Malcolm X

The Littles were pushed out of Nebraska by Klan threats in 1926, when he was one, and out of their newly bought house in Lansing by a lawsuit over a covenant barring sale to non-white buyers. When his father died in 1931, one insurer paid a small policy in monthly instalments and a larger one refused, calling it suicide. He was a strong student in junior high and quit school in 1941, after a white teacher told him that practising law was not a realistic goal for a Black boy. In Boston he lived with his half-sister Ella. In Harlem he washed dishes at Jimmy's Chicken Shack alongside a young comedian who became Redd Foxx. Both had red hair. He was Detroit Red.

In February 1946 he began an eight-to-ten-year sentence in Massachusetts for larceny and breaking and entering, and came out on parole in August 1952. Within two years he had established or expanded temples in Boston, Philadelphia and Springfield and been handed Temple Number Seven in Harlem. Membership in the Nation of Islam went from about 1,200 to somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 while he was doing that work. He brought in Cassius Clay. BriefHistory carries the argument he made, the break with Elijah Muhammad and the pilgrimage that changed it. This page is about what the work cost.

In 1961 he shared a platform at a Nation rally with George Lincoln Rockwell of the American Nazi Party, who saw overlap between black nationalism and white supremacy. The Nation forbade its members to vote while the civil rights movement got people killed over the ballot. He called Martin Luther King a chump and the 1963 March on Washington a farce, and asked why anyone was excited about a demonstration run by whites at the statue of a president who had not liked Black people when he was alive. In April 1962 Los Angeles police shot seven Muslims outside Temple 27, killing Ronald Stokes, and Elijah Muhammad refused him permission to respond. A year later he confirmed that Muhammad had fathered children with teenage secretaries. Muhammad Ali, whom he had recruited, cut him off and later called it his greatest regret.

The autopsy counted 21 gunshot wounds. The New York Times called him an extraordinary and twisted man whose life had been strangely and pitifully wasted. Between 14,000 and 30,000 people came to the viewing anyway, Ossie Davis called him our shining black prince, and at Ferncliff his friends took the gravediggers' shovels and filled the grave themselves. That same year, in Omaha, new owners tore down the house he had been born in without knowing whose it was. The Autobiography, completed by Alex Haley, has never gone out of print. In 2021 New York vacated the convictions of two of the three men imprisoned for the killing, after a review found the FBI and the police had withheld evidence.

Malcolm X's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Message to the Grass Roots speech
  Delivered in Detroit three weeks before the Nation silenced him 1963
• The Ballot or the Bullet speech
  Given in Cleveland and Detroit after he left the Nation of Islam 1964
• Muslim Mosque, Inc. company
  His own religious organization, founded weeks after the break 1964
• Organization of Afro-American Unity company
  Framed Black freedom as a human rights question rather than a civil rights one 1964
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X book
  Written with Alex Haley and published after his death 1965

• 1931 aged ~6 His father dies in what was officially ruled a streetcar accident His mother believed the Black Legion had killed him. Malcolm gave conflicting accounts as an adult.
• Late 1938 aged ~13 His mother is committed to Kalamazoo State Hospital and the children are separated He and his siblings secured her release 24 years later.
• Late 1943 aged ~18 Talks his way out of the draft by alarming the board He was declared mentally disqualified for military service.
• February 1946 aged 20 Begins an eight-to-ten-year sentence for larceny and breaking and entering He read his way through Charlestown, Concord and Norfolk Prison Colony.
• August 1952 aged 27 Paroled, and goes to Chicago to see Elijah Muhammad He had been signing his name Malcolm X since 1950.
• January 1958 aged 32 Marries Betty Sanders two days after proposing over the telephone
• December 1, 1963 aged 38 Says the Kennedy assassination is a case of chickens coming home to roost The Nation silenced him for 90 days.
• March 8, 1964 aged 38 Announces his break with the Nation of Islam
• February 14, 1965 aged 39 His house in Queens burns the night before an eviction hearing He was shot dead a week later at the Audubon Ballroom.

• Martin Luther King Jr. 1929–1968
  Baptist minister and civil rights leader whose nonviolent activism ended legal segregation in America. defined against
• Muhammad Ali 1942–2016
  Boxing legend and cultural icon known for his athletic brilliance and principled stance against the Vietnam War draft. recruited and lost
• James Baldwin 1924–1987
  Essayist and novelist whose searing explorations of race, sexuality, and identity remain profoundly relevant. friend
• Gordon Parks 1912–2006
  Photographer for Life magazine and first Black director of a major Hollywood studio film. gave his last interview to
• Elijah Muhammad 1897–1975
  Leader who built the Nation of Islam into a major religious and Black nationalist movement. broke with
• Huey Newton 1942–1989
  Co-founder of the Black Panther Party who paired armed self-defense with free breakfast and clinic programs. took up his argument