Page marked “MX EXTRA – 8” 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: [Haley] “Mr. Malcolm, it is generally conceded that one of the most galvanic social phenomena affecting the collective pride of the American Negro since Booker T. Washington has been the emergent statehood of Black Africa. Your opinion of Africa's impact on the Negro in this country — would you give it?
[Malcolm X] I think that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has had a greater impact than the rise of the African nations. I say this as objectively as I can, being a Muslim. I think that the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad have had a greater impact upon the thinking of American Negroes than all the emerging African nations combined. I think that his teachings have even had an impact in Africa. Even the Christian missionaries are conceding that in Black Africa, for every Christian conversion there are eleven Muslim conversions.
[Haley] But let's leave your leader out of it, Mr. Malcolm. The question – what do you feel about just the African impact upon the American Negro?
[Malcolm X] Yes, sir. The black man in America sees the African come here and live where he can't. It just proves what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad says. That the blackest African can come here with a sheet on and go places where the American Negro dressed like a white man, talking like a white man, sometimes as wealthy as the white man, can't go. An African from the Congo jungles can go places where Adam Clayton Powell, who is a Congressman, who could pass as white, can't go. The black man in America is looking at the African…” Malcolm X adds the word “eleven” in his own hand. In 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.
