Non-Muslim Negroes used to scoff when Elijah wrote and talked about “knowledge of self.” They are less apt to scoff now that a new wave of race pride has engulfed the Negro and a coterie of clean-cut, well-dressed, polite, and chillingly moral Black Muslim ex-convicts parade through the Negro community each day. The same general approach, teaching race pride as knowledge of “self,” accounts for the success the Black Muslims have among low-income Negroes. For these people are in something of a prison, too; they see themselves as failures and need some accounting for why they are what they are, why they are not what they are not. These needs are met when the wayward and the downtrodden sit at the feet of Malcolm X and hear him proclaim the divinity of the black man, hear him blame the white man for sin and lawlessness and then go on to herald the impending destruction of the “blue-eyed white devil.” _Bean Pie and Beatitudes_ The life of the Black Muslim centers around his temple--sometimes called a mosque--and the temple restaurant. They are usually located close together, in the heart of the Negro ghetto, and are the nerve centers of work and worship. Temple services are held two or three times a week and are generally preceded by family and group meals at the restaurant. Families--most of them former Methodists and Baptists--come in groups, the men dressed in black, the women in flowing white, and the children wearing pins or buttons to let the world know of their commitment to The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. The restaurants--like the Black Muslim homes--strictly adhere to Moslem dietary laws. Muslim sisters glory in their ability to prepare dishes that satisfy the traditional eating habits of the American Negro without violating these laws. The best example of imaginative Black Muslim cooking is their famous bean pie, something of a gourmet’s delight in the Negro community. Negroes in New York have been known to come to Harlem from miles around just to buy a bean pie for the family table. The restaurants also serve as business headquarters for the movement; they are the distribution centers for Black Muslim newspapers and other periodicals, the place where one is invited to have a talk with a Black Muslim leader. Temple Number Seven Restaurant at 116th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem is where Minister Malcolm X holds forth: he can be seen there almost any time conducting the financial affairs of the movement and holding press conferences. Then, on a sign from one of his assistants, Malcolm bounds out of the restaurant to conduct temple service at Temple Number Seven, half a block away.