The Black Muslims have little or no liturgy. They do not sing in the temple, for they have not yet developed hymns that enunciate their faith. The nearest thing I have heard to a Black Muslim hymn is a plaintive and moving song written by Minister Louis X of Boston, “The White Man’s Heaven Is the Black Man’s Hell.” It is often sung in the temples, but only as a solo by some gifted member of the congregation.
Many of the Black Muslims are excellent musicians; indeed, they are sidemen for some of the best-known jazz groups in the nation. I have been in temple meetings where a group of brothers set the stage for the service by playing a protracted jazz riff. The music was as complex and as far out as anything you would hear at New York’s Five Spot Café or any other den of progressive jazz. As these accomplished jazz men play out their frustrations, the audience sits in cold silence. Sometimes the musicians come on a beat or a shading that strikes some common chord, and the Muslims smile slightly and nod at one another. When the music is done—it goes on and on until it runs down, just as it does in the jazz clubs—the congregation applauds, and somewhere a male voice can be heard to say, “All praise due to Allah!”
Then the stage is set for the “teaching.” In lieu of the cross, the focus of the Black Muslims’ religious service is a huge blackboard divided into two sections. On one side is a drawing of the American flag with the Christian cross superimposed on it. Under this flag is written, “Slavery, Suffering and Death.” On the other side of the blackboard is the half-crescent symbol of Islam, and under it is written, “Freedom, Justice and Equality.” Under both flags, running the full length of the blackboard, is the somber warning: “Which one will survive the War of Armageddon?”
And it is against this backdrop that the minister gets up to “teach.” Each temple has its own minister, who is extremely well trained in what he is to say and do. And he does it well.
The Black Muslims have but one message: The white man is by nature evil, a snake who is incapable of doing right, a devil who is soon to be destroyed. Therefore, the black man, who is by nature divine and good, must separate from the white man as soon as possible, lest he share the white man’s hour of total destruction.
This sermon, or “teaching,” is the high point of the service, what everybody has come to hear. An air of expectancy runs through the crowd as the moment to begin the teaching approaches. This is stock drama for the Black Muslims whether the meeting be a national affair where Elijah himself is to speak or a local meeting where the temple minister is to teach.
This air of expectancy is set stirring by the second-in-command, who keeps up a running promise that something good is about to happen. As warm-up man for Elijah’s Washington, D.C., speech, Malcolm X electrified a crowd of some five thousand in Uline Arena with this:
“You are here to get some good news.”
“Make it plain.”
“But you must remember that what is good news for some is bound to be bad news for others.”