Malcolm Black nationalism at the beginning of the decade. After his assassination, his life story received wide distribution—The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) made him an ideological hero, especially among black youth . Malcolm Three members of the Nation of Islam – the religious group to which he once belonged – were convicted of his murder. (Two were acquitted in 2021.)
In the 1960s, Malcolm X became disillusioned with the Nation of Islam and its leader Elijah Muhammad. He then embraced Sunni Islam and the civil rights movement after completing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and became known as “al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz“, which roughly translates to “Pilgrim Malcolm the Patriarch“. 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). During 1964, his conflict with the Nation of Islam intensified and he was repeatedly issued death threats. He was assassinated on February 21, 1965 in New York City. Three Nation members were charged with murder and given indeterminate life sentences. In 2021, two convictions were dismissed. There has been speculation about whether the assassination was planned or assisted by the head of state or additional members or law enforcement agencies.
Malcolm He was posthumously honored with Malcolm Hundreds of streets and schools in the US have been renamed in his honor, while the Audubon Ballroom, the site of his assassination, was partially redeveloped in 2005 for the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.
Contents
Early years
A ledger with names, ages, and other personal information
Listing of the Little family in the 1930 United States Census return (lines 59ff)
Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, the fourth of seven children of Grenada-born Louise Helen Little (née Langdon) and Georgia-born Earl Little. Earle was an outspoken Baptist speaker and he and Lewis were admirers of Pan-African activist Marcus Garvey. Earl was a local leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and Lewis worked as secretary and “branch reporter”, sending news of local UNIA activities to the Negro World; He instilled self-reliance and black pride in his children. Malcolm X later said that white violence killed four of his father’s brothers.
Due to threats from the Ku Klux Klan, Earl’s UNIA activities were called “troublemakers” and the family relocated to Milwaukee in 1926, and to Lansing, Michigan shortly thereafter. There, the family was frequently harassed by the Black Legion, a white racist group whom Earl accused of burning down his family’s home in 1929.
His religious conversion occurred while he was in prison for robbery from 1946 to 1952, which ultimately led him to join the Muslim League and the Nation of Islam, an African American movement that combined elements of Islam with Black nationalism. His decision to join the Nation was also influenced by discussions with his brother Reginald, who had become a member in Detroit and who was imprisoned with Malcolm in the Norfolk Prison Colony, Massachusetts, in 1948. Malcolm gave up smoking and gambling and refused to eat pork in keeping with the Nation’s dietary restrictions. To educate himself, he spent long hours reading books in the prison library, even memorizing a dictionary. He also sharpened his forensic skills by participating in debate classes. Following Nation tradition, he replaced his surname, “Little”, with an “X”.
Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam
After his release from prison, Malcolm helped lead the Nation of Islam to its greatest period of growth and influence. In 1952, Elijah Muhammad in Chicago began organizing temples for the Nation in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and in cities across the South. Did. He founded the Nation’s newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, which he printed in the basement of his home, and required each male member of the Nation to sell a certain number of newspapers on the street as a recruitment and fundraising technique. Started the tradition. He also articulated the nation’s racial theories on the inherent evil of whites and the natural superiority of blacks.
Malcolm advanced rapidly and became minister of Boston Temple No. 11, which he had founded; He was later rewarded with the position of minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem, the largest and most prestigious temple in the nation after the Chicago headquarters. Recognizing his talents and abilities, Elijah Muhammad, who had a special fondness for Malcolm, named him the national representative of the Nation of Islam, second only to Muhammad. Under Malcolm’s lieutenants, the Nation claimed a membership of 500,000. However, the actual number of members fluctuated and the organization’s influence, refracted through Malcolm X’s public persona, always far exceeded its size . An articulate speaker, a charismatic personality, and a tireless organizer, Malcolm He preached on the streets of Harlem and spoke at major universities such as Harvard University and Oxford University. His keen intellect, sharp wit, and fervent radicalism made him a powerful critic of American society. He also criticized the mainstream civil rights movement, challenging Martin Luther King, Jr.’s central notions of integration and nonviolence. Malcolm argued that there was more at stake than the civil right to sit in a restaurant or even vote – the most important issues were black identity, integrity, and freedom. In contrast to King’s strategy of nonviolence, Malcolm urged his followers to defend themselves “by any means,” despite civil disobedience and redemptive suffering. His sharp criticism of the “so-called Negro” provided the intellectual foundation for the Black Power and Black Consciousness movements in the United States in the late 1960s and 70s (see Black nationalism). Through the influence of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm the prison
Between reading Mr. Muhammad’s teachings, my correspondence, my visitors… and my books, months passed and I didn’t even think about going to jail. In fact, until then, I had never been so free in my life.
Malcolm X
While Malcolm was in prison, he met fellow criminal John Bembry, a self-educated man whom he later described as “the first man I ever saw achieve complete respect with words”. Under Bembry’s influence, Malcolm developed a voracious appetite for reading.
At this time, several of his brothers and sisters wrote to him about the Nation of Islam, a relatively new religious movement that preached black self-reliance and, ultimately, the return of the African diaspora to Africa, where they Will be free from white American and European domination. At first he showed little interest, but when his brother Reginald wrote in 1948, “Malcolm, don’t eat any more pork and don’t smoke cigarettes. I’ll show you how to get out of jail”, he almost immediately Gave up smoking and started refusing to eat pork.
During a visit Reginald explained in detail the group’s teachings, including the belief that white people were the devil, Malcolm initially struggled to accept this belief. However, over time, Malcolm reflected on his past relationships with white individuals and concluded that they were all marked by dishonesty, injustice, greed, and hatred. Malcolm, whose hostility toward Christianity had earned him the nickname “Satan” in prison, became receptive to the message of the Nation of Islam.
In late 1948, Malcolm wrote a letter to Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad advised them to renounce their past, bow humbly in prayer to God, and promise never to engage in destructive behavior again. Although he later recalled the struggle within him before he bent his knees to pray,
Early Ministry
After his parole in August 1952, Malcolm X met with Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. In June 1953, he was named assistant minister of the Nation’s Temple Number One in Detroit. [c] Later that year he founded Temple No. 11 of Boston; In March 1954, he expanded Temple No. 12 in Philadelphia; And two months later he was chosen to lead Temple No. 7 in Harlem, where he rapidly expanded its membership. ,In 1953, the FBI began surveillance on him, shifting its focus from Malcolm
During 1955, Malcolm X continued his successful recruitment of members on behalf of the Nation of Islam. He visited Springfield, Massachusetts (No. 13); Hartford, Connecticut (No. 14); and established temples in Atlanta (No. 15). Hundreds of African Americans were joining the Nation of Islam every month . In addition to his skills as a speaker, Malcolm X also had an impressive physical appearance. He stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed approximately 180 pounds (82 kg). One writer described him as “powerfully built”, and another described him as “delectably handsome and always immaculately groomed”.
Final years and legacy
Malcolm X, 1964.
In 1963, there were deep tensions between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad over the political direction of the nation. Malcolm urged that the nation become more active in the broader civil rights protests rather than merely a critic. Muhammad’s violations of the nation’s moral code further deteriorated his relationship with Malcolm, who was devastated when he learned that Muhammad had fathered children by six of his personal secretaries, two of whom filed a paternity suit. Filed and made the issue public. Malcolm brought even more bad publicity to the nation when he publicly announced that President John F. The Kennedy assassination was an example of “chickens coming home to roost” – a violent society suffering the consequences of violence. In response to the outrage provoked by this statement, Elijah Muhammad ordered Malcolm for 90 days of silence, and the break between the two leaders became permanent.
Malcolm X, 1963
Malcolm x
Malcolm left the Nation in March 1964 and founded Muslim Mosques, Inc. the following month. During his pilgrimage to Mecca that same year, he converted for the second time and converted to Sunni Islam, adopting the Muslim name al-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz. Rejecting the nation’s separatist beliefs, he claimed that the solution to racial problems in the United States lay in conservative Islam. On the second of two visits to Africa in 1964, he addressed the Organization of African Unity (known as the African Union since 2002), an international organization established to promote African unity, international cooperation, and economic development. -It is a government group. In 1965 he founded the Organization of African Unity. African-American unity organization, as a secular vehicle for internationalizing the plight of black Americans and pursuing common interests with people of the developing world – to move from civil rights to human rights
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