Malcom X Biography
Malcom X was born Malcolm Little, May 19, 1925, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. and
was assassinated Feb. 21, 1965, New York..
Malcom X was a black militant leader who pushed race pride and black
nationalism in the 1960s. After his assassination, The Autobiography of
Malcom X (1965) made him a hero among black youth in the civil rights
movement, and among other militants.
Growing up in Lansing, Michigan, Malcom's house was burned down by white supremacists in the Ku Klux Klan. His father was murdered, and mother placed in a mental institution. Malcolm then spent several years in detention homes, before moving in his early teens to live with his sister in Boston. In prison for burglary, in 1946, he became a Black Muslim (Nation of Islam), a sect professing the superiority of black people over evil whites. Released in 1952, Malcolm joined the Nation of Islam headquarters in Chicago under the sect's leader, Elijah Muhammad. He embraced its strict asceticism and changed his last name to “X,” to reflect that African-American family names usually originated with white slaveholders.
Malcolm X went on speaking tours and became the most effective organizer in the Nation of Islam. He founded mosques, the publication Muhammad Speaks, and greatly increased the movement's membership. Eventually he became minister of Mosque Number Seven in Harlem, New York City.
He spoke against white exploitation of black people, but also attacked the civil-rights movement for its promotion of integration and racial equality. Malcolm X demanded black separation and black self-dependence. He only allowed the use of violence for self-protection, but his leadership was rejected by most civil-rights leaders, who promoted non-violent resistance to racial injustice.
Malcom X described the assassination of President John F. Kennedy “chickens coming home to roost”—whites using violence against themselves that they had long used against blacks. Malcolm's success aroused jealousy in the Black Muslim hierarchy, and Elijah Muhammad suspended Malcolm from the movement for the "chickens" comment. So Malcom X formed his own religious organization. After a pilgrimage to Mecca, he accepted whites as not innately evil and acknowledged the possibility of world brotherhood.
He was shot to death at a rally in a Harlem ballroom. Three Black Muslims were convicted of his murder.
Growing up in Lansing, Michigan, Malcom's house was burned down by white supremacists in the Ku Klux Klan. His father was murdered, and mother placed in a mental institution. Malcolm then spent several years in detention homes, before moving in his early teens to live with his sister in Boston. In prison for burglary, in 1946, he became a Black Muslim (Nation of Islam), a sect professing the superiority of black people over evil whites. Released in 1952, Malcolm joined the Nation of Islam headquarters in Chicago under the sect's leader, Elijah Muhammad. He embraced its strict asceticism and changed his last name to “X,” to reflect that African-American family names usually originated with white slaveholders.
Malcolm X went on speaking tours and became the most effective organizer in the Nation of Islam. He founded mosques, the publication Muhammad Speaks, and greatly increased the movement's membership. Eventually he became minister of Mosque Number Seven in Harlem, New York City.
He spoke against white exploitation of black people, but also attacked the civil-rights movement for its promotion of integration and racial equality. Malcolm X demanded black separation and black self-dependence. He only allowed the use of violence for self-protection, but his leadership was rejected by most civil-rights leaders, who promoted non-violent resistance to racial injustice.
Malcom X described the assassination of President John F. Kennedy “chickens coming home to roost”—whites using violence against themselves that they had long used against blacks. Malcolm's success aroused jealousy in the Black Muslim hierarchy, and Elijah Muhammad suspended Malcolm from the movement for the "chickens" comment. So Malcom X formed his own religious organization. After a pilgrimage to Mecca, he accepted whites as not innately evil and acknowledged the possibility of world brotherhood.
He was shot to death at a rally in a Harlem ballroom. Three Black Muslims were convicted of his murder.