[Alex] Haley's objective was quite different. Haley was a republican. He was an integrationist. He was very opposed to black nationalism.

Malcolm X had a habit of scribbling notes in small pieces of paper that [Alex] Haley would surreptitiously pick up at the end of their discussions.

Over a period of about year-and-a-half, Malcolm X and [Alex] Haley agreed to work with each other. They met usually after a long business day that Malcolm put in very tired. He would get there at about - either at Haley's apartment or they would meet at then Idyllwild Airport at a hotel, and Malcolm would be debriefed by Haley. He would talk, Haley would take notes.

[Alex Haley] objective was to illustrate that the racial separatism of the N.O.I. was a kind of pathological or a kind of - it was the logical culmination of separatism and racial isolationism and exclusion.

[Alex] Haley felt he could make a solid case in favor of racial integration by showing what was - to white America - what was the consequence of their support for racial separatism that would end up producing a kind of hate, the hate that hate produced, to use the phrase that Mike Wallace used in his 1959 documentary on the Nation of Islam.

The guards didn't carry weapons. Malcolm X had insisted that the guards not carry firearms that day [February 21, 1965].

Malcolm X is a person who has inspired - he has been the muse of several generations of black cultural workers, artists, poets, playwrights.