AP FILE: A letter written by Malcolm X after his pilgrimage to Mecca is expected to fetch $1.25 million.
A handwritten, six-page letter by activist Malcolm X written just after his famed pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 was discovered in a storage locker and is going up for sale for $1.25 million.
The letter — on stationery imprinted with Arabic writing and illustrations of historic sites — reads: “I have just completed my pilgrimage (Hajj) here to the Holy City of Mecca . . . which is absolutely forbidden for non-Muslims to even rest their eyes upon. I very much doubt that 10 American citizens have ever visited Mecca, and I do believe that I might be the first American-born Negro to make the actual Hajj itself.”
“If white Americans could accept the religion of Islam . . . they, too, could then sincerely accept the Oneness of Men . . ."
Recounting his experiences meeting “Muslims here of all colors and from every part of this earth,” Malcolm, who was assassinated in 1965, wrote that if Americans converted to Islam, it would stop racism.
“If white Americans could accept the religion of Islam . . . they, too, could then sincerely accept the Oneness of Men, and cease to measure others always in terms of their ‘difference in color,’ ” he wrote. “And with racism now plaguing America like an incurable cancer, all thinking Americans should be more respective to Islam as an already proven solution to the race problem.”
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