Background

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, and was the son of Earl Little, a Baptistminister and organizer for Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, and Louise Little. When his mother was pregnant with him, Ku Klux Klan riders, brandishing shotguns and rifles, galloped up to the family home looking for his father.

In 1929, the family moved to East Lansing, Michigan, where the Reverend Little was subjected to threats from a local white group known as the Black Legion, who objected to his desire to start a store and to the Garvey philosophy that he advocated.

In 1929, local racists burned down the Little home, forcing the family to move to the outskirts of town. Two years later Malcolm's father was found murdered.

Several years later, the state welfare agency, over the opposition of Louise Little, placed her children in state institutions and boarding homes because of the family's destitution.

She subsequently suffered a mental breakdown, and the court placed her in the state mental hospital at Kalamazoo, where she remained for the next twenty-six years. The mistreatment of his parents, especially his mother, became a source of bitterness to Malcolm Little.

Louise Little and her children were casualties of a welfare system that made meager efforts to keep impoverished black families together. Malcolm was subsequently placed in a foster home and then in a detention home in Mason, Michigan, for having placed a tack on his teacher's chair.

Education

While at the detention home, Malcolm X made an excellent record at the Mason Junior High School and was elected seventh-grade class president. But his accomplishment only temporarily obscured the racism of this relatively liberal environment. The husband and wife team that ran the detention home often referred to blacks as "niggers. "

Malcolm's history teacher taught a stereotypic American history replete with happy, ignorant, and lazy slaves and freedmen. His English teacher advised him to take up carpentry, although he was an outstanding student and wished to become a lawyer.

Malcolm grew withdrawn, and following placement in another foster home his official custody was transferred to Boston, where he lived with his half sister after dropping out of the eighth grade.

Career

Malcolm X obtained jobs with a dining-car crew on trains traveling to New York City and as a waiter in a Harlem nightclub. In New York City, Little began selling and using narcotics, gambling, and steering whites looking for sex in Harlem to the correct locales. During World War II, he parlayed his zoot-suit, street-hustler image and the fears of the white psychiatrist at the induction center into a draft exemption.

In 1946, after returning to Boston, he was arrested for burglary and sentenced to ten years in prison. In the summer of 1953, Malcolm X was appointed assistant minister of Detroit's Temple Number One. His effectiveness as an organizer of temples in Boston and Philadelphia and his oratorical skill led to his appointment as minister of Harlem's important Temple Number Seven in June 1954.

From this point, the rise of the Black Muslim movement reflects the rise in popularity of Malcolm X. As the Nation of Islam grew rapidly in the black ghettos it attracted increasing coverage by both the black and white media. Malcolm's column for the Amsterdam News was later transferred to the Los Angeles Herald Dispatch when Elijah Muhammad began to write a column for the Amsterdam News.

In 1961, Malcolm founded Muhammad Speaks, the official organ of the movement. The appearance of a television documentary on the Nation of Islam, "The Hate That Hate Produced, " on the Mike Wallace show in July 1959 further brought the movement to national attention, although many Muslims considered the documentary slanted. In April 1964, he left for Mecca. On his trip, he met with important Arab officials and Islamic scholars, who told him that their religion did not make racial distinctions or subscribe to the Yacub demonology taught by the Nation of Islam.

In Mecca and throughout the Middle East, he met white Islamic practitioners who appeared to be without racial prejudice. After leaving Mecca, Malcolm visited Beirut, Cairo, Chana, and Nigeria. He subsequently formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity (June 1964) to be modeled on the Organization of African Unity (OAU). He hoped to unify Afro-Americans previously divided in philosophy and tactics and envisioned the possibility of cooperation with progressive white organizations. During the summer of 1964, Malcolm returned to Africa and was accorded observer status at the heads of states summit conference of the OAU.

His willingness to put aside past acrimony with black leaders in order to seek unity proved ineffective amidst the philosophical and tactical differences of integrationists, nationalists, and socialists. The variegated ideological composition of the black community can be seen in the reaction to the post-Mecca Malcolm X, who now called himself El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. To some middle-class integrationists, his pilgrimage had transformed him into one of them.

Some nationalists were offended by his acceptance of interracial brotherhood. To some Marxists, Malcolm seemed a revolutionary socialist even though his anti-capitalistic remarks merely noted the relationship between capitalism and racism, rather than advocating a Marxist solution. In February 1965, Malcolm X's home was fire-bombed.

By this time, he believed that leaders of the Nation of Islam and even more powerful elements within the American government wanted him dead; a week later, he was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler, and Thomas 15X Johnson were convicted of the killing and given life sentences.

Although Butler and Johnson were Black Muslims, the trial did not reveal whether or not the assassins were a part of a conspiracy. Some of Malcolm's critics took the opportunity provided by his death to launch a final attack. Carl Rowan, the first black director of the U. S. Information Agency, attributed his death to feuding between fanatical groups, "neither of them representative of more than a tiny minority of the Negro population of America. "

Achievements

• Malcolm X influenced disparate wings of the black movement. The radical faction of the "Black Power" movement accepted his positions on African identification, neocolonialism, black control of the political economy of black communities, and Afro-American self-defense. He also forced civil rights leaders to assume more militant positions, which aided in the passage of civil rights legislation. The enactment of civil rights bills was not his goal; nevertheless, the specter of even wider acceptance of his philosophy haunted white politicians. The historical importance of Malcolm X cannot be derived from these influences or from the numbers in his organization or his fruitless effort to obtain United Nations intervention in the American race problem. Rather, his contribution was his transformation of the consciousness of a generation of Afro-Americans from racially based self-hatred to the racial pride necessary to the struggle for equality. In cities around the world, Malcolm X's birthday (May 19) is commemorated as Malcolm X Day. The first known celebration of Malcolm X Day took place in Washington, D. C. , in 1971. The city of Berkeley, California, has recognized Malcolm X's birthday as a citywide holiday since 1979. Two green street signs, one reading Lenox Avenue, the other reading Malcolm X Boulevard and Malcolm X Boulevard in New York City have his name. Many cities have renamed streets after Malcolm X. In 1987, New York mayor Ed Koch proclaimed Lenox Avenue in Harlem to be Malcolm X Boulevard. The name of Reid Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, was changed to Malcolm X Boulevard in 1985. In 1997, Oakland Avenue in Dallas, Texas, was renamed Malcolm X Boulevard. Main Street in Lansing, Michigan, was renamed Malcolm X Street in 2010. Dozens of schools have been named after Malcolm X, including Malcolm X Shabazz High School in Newark, New Jersey, Malcolm Shabazz City High School in Madison, Wisconsin, and Malcolm X College in Chicago, Illinois. Malcolm X Liberation University, based on the Pan-Africanist ideas of Malcolm X, was founded in 1969 in North Carolina. In 1996, the first library named after Malcolm X was opened, the Malcolm X Branch Library and Performing Arts Center of the San Diego Public Library system. The U. S. Postal Service issued a Malcolm X postage stamp in 1999. In 2005, Columbia University announced the opening of the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center. The memorial is located in the Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm X was assassinated. Collections of Malcolm X's papers are held by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Robert W. Woodruff Library.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England, and the Caribbean

    (Almost 30 years after Malcom X's assassination, his autob...)

  • February 1965: The Final Speeches (Malcolm X speeches & writings)

    (Speeches from the last three weeks of the life of this ou...)

  • By Any Means Necessary (Malcolm X Speeches and Writings) (Malcolm X Speeches & Writings)

    (The imperialists know the only way you will voluntarily t...)

  • Two Speeches by Malcolm X

    ("It's impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg.... ...)

  • Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements

    (A Pathfinder upgraded edition. Speeches from the last ye...)

  • The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley

Religion

Through letters and visits from family members Malcolm X was introduced into the Lost-Found Nation of Islam. His eventual conversion to the Nation of Islam resulted in his renunciation of his life-style. The Nation of Islam held, through its spiritual leader, Elijah Muhammad, that the black race was the first creation of God, or Allah.

To the Muslims, whites were the physical and spiritual descendants of the devilish Yacub, a black scientist in rebellion against Allah. This explained the worldwide exploitation of non-whites and their devotion to non-Islamic religions. Whites, to the Muslims, were "devils" whose evil was manifested in their immorality and racial oppression.

The origins of the Muslims can be traced to the early years of the Great Depression, but the movement reached its peak in the mid-1930's, after a schism developed that forced Elijah Muhammad to move to Chicago's Temple Number Two. From Chicago, the Nation of Islam grew into a significant socioreligious movement that eventually established schools, apartment houses, grocery stores, restaurants, and farms for the benefit of American blacks.

Released from prison in 1952, Little quickly entered the Muslim fold and became an effective recruiter. He replaced his family name with an X, as was the custom of the Nation of Islam, which considered last names to be those of white slaveholders.

Views

The emerging civil rights movement provided a forum for blacks of varying ideological persuasions. The basic philosophical and tactical differences between integrationist groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), on the one hand, and nationalistic Muslims, on the other, were quickly manifested.

Malcolm X asserted that whites acted devilishly toward blacks because that was their nature. Therefore, it was absurd to believe that racial equality and integration could be achieved. Even more foolish, he insisted, was the tactic of nonviolent confrontation, which often resulted in violence directed at civil rights demonstrators who rejected retaliatory violence or self-defense.

Since there was little difference between white liberals and conservatives on the race issue, the only solutions were the return to Africa or the division of the United States into black and white nations. At a rally on December 1, 1963, Malcolm X referred to President John F. Kennedy's assassination as a case of "the chickens coming home to roost. "

The hate directed at blacks, he maintained, had spread to the point where it had struck down the president. The white media, which had portrayed Malcolm X as a violent racist fanatic, played up the statement. Elijah Muhammad disassociated the Muslims from the statement and prohibited Malcolm X from speaking publicly for the next ninety days.

As early as 1961, Malcolm had heard rumors that officials surrounding Muhammad were highly critical of him, claiming that he was taking credit for Muhammad's work and trying to take over the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X privately had grown dissatisfied with the Muslim policy of "general non-engagement" from active involvement in confronting racism. Rumors of Elijah Muhammad's sexual involvement with his secretaries further contributed to Malcolm's concern.

On March 12, 1964, he announced that "internal differences within the Nation of Islam" forced him to leave the movement. He still, however, believed that Elijah Muhammad's nationalistic analysis of the racial problem was the "most realistic" one. After this break with Muhammad, Malcolm sought to internationalize the Afro-American freedom struggle. He announced the formation of the Muslim Mosque, Incorporated.

In a speech at the University of Ibadan, he emphasized the need for African nations to support a move to bring the United States before the United Nations for violating Afro-American human rights. On his return from Africa, he told a press conference that his experience in the Islamic world had led him to conclude that whites were not inherently racist but, rather, that racial prejudice was a product of Western culture.

In his presentation to the conference, he asserted that an identity of interest existed between Afro-Americans and African peoples and that each should aid the other's struggle against colonialism and racism. The conference passed a resolution deploring racism in the United States.

After returning to the United States, Malcolm X continued to seek support for bringing the issue of American racism before the World Court and United Nations, to advocate the political and economic control of black communities by Afro-Americans, and to warn against "American dollarism" in Africa. He pointed out that the persistence of racism would lead to racial violence and the need of Afro-American self-defense.

He enumerated the connections between Euro-American capitalistic exploitation and racist oppression both in the Third World and America.

Quotations: "One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west. "

"When the people who are in power want to . .. create an image to justify something that's bad, they use the press. And they'll use the press to create a humanitarian image, for a devil, or a devil image for a humanitarian. They'll take a person who's a victim of the crime, and make it appear he's the criminal, and they'll take the criminal and make it appear that he's the victim of the crime. "

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses. "

"If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn't even begun to pull out the knife. "

"When you live in a poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have poor schools. When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When you get a poor education, you can only work in a poor-paying job. And that poor-paying job enables you to live again in a poor neighborhood. So, it's a very vicious cycle. "

"You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it. "

"The only time the white man is brotherly toward you is when he can use you, when he can exploit you, when he will oppress you, when you will submit to him. "

"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being, first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole. "

"As long as a white man does it, it's alright, a black man is supposed to have no feelings. But when a black man strikes back he's an extremist, he's supposed to sit passively and have no feelings, be nonviolent, and love his enemy no matter what kind of attack, verbal or otherwise, he's supposed to take it. But if he stands up in any way and tries to defend himself, then he's an extremist. "

"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. "

"If you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you'll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies. "

Personality

In prison, Little began a process of self-education that enabled him to more than hold his own in intellectual debate with those of far more formal education.

Connections

On January 14, 1958, Little married Betty X Shabazz. They had six children.

Father:

Earl Little

Was a Baptistminister and organizer for Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association.

Mother:

Louise Little

Dayghter:

Gamilah Lumumba Shabazz

Wife:

Betty Shabazz

May 28, 1934 – June 23, 1997 Was an American educator and civil rights advocate.

Daughter:

Qubilah Shabazz

Born on December 25, 1960. In 1965, she witnessed the assassination of her father by three gunmen from the Nation of Islam.

Daughter:

Attallah Shabazz

Born on November 16, 1958. Is an actress, author, ambassador, and motivational speaker.

Daughter:

Malikah Shabazz

Daughter:

Ilyasah Shabazz

Born on July 22, 1962. She is an author, most notably of a memoir, Growing Up X, community organizer, social activist, and motivational speaker.

Son:

Malaak Shabazz

References

• To Kill A Black Man
• Black Voices (Signet Classics)
• Malcolm X: Make It Plain
• Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary