My mother always taught me to say nothing but good about the dead, and the phrase was often extended perversely by the dead’s enemies. I thought about that old saying with the passing of John Ali, who served as the Nation of Islam’s national secretary in the 1960s and ultimately clashed with Malcolm X. Ali died on July 26 at age 96.
Rather than saying anything good or bad about Ali, I choose to offer a few words about the complexity of his life and legacy, much of which I borrow from The “Seventh Child — A Family Memoir of Malcolm X” by Rodnell P. Collins with A. Peter Bailey, and its not-so-favorable portrait, although reasonably rendered. To begin with, I took exception to several facts by Clay Risen in his obituary of Ali in the New York Times, pointing out that Malcolm was not assassinated in Harlem but Washington Heights, and that he lived in East Elmhurst, Queens, not Elmhurst.
Nor did he note that Ali and his wife once lived with Malcolm and Betty Shabazz, which Collins, leaning on the memory of his mother, Ella Collins (Malcolm’s half-sister), cited in the memoir. Moreover, in my letter to the editor, I quoted information compiled by the FBI that Ali, at least during one radio broadcast, according to Malcolm, stated that Malcolm should be killed.
It was often suggested that Ali was an FBI informant, and a further implication of this is provided in the memoir where Ella recounts an incident in which officers of the Bureau of Special Services (BOSS) raided the home that Ali and his family shared with the Shabazzes, in search of a woman that none of them had ever heard of. It was during the interrogation of Ali that Malcolm began to suspect that the raid was really a mission to recruit Ali. Interestingly, Ali was such an outstanding student in college that the university’s president arranged a job interview for him with the FBI; in effect, a much earlier contact than Malcolm’s suspicions, and an interview that needs further research.
In the early 1960s, when rumors began to spread about Elijah Muhammad’s infidelities and that he had impregnated some of his secretaries, the organization was unsuccessful in keeping this information from the FBI and other federal agencies. Ali, then national secretary of the NOI and Muhammad’s chief lieutenant, was particularly concerned about suppressing the accusation. Later, after Malcolm went public with the charges, it created an even deeper rupture in his relationship with Malcolm. This set in motion an anti-Malcolm cabal that, in the words of Ella Collins, included supreme captain Raymond Sharrieff and two of Muhammad’s children, Herbert and Ethel. They forged the Chicago clique that would eventually bring a reluctant Louis X (later known as Louis Farrakhan) into the fold.
The deal against Malcolm was sealed after his “chickens coming home to roost” statement after the assassination of President Kennedy. “No matter the accuracy of Malcolm’s statement, the Chicago crew had the smoking gun they had longed for,” the memoir concluded. “Malcolm was suspended. The split was made public, but Ms. Collins believed that Muhammad would not have suspended Malcolm for the comment if he was acting on his own and not urged on by the Chicago crew. She said the crew had convinced Muhammad that Malcolm was a serious threat to the NOI that ‘had cut a deal with white supremacists and to money continuing to pour into headquarters.’”
A lot more would have been known about the split if, according to the memoir, Betty had not ordered the destruction of Malcolm’s papers, especially the conflict and turmoil with Muhammad and the Chicago faction. Of all the research and books about Malcolm and his life, “Seventh Child” has not received the attention it deserves; along with the declassified FBI and CIA files, it would fill in the blanks and possibly raise even more questions about Malcolm’s consequential life.
Yes, John Ali is with the ancestors — he died on July 26 at 98 — and whether that’s good or bad, he is no longer around to hear all the accusations about his antipathy toward Malcolm and connections to federal agencies.
