African-American activist, born in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. He claimed that his father, a minister and follower of Marcus Garvey, was murdered by racists in Lansing, MI (1931) (but at least one researcher claims his father died accidentally). Moving to Boston, he turned to pimping and drugs as a teenager, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for burglary (1946), where he discovered the anti-white Black Muslims. Joining the Muslims (1952), he became a recruiter, changed his name, and came to national attention with his writings and through a television documentary (1959), both of which tended to portray him as a threat to white people.
Breaking with the Muslims (1964), he founded the Muslim Mosque in an effort to internationalize the Afro-American struggle, and journeyed to Muslim lands abroad where he was impressed with their lack of racial bias. Returning to the US convinced that whites were not inherently racist, he called himself El-Hajj Malik El Shabazz and formed the Organization of African American Unity, hoping to co-operate with progressive white groups. Before his assassination in the Audubon Ballroom in New York City (Mar 1965), he came to believe that leaders of the Nation of Islam and powerful elements within the US government wanted him dead; the only legal trial put all the blame on members of the Nation of Islam.
Alex Haley helped immortalize him as co-author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), and Spike Lee's 1992 film renewed interest in the man and his message. He proved as powerful after his death as alive, influencing disparate movements with his positions on black power and neo-colonialism, and transforming the consciousness of a generation of African-Americans.
For the biographical movie of the same name, see Malcolm X (film).| Malcolm X | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 19, 1925 Omaha, Nebraska, United States |
| Died |
February 21, 1965 Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States |
Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, also known as Detroit Red and Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Omaha, Nebraska, May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965 in New York City) was a Muslim Minister and National Spokesman for the Nation of Islam.
During his life, Malcolm went from being a drug dealer and burglar to one of the most prominent black nationalist leaders in the United States; As a militant leader, Malcolm X advocated black pride, economic self-reliance, and identity politics.
Following a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, Malcolm converted to orthodox Islam. Although three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of his assassination (one of whom confessed), there are several conspiracy theories positing the involvement of elements of the United States Government.
Early years
Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska to Earl Little and Louise Little (née Norton). Malcolm described his father as a big black man who had lost one eye. According to Malcolm, three of Earl Little's brothers died violently at the hands of white men, and one of his uncles had been lynched. It is also thought that Malcolm Little's family was affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Malcolm X mentions that the Seventh-day Adventist were the only kind white people he recalled from his childhood, in his autobiography.
Earl Little had three children (Ella, Mary, and Earl, Jr.) by a previous marriage before he married Malcolm's mother. From his second marriage he had eight children, of whom Malcolm was the fourth. (Earl and Louise Little's children's names were, in order, Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Reginald, Wesley, Yvonne, and Robert.)
Louise Little was born in Grenada and, according to Malcolm, she looked more like a white woman. Her father was a white man of whom Malcolm knew nothing except his mother's shame. Malcolm got his light complexion from him. Initially he felt it was a status symbol to be light-skinned but later he would say that he “hated every drop of that white rapist's blood that is in me.” As Malcolm was the lightest child in the family, he felt that his father favored him;
According to Malcolm X's autobiography, his mother had been threatened by Ku Klux Klansmen while she was pregnant with him in December of 1924;
After Malcolm was born, the family relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1926, and then to Lansing, Michigan shortly thereafter. This cause of death was disputed by the African American community at the time, and later by Malcolm himself, as Malcolm's family had frequently found themselves the target of harassment by the white-supremacist Black Legion, which had already culminated in the burning down of their home in 1929. Malcolm wondered how his father could bash himself in the head and then lay down across street tracks to get run over.
Though Malcolm’s father had two life insurance policies, his mother received death benefits solely from the smaller policy. Malcolm and his siblings were split up and sent to different foster homes. Louise Little was formally committed to the State Mental Hospital at Kalamazoo, Michigan, and remained there until Malcolm and his brothers and sisters were able to get her released twenty-six years later.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X and local folklore hold that, following the death of his father, Little lived as a boy on Charles Street in downtown East Lansing.
Malcolm X graduated from junior high school at the top of his class, but dropped out soon after an admired teacher told him that his aspirations of being a lawyer were "no realistic goal for a nigger". After enduring a series of foster homes, Malcolm was first sent to a detention center and then later moved to Boston to live with his older half-sister, Ella Little Collins.
Middle years
Malcolm found work as a shoe-shiner at a Lindy Hop nightclub; He was also employed for a time by New Haven Railroad, a job he would retain when he relocated to New York City in 1943. After some time, in Harlem, he became involved in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, and robbery (all of which Malcolm collectively referred to as "hustling").
When Malcolm was examined for the World War II draft, military physicians classified him to be "mentally disqualified for military service."
In early 1946, he was arrested for a burglary after trying to sell some goods to a pawnshop. Malcolm received a sentence of ten years in prison. While incarcerated, Malcolm, encouraged by an older fellow inmate who recognized his talent, started to read voraciously and developed astigmatism. During this time, he received correspondence from his brother Reginald telling him about the Nation of Islam, to which Malcolm subsequently converted.
Nation of Islam
In 1952, after his release from prison, Malcolm went to meet Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. Malcolm explained the name by saying, The "X" is meant to symbolize the rejection of "slave-names" and the absence of an inherited African name to take its place.
In March 1953, the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened a file on Malcolm, supposedly in response to an allegation that he had described himself as a Communist; according to the Church Committee, the FBI had long been used to monitor, disrupt, and repress radicals like Malcolm. Included in the file were two letters wherein Malcolm uses the alias "Malachi Shabazz". In "Message To The Black Man In America", Elijah Muhammad explained the name Shabazz as belonging to descendants of an "Asian Black nation".
In May 1953, the FBI concluded that Malcolm X had an "asocial personality with paranoid trends (pre-psychotic paranoid schizophrenia)", and had, in fact, sought treatment for his disorder. Malcolm is crazy, so it isn't hard to convince people that I am."
Later that year, Malcolm left his half-sister Ella in Boston to stay with Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. In 1954, Malcolm X was selected to lead the Nation of Islam's mosque #7 on Lenox Avenue (co-named "Malcolm X Boulevard" in 1987, from 110th Street/Central Park North to 147th Street) in Harlem and he rapidly expanded its membership. Malcolm X had great energy; Malcolm realized the importance of this wider publicity, while Elijah Muhammad was very reluctant to agree to this broadcast. After that, Malcolm was frequently sought after for quotations by the print media, radio, and television programs from the US and later around the world. Malcolm was aware that his fame was a cause of considerable jealousy in NOI, and he was careful in his public appearances not to incite them further. In the years between his adoption of the Nation of Islam, in 1952, and his split with the organization in 1964, he always espoused the Nation's teachings, including referring to whites as "devils" who had been created in a misguided breeding program by a black scientist, and predicting the inevitable (and imminent) return of blacks to their natural place at the top of the social order.
Malcolm X was soon seen as the second most influential leader of the movement, after Elijah Muhammad himself. (Like Malcolm X, Ali later left the NOI and joined mainstream Islam.)
Marriage
In 1958, Malcolm married Betty X (née Sanders) in Lansing, Michigan. and twins, Malaak and Malikah, born after Malcolm's death in 1965.
Meeting Castro
In September 1960 Fidel Castro traveled to the United States to address the United Nations General Assembly. Castro did not receive a warm welcome from the U.S. government during his visit to New York City in 1960.
Malcolm X met with Castro as a prominent member of a welcoming committee that had been set up in Harlem several weeks earlier. The purpose of this group, which included a wide range of Black community leaders, was to greet heads of state, particularly from African countries, who would be in New York to address the UN General Assembly.
Tensions
In the early 1960s, Malcolm was increasingly exposed to rumors of Elijah Muhammad's extramarital affairs with young secretaries. At first, Malcolm brushed these rumors aside. In 1963, Elijah Muhammad himself confirmed to Malcolm that the rumors were true and claimed that this activity was undertaken to follow a pattern established by biblical prophets. Despite being unsatisfied with this explanation, and being disenchanted by other ministers using Nation of Islam funds to line their own pockets, Malcolm's faith in Elijah Muhammad did not waver.
By the summer of 1963, tension in the Nation of Islam reached a boiling point. Malcolm believed that Elijah Muhammad was jealous of his popularity (as were several senior ministers). Malcolm viewed the March on Washington critically, unable to understand why black people were excited over a demonstration "run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn't like us when he was alive." Later in the year, following the John F. Kennedy assassination, Malcolm delivered a speech as he regularly would. It only made me glad." This comment led to widespread public outcry and led to the Nation of Islam's publicly censuring Malcolm X. Malcolm obeyed and kept silent.
In the spring of 1963, Malcolm started collaborating on The Autobiography of Malcolm X with Alex Haley. He also publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam on March 8, 1964 and the founding of the Muslim Mosque, Inc. At this point, Malcolm mostly adhered to the teachings of the Nation of Islam, but began modifying them, explicitly advocating political and economic black nationalism as opposed to the NOI's exclusivist religious nationalism. Malcolm was in contact with several orthodox Muslims, who encouraged him to learn about orthodox Islam.
Hajj
On April 13, 1964, Malcolm departed JFK Airport, New York for Cairo by way of Frankfurt. It was the second time Malcolm had been to Africa. Malcolm left Cairo arriving in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at about three in the morning.
It was at this time he remembered the book The Eternal Message of Muhammad by Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam and which Dr. Mahmoud Yousseff Sharwabi had presented to him with his visa approval. At the younger Azzam's home he met Azzam Pasha who gave Malcolm his suite at the Jeddah Palace Hotel. The deputy chief of protocol accompanied Malcolm to the Hajj Court.
It therefore was a mere formality for Sheikh Muhammad Harkon to allow Malcolm to make his Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Malcolm met many devout Muslims of a number of different races, whose faith and practice of Islam he came to respect.
Africa
Malcolm X visited Africa on three separate occasions, once in 1959 and twice in 1964.
Malcolm first went to Africa in summer of 1959. The first of Malcolm's two trips to Africa in 1964 lasted from April 13 until May 21.
Malcolm returned to New York from Africa via Paris, France, on May 21, 1964. On July 17, 1964, Malcolm addressed the Organization of African Unity's first ordinary assembly of heads of state and governments in Cairo as a representative of the OAAU. On August 21, 1964, he made a press statement on behalf of the OAAU regarding the second African summit conference of the OAU. By the time he returned to the United States on November 24, 1964, Malcolm had established an international connection between Africans on the continent and those in the diaspora.
Malcolm held to the view that African-Americans were right in defending themselves from aggressors. But don't teach me to be nonviolent until you teach some of those crackers to be nonviolent." (http://www.panafricanperspective.com/mxoaaufounding.html)
Increasingly though he did come to regret his involvement within the Nation of Islam and its tendency to promote racism as a blacks versus whites issue. It's brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another."
He stopped and remained silent for a few moments, then stated,
"Brother, remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant -- the one who wanted to help the Muslims and the whites get together -- and I told her there wasn't a ghost of a chance and she went away crying?"He also later reflected:
"Well, I've lived to regret that incident.Visiting France and UK
In late 1964, Malcolm visited France together with Jamaican officials and spoke in Paris at Salle Pleyel where there were discussions and debates on the subject of the Rastafarian ideas (return of African-Americans to Africa, Ethiopia in particular) espoused by both the Jamaicans present and Malcom X at that time.
On 12 February 1965 Malcolm X visited Smethwick, near Birmingham, which had become a byword for racial division after the 1964 general election when the Conservative Party won the parliamentary seat using the slogan, amongst others, "If you want a nigger for your neighbour, vote Labour".
Death and afterwards
Assassination
On March 20, 1964, Life magazine published a famous photograph of Malcolm X holding an M1 Carbine and pulling back the curtains to peer out of a window. The photo was taken in connection with Malcolm's declaration that he would defend himself from the daily death threats which he and his family were receiving. Undercover FBI informants warned officials that Malcolm X had been marked for assassination.
Tensions increased between Malcolm and the Nation of Islam. It was alleged that orders were given by leaders of the Nation of Islam to "destroy" Malcolm; in The Autobiography of Malcolm X, he says that as early as 1963, a member of the Seventh Temple confessed to him having received orders from the Nation of Islam to kill him. The NOI sued to reclaim Malcolm's home in Queens, which they claimed to have paid for, and won. Malcolm and his family survived, and no one was charged in the crime.
A week later on February 21 in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm had just begun delivering a speech when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. As Malcolm's bodyguards rushed forward to attend to the disturbance and Malcolm appealed for peace, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Two other men quickly charged towards the stage and fired handguns at Malcolm, who was shot 16 times. The 39-year-old Malcolm was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
Although a police report once existed stating that two men were detained in connection with the shooting, that report disappeared, and the investigation was inconclusive.
Three men were eventually charged in the case. Talmadge Hayer confessed to having fired shots into Malcolm's body, but he testified that Butler and Johnson were not present and were not involved in the shooting.
A complete examination of the assassination and investigation is available in The Smoking Gun: The Malcolm X Files, a collection of primary sources relating to the assassination.
Funeral
Sixteen hundred people attended Malcolm's funeral in Harlem on February 27, 1965 at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ (now Child's Memorial Temple Church of God in Christ). Ossie Davis, alongside Ahmed Osman, delivered a stirring eulogy, describing Malcolm as "Our shining black prince". Malcolm X was buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. At the gravesite after the ceremony, friends took the shovels away from the waiting gravediggers and buried Malcolm themselves. Later that month, actress Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier became co-chairs of the New York affiliate of the Educational Fund for the Children of Malcolm X Shabazz.
Biographies and speeches
The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written by Alex Haley between 1964 and 1965, based on interviews conducted shortly before Malcolm's assassination (with an epilogue written after it), and was published in 1965.
Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements ISBN 0-8021-3213-8 edited by George Breitman. These speeches made during the last eight months of Malcolm's life indicate the power of his newly refined ideas.
"Malcolm X: The Man and His Times" edited with an introduction and commentary by John Henrik Clarke. An anthology of writings, speeches and manifestos along with writings about Malcolm X by an international group of African and African American scholars and activists.
"Malcolm X: The FBI File" Commentary by Clayborne Carson with an introduction by Spike Lee and edited by David Gallen. A source of information documenting the FBI's file on Malcolm beginning with his prison release in March 1953 and culminating with a 1980 request that the FBI investigate Malcolm's assassination.
The film Malcolm X was released in 1992, directed by Spike Lee. Based on the autobiography, it starred Denzel Washington as Malcolm with Angela Bassett as Betty and Al Freeman Jr.
The 2001 film Ali, about boxer Muhammad Ali, played by Will Smith, also features Malcolm X, as played by Mario Van Peebles. seeks to present Malcolm X within an Islamic context. Malcolm X: Make It Plain. Documentary Malcolm X Reference Archive. Malcolm X Project. Malcolm X's FBI file Malcolm X - An Islamic Perspective Malcolm X : A Profile by Det Danske Koranselskab
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