He was an eighth-grade dropout. A pimp. A burglar. Addicted to cocaine. His religion was hatred, particularly toward “white devils.” Per The New York Times he was “an extraordinary twisted man” who “turn[ed] many true gifts to evil purpose” and his life was “strangely and pitifully wasted.”
Time called him “an un- ashamed demagogue”. He was also a preacher, a human rights organizer, an advocate for Black empower- ment and for the promotion of Islam within the African American community. He dedicated his life to civil rights progress, and equality for African Americans. He created the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which emphasized self-reliance and self-protection. He was a jus- tice seeker and a truth teller.
His birth name was Malcolm Little. His nickname was Big Red. His name at death was el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz. You likely know him as Malcom X. Malcolm X was assassinated in front of four hundred people, including his pregnant wife and four daughters on February 21, 1965, as he was about to make a speech. He was 39 years old.
Malcolm’s father was a Bap- tist minister and admirer of Marcus Garvey of the “Back to Africa” movement. When he was about six, Malcolm’s father was run over by a streetcar, his body slashed in half. Malcolm always insisted that he was slaughtered by whites and his body arranged across the tracks to suggest an accident. Shortly afterwards, his mother was involuntarily committed to a mental asy- lum. He and his siblings were scattered.
Shortly after, Malcolm went to New York where he ad- opted a zoot-suits and yellow- toed shoes, and conked his reddish hair. He sold marijuana and hustled white men in search of Black prostitutes and Black men who preferred white women. Convicted of stealing, he spent six years in a Boston prison, where he educated himself by copying entire dictionaries. He be- came enamored of the Black Muslims, enchanted by their myths and religion. He was taught that the first humans were Black, and all other races were the result of Yacub, a depraved scientist who over generations created a “bleached out, white people.”
Released from incarceration, Malcolm married Betty Sanders and became a formidable promoter of Black Muslimism. The eloquent speaking skills he developed in prison made him a prize recruiter, and he was honored by leader Elijah Muhammad with increasingly responsibilities to convert the curious and establish new mosques. Malcolm became an in- demand lecturer before Black and white audiences and col- leges. This success unsettled his boss.
