Malcolm
X (real name: Malcolm Little) was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. He
was also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. He was an African-American Muslim
minister and a human rights activist. His admirers call him a courageous
advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the
harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. He has been called one
of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.
Childhood
Malcolm
Little was born to mother Louise Little and father Earl Little. When Little was
6, his father was killed in a street car accident, which was rumored to be an
act by white racists. Malcolm X later said that violence by whites killed three
of his father's brothers.
Education
Malcolm
Little excelled in junior high school but dropped out after a white teacher
told him that practicing law, his aspiration at the time, was "no
realistic goal for a nigger". In his later life Malcolm X has kept on
mentioning his feeling that the white world offered no place for a
career-oriented black man, regardless of talent.
Career
From
age 14 to 21, Malcolm X stayed in Roxbury, a largely African-American
neighborhood of Boston. He took up a variety of jobs there. In 1943, he moved
to New York where he got engaged in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering,
robbery, and pimping. He tried to enter into the military but was declared
"mentally disqualified for military service".
He
was arrested in 1946 and was sent to Charlestown State Prison for 8-10 years
for larceny and breaking and entering. After his parole in 1952, he became
active with the activities of “Nation of Islam” – a group formed to bring
African Americans at equal rights with White Americans. He was responsible to
increase the followers of this group and spread its teachings. Because of
internal issues he left the group in 1964 and went ahead to form Muslim Mosque,
Inc., a religious organization, and the Organization of Afro-American Unity, a
secular group that advocated Pan-Africanism.
In
April 1964, Malcolm X 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.
At
the End
On
February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was preparing to address the Organization of
Afro-American Unity in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom when someone in the
400-person audience rushed forward and shot him once in the chest, two other
men charged the stage firing semi-automatic handguns. He was pronounced dead at
Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
