Once upon a time all god had to do was promise man life after death, an eternal remission for the sins man committed on earth while trying to sing a hymn in a strange land. But the gods can no longer get away with such shoddy realism; men want to eat good food, sleep without being awakened by nibbling rats, work at jobs commensurate with their abilities, live where their earning power allows them, and use all facilities paid for out of public funds. “We don’t want to eat a hot dog in this store,” Jeremiah X said to me as we watched scores of Birmingham youngsters stage sit-ins; “we want the store and the ground on which it sits.” This is the dilemma the Black Muslims now face: They must eschew everything tinged by “integration,” yet they must seek acceptance among the black masses who are risking their all--particularly in the South--for the sake of fuller involvement in the American mainstream. The Muslims’ reply, of course, is the separate state, a place where all American black men will live, have their own government, readopt Arabic, reaccept Allah, and ready themselves for the hour when the “word” will be given and Armageddon will proceed. The tragedy of this is that Black Muslim leaders, including Elijah Muhammad, have said they know such a state will never come into being. This admission by them relieves me of the need to discuss the impracticality of the proposal. Rather, I am engaged by the fact that the Black Muslims continue to urge Negroes to back the demands for such a state rather than act to better their plight in the nation as it now is. Their promise of a separate state, like the chariot that was scheduled to swing low and take us home a century ago, is but another of the mirages that has kept the American Negro from digging water in the land that is his and under his feet. Black Muslims are forbidden to vote; thus they cannot help us overcome such men as Eastland and Talmadge. They are against all forms of integration; thus they cannot help us in the fight for better jobs, schools, and housing. The Negro masses are beginning to indict the Black Muslims for impotence; they talk but cannot act; they criticize but cannot correct. Thus the Black Muslims are running the risk of becoming just another sect, an offbeat faith that expiates destiny by the shouting of voices, the stomping of feet, and the banging of tambourines. Their early promise of becoming a meaningful new faith has been made pallid by their lack of an activated social gospel. To put it bluntly, the Black Muslims are flirting with the same doom that overtook Christianity. As the interview in Part Two shows, I have questioned Malcolm X in depth about this. He is adamant, his voice has the ring of finality. In substance, his position is this: