Page from the original original typescript of Alex Haley’s 1963 interview of Malcolm X for Playboy magazine, one onionskin page, 8.5 x 11, signed "Malcolm X" in the bottom margin (with a marginal line indicating his approval of the contents). In part: "I don't want to talk all day about the truth about the progress of the Negro in North America…You talk about the Negro progress, I'll tell you, sir, because the Negro is in America, and America has gone forward, the Negro appears to have gone forward, that's all. The Negro is like a man walking on a train doing ninety miles an hour to Chicago. He looks out the window and thinks he's doing ninety miles. It's an illusion to confuse the black man's progress with that of the train in which he's riding." At the end, Malcolm X writes: "He's not moving; the train is moving." In fine condition, with a rusty paperclip impression to the top edge.
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 of 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.
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