Malcolm X

Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the Black community. A posthumous autobiography, on which he collaborated with Alex Haley, was published in 1965.

Malcolm spent his adolescence living in a series of foster homes or with relatives after his father's death and his mother's hospitalization. He committed various crimes, being sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1946 for larceny and burglary. In prison he joined the Nation of Islam (adopting the name MalcolmX to symbolize his unknown African ancestral surname while discarding "the White slavemaster name of 'Little'"), and after his parole in 1952 quickly became one of the organization's most influential leaders. He was the public face of the organization for 12 years, advocating Black empowerment and separation of Black and White Americans, and criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. and the mainstream civil rights movement for its emphasis on nonviolence and racial integration. Malcolm X also expressed pride in some of the Nation's social welfare achievements, such as its free drug rehabilitation program. Throughout his life, beginning in the 1950s, Malcolm X was subjected to surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

In the 1960s, Malcolm X began to grow disillusioned with the Nation of Islam, as well as with its leader, Elijah Muhammad. He subsequently embraced Sunni Islam and the civil rights movement after completing the Hajj to Mecca, and became known as " el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz". After a brief period of travel across Africa, he publicly renounced the Nation of Islam and founded the Islamic Muslim Mosque, Inc. (MMI) and the Pan-African Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). Throughout 1964, his conflict with the Nation of Islam intensified, and he was repeatedly sent death threats. On February21, 1965, he was assassinated in New York City. Three Nation members were charged with the murder and given indeterminate life sentences; in 2021, two of the convictions were vacated. Speculation about the assassination and whether it was conceived or aided by leading or additional members of the Nation, or with law enforcement agencies, have persisted for decades.

A controversial figure accused of preaching racism and violence, Malcolm X is also a widely celebrated figure within African-American and Muslim American communities for his pursuit of racial justice. He was posthumously honored with Malcolm X Day, on which he is commemorated in various cities across the United States. Hundreds of streets and schools in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, while the Audubon Ballroom, the site of his assassination, was partly redeveloped in 2005 to accommodate the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.

Early years

MalcolmX was born May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, the fourth of seven children of Grenada-born Louise Helen Little (née Norton) and Georgia-born Earl Little. Earl was an outspoken Baptist lay speaker, and he and Louise were admirers of Pan-African activist Marcus Garvey. Earl was a local leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and Louise served as secretary and "branch reporter", sending news of local UNIA activities to ''Negro World''; they inculcated self-reliance and black pride in their children. MalcolmX later said that White violence killed four of his father's brothers.

Because of Ku Klux Klan threats, Earl's UNIA activities were said to be "spreading trouble" and the family relocated in 1926 to Milwaukee, and shortly thereafter to Lansing, Michigan. There, the family was frequently harassed by the Black Legion, a White racist group Earl accused of burning their family home in 1929.

When Malcolm was six, his father died in what has been officially ruled a streetcar accident, though his mother Louise believed Earl had been murdered by the Black Legion. Rumors that White racists were responsible for his father's death were widely circulated and were very disturbing to Malcolm X as a child. As an adult, he expressed conflicting beliefs on the question. After a dispute with creditors, Louise received a life insurance benefit (nominally $1,000 about $,000 in ) in payments of $18 per month;. the issuer of another, larger policy refused to pay, claiming her husband Earl had committed suicide. To make ends meet, Louise rented out part of her garden, and her sons hunted game.

In 1937, a man Louise had been datingmarriage had seemed a possibilityvanished from her life when she became pregnant with his child. In late 1938, she had a nervous breakdown and was committed to Kalamazoo State Hospital. The children were separated and sent to foster homes. Malcolm and his siblings secured her release 24 years later.

Malcolm attended West Junior High School in Lansing and then Mason High School in Mason, Michigan, but left high school in 1941, before graduating. He excelled in junior high school but dropped out of high school after a White teacher told him that practicing law, his aspiration at the time, was "no realistic goal for a nigger.". Later, MalcolmX recalled feeling that the White world offered no place for a career-oriented Black man, regardless of talent.

From age 14 to 21, Malcolm held a variety of jobs while living with his half-sister Ella Little-Collins in Roxbury, a largely African-American neighborhood of Boston.

After a short time in Flint, Michigan, he moved to New York City's Harlem neighborhood in 1943, where he found employment on the New Haven Railroad and engaged in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery, and pimping. According to biographer Bruce Perry, Malcolm also occasionally had sex with other men, usually for money, though this conjecture has been disputed by those who knew him. He befriended John Elroy Sanford, a fellow dishwasher at Jimmy's Chicken Shack in Harlem who aspired to be a professional comedian. Both men had reddish hair, so Sanford was called "Chicago Red" after his hometown, and Malcolm was known as "Detroit Red". Years later, Sanford became famous as comedian and actor Redd Foxx.

Summoned by the local draft board for military service in World WarII, he feigned mental disturbance by rambling and declaring: "I want to be sent down South. Organize them nigger soldiers... steal us some guns, and kill us ome crackers"..Carson, p.108.. He was declared "mentally disqualified for military service".

In late 1945, Malcolm returned to Boston, where he and four accomplices committed a series of burglaries targeting wealthy White families. In 1946, he was arrested while picking up a stolen watch he had left at a shop for repairs, and in February began serving an eight-to-ten-year sentence at Charlestown State Prison for larceny and breaking and entering. Two years later, Malcolm was transferred to Norfolk Prison Colony (also in Massachusetts)..

Nation of Islam period

Prison

When Malcolm was in prison, he met fellow convict John Bembry, a self-educated man he would later describe as "the first man I had ever seen command total respect... with words". Under Bembry's influence, Malcolm developed a voracious appetite for reading.

At this time, several of his siblings wrote to him about the Nation of Islam, a relatively new religious movement preaching Black self-reliance and, ultimately, the return of the African diaspora to Africa, where they would be free from White American and European domination. He showed scant interest at first, but after his brother Reginald wrote in 1948, "Malcolm, don't eat any more pork and don't smoke any more cigarettes. I'll show you how to get out of prison", he quit smoking and began to refuse pork.

After a visit in which Reginald described the group's teachings, including the belief that White people are devils, Malcolm concluded that every relationship he had had with Whites had been tainted by dishonesty, injustice, greed, and hatred. Malcolm, whose hostility to Christianity had earned him the prison nickname "Satan," became receptive to the message of the Nation of Islam.

In late 1948, Malcolm wrote to Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad advised him to renounce his past, humbly bow in prayer to God, and promise never to engage in destructive behavior again.Natambu, pp.138–139. Though he later recalled the inner struggle he had before bending his knees to pray, Malcolm soon became a member of the Nation of Islam,
maintaining a regular correspondence with Muhammad.

In 1950, the FBI opened a file on Malcolm after he wrote a letter from prison to President Truman expressing opposition to the Korean War and declaring himself a communist. That year, he also began signing his name "MalcolmX." Muhammad instructed his followers to leave their family names behind when they joined the Nation of Islam and use "X" instead. When the time was right, after they had proven their sincerity, he said, he would reveal the Muslim's "original name." In his autobiography, MalcolmX explained that the "X" symbolized the true African family name that he could never know. "For me, my 'X' replaced the White slavemaster name of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears."

Early ministry

After his parole in August 1952, MalcolmX visited Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. In June 1953, he was named assistant minister of the Nation's Temple Number One in Detroit. Later that year he established Boston's Temple Number11; in March 1954, he expanded Temple Number12 in Philadelphia; and two months later he was selected to lead Temple Number7 in Harlem, where he rapidly expanded its membership.

In 1953, the FBI began surveillance of him, turning its attention from MalcolmX's possible communist associations to his rapid ascent in the Nation of Islam.

During 1955, MalcolmX continued his successful recruitment of members on behalf of the Nation of Islam. He established temples in Springfield, Massachusetts (Number13); Hartford, Connecticut (Number14); and Atlanta (Number15). Hundreds of African Americans were joining the Nation of Islam every month.

Besides his skill as a speaker, MalcolmX had an impressive physical presence. He stood tall and weighed about .. One writer described him as "powerfully built", and another as "mesmerizingly handsome... and always spotlessly well-groomed".

Marriage and family

In 1955, Betty Sanders met MalcolmX after one of his lectures, then again at a dinner party; soon she was regularly attending his lectures. In 1956, she joined the Nation of Islam, changing her name to BettyX. One-on-one dates were contrary to the Nation's teachings, so the couple courted at social events with dozens or hundreds of others, and MalcolmX made a point of inviting her on the frequent group visits he led to New York City's museums and libraries.

MalcolmX proposed during a telephone call from Detroit in January 1958, and they married two days later. They had six daughters:
Attallah (b. 1958; Arabic for "gift of God"; perhaps named after Attila the Hun); Qubilah (b. 1960, named after Kublai Khan); Ilyasah (b. 1962, named after Elijah Muhammad); Gamilah Lumumba (b. 1964, named after Gamal Abdel Nasser and Patrice Lumumba); and twins Malikah (1965–2021) and Malaak (b. 1965 after their father's death, and named in his honor).

Hinton Johnson incident

The American public first became aware of MalcolmX in 1957, after Hinton Johnson, a Nation of Islam member, was beaten by two New York City police officers... On April26, Johnson and two other passersbyalso Nation of Islam memberssaw the officers beating an African-American man with nightsticks. When they attempted to intervene, shouting, "You're not in Alabama... this is New York!" one of the officers turned on Johnson, beating him so severely that he suffered brain contusions and subdural hemorrhaging. All four African-American men were arrested.

Alerted by a witness, MalcolmX and a small group of Muslims went to the police station and demanded to see Johnson. Police initially denied that any Muslims were being held, but when the crowd grew to about five hundred, they allowed MalcolmX to speak with Johnson.. Afterward, MalcolmX insisted on arranging for an ambulance to take Johnson to Harlem Hospital..

Johnson's injuries were treated and by the time he was returned to the police station, some four thousand people had gathered outside. Inside the station, MalcolmX and an attorney were making bail arrangements for two of the Muslims. Johnson was not bailed, and police said he could not go back to the hospital until his arraignment the following day. Considering the situation to be at an impasse, MalcolmX stepped outside the station house and gave a hand signal to the crowd. Nation members silently left, after which the rest of the crowd also dispersed.

One police officer told the ''New York Amsterdam News'': "No one man should have that much power." Within a month the New York City Police Department arranged to keep MalcolmX under surveillance; it also made inquiries with authorities in other cities in which he had lived, and prisons in which he had served time. A grand jury declined to indict the officers who beat Johnson. In October, MalcolmX sent an angry telegram to the police commissioner. Soon the police department assigned undercover officers to infiltrate the Nation of Islam.

Increasing prominence

By the late 1950s, MalcolmX was using a new name, Malcolm Shabazz or Malik el-Shabazz, although he was still widely referred to as MalcolmX. His comments on issues and events were being widely reported in print, on radio, and on television,. and he was featured in a 1959 New York City television broadcast about the Nation of Islam, '' The Hate That Hate Produced''.

In September 1960, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, MalcolmX was invited to the official functions of several African nations. He met Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea, and Kenneth Kaunda of the Zambian African National Congress. Fidel Castro also attended the Assembly, and MalcolmX met publicly with him as part of a welcoming committee of Harlem community leaders. Castro was sufficiently impressed with MalcolmX to suggest a private meeting, and after two hours of talking, Castro invited MalcolmX to visit Cuba.

Advocacy and teachings while with Nation

From his adoption of the Nation of Islam in 1952 until he broke with it in 1964, MalcolmX promoted the Nation's teachings. These included beliefs:
* that Black people are the original people of the world.
* that White people are "devils". and
* that the demise of the White race is imminent..

Louis E. Lomax said that "those who don't understand biblical prophecy wrongly label him as a racist and as a hate teacher, or as being anti-White or as teaching Black Supremacy". He was accused of being antisemitic. In 1961, Malcolm X spoke at a NOI rally alongside George Lincoln Rockwell, the head of the American Nazi Party; Rockwell claimed that there was overlap between Black nationalism and White supremacy.

One of the goals of the civil rights movement was to end disenfranchisement of African Americans, but the Nation of Islam forbade its members from participating in voting and other aspects of the political process. The NAACP and other civil rights organizations denounced him and the Nation of Islam as irresponsible extremists whose views did not represent the common interests of African Americans.

MalcolmX was equally critical of the civil rights movement. He called Martin Luther King Jr. a "chump," and said other civil rights leaders were "stooges" of the White establishment. He called the 1963 March on Washington "the farce on Washington," and said he did not know why so many Black people were excited about 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."

While the civil rights movement fought against racial segregation, MalcolmX advocated the complete separation of African Americans from Whites. He proposed that African Americans should return to Africa and that, in the interim, a separate country for Black people in America should be created... He rejected the civil rights movement's strategy of nonviolence, arguing that Black people should defend and advance themselves " by any means necessary".. His speeches had a powerful effect on his audiences, who were generally African Americans in northern and western cities. Many of themtired of being told to wait for freedom, justice, equality and respectfelt that he articulated their complaints better than did the civil rights movement..

Effect on Nation membership

MalcolmX is widely regarded as the second most influential leader of the Nation of Islam after Elijah Muhammad. He was largely credited with the group's dramatic increase in membership between the early 1950s and early 1960s (from 500 to 25,000 by one estimate; from 1,200 to 50,000 or 75,000 by another).

He inspired the boxer Cassius Clay to join the Nation, and the two became close.
In January 1964, Clay brought MalcolmX and his family to Miami to watch him train for his fight against Sonny Liston.
When MalcolmX left the Nation of Islam, he tried to convince Clay (who had just been renamed Muhammad Ali by Elijah Muhammad) to join him in converting to Sunni Islam, but Clay instead broke ties with him, later describing the break as one of his greatest regrets.

MalcolmX mentored and guided LouisX (later known as Louis Farrakhan), who eventually became the leader of the Nation of Islam. MalcolmX also served as a mentor and confidant to Elijah Muhammad's son, Wallace D. Muhammad; the son told Malcolm X about his skepticism toward his father's "unorthodox approach" to Islam. Wallace Muhammad was excommunicated from the Nation of Islam several times, although he was eventually re-admitted.

Disillusionment and departure

During 1962 and 1963, events caused MalcolmX to reassess his relationship with the Nation of Islam, and particularly its leader, Elijah Muhammad.

Lack of Nation of Islam response to LAPD violence

In late 1961, there were violent confrontations between the Nation of Islam members and police in South Central Los Angeles, and numerous Muslims were arrested. They were acquitted, but tensions had been raised. Just after midnight on April27, 1962, two LAPD officers, unprovoked, shoved and beat several Muslims outside Temple Number 27. A large crowd of angry Muslims emerged from the mosque and the officers attempted to intimidate them.

One officer was disarmed; his partner was shot in the elbow by a third officer. More than 70 backup officers arrived who then raided the mosque and randomly beat Nation of Islam members. Police officers shot seven Muslims, including William X Rogers, who was hit in the back and paralyzed for life, and Ronald Stokes, a Korean War veteran, who was shot from behind while raising his hands over his head to surrender, killing him...

A number of Muslims were indicted after the event, but no charges were laid against the police. The coroner ruled that Stokes's killing was justified. To MalcolmX, the desecration of the mosque and the associated violence demanded action, and he used what LouisX (later Louis Farrakhan) later called his "gangsterlike past" to rally the more hardened of the Nation of Islam members to take violent revenge against the police.

MalcolmX sought Elijah Muhammad's approval which was denied, stunning MalcolmX. MalcolmX was again blocked by Elijah Muhammad when he spoke of the Nation of Islam starting to work with civil rights organizations, local Black politicians, and religious groups. LouisX saw this as an important turning point in the deteriorating relationship between MalcolmX and Muhammad.

Sexual misbehavior by Elijah Muhammad

Rumors were circulating that Muhammad was conducting extramarital affairs with young Nation secretarieswhich would constitute a serious violation of Nation teachings. After first discounting the rumors, MalcolmX came to believe them after he spoke with Muhammad's son Wallace and with the girls making the accusations. Muhammad confirmed the rumors in 1963, attempting to justify his behavior by referring to precedents set by Biblical prophets. Over a series of national TV interviews between 1964 and 1965, MalcolmX provided testimony of his investigation, corroboration, and confirmation by Elijah Muhammed himself of multiple counts of child rape. During this investigation, he learned 7 of those 8 girls had become pregnant as a result of this. He also revealed an assassination attempt made on his life, through a discovered explosive device in his car, as well as the death threats he was receiving, in response to his exposure of Elijah Muhammad.

Remarks on Kennedy assassination

On December1, 1963, when asked to comment on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, MalcolmX said that it was a case of "." He added that "chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad." Likewise, according to ''The New York Times'':

further criticism of Mr. Kennedy, the Muslim leader cited the murders of Patrice Lumumba, Congo leader, of Medgar Evers, civil rights leader, and of the Negro girls bombed earlier this year in a Birmingham church. These, he said, were instances of other "chickens coming home to roost".

The remarks prompted widespread public outcry. The Nation of Islam, which had sent a message of condolence to the Kennedy family and ordered its ministers not to comment on the assassination, publicly censured their former shining star. MalcolmX retained his post and rank as minister, but was prohibited from public speaking for 90 days.

Media attention to MalcolmX over Muhammad

MalcolmX had by now become a media favorite, and some Nation members believed he was a threat to Muhammad's leadership. Publishers had shown interest in MalcolmX's autobiography, and when Louis Lomax wrote his 1963 book about the Nation, ''When the Word Is Given'', he used a photograph of MalcolmX on the cover. He also reproduced five of his speeches, but featured only one of Muhammad'sall of which greatly upset Muhammad and made him envious.

Departure from Nation of Islam

On March8, 1964, MalcolmX publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam. Though still a Muslim, he felt that the Nation had "gone as far as it can" because of its rigid teachings. He said he was planning to organize a Black nationalist organization to "heighten the political consciousness" of African Americans. He also expressed a desire to work with other civil rights leaders, saying that Elijah Muhammad had prevented him from doing so in the past.

Activity after leaving Nation of Islam

After leaving the Nation of Islam, MalcolmX founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. (MMI), a religious organization, and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), a secular group that advocated Pan-Africanism. On March26, 1964, he briefly met Martin Luther King Jr. for the first and only timeand only long enough for photographs to be takenin Washington, D.C., as both men attended the Senate's debate on the Civil Rights bill at the US Capitol building.

In April, MalcolmX gave a speech titled "The Ballot or the Bullet", in which he advised African Americans to exercise their right to vote wisely but cautioned that if the government continued to prevent African Americans from attaining full equality, it might be necessary for them to take up arms.

In the weeks after he left the Nation of Islam, several Sunni Muslims encouraged MalcolmX to learn about their faith. He soon converted to the Sunni faith.

Pilgrimage to Mecca

In April 1964, with financial help from his half-sister Ella Little-Collins, MalcolmX flew to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as the start of his Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca obligatory for every Muslim who is able to do so. He was delayed in Jeddah when his U.S. citizenship and inability to speak Arabic caused his status as a Muslim to be questioned.

He had received Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam's book ''The Eternal Message of Muhammad'' with his visa approval, and he contacted the author. Azzam's son arranged for his release and lent him his personal hotel suite. The next morning MalcolmX learned that Prince Faisal had designated him as a state guest. Several days later, after completing the Hajj rituals, MalcolmX had an audience with the prince.

MalcolmX later said that seeing Muslims of "all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to Black-skinned Africans," interacting as equals led him to see Islam as a means by which racial problems could be overcome.

Visit to Cairo

MalcolmX had already visited the United Arab Republic (a short-lived political union between Egypt and Syria), Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana in 1959 to make arrangements for a tour of Africa by Elijah Muhammad. After his journey to Mecca in 1964, he visited Africa a second time. He returned to the United States in late May and flew to Africa again in July. During these visits he met officials, gave interviews, and spoke on radio and television in Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanganyika, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Senegal, Liberia, Algeria, and Morocco.

In Cairo, he attended the second meeting of the Organization of African Unity as a representative of the OAAU. By the end of this third visit, he had met with essentially all of Africa's prominent leaders; Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria had all invited MalcolmX to serve in their governments.Natambu, p.308. After he spoke at the University of Ibadan, the Nigerian Muslim Students Association bestowed on him the honorary Yoruba name ('the son who has come home'). He later called this his most treasured honor.

Malcolm especially hated Moïse Tshombe of the Congo as an "Uncle Tom" figure. In a 1964 speech in New York, he called Tshombe "the worse African ever born" and "the man who in cold blood, cold blood, committed an international crime-murdered Patrice Lumumba". Tshombe's decision in 1964 to hire White mercenaries to put down the Simba rebellion greatly offended Malcolm, who accused the mercenaries of committing war crimes against the Congolese..

France and United Kingdom

On November23, 1964, on his way home from Africa, MalcolmX stopped in Paris, where he spoke in the Salle de la Mutualité. After his return to the United States, he accused the United States of imperialism in the Congo by supporting Tshombe and "his hired killers" as he called the White mercenaries. X accused Tshombe and the American president Lyndon B. Johnson of "...sleeping together. When I say sleeping together, I don't mean that literally. But beyond that, they're in the same bed. Johnson is paying the salaries, paying the government, propping up Tshombe's government, this murderer". X expressed much anger about Operation Dragon Rouge, where the United States Air Force dropped in Belgian paratroopers into the city of Stanleyville (modern Kisangani) to rescue the White Belgian hostages from the Simbas. Malcolm X maintained that there was a double standard when it came to White and Black lives, noting it was an international emergency when the lives of Whites were in danger, making Dragon Rouge necessary, but that nothing was done to stop the abuses of the Congolese at the hands of "Tshombe's hired killers".. X charged that the "Congolese have been massacred by White people for years and years" and that "the chickens have home to roast".

A week later, on November30, MalcolmX flew to the United Kingdom, and on December3 took part in a debate at the Oxford Union Society. The motion was taken from a statement made earlier that year by U.S. presidential candidate Barry Goldwater: "Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice; Moderation in the Pursuit of Justice is No Virtue". MalcolmX argued for the affirmative, and interest in the debate was so high that it was televised nationally by the BBC
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