   #copyright

Malcolm X

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Religious figures and
leaders

                            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 Black Muslim Minister and National Spokesman
   for the Nation of Islam. He was also founder of the Muslim Mosque, Inc.
   and the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

   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; he was considered by some as a martyr of Islam and a champion
   of equality. As a militant leader, Malcolm X advocated black pride,
   economic self-reliance, and identity politics. He ultimately rose to
   become a world-renowned African American/ Pan-Africanist and human
   rights activist.

   Following a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, Malcolm converted to orthodox
   Islam. Less than a year later he was assassinated in Washington Heights
   on the first day of National Brotherhood Week. 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). His father was an outspoken Baptist lay preacher
   and supporter of Marcus Garvey, as well as a member of the Universal
   Negro Improvement Association. 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. In the
   autobiography, there are several references to associations with
   Seventh-day Adventists in Michigan and many of his lieutenants in the
   Nation of Islam were converts from 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; however, his mother
   gave him more hell for the same reason.

   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; his mother recalled that the family was warned to leave Omaha,
   because his father's involvement with UNIA was, according to the
   Klansmen, "stirring up trouble".

   After Malcolm was born, the family relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in
   1926, and then to Lansing, Michigan shortly thereafter. In 1931, his
   father was found dead having been run over by a streetcar in Michigan.
   Authorities ruled his death suicide . 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. The insurance
   company that had issued the larger policy claimed that Earl Little's
   death had been a suicide, and accordingly refused to pay. The financial
   and emotional stress of raising eight children on her own caused Louise
   Little to succumb to a mental breakdown, and she was declared legally
   insane in December 1938. 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. However, the 1930 U.S. Census (released in 2002)
   shows him living on a completely different Charles Street, in the
   low-income Urbandale neighbourhood in Lansing Township, between Lansing
   and East Lansing. Later, at the time he was in high school, he lived in
   Mason, an almost all-white small town twelve miles to the south.

   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 centre 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; in his
   autobiography, he says that he once shined the shoes of Duke Ellington
   and other notable black musicians. 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." He explains in his autobiography that he put on a display to
   avoid the draft by telling the examining officer that he couldn't wait
   to organize with other black soldiers and get his hands on a gun so he
   could "kill some crackers". His approach worked, and he was given a
   classification that ensured he would not be drafted.

   In early 1946, he was arrested for a burglary after trying to sell some
   goods to a pawnshop. This burglary he had committed together with
   another black man and two white women, a fact which was considered
   particularly sensitive. The women blamed the two black youths for
   forcing them into the crime, but refused to accuse them of rape.
   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.
   He was in regular contact with Elijah Muhammad during his
   incarceration; upon being paroled, he would go to work for the Nation
   of Islam. Little also belonged to a prison debating team that competed
   against teams from Harvard and MIT. He started to gain fame among
   prisoners, but also remained under the keen eye of the authorities, who
   recognized in him a force that could potentially foment trouble, did
   not grant him the expected early release after five years. Little was
   officially considered too dangerous to be released early.

Later years

Nation of Islam

   In 1952, after his release from prison, Malcolm went to meet Elijah
   Muhammad in Chicago. It was soon after this that he changed his surname
   to "X". 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. The "X" is also the brand
   that many slaves received on their upper arm. This rationale led many
   members of the Nation of Islam to change their surnames to X.

   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.
   This was further supported by a letter intercepted by the FBI, dated
   June 29, 1950. The letter said, in reference to his 4-F classification
   and rejection by the military, "Everyone has always said ... 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. He soon returned to Boston and became
   the Minister of the Nation of Islam's Temple Number Eleven. 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; he was able to work day
   after day with just four hours of sleep or less, he read a lot and once
   he believed in a cause he devoted himself to it completely. He was a
   compelling public speaker, and he became known to a wider audience
   after a local television broadcast in NYC about the Nation of Islam,
   which was quite an obscure organization until then, in 1959. 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. This was
   the time in which many African nations were gaining freedom from
   colonialism and his speeches resonated in this wider context. 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. He opened additional temples,
   including one in Philadelphia, and was largely credited with increasing
   membership in the NOI from 500 in 1952 to 30,000 in 1963. He inspired
   the boxer Cassius Clay to join the Nation of Islam and change his name
   to Muhammad Ali. (Like Malcolm X, Ali later left the NOI and joined
   mainstream Islam.)

Marriage

   In 1958, Malcolm married Betty X (née Sanders) in Lansing, Michigan.
   They had six daughters together, all of whom carried the surname of
   Shabazz. Their names were Attallah (also spelled Attillah), born in
   1958; Qubilah, born in 1960; Ilyasah, born in 1962; Gamilah (also
   spelled Gumilah), born in 1964; 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. The Cuban delegation relocated from the Shelburne Hotel to the
   Hotel Teresa in Harlem due to complaints from Castro that he had been
   asked to pay in advance.

   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.
   Sixteen African countries were admitted to membership in the UN at that
   session.

Tensions

   In the early 1960s, Malcolm was increasingly exposed to rumors of
   Elijah Muhammad's extramarital affairs with young secretaries. Adultery
   is condemned in the teachings of the Nation of Islam. At first, Malcolm
   brushed these rumors aside. Later, he spoke with Elijah Muhammad's son
   and the women making the accusations and believed them. 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.
   However, when asked to comment upon the assassination, he replied that
   it was a case of "chickens coming home to roost" — that the culture of
   violence sanctioned by white society had come around to claim the life
   of its leader. Most explosively, he then added that with his country
   origins, "Chickens coming home to roost never made me sad. It only made
   me glad." This comment led to widespread public outcry and led to the
   Nation of Islam's publicly censuring Malcolm X. Although retaining his
   post and rank as minister, he was banned from public speaking for
   ninety days by Elijah Muhammad himself. 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. on March 12, 1964. 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.
   In March and April, he made the series of famous speeches called " The
   Ballot or the Bullet" [ ]. Malcolm was in contact with several orthodox
   Muslims, who encouraged him to learn about orthodox Islam. He soon
   converted to orthodox Islam, and as a result decided to make his Hajj.

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. He was automatically suspect due to his inability to speak
   Arabic and his United States passport. He was separated from the group
   he came with and was isolated. He spent about 20 hours wearing the
   ihram, a two-piece garment comprised of two white unhemmed sheets--the
   first of which is worn draped over the torso and the second of which
   (the bottom) is secured by a belt.

   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. He called Azzam's
   son who arranged for his release. At the younger Azzam's home he met
   Azzam Pasha who gave Malcolm his suite at the Jeddah Palace Hotel. The
   next morning Muhammad Faisal, the son of Prince Faisal, visited and
   informed him that he was to be a state guest. 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). On April 19, he
   completed the Umrah, making the seven circuits around the Kaaba,
   drinking from the well of Zamzam and running between the hills of Safah
   and Marwah seven times. The trip proved to be life-altering. Malcolm
   met many devout Muslims of a number of different races, whose faith and
   practice of Islam he came to respect. He believed that racial barriers
   could potentially be overcome, and that Islam was the one religion that
   conceivably could erase all racial problems.

Africa

   Malcolm X visited Africa on three separate occasions, once in 1959 and
   twice in 1964. During his visits, he met officials, as well as spoke on
   television and radio in: Cairo, Egypt; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dar Es
   Salaam, Tanganyika (now Tanzania); Lagos and Ibadan, Nigeria; Accra,
   Winneba, and Legon, Ghana; Conakry, Guinea; Algiers, Algeria; and
   Casablanca, Morocco.

   Malcolm first went to Africa in summer of 1959. He traveled to Egypt (
   United Arab Republic), Sudan, Nigeria and Ghana to arrange a tour for
   Elijah Muhammad, which occurred in December 1959. The first of
   Malcolm's two trips to Africa in 1964 lasted from April 13 until May
   21. On May 8, following his speech at Trenchard Hall on the campus of
   the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, he attended a reception in the
   Students' Union Hall held for him by the Muslim Students' Society.
   During this reception the students bestowed upon him the name "Omowale"
   meaning "the son returns home" in the Yoruba language.

   Malcolm returned to New York from Africa via Paris, France, on May 21,
   1964. On July 9, he again left the United States for Africa, spending a
   total of 18 weeks abroad. 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. In it, he
   explained how a strong and independent " United States of Africa" is a
   victory for the awakening of African Americans. 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. On June 28, 1964 at the founding rally of
   the OAAU he said,

          "The time for you and me to allow ourselves to be brutalized
          nonviolently has passed. Be nonviolent only with those who are
          nonviolent to you. And when you can bring me a nonviolent
          racist, bring me a nonviolent segregationist, then I'll get
          nonviolent. 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. In an interview with Gordon Parks in 1965 he revealed:

          "I realized racism isn't just a black and white problem. 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. In many parts of the
          African continent I saw white students helping black people.
          Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things
          as a [black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then
          -- like all [black] Muslims -- I was hypnotized, pointed in a
          certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man's
          entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay the
          cost. It cost me twelve years."

          "That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of
          those days -- I'm glad to be free of them."

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. He also visited the UK
   where, by that time, he was a well-known world figure and was honored
   with an invitation to participate in a classic debate at Oxford Union.
   The debate took place on December 3, 1964.

   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". He visited a pub with a non-coloured policy, and purposely
   visited a street where the local council would buy houses and sell them
   to white families, to avoid black families moving in.

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. He appealed, and was angry at the thought that his family
   might soon have no place to live. Then, on the night of February 14,
   1965, the house was firebombed. 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. A man yelled, "Get your hand outta my pocket! Don't be
   messin' with my pockets!" 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. Angry onlookers in the crowd caught and
   beat the assassins as they attempted to flee the ballroom. The
   39-year-old Malcolm was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's
   Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. He was killed by the shotgun blasting
   through him, the other bullets having been directed into his legs.

   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. Two suspects were named by
   witnesses — Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson — however both were
   known as Nation of Islam agents and would have had difficulty entering
   the ballroom on that evening.

   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. All
   three were convicted.

   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. Civil rights leader and surgeon,
   T.R.M. Howard, was the chair of the Chicago affiliate of the Fund.

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. The book was named by Time magazine as one of the 10 most
   important nonfiction books of the 20th century.

   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. as Elijah Muhammad. Both
   Roger Ebert and Martin Scorsese named the film as one of the ten best
   of the decade.

   The 2001 film Ali, about boxer Muhammad Ali, played by Will Smith, also
   features Malcolm X, as played by Mario Van Peebles.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
