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Do you know who Malcolm X is? You might have heard of him, but what does he stand for you might ask. Malcolm X born as Malcolm Little was born May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska to Earl and Louise Little. Malcolm was the fourth of eight children. His father was an outspoken Baptist speaker. As stated on worldhistoryproject.org, his father supported Pan-African activist Marcus Garvey and was a local leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) . Malcolm never forgot the values of black pride and self-reliance that his father and other UNIA leaders taught.
Due to Malcolm’s father civil rights activism, the family was subjected to persistent harassment from white supremacist groups including the Ku Klux Klan and one of its splinter factions, the Black Legion.
Malcolm X had his first encounter with racism before he was even born. When Malcolm’s mother was pregnant with him a party of Ku Klux Klan members gathered around his house and shouted for his father to come out.
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The harassment continued. When Malcolm X was four years old, a group of local Klan members smashed all of the family's windows. To protect his family, Earl Little moved them from Omaha to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1926 and then to Lansing, Michigan, in 1928.
The racism that the family encountered in Michigan was even greater than in Omaha. Shortly after the Littles moved in, a racist mob set their house on fire in 1929, the town's all-white emergency responders refused to do anything about it . The white police and firemen came and stood around watching as the house burned to the ground.
Earl Little moved the family to East Lansing where he built a new home. Two years later, in 1931, Earl Little's dead body was discovered lying across the municipal streetcar tracks. Although Malcolm X's family believed his father was murdered by white supremacists from whom he had received frequent death threats, the police officially ruled Earl Little's death a streetcar accident, thereby revoking the large life insurance policy he had purchased in order to provide for his family in the event of his death. Malcolm X’s mother never recovered the shock and grief from her husband’s death. In 1937, she was committed to a mental institution where she remained for 26 years. Malcolm and his siblings were split up and put into foster homes.
In 1938, Malcolm X was kicked out of school and sent to a juvenile detention home in Mason, Michigan. The white couple who ran the home treated him well, but he wrote in his autobiography that he was treated more like a 'pink poodle' more than a human being. He attended Mason High School where he was one of only a few african american students. He excelled academically and was well known by his classmates, who elected him class president. A climax in Malcolm X's childhood came in 1939, when his English teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he answered that he wanted to be a lawyer. His dreams were crushed when his favorite teacher responded, 'No realistic goal for a nigger. ' Malcolm X dropped out of school the following year, at the age of 15. After quitting school, Malcolm X moved to Boston to live with his older sister, Ella, about whom he later recalled, 'She was the first really proud black woman I had ever seen in my life. She was plainly proud of her very dark complexion. This was unheard of among Negroes in those days.' Ella landed Malcolm a job shining shoes at the Roseland Ballroom. Nevertheless, out on his own on the streets of Boston, Malcolm X became conversant with the city's criminal underground and soon turning to selling drugs. He got another job as kitchen help on the Yankee Clipper train between New York and Boston and fell further into a life of drugs and crime. Sporting flamboyant pinstriped zoot suits, he frequented nightclubs and turned more fully to crime to finance his lavish lifestyle. In 1946, Malcolm X was arrested on charges of larceny and sentenced to 10 years in jail. To pass the time during his imprisonment, he read constantly, devouring books from the prison library in an attempt make up for the years of education he had missed by dropping out of high school. Also while in prison, Malcolm X was visited by several siblings who had joined the Nation of Islam, a small set of black Muslims who embraced the ideology of black nationalism — the idea that in order to secure freedom, justice and equality, black Americans needed to establish their own state entirely separate from the cocassions. He became apart of the Nation of Islam before his release from prison in 1952.
Now a free man, Malcolm X traveled to Detroit, Michigan, where he worked with the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, to enlarge the movement's following among black Americans nationwide. Malcolm X became the minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem and Temple No. 11 in Boston, while also founding new temples in Hartford and Philadelphia. In 1960, he established a national newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, in order to further stimulate the message of the Nation of Islam. By the early 1960s, Malcolm X had progressed as a leading voice of a radicalized wing of the Civil Rights Movement, presenting a philosophical alternative to Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of a racially-integrated society achieved by peaceful means. Dr. King was highly critical of what he viewed as Malcolm X's destructive demagoguery. 'I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice,' King once said.
In 1963, A rupture with Elijah Muhammad proved much more traumatic. Malcolm X became deeply disillusioned when he learned that his hero and mentor had violated many of his own teachings, most insolently by carrying on many extramarital affairs; Muhammad had, in fact, fathered several children out of wedlock. Malcolm's feelings of betrayal, combined with Muhammad's anger over Malcolm's insensitive comments regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, led Malcolm X to leave the Nation of Islam in 1964. hat same year, Malcolm X embarked on an extended trip through North Africa . The journey proved to be both a political and spiritual turning point in his life. He learned to place the American Civil Rights Movement within the context of a global anti-colonial struggle, embracing socialism and pan-Africanism. Malcolm X also made the Hajj, the traditional Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, during which he switched to traditional Islam and again changed his name, this time to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.
Catastrophically, just as Malcolm X appeared to be embarking on an ideological transformation to dramatically alter the course of the Civil Rights Movement, he was assassinated.
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X took the stage for a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in northern Manhattan. He had just begun addressing the room when multiple men rushed the stage and began firing guns. Struck numerous times at close range, Malcolm X was pronounced dead after arriving at a nearby hospital shortly afterward leaving behind six daughters and a loving wife. Malcolm X was a very passionate and visionary man who taught African American people. If I could meet Malcolm X my question to him would be “ Instead of peaceful actions, why did you choose the violent route? ” Malcolm X is important to me because of one of his quotes “ A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything ”.
The Life of Malcolm X. (2021, Mar 18). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-life-of-malcolm-x-essay
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