Malcolm X
May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965
African American Muslim minister and activist who was the leading spokesman of the Nation of Islam until he broke with it in 1964. He was assassinated in New York in 1965.
Biography
Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925. After his father's death and his mother's committal to a mental hospital he grew up in foster homes and with relatives, and as a young man drifted into crime in Boston and New York. In 1946 he was sentenced to eight to ten years in prison for larceny and burglary.
In prison he joined the Nation of Islam and took the name Malcolm X. Paroled in 1952, he became one of Elijah Muhammad's most effective ministers, founding and building temples in Boston, Philadelphia and other cities, and from 1954 leading Temple No. 7 in Harlem. As the movement's best-known spokesman he preached Black self-reliance and separation from white America and criticised the mainstream civil rights movement's commitment to non-violence and integration.
Growing disillusioned with Elijah Muhammad, he left the Nation of Islam in March 1964, embraced Sunni Islam on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and travelled widely in Africa. He founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity, and in speeches such as 'The Ballot or the Bullet' urged African Americans to use the vote while defending their right to self-defence.
After months of death threats from the Nation of Islam, he was shot dead on 21 February 1965 while addressing the OAAU at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. Three Nation members were convicted; two of the convictions were vacated in 2021. His autobiography, written with Alex Haley, appeared after his death and shaped the Black Power movement.
