![]() ![]() This countered the staggering amount of babies born out of wedlock in the African-American milieu, something which Betty, who had been one herself, understood. Instead, the couple stepped out with group dates consisting of dozens of others. Malcolm X and Betty X did not have a conventional courtship as one-on-one fraternizing between the sexes went against the teachings of their Temple. In accordance with the precept of the Temple, just as Malcolm Little had become Malcolm X Betty Dean Saunders became Betty X, a nod to its teachings that blacks had their identities stolen by slave-owners. Two years later, to the Malloys’ horror, she was a convert to the Nation of Islam. She began to attend all of Malcolm’s lectures which led her friends and family to question whether her interest lay in the religion or in its minister. He got to the podium-and I sat up straight. She recalled the first time she saw him: He was tall, he was thin, and the way he was galloping it looked as though he was going someplace much more important than the podium. While the food is what drew her in it was on that second night Betty met the man who irrevocably altered her destiny. He’s very disciplined, he’s good-looking, and all the sisters want him.” As a devout Methodist, Betty had no interest in a meeting however, as the food was sumptuous she agreed to return. I’d never tasted food like that.” Her friend told her about the charismatic minister who was not present that evening, “Just wait until you hear my Minister talk. She later recalled of the cuisine, “The food was delicious. Sanders was invited to a Friday night dinner party at the Nation of Islam Temple in Harlem, an evening whose echo would follow her all the days of her life. ![]() Sanders felt she had merely exchanged Jim Crow laws for a more genteel prejudice. Discrimination proved to be a moveable feast when she discovered African-American nurses were given worse assignments than their Caucasian counterparts. When she complained to the Malloys, their mantra remained, “If you’re just quiet it will go away.” When it did not she relocated to Brooklyn where she changed her career path to nursing. The whites spoke of the “uppity Niggers at the Institute” while fellow students referred to their oppressors as having necks of red. In the confines of campus she could avoid prejudice but in Montgomery she was caught in its tsunami. Post graduation Saunders’ left Detroit to pursue a teaching degree from the black Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, Lorenzo’s alma mater. If you understood that week, you understood my life.” However, it was Betty’s fate to live, (as the Chinese curse states,) in interesting times. She described her metronome teenage years, “Pick a week out of my life. The riot which occurred during her childhood when the Sojourner Truth Housing Project was desegregated comprised what she would term the “psychological background for my formative years.” Nevertheless, her sheltered home kept bigotry at bay her life consisted of attendance at the local Methodist church, movies and social activities. Anyone who openly discussed race relations was quickly viewed as a ‘trouble maker.’” Betty later recalled, “Race relations were not discussed and it was hoped that by denying the existence of race problems, the problems would go away. They adopted the stance of the proverbial three monkeys though hearing, seeing and speaking no evil did not have the desired effect on their foster daughter. Although they provided Betty with a nurturing environment, they never prepared her for the hostile one which existed in her 1940s racially charged city. The young mother failed to give her daughter a birth-certificate or anything remotely resembling stability, and when Betty was nine years old she moved in with her foster parents Lorenzo and Helen Malloy in Detroit. Although it involved unimaginable heartache, she later remarked of her marriage to Malcolm X, “It was hectic, beautiful and unforgettable-the greatest thing in my life.”īetty Dean Saunders was the illegitimate offspring of twenty-one year old Shelman Sandlin who went MIA before her 1934 birth and the teenaged Ollie Mae Sanders. Initially because of delicious food a woman embarked on a drama filled path that rivaled an ancient Greek tragedy. ![]()
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