"When I Met Malcolm X, People Yelled ‘Kill The White Bitch’ and Spit On Me!” By Eve Arnold

May 28, 1963: Malcolm X reads LIFE Magazine May 31, 1963 issue.

I photographed him for the first time in 1961 at a Black Muslim rally in Washington. Over the following eight months, Malcolm periodically allowed me into his entourage. We developed a strong friendship. Some of my friends guessed that I was physically attracted to the leader; I told them that it was electrifying to be near him. I followed him to meetings and rallies across the country. People yelled, “Kill the white bitch!” and spit on me. When I arrived home and took off my wool sweaters, I would find the back polka-dotted with cigarette burns. Malcolm suggested that I visit him in Chicago, where the Nation of Islam organized an economic boycott, setting up their own schools, factories and restaurants. At the hotel, he would phone me every morning with a schedule and a meeting point from which I would be escorted and unharmed throughout the community. Every morning I’d receive a second phone call from someone with a Southern accent who said, “Get the hell out of town before it’s too late.

“He’d guide photographers toward specific affirming shots when they visited the community and strategized every aspect of his persona. Malcolm was also a virtuoso behind the lens, often seen with a King Regula 111c and Nikon 35MM film camera or a Bell & Howell 70dr movie camera”.  Vikki Tobak

I had one more provocative assignment to carry out for LIFE magazine--a political piece on Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. After months spent researching and vainly trying to reach Malcolm X, I finally got a commission for the story from LIFE and I found an intermediary, an African-American journalist named Louis Lomax. I paid him a thousand dollars (about seven thousand dollars today) for the promise of an introduction to Malcolm X. Lomax was two hours late for our meeting at a New York restaurant. When he finally showed up, he said, “You don’t want to do a story, you just want to sleep with a Black man, don’t you?’ I gave him a piece of my mind and headed for the door. Lomax stopped me and apologized saying he was just testing me. Then, he agreed to put me in touch with Malcolm X. I did not anticipate how attuned Malcolm would be to every nuance of my work. He obviously had an idea of how he wanted the public to see him and maneuvered me into showing him the way.

Over the next year (1961), I followed Malcolm from Washington to New York and Chicago and then back to New York. He was cooperative and considerate. As we worked together, the passionate orator, who could whip a crowd to euphoria, began to unbend and to think of situations to provide material for the feature. First, he asked me to dinner at a restaurant in Harlem owned by the Black Muslims. The place was spotless (the Muslims were always saying whites didn’t bathe and smelled bad). Malcolm was charming, made small talk to put me at ease and said some gracious words about my work. The food was delicious! I referred to a desert as “sweet potato pie”, the waiter froze. When I asked what I had done wrong, Malcolm told me that their religion forbade them to eat the food they had eaten during slavery. “Then what,” I asked, “is in the pie?” “It’s made with beans - white beans.” The white was underlined with such venom that I wondered if it was made to make me feel like a cannibal, but his eyes glinted behind his spectacles and he laughed. From that time on, he would tease me and make jokes.

I felt that Malcolm wouldn’t let anything happen to me. He continued to be friendly and surprised me by bringing ten Muslim women in their all white uniforms to be photographed. He set up the shots while I clicked the camera. It was hilarious. I tried a couple of times to get him in the act of framing a photo with his hands, but he was to quick for me.

Sitting opposite him and looking at those fantastic eyes and seeing the purpose of this movement had given him, I understood. He looked like any other cook, but cleaner; neatly pressed grey-flannel suit, neat black tie, polished high yellow shoes. But, there is a difference; he had a purpose, a dignity he never had before. True, he had been given a ready-made heritage and a restricted channel for his life - what Allah wills, he does not question. He now had an identification with the world-wide stirring of black people and with the gathering strength of Islam.