulogy tells what Malcolm X meant to black folk: Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves. Last year, from Africa, he wrote these words to a friend: 'My journey', he says, 'is almost ended, and I have a much broader scope than when I started out, which I believe will add new life and dimension to our struggle for freedom and honor and dignity in the States. I am writing these things so that you will know for a fact the tremendous sympathy and support we have among the African States for our Human Rights struggle. The main thing is that we keep a United Front wherein our most valuable time and energy will not be wasted fighting each other.' However we may have differed with him - or with each other about him and his value as a man - let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now. Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man - but a seed - which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is - a Prince - our own black shining Prince! - who didn't hesitate to die, because he loved us so."