A former associate and Lincoln U. grad shares memories of Malcolm X

Seven years after he earned his bachelor's degree from Lincoln University, the former James Monroe King Warden stood backstage at the Audubon Ballroom.

It was Feb. 21, 1965, and the self-described "Man Friday" for Malcolm X was counting receipts when he heard the boom of a shotgun.

Warden, now Abdullah H. Abdur-Razzaq, froze. Then he ran toward the chaos.

"I saw Malcolm lying there, and I saw the life go out of his body," Abdur-Razzaq said. "He turned white, and that was that."

Malcolm X scholars call Abdur-Razzaq, 81, of Brooklyn, "tremendously important" in chronicling Malcolm's life. A top lieutenant to the controversial leader, Abdur-Razzaq will discuss his relationship with the man he called "Brother Minister" during a visit this week to his alma mater in Chester County.

Abdur-Razzaq will talk with students, attend classes, and participate in two public forums during his four-day visit to the university, his first since he delivered a lecture several months after Malcolm X's assassination.

"It's not going to be easy. I'm going to have to do a lot of thinking," Abdur-Razzaq said.

He likely knows more than anyone else still alive about the period between Malcolm's departure from the Nation of Islam and his assassination, said Russell Rickford, an assistant professor of history at Dartmouth College. Rickford was a researcher for Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by the late Manning Marable that has been both praised and condemned.

Abdur-Razzaq, who talked extensively with Marable, is critical of the book, saying it is full of errors and conjecture.

Rickford acknowledges the book has shortcomings, but he says parts are "amazing." He describes Abdur-Razzaq as a learned and urbane man, a cosmopolitan figure with street credibility.

"He's a fascinating reflection of all these different political and social currents that Malcolm is part of," Rickford said.

It was at Lincoln, Abdur-Razzaq says, that he began a pivotal part of his evolution into the man who would become Malcolm's trusted lieutenant.

He attended the historically black institution in the early 1950s.

"It broadened my horizons," said Abdur-Razzaq, who grew up poor in New York. "I found out there were people who looked like me in places like Kansas. I was exposed to the middle class, doctors' and lawyers' sons, guys who played tennis and canasta."

He left school to join the Army and finished his degree after he was discharged. Back home in New York, he went to hear Malcolm X on the advice of a friend.

"I was bowled over," said Abdur-Razzaq, who eventually joined the Nation of Islam.

He changed his name to James 67X and later to Abdur-Razzaq.

"Malcolm took a liking to me," Abdur-Razzaq said. "He saw something in me." And Abdur-Razzaq saw something in Malcolm X, an affirming and self-reliant philosophy of blackness and an intellect that dwarfed his own.

Abdur-Razzaq served in the FOI, the Nation of Islam's security force, and as a circulation director of the group's newspaper, Muhammad Speaks.

In 1964, he facilitated the famed handshake between the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X at their only meeting, on the steps of the Capitol in Washington. He says he placed the men's hands in each other's grasps after Malcolm X expressed a desire to shake King's hand.

"I felt like I am the only man in the world to hold Dr. King and Malcolm's hand simultaneously because that is the only time they ever met," Abdur-Razzaq said.

Later, he witnessed Malcolm's break with the Nation of Islam and heard talk that he had been targeted.

"I said, 'Be careful. They are talking about killing you,' " Abdur-Razzaq said.

Malcolm X responded: "Nobody is going to kill me. I'm not a Sunday Muslim. I put 12 years into that organization,' " Abdur-Razzaq said.

Within days, Malcolm X was dead.

Abdur-Razzaq felt lost.

He spoke at Lincoln after the murder, but soon decided to go underground, fearing for his safety.

Abdur-Razzaq, who is married and has 11 children, eventually moved to Guyana, where he worked as a farmer. He returned in 1988 and entered nursing school. He worked as a nurse until retiring in 2004.

Since then, he has served a consultant to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, which in 2003 acquired papers, speeches, and documents that had belonged to Malcolm X.

During his Lincoln visit, Abdur-Razzaq will reflect on his life and his commitment to the "Brother Minister" he later called "Brother Malcolm."

"I felt that through Malcolm, the so-called Negro in America might see his day in the sun," Abdur-Razzaq said. And if not me, my children would surely know what it meant to be free."