Malcolm X
He was born with the name of Malcolm Little in University Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. Malcolm was the seventh child out of the whole eleven children. He was the son of his father, Reverend Earl Little, who was a Baptist minister and a strong believer in Marcus Garvey's ideas of black independence and self-respect. Malcolm X was the son of his father's second wife, Louise Norton. He grew up in a childhood of a lot of racism around him just like Jem and Scout did in the novel. The local Klu Klux Klan resented the ideas of Reverend Earl Little. As s result, after Malcolm's birth, they moved, first to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and later to Lansing, Michigan. Reverend Little's ideas were not any more popular in Lansing, Michigan than they had been in Omaha, and in 1929 members of a local violent group set fire to the Little's home. Malcolm's father was not one to be bullied, however. He stayed and built another home. But when Malcolm was six, his father was murdered, apparently by the same men who had burned down his house. Things changed significantly after that. Malcolm quit school after the eighth grade. He traveled first to Boston, Massachusetts, and then to Harlem, New York, where he became involved in
On February 15, 1965, Malcolm X's home was firebombed- just as his father's home had been thirty-six years before. In 1946, at the age of twenty-one, he was charged with burglary and sent to prison for six and a half years. Malcolm joined the Black Muslims. This happened according to custom, so he dropped his original last name and called himself Malcolm X. This religious group, led by Elijah Muhammad, promoted black economic independence and wanted to establish a separate black state either in the United States or Africa. One week later, on February 21, he was shot to death at a rally in the Audubon Ballroom in New York. Impressed, he converted to orthodox Islam and returned to United States, denouncing Elijah Muhammad as a religious fake and a racist. Serious about the new religion, he studied its teachings with interest. " Many people ware attracted by Malcolm X's ideas and supported him when he condemned the seemingly slow progress of the civil rights movement. In the summer of 1964, he traveled to the Middle East and to Africa to see how the Muslim religion was practiced there. When Malcolm X was released from prison in 1952, he became a Muslim minister and spent the next twelve years organizing mosques and spreading the Black Muslim message. While he was in prison, he became interested in the Nation of Islam, popularly known as Black Muslims. Malcolm X's life story proved to the Black Panther Party, founded in 1966, that ex-criminals and hustlers could be turned into revolutionaries. Just months after his death, and his ideas about community control, African liberation, and self-pride became widespread and influential.
Common topics in this essay:
Malcolm X's,
Rights Movement,
Michigan Omaha,
Black Muslim,
Malcolm Serious,
Panther Party,
Harlem York,
Elijah Muhammad,
Muhammad Speaks,
Nation Islam,
malcolm x's,
elijah muhammad,
nation islam,
black muslims,
reverend earl little,
civil rights,
rights movement,
black people,
earl little,
malcolm quit,
black muslim,
civil rights movement,
|