Stuff You Should Know - Malcom X

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Malcolm X was one of the most revered, feared leaders of the civil rights movement. In contrast to Martin Luther King, Jr., X advocated black self-reliance and separateness in American society and that equal rights should obtained by any means necessary.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Renno mishap? That's embarrassing. You know what's not embarrassing? Using FIG for Home Improvement Loan, a quick, simple, and transparent offer in minutes. Borrow Better with FIG. Visit fig.ca.

Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast?

Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen.

We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman helped make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of IHeart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here, too. Just being quiet as a church mouse. And this is stuff you should know. That's because he told her to zip it. I'm just going to leave that part out. We're going to get hate mail for that one.

I'm surprised we're just now getting to this. I went through a Malcolm X phase in college. I wasn't one of those guys walking around Georgia with the Malcolm X had on. You weren't wearing like, okay, I have a great story, but please go ahead. I was after I saw the movie because I was a big, you still am, big Spike Lee guy, so I saw the movie in 92 and then read the autobiography with Alex Haley right after that. Yeah. And was just super into his story at the time. It's been a while, though.

Well, I have just entered my Malcolm X face. Awesome. I, just researching him, I accidentally got radicalized. And I've got his autobiography on the way it should get here today. Oh, great. But it's crazy, Chuck, because, like, especially as just white people of our generation, if you hadn't already gotten into him and, like, seen the Spikeley movie and read his autobiography and just started to read his speeches and stuff, if you just kind of knew him, like, I had up to this point, like, you knew him as the guy who said, like, by any means necessary, that he was, he was,

he was militant, that he was essentially the foil to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And that he and King kind of represented these two, this fork in the road that America had to kind of choose between because there was at this point in like the 50s, starting in the 50s, there was no way for America to just stand there at the crossroads any longer. Like America as a whole had to make a choice. Which way are we going to go? Race war or integration, peaceful integration. And that's what Malcolm X represented to white America, race war, like black militants taking over, killing white people mercilessly, ruthlessly, because white people had it coming.

Or, you know, everybody's much more familiar with the Martin Luther King Jr. way. But there's so much more to it than that. And just researching this guy, I, like, I don't even want to say. say a fan because I think that kind of undermines like the respect I have for him now. Like he's a he's an amazing figure, it turns out. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, when I was in high school, there was a big, this is, you know, I graduated in 89.

The movie was 92. So this was leading up to the film, which obviously put things on a much bigger sort of a platform. But it was a big deal in the 80s. Like there was a big sort of, at least in the South, I don't know how it was everywhere else, but there was a big movement among, you know, the black students at my school to get in touch with their African heritage. Malcolm X. Hats were all over the place in my school. And he was just sort of in the forefront, I guess, kind of like my junior and senior year. So it was striking to me that we didn't learn about him in high school.

Yeah. But if you step back and really think about it, it's not very surprising, you know? Well, I mean, looking back at the substandard public school education I got, correct. Yeah, but also the whitewashed and sanitized version where it's like, okay, we'll tell you about Martin Luther King, Jr. But don't ask about Malcolm X. You don't want to know about him. He was a rough dude. Yeah, or anyone else. It was just Martin Luther King.

Exactly. Yeah, he did the whole thing by himself, it turns out. Yeah. So, yeah, I remember that same era as well. Okay. So I say we get into this because we could probably sit here and do an intro and it would end up being the entire thing. Well, let's jump in and everybody else can kind of make up their own minds about how you feel about Malcolm X. And just kind of as an aside to start, I would definitely recommend going and watching the documentary on them that American Experience did, I think, in the 90s called Make It Plain.

And then I read a bunch of articles. And the best one I read was the achievement of Malcolm X by John J. Simon that was in the monthly review. That was a really good comprehensive one, too. Yeah, and see that Spike Lee movie. It's exceptional. I've not seen it. Oh, man, you got to check it out. It's great.

I will. I will. Okay. So we're talking about Malcolm X, if you hadn't figured that out by now. And you may or may not know that Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little. That was his given name. He was born back in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. And from the outset, he was essentially raised in a very black conscious family.

So he was aware of the state of racial affairs in the United States as a very young person and oppression that black people lived under at the time and still do in many ways. Yeah, for sure. His dad, Earl, was a Baptist lay speaker. His mother, Louise Little, they were both members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which was a Marcus Garvey joint, someone else we never learned about in high school. And they moved to Milwaukee for a little while,

then eventually in 1928 when Little Malcolm was three, landed in Michigan. And they landed in a white neighborhood, and that was a big problem because they were not wanted there. And Earl Little was not the kind of guy to just pack up and leave because his neighbors didn't want him there.

So he stayed. And the community had a clause in their HOA covenant that said that basically no one was allowed to sell a house to non-white people. And so they sued to evict them. And while that was kind of going through, even before the eviction was finalized, a group of white men burned their house to the ground without any firefighters even showing up. Right. So whether they wanted to move or not, they had to now.

And they moved a little further out of where they lived still in the Lansing area. And I don't know when the house burned, but just. Within a year or two, maybe less, Malcolm was six years old, and his father died. He died in a mysterious bizarre streetcar accident where he was run over by a streetcar. And that's just the official line on the whole thing. In fact, I think it ended up being ruled a suicide. But according to Malcolm, his family, his mother, like his father was murdered, probably by a clan-affiliated group called the Black Legion who operated in Michigan back then. and that was pretty much what the family was convinced of that his father had been murdered.

Then on top of that, no one would admit that his father was murdered, which I'm sure makes that kind of experience that much harder. Yeah, I mean, there was actual evidence that was ignored. He had clearly been beaten and placed on the tracks. So it was kind of just brushed under the table. It was very upsetting for a young Malcolm because that was like the rumor. it was all around the school and everything, so he was hearing all these stories. And it was, you know, definitely a big early sort of kind of fork in the road for him and that his family was left without their dad. They, like you said, ruled it as suicide. But I think she got like $1,000 in one life insurance payment, Louise did, which would be about $25,000 a day, but was denied because of the suicide claim, a much larger insurance claim. So she didn't have a lot of dough to feed, you know, what was eight kids. Eight kids, man.

And now she's suddenly on her own. And she had a nervous breakdown, is what you would call it. I think that she was diagnosed as paranoid and was transferred to the state hospital in Kalamazoo where she stayed. This is in the mid-30s. She stayed there until 1964, I think like 26 years or something like that. And all of a sudden, Malcolm and his seven siblings are without parents. They're orphans, essentially. And they become wards of the state, and they're broken up.

So just in a very short time, a couple of years, Malcolm goes from having a stable home life to his father being murdered, his mother having a nervous breakdown and being institutionalized, and his siblings being spread out throughout the foster system around Lansing. That's just what happened to him. And if you know a little bit about Malcolm X, you might know that he started out as a criminal. What's astounding, Chuck, is this is not when his life of crime began. He actually went the exact opposite route. Well, a little of both.

He started stealing stuff when he was nine because he had to do something to provide for their family, but he never got caught there. And, you know, we'll go over his formal rap sheet here in a minute. but he was sent to a juvenile detention center in Mason, Michigan. It was about 10 miles south of Lansing. And he went to a white school, and he did a great job. He was a really, you know, was a really smart guy, a really smart kid, and made really good grades. He was very charismatic from the beginning.

He was elected class president and had dreams of going to law school before his white teacher said a pretty terrible thing to him. Yeah, it was an English teacher, and this is a one of the, probably one of this, this is the second pivotal moment in his life where he had the rug pulled out from under him. He had the wind taken out of his sails. He got punched in the bread basket, however you want to put it, because the English teacher, he told the English teacher that he was dreaming of becoming a lawyer. And the English teacher's like, I think America would, um, accept you more as a carpenter. Like, that's the kind of profession you need to go in. You need to be realistic about. And then. And then. And then. And. And. And. And. essentially being a black person in America. It's not what the teacher said, but the point was the same, and it just completely sucked the life and enthusiasm for learning that he had up to that point right out of him.

Yeah, he quit school. He never went to school again after that, and he had a very promising academic career in front of him, which is super sad. So at 15, he goes to live with his half-sister in Boston, and eventually would get a job working at the railroad, so he started traveling around some. And by 17, found himself living in Harlem.

And this is where he got the name that stuck with him, you know, during a sort of early, or later teenage years, I guess, red. He had this red hair. So he was either Detroit Red or Big Red, because he was a tall guy. He was 6'4. And just a little fun side note, while he was in Harlem, he was working at a chicken shack with a guy named John Sanford.

And he was Chicago Red and Malcolm was Detroit Red. And he was trying, John Sanford was trying to be a stand-up comic. And that ended up being Red Fox. That's right. Of Sanford in something. Yeah. I love that little fact. So, yeah, he was, he became a, I guess he'd call him a petty criminal, but he was, he took all of that kind of charisma and charm and initiative and turned it.

directed it toward a life of crime. He's often described as a pimp, although he was never a pimp. He seemed more like the kind of guy who just knew where to get whatever you wanted. And that included sex workers. It included drugs. He loved pot. He loved gambling. And he actually committed a lot of his crimes, like burglary, theft, that kind of stuff,

just to support his habits, which pot eventually turned into cocaine, which even back then was more expensive. And, again, he loved to gamble. So he needed to keep both of those things up. And that was a large reason why he was such a prolific criminal during this time. Another reason is that he just, the options that he had hadn't really panned out very well for him. Like, he had a few jobs up to this point. But he realized, like, I'm not going to get anywhere serving sandwiches on a train.

I'm not going to get anywhere shining shoes. Like, I might as well make away for myself. and the only way to make away for myself in this situation is crime. Yeah, for sure. He was arrested a couple of times. He was arrested at 19, allegedly stealing his half-sisters fur coat whom he lived with. Pretty low-hanging fruit. Got arrested again when he allegedly mugged a friend of his at gunpoint,

and neither one of those amounted to much. But finally, he was arrested for a third time after he'd been doing a series of burglaries of wealthy homes with kind of a small crew. It was him. It was another black man and three white women. Yeah. And I mentioned everyone's race there because when they got caught on this one, the three white women just got slaps on the wrist and basically got let go.

And the two men were sentenced to eight to ten in the who scow. Yeah. And they would have gotten much worse in that documentary, make it plain. The other guy, his friend Malcolm Jarvis, he said that they tried to get the women to say that the, Malcolm X and Malcolm Jarvis had raped them. And all they had to do was say that. And they would have been convicted of that and sentenced to a couple more decades for that.

And luckily, they were tight enough with these women that they said, no, we're not going to do that, despite the pressure that they were under to. Yeah, for sure. So prison is where a lot happened to him in prison, sort of one of his first big transformations. He spent about almost seven years there for that burglary. and he was about 20 years old at the time and it was in prison where he really kind of found himself for the, I guess for the first time as an adult and that he remembered like, hey, I'm a smart guy

and I used to love academia and learning. So he became a voracious reader again in prison. He apparently tried to memorize the dictionary in prison and was reading anything he could get his hands on including eventually, which would really transform his life, the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, who was the leader of the nation of Islam at the time. Yeah, and before he kind of came on to those teachings

from his siblings, I think, who encouraged him to start looking into that. And he had a real aversion to any kind of religion. He was actually known as Satan by the other prisoners in the correctional facility he was in. But the reason he was able to read so much, Chuck is because he happened to be in MCI Norfolk in Massachusetts, and it's well known to have a lot, like a huge library connections with like MIT and Harvard and all that stuff.

So it was actually the perfect prison for him to land in. So he was able to kind of educate himself from that point on. And then when he finally did start taking up the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, it just clicked. And it was even further, I guess, reinforced when he started writing. letters to Elijah Muhammad, and Elijah Muhammad started writing back to him that really encouraged him big time. Yeah. You know why? Because you didn't have to write letters to get those books like Andy DeFrain in the Shawshank Redemption. No, they just threw them at you. Yeah, he was, of course, because it was Massachusetts. So, yeah, he started, you know, basically became a pen pal

with Elijah Muhammad and really became a hardcore Muslim pretty quickly after reading, you know, his works and became an ascetic. So that means no drugs, no booze, no pork, no movies or music, no gambling, no dancing. Like the real straight and narrow. And, you know, we'll later find out that that became a bit of a rift later on because he didn't think Elijah Muhammad at one point was sort of walking the walk, whereas he really was from the beginning. Yeah, for sure.

And he did throughout, too, like the FBI tried and tried and tried to get something on him. and they couldn't get anything. Like, he was just that upstanding immoral from that point on. I also, I had never even thought to wonder, but I had no idea why his last name was X. I was pretty surprised to learn this, but it makes a lot of sense. You didn't know that?

No. Okay. I thought that would have been sort of just the basic common knowledge. No. But maybe not. I mean, maybe it is, but I'm pretty uncommon, Chuck. You're an uncommon podcaster. So, yeah, he dropped the name little because, and a lot of people in the nation of Islam did and do this because that was, he thought that was his slave name.

So he rid himself of that name and replaced it with an ex. Yeah. He also, one of the reasons he despised religion, he despised Christianity in general because he considered that the slave religion that was given to the African slaves to essentially keep them in line. And so it was actually, it was a big deal that he became this devotee of this religion. And this particular religion, just really quick, if you're not familiar with the nation of Islam, it is not the same thing as Islam that emerged out of the Middle East several hundred years ago. It bears like a slight resemblance to it, but it is essentially a completely altered version that has a lot of theology that seems very odd to outsiders.

Yeah. I mean, they were Muslim, but, you know, I know you've, and this is stuff I didn't know that you found some stuff about Elijah Muhammad's original beliefs that I was sort of shocked by. Yeah. So you've heard white devils before. I mean, all you have to do is listen to like Ice Cube. He always talks about white devils.

But that is actually a teaching from the nation of Islam. from Elijah Muhammad, and it predates him. The nation of Islam had been around for a few decades before Elijah Muhammad was its prophet. But the reason that they call white people white devils is because, according to black Muslim theology, there was a genius named Yaqab, black genius, who created white people by bleaching black people,

and he mutated them into white, blue-eyed devils. And the reason why is, he wanted to basically put the black race to the test. So he put them in a subjugated position because he allowed these white people to be devils to basically act like white people have treated black people since time in memorial, and that this rain would last about six millennia,

and that the six millennia were almost up, and that this was the time when the black race would rise and take over from the white race. devils who would really regret the stuff that they had done up to that point after that. Yeah, which would have placed at about 1970. And so white Americans hearing this at the time, they thought that's when, like, the race war was coming, was 1970 or thereabouts. Yeah, and we talked about that before. And, like, I never really understood it.

But this is a big, big reason that white America was like, there's going to be a race war. It's, like, coming. It's inevitable. that was a big part of it. So, yeah, this is, and this wasn't like metaphorical. This is, from what I understand, it's a literal interpretation of where white people came from six thousand years ago. So this was the, this was what Malcolm X was being indoctrinated into. And he was a smart guy.

So he had to submit himself. Like, he had to take parts of his brain and just turn them off. The suspicious part of him as far as, like, what he was being taught had to be turned off. the critical thinking part. As far as anything goes with the religion that he took on, he was able to compartmentalize, turn it off, and throw himself fully into it. And he was, for the first decade, essentially,

that he was a black Muslim, the best thing that ever happened to the nation of Islam by far. Yeah, for sure. That seems like a pretty good place for a break. I agree. All right. We'll be right back, everybody, with more on Malcolm M. Sending a spicy picture to your work chat instead of your significant other?

That's so embarrassing. You know what's not? Debt? Consolidate your debt with a loan from FIG. No hassle, no judgment. Borrow better with FIG. Visit fig.ca. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news.

What's the news, name? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there.

But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes.

I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, for people could call in and say, hey Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel

help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Malcolm X is granted parole in 1952.

He gets out of prison, a completely different person than who entered prison almost seven years earlier. and he was on a mission to to recruit and get as many people he as he could to join the nation of Islam and had a direct sort of go get him tiger from Elijah Muhammad and so as soon as he was paroled he joined temple number one in Detroit he traveled to Chicago to meet Elijah Muhammad in person and he said like I said he said you know go out there and do your thing like he knew he had a sort of a shining star because he was, again, he was tall, he was handsome, he was charismatic, he was super smart, and within a year, there were only about 400 members of the nation of Islam at the time.

Within a year, he brought that to about 1,000, but that would grow to 6,000 by 1955, and then in the early 1960s, about 75,000, up from, you know, 400 when Malcolm X came on the scene. So a lot of that, not all of it, obviously, but a lot of that is really due to him, be in the face, you know, I guess sort of the second face and then ultimately the face of the nation of Islam. Yeah, for sure. His rhetoric, the things he was saying and like you said, the charisma and just how well spoken he was. And the points he makes, it's like, you can be white and he's talking about you being a white devil. Sorry, you. All white people are white devils. He was uncompromising in that, right? It wasn't like, yeah, I mean, some of them are okay. No white people were okay

in this philosophy. And he, in addition to that rhetoric, he also just knew how to work the media and what levers to pull. And he pushed Elijah Muhammad way out of his comfort zone to allow him to do new stuff with the nation of Islam

that helped bring in tons and tons of people. One of the first big ones was a documentary from Mike Wallace, of all people back in 1959, called The Hate That Hate Produced. and it just basically said, look at these guys, but at the same time,

listen to what these guys have to say. And it exposed the world to black Muslims, and it really helped drive up membership. Yeah, for sure. He was not trying to make friends in his job, even within his own community. You know, we talked about him being a hardliner and ascetic, and he said that everyone should practice asceticism.

And, you know, he went to, to Philadelphia at one point in 1955 and said, all right, everyone here needs to get their act together. You need to lose weight even. He had leaders in Philadelphia weighing their members twice a week, and there were penalties if you didn't lose the poundage that he required because he wanted everyone to look a certain way. About a year later, in 1956, he met civil rights activist Betty Sanders when she joined his temple and two years later, when he called her from a gas station phone and proposed, they married in January 1958 and later that year had the first of what would be six daughters. Yeah, all daughters, right?

The whole along the way. Even twins, I think, the last one was born were twin daughters. So yeah, you said that he wasn't really trying to make friends and he didn't care whether he ticked people off. So the old guard, the existing guard of the nation of Islam. who had been around long before Malcolm X came along. They were not happy with this. They didn't not like to be told that they were doughy and had to die it

or else they'd be suspended. But he was attracting people who were very much in line with himself. So very quickly, as he started to build up the roles of the members of Nation of Islam, the philosophy and the viewpoint of that group started to shipped away from the establishment that had been there up to that point to this much more role. radical, much more politically active version of the nation of Islam. That was the Malcolm X brand of Nation of Islam. Yeah, I mean, Elijah Muhammad told him to stay out of politics because he was a complete separatist. He didn't want to be involved in anything that the white America was doing.

But, you know, Malcolm X basically started doing his own thing. One of the big sort of early things he did that ended up being a huge deal was he founded their newspaper. It was, it was, called Muhammad Speaks. And it became a really, it had a pretty wide distribution. And, you know, I remember even growing up seeing on the streets of Atlanta, members of the nation of Islam, I feel like they were giving them away. I don't think they were selling them. But he had pretty firm quotas established for members to give these things out and had a pretty wide circulation. Yeah. He also would do things like debate white people. He did at Oxford. He did at Harvard. on like race relations.

He would take questions from white reporters. All of this stuff was like not what Elijah Muhammad was jiving with, but Malcolm X was getting such results that Elijah Muhammad would just kind of be like, I don't want you doing that. But then when Malcolm went ahead and did it, there wouldn't be any real consequences for it, right? So as he's doing this, is becoming more and more emboldened. And one of the things he sets his sight at Sond Chuck is the, the American, essentially the racial struggle in the United States that was really beginning to

become part of the American preoccupation at the same time in the 50s. It was really, civil rights movement was really starting to take shape. And this, again, this was totally opposite from what you were saying. Elijah Muhammad wanted, which was isolation, separatism, not just from white America, from non-black Muslim black America, too. Like he had no inclination to join the civil rights, Elijah Muhammad, to join the civil rights fight because they weren't black Muslims. So therefore they were essentially lesser versions of black Americans. Yeah, for sure.

You know, part of the complications of Malcolm X is that he had some anti-Semitic views at times. He had some pretty dark views of Jews in America and I guess all over the world, but specifically America. And this was especially sort of a, you know, a thumb in the eye of Jewish people because they were a lot of Jewish people were the white people that were kind of really heavily involved in the civil rights movement. Obviously, there were all kinds of people, but Jewish people were leading the charge for white America and the civil rights movement for the most part. Yeah, that's why they were also really highly critical of the NACP is because they essentially said white people had, they allowed white people to join and the white people had taken over. were now steering the boat. So you could not be white and be joined the nation of Islam. I'm sorry.

They would not let you in. Still won't as far as I know. Yeah, for sure. But the media was loving this. The media loves to pit people against one another. So they had two really clear, like I think you described him as spoils, early on in Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, because it couldn't be any more different,

not only in kind of the way they looked and how they talked and the things they were saying, but their ultimate goals. So, you know, they painted Dr. King as a saint. They painted Malcolm X as a pariah. And the, I don't know if it's irony, but something you can't forget is that, you know, Malcolm X was making some waves, but his reach was nothing compared to what Dr. King was doing.

Dr. King was much more of a threat, if you, you know, is how they would have called it back then to white America and integration than Malcolm X was, because he was a fringe revolutionary at the time. So he was, you know, he was kind of fortunate to be in the newspapers at all, even though, you know, the media was painting them as enemies. And they kind of, you know, enemies is a weird word. They didn't hang out.

Dr. King didn't return calls. He was offered, like, debates for Malcolm X and stuff like that. And he kind of just didn't want anything to do with that brand because he had such a, sort of a good thing going. He had some momentum. Yeah, and he was worried also that, you know, it would scare the white coalition that he'd help build to support the civil rights movement away from the civil rights movement.

If all of a sudden he's like, oh, yeah, and also this guy's philosophy, too, we're going to incorporate the race war. Yeah, he had every reason to stay away from Malcolm X, and frankly, kind of wisely did. But, like you said, this was the media saying, like, you got Malcolm X, you got MLX, you got MLK, And that was, like, both of them kind of fostered that idea because if you had Malcolm X and, you know, you didn't listen to MLK, then we were going to go the Malcolm X way as far as America was concerned in the near future. So we should probably go the way that Martin Luther King is suggesting.

Yeah, you know, reading this stuff, I always was hoping that I would find out that they were secretly in cahoots with one another. doing sort of a good cop, bad cop thing, because they were both well aware of that. And I think they, judging from some of the quotes I've seen, they were both aware that it was helping the cause ultimately. And even Malcolm X, even though that's not what he was after, he knew that there were gains coming on that side because he was so scary to white America.

Exactly, yeah. I think it was kind of like how food companies price fixed. They don't have secret meetings, but they just kind of make signals in the market in public, and that's kind of what they think they were doing. They were working together without actively working together. Yeah, it's like food companies, fixing grocery prices. So, yeah, and I mean, he was like really outspoken about what he thought about Dr. Martin Luther King. He called him a fool and Uncle Tom. He also said that he was subsidized by the white man, that essentially,

again, that white people had taken over the real levers of power with the civil rights movement and that it was completely useless now. But even if that weren't the case, he was such a critic of the civil rights movement because he was basically saying, like, if you're starting a revolution and the revolution's goal is to love your enemy, like, that's ridiculous. That's stupid. Like, that's never going to work. It doesn't even make sense. So what are you doing? Like, all you're doing is distracting and continuing to keep subjugated, the people you're supposedly trying to liberate and integrate. Yeah, he called the March on Washington, the Farse on Washington, Malcolm X did,

and he said, the quote was, whoever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing, we shall overcome, while tripping and swaying along arm and arm with the very people they're supposed to be angrily revolting against. So, you know, I'm not taking sides, but he's making a lot of, a lot of good points at the time. You know, I think the idea that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar is true. But it was, I think they almost needed, there almost needed to be two sides of the same coin happening at the same time. I don't know.

It was pretty interesting how it all worked out. And if you're wondering if the federal government was concerned, they absolutely were. This started in 1950 when Malcolm X was still in prison. He wrote a letter to Harry Truman, who was president, and said, I'm a communist. I'm opposed to the Korean War. And President Truman said, maybe we should get a file going on this guy with the FBI. And they did that a couple of years later. Yeah. He had also captured the attention of the NYPD around that time where there was a protest because the Harlem police had brutalized a member of the nation of Islam. And there was a like just a bunch of people came out on the street and were shouting about it because the guy had. been beaten so badly, a skull been cracked open. And they wouldn't disperse. So Malcolm X was inside, essentially negotiating that the guy should get care and take into the hospital with the police

officials and managed to get them to agree to that. But the crowd was still angry, wouldn't disperse. And the cops were trying. It wasn't very effective. So Malcolm X went outside and apparently didn't say a word, just waved his hand. And the crowd stopped yelling. and just dispersed. And apparently the, I think the police commissioner witnessed this and was like, that's too much power for any one man to have, especially somebody who believes that the black race is going to take over from the white race

and the white race is all devils. Like that scared them tremendously. And it also really caught their attention. It put him on their radar essentially forever. Yeah, for sure. And as far as the FBI goes, he, you know, like I said, they started a file on him, which they also had on Martin Luther King and, you know, John Lennon and everybody else. We've talked about all this stuff. But there was something they found out later from the files was at one point, Jay Edgar Hoover told the New York agency office they needed to do something about Malcolm X. But like you said early on, they had a hard time doing anything because in 1958, an informant said, that Malcolm X was of high moral character. He doesn't smoke. He doesn't drink.

He's always on time for appointments. He's kind of a stand-up guy if you're not listening to what he's saying, white America. Of course, that didn't matter, but they couldn't pin anything on him, essentially. And they even think, and I don't think it's a spoiler to say that he was assassinated, but I feel like everyone knows that. But they even think that the FBI, because they had so many informants inside the nation of Islam, that they knew about the plot to assassinated. fascinate him and just let it happen.

Yeah, I saw that too, and not just the FBI, but also the NYPD. Just let it happen. So just real quick, Chuck, I say we take a break in a second and talk about his break with the nation of Islam, but I just wanted to kind of give a thumbnail sketch of like what he was saying. You can go listen. You should start with maybe the ballot or the bullet. It was a great speech that gets his point across from this era.

But essentially what he was saying is black people have to learn to do. for themselves. Integrating and then saying like, you know, hey, let's all just share from the same pot with white people isn't going to work because white people will always hang it over you. So we have to figure out how to do it ourselves. Using the nation of Islam, that's how you prop somebody up, get them on the right path, put them on the moral path in a way from temptation. And then after that, you teach them black nationalism. So now they feel good about being a black person. And then from that point on, they have the dignity and the motivation to make a, to make a something for themselves as a community.

That was his goal. That's ultimately what he was preaching. That was the kernel of the whole thing. That's right. So we're going to take that break and we're going to come back with the sad end and the split from the nation of Islam right after this.

Renno mishap? That's embarrassing. You know what's not embarrassing? Using FIG for Home Improvement Loan. A quick, simple, and transparent offer in minutes. Borrow Better with FIG. Visit fig.com. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.

And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it.

We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. And, well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers.

This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it.

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Chuck, Malcolm X has become, he's the face of the nation of Islam to the press, to the public. People, like, they know the name Elijah Muhammad.

You might even have seen him speak, but it's way likely that you've seen Malcolm X speak, and that's who you associate is the head. So if you're the protege and you become that, the power kind of shifts like that, the mentor doesn't usually like that kind of thing. Then on top of it, the mentor, Elijah Muhammad, was starting to get on an age. And so the people around Elijah Muhammad, including his blood family, were worried that Malcolm X would actually take over. So there was a lot of reason for there would be jealousy, backbiting core intrigue and get rid of Malcolm X one way or another. And that's essentially what happened.

Yeah, I mean, his kids thought that they were going to be next in line, basically. And, you know, I mentioned the FBI had lots of people on the inside of the nation of Islam. They used those people to kind of stoke that strife internally and, you know, try and disrupt it from within. And we're fairly successful at that because it was not smooth sailing at this point. So, you know, the real fracture comes, you know, all this is sort of leading up to what I think was the real fracture was when Malcolm X finds out about Elijah Muhammad having three children out of wedlock with three very young members of the nation of Islam

and essentially started looking upon him as a false prophet that was just sort of a guy in power that was using that power to Philander and he was like I don't think he's fit to lead the nation of Islam anymore and in 1963 of April of that year he confronted Elijah Muhammad about this

and that was not something that Elijah Muhammad wanted to hear. No, for sure. sure. And now, like, now Malcolm X was a big problem because this is not something that Elijah Muhammad wanted out to the public. It would immediately discredit him. And so do you remember kind of at the beginning I was saying how Malcolm X had to kind of compartmentalize and turn off critical thinking and stuff like that to allow himself to submit to Elijah Muhammad? After this, after he realized that this guy's actually not the real deal, he was able to kind of grow and spread, like one of those

sponge dinosaurs that you put water on and they grow, or a different analogy would be like Apache Chief in the Justice League when he grows like really, really big. Essentially that happened the moment he realized that Elijah Muhammad was a false prophet and he was able to finally grow and become the Malcolm X that he always had the potential to be. He had thrown off the shackles, placed on him,

he'd gotten out from under the thumb of the leader of the nation of Islam, But that also unfortunately meant he had no place in the nation of Islam any longer. Yeah, I think the final nail in the coffin was when Kennedy was assassinated. He got explicit direction from Elijah Muhammad to shut up about it, to not say anything to the press, to just let this pass, because it was such a monumental thing for all of America, certainly for white America. And he was like, we need to stay out of this if we know what's good for us. And Malcolm X did not do that. He went to the reporters, and he said that Kennedy's death was, quote, a case of chickens coming home to roost, end quote.

And Elijah Muhammad was super upset. He said, you're suspended for three months. A month into that, he removed him from most of his leadership roles. And that was the writing was on the wall that that was really the beginning of the final split. Yeah, and just one little aside about that, Chuck. him saying a case of chickens coming home to Roost, there is so much more background and subtext to it and all the stuff he was saying that led up to that. But that's the pull quote, right? That's the thing that you just pull, and it sounds like a pretty awful thing to say, or at least

heartless. But if you go back and read that stuff, you find there's so much more context to the stuff he's quoted for. And like you said, kind of toward the beginning, a lot of it seems pretty reasonable when you listen to the words he's saying. Yeah, for sure. You know, after he was expelled, basically, not formally expelled, but, you know, removed from his formal duties, he went down to stay with Cassius Clay, future Muhammad Ali, at his place in Miami. And he stayed there for a week. He was given him spiritual guidance leading up to his heavyweight bout with Sunny Liston, and he had not cleared this with Elijah Muhammad, and Elijah Muhammad got mad about that as well, and left him off the guest list for a convention

in February where Cassius Clay had his coming out as Muhammad Ali. So that was a very meaningful snub at the time. Yeah, I was disappointed in Muhammad Ali because he was basically like, oh, that sucks, man, sorry, see you. Yeah. So now this is the break. This is the schism. And at this point now, the nation of Islam is doing everything they can to mock and discredit Malcolm X and say that he was a turncoat and a Benedict Arnold and a hypocrite. And Malcolm X just gave it right back. One of the first things he did was to tell the media that Elijah Muhammad had kids out of wedlock with teenage girls that were around him. He said that he had eight kids with six teenage secretaries.

And he just told it to the press. And that was a really big deal. And I think at that point, he realized like he had just taken his life into his own hands. Yeah. So that's all basically sort of early through spring, 1964. Later in 1964, a very important trip happened when he made the Hajj to Mecca. And this was, you know, kind of the final big, life-changing moment for him. he came back a Sunni Islam member

and he had changed his name from Malcolm X to El Hajj Malik al-Shabaaz and I believe even his wife and daughters took the name Shabazz like throughout the rest of their lives as well and while he was there he had a transformation another transformation

kind of like he did in prison but the other way he came full circle and said quote he had encountered pilgrims of all colors from all parts of this earth displaying his spirit of unity and brotherhood like I've never seen before. And he essentially flipped and said, you know what, there are good white people and we can and should work together. And he came

back and started to do that work and really poured himself for the first time into the legit official civil rights movie. Yeah. He told Martin Luther King, like I'm all in, he founded the organization of Afro-American unity. He was trying to essentially teach black Americans about their African heritage, but that at the same time, he had also zoomed in on this idea that he needed to take this struggle for American civil rights to the world, like the UN or the African Congress and basically say, hey, this is the same thing. This is part of the black struggle worldwide. Like, this is part of this global problem. It's not separate. It's not its own thing. So we need to figure, like all these other countries need to get involved too and start pressuring the U.S. to do

about it, which is a pretty clever idea, actually. And it was not something that Martin Luther King was doing at the time from what I understand. Yeah, for sure. They would eventually meet. There was a very famous single meeting with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. It was not something they planned, because it's not like Martin Luther King, Jr. got on board immediately and was like, oh, great, you're joining the movement. Like, I don't think he still really liked him that much. But they literally bumped into each other in the hallway when they were at the Senate, when the Civil Rights Bill was being debated there at the Capitol building. And it was like, oh, it's you. And they took hands. I think he told them in person, I'm throwing myself into the heart of the

civil rights struggle face to face. There was a photographer there, so there's a very famous picture of them together. And then later that year in July 64, that's when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, and it was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. And that was not the end for Malcolm X, though. He thought he was just getting started, very sadly. Yeah. So this was, you said that was May of 1964. Within just a few months, he would be dead. And it's just so sad that he underwent that transformation. And all of a sudden, his potential is really starting to blossom. He turned into like a full butterfly for the first time. And, He's struck down. He, the first thing that happened that kind of just foreshadowed his death was his house was firebombed by, he was quite sure members of the nation of Islam. Apparently, one of the bombs was thrown through a window that would have landed in and on the three of his little girls in their room, but luckily it shattered on the outside of the window and didn't make it through.

But it burned his house essentially down. And this was a house that was owned by the nation of Islam. So they went as far as to accuse him of burning it down because they had evicted him from the house. And so out of spite, he burned it down, which was obviously not true. Yeah, which is full circle because I don't think we mentioned that when their house was burned down when he was little kid, they actually accused his dad, Earl, of burning his own house down. So the same thing happened all those years later. That was on February 14th, 1965.

On February 18th, they formally evicted him. And then on February 21st, he was murdered. He was shot and killed in front of his, in front of Betty, in front of the girls. I think there were four girls at the time because Betty was pregnant with the twins that would be born after his death. And this was in Harlem at an organization of Afro-American unity meeting. And they arrested three members of the nation of Islam. one confessed and said the other two weren't involved, but all three were convicted, even though later on, I think in 2021, the other two were exonerated after the Attorney General of New York

saw that they had buried some exculpatory evidence, you know, back when it happened. Right. So you were talking about how the FBI let it happen. The NYPD apparently helped pave the way by arresting a couple of his bodyguards on BS charges. So he was short security on the that day. And at his funeral, like, he had made quite a name for himself. I think 1,500 people showed up, which is a pretty good turnout for your funeral. And Ossey Davis, who was very much in with the Martin Luther King version of the Civil Rights Movement, he led Malcolm X's funeral because he was just that moved by him, even though he didn't see eye-at-eye on a bunch of stuff like he realized what a loss this was for the black community and the world yeah for sure uh you know

i mentioned that the twins that were born after he died um they you know obviously grew up without their dad and the other girls weren't that much older um and they always just knew him as dad he you know i think the ones that were um kind of didn't even know him at all they weren't raised uh by betty as um like hey your dad was a revolutionary he was this or that apparently they learned about him mainly in school because betty always wanted him just to be dad and my husband um and so they were you know they went on to do a lot of great things as well we we should probably do one on betty shabazz at some point she was a great woman and uh his daughters all you know became activists in their own way as well um so yeah i kind of mentioned like

how just sad this is that he was struck down especially at the time he was struck down But if you look back at like the time frame of all this stuff, this guy changed the world or left such an indelible mark that people are still learning from him all these years later over essentially the course of 10 years. That was about the timeline that we're talking about from when he took up the Nation of Islam's teachings to when he was assassinated by the Nation of Islam. It was just about a decade. And that's how much of an impact that he made over just. just that time. Yeah, there was a pretty great quote that, who is this? Was this Julia that helped us with this?

Yeah, Julia helped us big time. Yeah, she found a great quote from poet Maya Angelou who Malcolm X visited at her home in Ghana at one point and basically kind of summarizing what guts it took to make that transformation in full public view after being so public and militant. She said that it takes an incredible amount of courage to be able to. able to say, say everybody, you remember what I said yesterday? Well, I found out that's wrong. And she just thought that was an amazing thing to be able to do. And it really was. You know, not a lot of people can can own up to kind of being on what they thought later was the

wrong path, you know? Yeah, it is remarkable. So you can go read the autobiography of Malcolm X. Also, I've seen that Malcolm X speaks is a really great book. I think it's his collected speeches. There's the Spikely movie. There's Make It Plain, the PBS documentary. And then there's just tons of, like, his speeches are just all over YouTube. So if you're interested in this at all, like, there's a lot you can still learn from Malcolm X, even with him being dead all these years. Yeah, I can't recommend the book and the movie enough.

The book sold 400,000 copies the year it was released in 1967. and it sold $5 million to date. And the movie was a big kit, too. It grows close to $50 million, which is not bad for a long, you know, true story, biopic, like, you know, with political overtones. I had a couple of Academy Award nominees, certainly Denzel, because he was amazing, as always. And the great Ruth E. Carter for costume design,

even though neither one would win. It was fairly controversial when Al Pacino won for scent of a woman over For Denzel. Yeah, it was, people thought it was a pretty big snub, including Spike Lee. He thought it was due to the controversy of the film, obviously, in the character. And he also thought it was a bit of a makeup call for Pacino losing so many times. So he would get some due, though, later in 2010 when the film was added to the National Film Registry as being culturally, historically, historically, or aesthetically significant. Beautiful.

That's a great ending, Charles. You got anything else? That's it. Well, that's it for Malcolm X. Chuck just said that's it. So obviously, everybody, it's time for a listener mail. Yeah, this one's a little long, but it's one of the great emails we've gotten. Okay.

Because after we did our, what I think was a really fun episode on the Fire Festival debacle. Yes. We heard, you know, in that we talked about the Magnusus credit card. and we heard from an actual holder of that credit card, which was great. Did you see this? No, I haven't seen that yet. It's pretty fantastic. So, hey guys, hearing you talk about this credit card brought me back to some very special memories of my early days in New York. When I first moved there in 2014, I stumbled upon the Magnusus

and thought it sounded like the perfect way to meet new people since I was new there and access the cool and exclusive parties and parts of the city. So I applied and was surprised to be accepted as a member. I quickly found myself at fun rooftop parties with open bars, great tickets to shows and sports games, and snagging reservations for restaurants that were impossible to book, all of which seemed to be too good to be true for the $250 annual fee, which should have been my first clue that something was wrong. The first real crack came when I took advantage of an offer to get floor seats to a Beyonce concert for only $200 and had to obtain the tickets by meeting a, quote, Magnusisus Concierge in the parking lot outside of the venue. The tickets I got felt like they had just been bought from a scalper, and they probably were, but it did work out and it was a great show. Not long after, I had will-call tickets to an NBA game through a, quote, partnership

they had with the team. When my friends and I showed up to grab the seats, no one behind the ticket counter had ever heard of Magnusus. That was the moment I started asking questions, and when I reached out about the issue and about canceling my membership, they actually refunded it almost immediately. In fact, they refunded my fee so quickly. it was almost alarming, like they were hoping I'd just quietly go away.

Thankfully, I managed to exit the whole thing before the House of Cards came crashing down, so hearing you guys explain how the whole thing worked was fascinating and weirdly nostalgic. Despite the sketchiness at the end, I actually do have some pretty fun memories. From that brief period, when it felt like I had unlocked some secret VIP version of New York City. I look forward to your next stop at the Bell House, and that is from Kevin. Kevin, that really was one of the all-time best emails we've gotten. Yeah, I was hoping a Magnususus member would write in and we got it. Look at you.

You should be playing the lotto. I probably should. Thanks a lot, Kevin. If you want to be like Kevin and send us one of our all-time great emails, we always love those. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. Nice. We invented a podcast?

Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We get to ask other people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen.

and we don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Canada. We're coming to see you guys. For the first time in a while, we're going to be back this June and this July.

That's right. We're going to places we've been before like Toronto and Vancouver, but we're also adding a lot of new places on the list, and we're super excited. Yeah, like Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Winnipeg. And we're going to be there starting June 25th, 26th, and 27th. We're going to take a little break, recover from the giant party that our stuff you should know shows. And then hit it again on July 23rd, 24th, and 25th. And if you want to find out what date aligns with your city, you can just go to Stuff You Should Know.com, click on the tour button, and that'll give you all the important deeds.

This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.