Dialogue between Malcolm X and Ali

ALI: Hey, brother. I was leaving.

MALCOLM X: I saw your light on. What you doing up at this hour, champ?

ALI: Oh, man, I'm watching this program on termites and them little itsy-bitsy things is eatin' these people's whole house down. Oh, man, look.

MALCOLM X: I've been invited to speak at Ibadan University in Nigeria. You wanna go with me?

ALI: Hey, look, man. You can have six million termites in your house and don't even know it 'till you going to get something to eat and you bust through the floor. *pause, then looks over to Malcolm* What'd you say? Where?

MALCOLM X: Africa. You been?

ALI: Africa. All right, come on. Let's go.

*pause, Malcolm stares outside the window*

ALI: What is it?

MALCOLM X: You ever thought you'd lose it?

ALI: I mean, really lose it? When I was little, I tore out this picture of Emmett Till. They put the barbed wire around his neck and strapped him to that pound cotton gin fan. And they cut out one of his eyes 'cause he looked at some white lady. Man. I couldn't take my eyes off it, couldn't throw it away.

MALCOLM X: When I heard about those four little girls who got bombed in that Birmingham church... The prohibitions of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad prevented me from speaking my thoughts in action because Birmingham was part of the civil rights struggle. You know, begging for our place at the white man's table but dead children are dead children. So the anger I felt I had to contain, I locked it up so tight, my muscles seized. I lost control over the right side of my body, my leg gave out, right arm gave out. "I'm having a stroke," I thought. But I had to hold it in 'cause all I wanted-- Brother, all I wanted to do was find something and break it. Break a part-- Break any part of this system, because you are so provoked in your heart and your spirit as a human being... at dead children. And I could do nothing. Everyone knows I can't do nothing anymore. So Elijah Muhammad has suspended me as a minister in the Nation of Islam.

ALI: Man... You can fix that?

MALCOLM X: I don't know. I'll try when we get back. You get some rest, champ.

ALI: All right, brother.