Malcolm X

Early life

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, the fourth of Earl and Louise Little's seven children. His father, a follower of Marcus Garvey, died in 1931, when Malcolm was six; police called it a streetcar accident, but Malcolm later blamed the Ku Klux Klan. In 1938 his mother was committed to a state mental hospital. The National Archives notes that he faced severe racism and spent years in the foster system.

As a young man he turned to crime. In 1946 he was sentenced to eight to ten years in prison in Massachusetts for larceny and breaking and entering. There, through his siblings, he took up the teachings of the Nation of Islam. The National Archives and the Schomburg Center say he joined while in prison, the Schomburg dating it to 1947. PBS says he was introduced to the teachings in prison in 1948 and joined at the Nation's Detroit temple after his release.

Nation of Islam

Paroled in 1952, he moved to Detroit and took the surname X, rejecting "Little" as a slave name. He rose quickly: by 1954 he was minister of the Nation's Harlem temple, and in 1960 he founded its newspaper, Muhammad Speaks. He became the organization's best-known public voice, leading demonstrations and speaking across the country and abroad. Britannica describes him in these years as a champion of race pride and Black nationalism.

In 1963, after his remarks on the assassination of President Kennedy, Nation leader Elijah Muhammad ordered him to stay silent for 90 days.

Break and new direction

In 1964 Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam. That spring he made the hajj to Mecca and took the name el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, and that summer he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).

Assassination

On February 21, 1965, gunmen shot Malcolm X at close range during an OAAU meeting at the Audubon Ballroom in Upper Harlem. He was pronounced dead that afternoon at a nearby hospital. The attackers were identified as members of the Nation of Islam, which he had left and denounced the year before.

Three men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1966. One, Mujahid Abdul Halim (formerly Talmadge Hayer), confessed at trial and testified that the other two, Muhammad Aziz (Norman 3X Butler) and Khalil Islam (Thomas 15X Johnson), were not involved. In 1978 he named four other men as accomplices, but the case was not reopened.

In November 2021 a Manhattan court vacated the convictions of Aziz and Islam. A 22-month review by the Manhattan District Attorney's office and the men's lawyers found FBI documents that cast doubt on their guilt and had been withheld at the time of the trial. Aziz, then 83, had been paroled in 1985. Islam, released in 1987, had died in 2009 and was exonerated after his death.

Legacy

The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written with Alex Haley and published after his death, was widely read and, in Britannica's words, made him an ideological hero, especially among Black youth. The Audubon Ballroom now houses the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, which opened in 2005.