“You can never clean yourself up as long as you have hog in your body.” “Make it plain; make it plain.” “Then you must clean yourself up morally.” “That’s right, Brother Minister, that’s right.” “This white devil is responsible for all the dope and prostitution you see here among us.” “That’s right.” “He has filled us with his immorality.” “All praise due to Allah.” “He has so confused us that our community is filled with addicts, thieves, and prostitutes.” “That’s right.” “And you will notice,” Malcolm continues, “that these are Christians who are dealing in dope and prostitution. “And you and I know this is true because when we were Christians we used dope.” “Yes.” “We lied.” “Yes.” “We stole.” “Yes.” “We were unfaithful to our wives.” “Yes.” “We did everything antisocial and immoral.” “That’s right.” “But now that we know who God is, now that we have found Allah--our original true God--now that we have learned love and respect for self, now that all this has happened, we have cleaned ourselves up.” “All praises due to Allah.” “We love our own black women.” “Yes.” “We protect our women and children from the devil and his works.” “Yes.” “And we have stopped turning the other cheek!” “Yes.” “We respect authority, but we are ready to fight and die in defense of our lives.” “All praises due to Allah!” Broadsides at Christianity delivered by Malcolm X and other ministers seem to make the strongest impression on the audience. The minister explains that the Negro was introduced to Christianity while a slave, a bondsman to the man who taught him about Jesus. Employing any history text, he reads at length, using “the white man’s own writings to show that Christianity is a white man’s religion.” This strikes home, because the average Negro has read enough to know that there is a good deal of historical soundness in what the minister says. Then the minister goes on to point out that the Christian church (and they quote Adam Clayton Powell on this) “is the most segregated institution in America.” And the Negro does not need a history book to know that this statement has total validity. Then the minister goes on to attack Christianity on the grounds that its practitioners are immoral. He calls the roll of criminals and public failures, making much of the fact that they are “all Christians.” The minister uses clippings from the newspapers showing white clergymen and church-goers either sanctioning segregation or being neutral about it. During the Birmingham crisis I attended the Black Muslim service and saw Minister James X deliver a devastating indictment of Christianity simply by showing pictures of Birmingham Negroes being turned away from white churches. One picture showed the rebuffed Negroes praying on the church steps while white bullies, their fists balled up, stood near-by.