Black History Month

Malcolm X/El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz Religious leader and Revolutionary (1925-1965) Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska to Louise (Norton) and Earl Little. Louise and Earl met in Canada but Louise was raised in Grenada in the British West Indies. Earl was a Baptist minister from Reynolds, Ga. and became an organizer for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. Louise was Earl’s second wife and together they raised seven children. Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Reginald, Yvonne, and Wesley Earl little also had three children by a first wife: Ella, Earl, and Mary. The Littles moved several times, trying to find a better world for the family before settling in Lansing, Michigan. Lansing was also a violent world for the Littles and in September 1931, Earl was found dead beside the local trolley tracks, apparently crushed by the trolley. In the years that followed, Louise deteriorated emotionally and mentally and in 1939 was committed to a mental institution in Kalamazoo, Michigan and the younger children were placed in foster homes. Malcolm had already been removed from his mother’s home and was in foster care for juvenile delinquency. He was eventually made a ward of the state and sent to a county juvenile home in Mason, Michigan. Malcolm did well in Mason and graduated from junior high at the top of his class academically and athletically. Malcolm was discouraged from continuing academically past the eighth grade due to his race and accepted an offer from his sister, Ella, and her husband move to Roxbury, Massachusetts. A few months after his arrival in Roxbury, a predominantly black section of Boston, Malcolm took a job as a shoe shin boy at the Roseland Ballroom in Boston’s Back Bay section and learned the role of a hustler. Roxbury proved to be too small for him, and in 1942, he took a job as a railroad dining porter, working out of Roxbury and Harlem. Settling in Harlem, he became involved in several criminal activities including robbery, prostitution, and narcotics. After a year in Harlem, he returned to Boston and continued a life of crime, forming his own house-robbing gang. Arrested for robbery in February 1946, he was convicted and sentenced to the Charlestown, Massachusetts prison for seven years. While in prison, Malcolm became a follower of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, with braches in Detroit, Chicago, and New York. Malcolm’s brother, Reginald, and sister, Ella, visiting him in prison, urged him to join Muhammad’s groups, and while still in prison he did. He discarded his “slave name,” Little, and was assigned the new name “X”. After his parole in 1952, Malcolm X joined the Nation of Islam under the guidance of Elijah Muhammad and eventually was made a minister and top administrator of the Muslim movement. Malcolm founded mosques in Boston, Philadelphia, and Harlem and was credited with the national expansion of the movement, which included a membership of approximately 30,000 by 1963. Malcolm X came to broad public notice as result of a July 13-17, 1959, television special with Mike Wallace called The “Hate That Hate Produced,” which told the story of Malcolm X’s emergence as one of the most important leaders of the Nation of Islam. The program also brought the Nation of Islam (known as the Black Muslim movement) to the attention of the American public. Further, Malcolm X’s vision was expressed in speeches, a newspaper column (first in Harlem’s Amsterdam News and later moved to the “Los Angeles Herald Dispatch,” and radio and television interviews. In addition, he helped found the Black Muslim newspaper Muhammad Speaks. Partly because of tensions within the Black Muslim movement, Malcolm became critical of Elijah Muhammad. He was eventually silenced, for 90 days after commenting on the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy with the phrase “chickens come home to roost.” However, before his silence was lifted, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam to form the Muslim Mosque, Inc. (March 1964). He began to articulate a more secular black nationalism, arguing that blacks should control the politics within their own community and, through his speeches, encouraging his followers to use the ballot to effect change. Malcolm X traveled to Mecca for his obligatory (for orthodox Muslims) pilgrimage in 1964, and there began to consider changing his views toward integration. Afterward he was more ambiguous about the outcome of the race struggle in the United States, and he left open the possibility that some whites could contribute to the struggle. After the pilgrimage, he adopted the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. The Queens, New York home Malcolm X shared with his wife, Betty (whom he had married in January 1958) four children was firebombed February 14, 1965 but the family survived. His twin girls were born after his death. Two weeks later, on February 21, as Malcolm addressed a full audience at the Audubon Ballroom, multiple assassins shot him. The reason for the assassination has never been definitely established. Three men were convicted in March 1966 of first degree murder: Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson. Malcolm’s legacy lives on and there are many celebrations held each year in his memory. Additionally, in 1999, The US Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor.