Malcolm X, Kin Escape Bombs

Feb. 14, 1965 - Black Nationalist leader Malcolm X, who has charged in the past that the Black Muslims from whom he defected last year are trying to kill him, escaped without injury with his wife and four daughters today when a firebomb was hurled into the Queens home he occupies but which the Black Muslims claim to own.

Malcolm X, 39, his wife, Betty, 37, and the children were asleep in the six-room brick-and-wood-frame house at 23-11 97th St., Elmhurst, when they said they were awakened at about 2:35 a.m. by “strange sounds” outside. A few minutes later, the house was in flames, and they escaped in nightclothes with their daughters through a rear door.

Police said a single Molotov cocktail — gasoline in a bottle — was hurled through a living room window of the house, and fragments of a second bomb were found near the rear exit. The living room was badly damaged by fire, smoke, and water by the time firemen had the blaze under control at 3:15 a.m. Malcolm X, whose name was Malcolm Little before he dropped the “slave” surname, said he could give no estimate of the damage, but fireman said it was “considerable.” They said the alarm was turned in by a passing taxi driver.

A civil court order issued Sept. 2 gave Malcolm X until Jan. 31 to get out of the Elmhurst house. The order was issued when Elijah Muhammad, head of the Black Muslim movement, claimed the house belonged to the sect and that Malcolm X could live in it only as long as he was a member. Malcolm X claims legal title to the house, however, and the case is still being argued in the courts.

Since last March, when he broke with the Nation of Islam and set up his own sect, Malcolm X has charged that Muhammad’s group wants him killed. Last December, 20 Black Muslims broke into a Haryou meeting in Harlem, but Haryou (for Harlem Youth) officials hid Malcolm X in a locked office until police arrived at the scene. He has maintained a Harlem headquarters in the Hotel Theresa at 2090 Seventh Ave. since breaking with the Black Muslims.

Asked who might have hurled the Molotov cocktails at his home, Malcolm X laughed and said: “It could have been done by any one of many. I’m not surprised that it was done, and it doesn’t frighten me — and it won’t shut me up. I intend to point out to the people of New York who I think is behind this and what will develop from it if something is not done about it.”

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