Leonard Greene: Elijah Muhammad road naming debate was lacking a key ingredient — Malcolm X

In a metropolis the place statues and colleges have been named after one-time pimps, slave homeowners and wagers of conflict, it’s not in any respect stunning {that a} road may very well be named for a person who known as white individuals “blue-eyed devils.”

No effort to honor Elijah Muhammad, the fiery and controversial Nation of Islam chief, goes to occur in New York Metropolis or wherever with out some spirited debate.

To opponents, he was a hate-filled separatist whose gentle spoken speech belied the damaging ramblings of a cult-leading demagogue.

To supporters, Muhammad was an necessary, disciplined chief whose message of Black pleasure and financial self sufficiency continues to encourage.

Each arguments had been on show final week at Metropolis Corridor the place metropolis council members authorized a movement to call a Harlem block in honor of Muhammad, who died in 1975 on the age of 77.

The bid to call the intersection of W. 127th St. and Malcolm X Blvd. as “The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad Manner” was probably the most contentious ingredient of a Council invoice drawn as much as tag honorary names on 129 public areas within the metropolis.

“You’re all proper with Washington Ave., Jefferson St.,” Councilman Charles Barron, a former member of the Black Panther Social gathering, stated, referencing streets named for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, two slaveholders. “You stated nothing.

“However when it got here to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, there was some resistance. However I’m glad that this physique didn’t enable for that contradiction of resistance to happen.”

However no debate on the topic is full with no dialogue concerning the advanced and contentious relationship between Muhammad and Malcolm X.

There isn’t any proof that Muhammad ordered the hit on Malcolm X after the 2 leaders fell out with one another.

However Muhammad — together with Louis Farrakhan — helped set the tone, which can have been sufficient of a purpose to press pause on the concept to rename a road nook in honor of Muhammad on a boulevard already named for Malcolm X.

The Nation of Islam was definitely Muhammad’s group. However Harlem was Malcolm X’s turf. He died in close by Washington Heights in a bail of bullets that had been sufficient to kill 10 males.

And whereas many have advanced sufficient to squash no matter beef existed between the 2 factions almost 60 years in the past, many haven’t.

Malcolm X’s assassination on the stage of Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965 robbed the nation and the world of an necessary chief who, at 39, was simply starting to search out his true voice.

It’s true that with out Elijah Muhammad there would have by no means been a Malcolm X. Malcolm was a hustler, a pimp and a awful stickup artist who adopted Muhammad’s teachings whereas nonetheless in jail.

Muhammad, in the meantime, was a longtime saver of souls, however his ministry would by no means have had the attain that it did with out his most charismatic pupil.

“The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is instructing the black man, you’re a human man,” Malcolm X stated of his trainer earlier than the break up.

“All you must do is dignify your self. You don’t have to attend for any white man to acknowledge you. Acknowledge your self. Love one another. Apply concord and brotherhood amongst your personal form.”

One thing went fallacious. And whereas many Nation of Islam members wish to characterize it as an inner dispute, it spilled out on the streets of New York Metropolis and affected the globe.

That’s not to say that Elijah Muhammad doesn’t deserve a road named in his honor. He does.

Neither is it to say that the road shouldn’t be in Harlem. It must be.

However there are many streets and cross streets in Harlem.

And earlier than anybody made plans to have somebody climb a ladder and take one of many outdated indicators down from Malcolm X Blvd, it might need been useful for the town council to get enter from one among Malcolm X’s daughters or another person in his household.

That may have honored them each.