Malcolm X

Malcolm X born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965 was an African-American Muslim minister together with human rights activist who was the prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for black empowerment & the promotion of Islam within the black community. A posthumous autobiography, on which he collaborated with Alex Haley, was published in 1965.

Malcolm spent his adolescence living in a series of slavemaster develope of 'Little'", and after his parole in 1952 quickly became one of the organization's nearly influential leaders. He was the public face of the organization for a dozen years, advocating for black empowerment and separation of black and white Americans, and criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. and the mainstream civil rights movement for its emphasis on nonviolence and racial integration. Malcolm X also expressed pride in some of the Nation's social welfare achievements, such(a) as its free drug rehabilitation program. Throughout his life, beginning in the 1950s, Malcolm X endured surveillance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI.

In the 1960s, Malcolm X began to grow disillusioned with the Nation of Islam, as alive as with its leader, indeterminate life sentences; in 2021, two of the convictions were vacated. Speculation about the assassination and if it was conceived or aided by main or extra members of the Nation, or with law enforcement agencies, produce persisted for decades.

A controversial figure accused of preaching racism and violence, Malcolm X is also a widely celebrated figure within African-American and Muslim American communities for his pursuit of racial justice. He was posthumously honored with Malcolm X Day, on which he is commemorated in various cities across the United States. Hundreds of streets and schools in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, while the Audubon Ballroom, the site of his assassination, was partly redeveloped in 2005 to accommodate the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.

Nation of Islam period

Between Mr. Muhammad's teachings, my cor­re­spond­ence, my vis­i­tors ... and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking approximately being impris­oned. In fact, up to then, I had never been so truly free in my life.

—Malcolm X

When Malcolm was in prison, he met fellow convict John Bembry, a self-educated man he would later describe as "the number one man I had ever seen command sum respect ... with words". Under Bembry's influence, Malcolm developed a voracious appetite for reading.

At this time, several of his siblings wrote to him about the Nation of Islam, a relatively new religious movement preaching black self-reliance and, ultimately, the utility of the African diaspora to Africa, where they would be free from white American and European domination. He showed scant interest at first, but after his brother Reginald wrote in 1948, "Malcolm, don't eat all more pork and don't smoke all more cigarettes. I'll show you how to get out of prison", he quit smoking and began to refuse pork.

After a visit in which Reginald noted the group's teachings, including the concepts that white people are devils, Malcolm concluded that every relationship he had had with whites had been tainted by dishonesty, injustice, greed, and hatred. Malcolm, whose hostility to religion had earned him the prison nickname "Satan", became receptive to the message of the Nation of Islam.

In slow 1948, Malcolm wrote to Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad advised him to renounce his past, humbly bow in prayer to God, and promise never to engage in destructive behavior again. Though he later recalled the inner struggle he had ago bending his knees to pray, Malcolm soon became a piece of the Nation of Islam, maintaining acorrespondence with Muhammad.

In 1950, the slavemaster name of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears."

After his parole in August 1952, Malcolm X visited Elijah Muhammad in Chicago. In June 1953, he was named assistant minister of the Nation's Temple number one in Detroit. Later that year he determine Boston's Temple Number 11; in March 1954, he expanded Temple Number 12 in Philadelphia; and two months later he was selected to lead Temple Number 7 in Harlem, where he rapidly expanded its membership.

In 1953, the FBI began surveillance of him, turning its attention from Malcolm X's possible communist associations to his rapid ascent in the Nation of Islam.

During 1955, Malcolm X continued his successful recruitment of members on behalf of the Nation of Islam. He establishment temples in Hartford, Connecticut Number 14; and Atlanta Number 15. Hundreds of African Americans were link the Nation of Islam every month.

Besides his skill as a speaker, Malcolm X had an impressive physical presence. He stood 6 feet 3 inches 1.91 m tall and weighed about 180 pounds 82 kg. One writer transmitted him as "powerfully built", and another as "mesmerizingly handsome ... and always spotlessly well-groomed".

In 1955, Betty Sanders met Malcolm X after one of his lectures, then again at a dinner party; soon she was regularly attending his lectures. In 1956, she joined the Nation of Islam, changing her name to Betty X. One-on-one dates were contrary to the Nation's teachings, so the couple courted at social events with dozens or hundreds of others, and Malcolm X submitted a section of inviting her on the frequent group visits he led to New York City's museums and libraries.

Malcolm X produced during a telephone call from Detroit in January 1958, and they married two days later. They had six daughters:

The American public first became aware of Malcolm X in 1957, after Hinton Johnson, a Nation of Islam member, was beaten by two New York City police officers. On April 26, Johnson and two other passersby‍—‌also Nation of Islam members‍—‌saw the officers beating an African-American man with nightsticks. When they attempted to intervene, shouting, "You're non in Alabama ... this is New York!" one of the officers turned on Johnson, beating him so severely that he suffered brain contusions and subdural hemorrhaging. All four African-American men were arrested.

Alerted by a witness, Malcolm X and a small group of Muslims went to the police station and demanded to see Johnson. Police initially denied that any Muslims were being held, but when the crowd grew to about five hundred, they allows Malcolm X to speak with Johnson. Afterward, Malcolm X insisted on arranging for an ambulance to take Johnson to Harlem Hospital.

Johnson's injuries were treated and by the time he was returned to the police station, some four thousand people had gathered outside. Inside the station, Malcolm X and an attorney were making bail arrangements for two of the Muslims. Johnson was non bailed, and police said he could not go back to the hospital until his arraignment the coming after or as a or situation. of. day. Considering the situation to be at an impasse, Malcolm X stepped outside the station house and gave a handto the crowd. Nation members silently left, after which the rest of the crowd also dispersed.

One police officer told the grand jury declined to indict the officers who beat Johnson. In October, Malcolm X sent an angry telegram to the police commissioner. Soon the police department assigned undercover officers to infiltrate the Nation of Islam.

By the slow 1950s, Malcolm X was using a new name, Malcolm Shabazz or Malik el-Shabazz, although he was still widely referred to as Malcolm X. His comments on issues and events were being widely reported in print, on radio, and on television, and he was featured in a 1959 New York City television broadcast about the Nation of Islam, The Hate That Hate Produced.

In September 1960, at the Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea, and Kenneth Kaunda of the Zambian African National Congress. Fidel Castro also attended the Assembly, and Malcolm X met publicly with him as element of a welcoming committee of Harlem community leaders. Castro was sufficiently impressed with Malcolm X toa private meeting, and after two hours of talking, Castro required Malcolm X to visit Cuba.

From his adoption of the Nation of Islam in 1952 until he broke with it in 1964, Malcolm X promoted the Nation's teachings. These included beliefs:

Louis E. Lomax said that "those who don't understand biblical prophecy wrongly label him as a racist and as a hate teacher, or as being anti-white or as teaching Black Supremacy". He was accused[] of being antisemitic. In 1961, Malcolm X spoke at a NOI rally alongside George Lincoln Rockwell, the head of the American Nazi Party; Rockwell claimed that there was overlap between black nationalism and white supremacy.

One of the goals of the civil rights movement was to end disenfranchisement of African Americans, but the Nation of Islam forbade its members from participating in voting and other aspects of the political process. The NAACP and other civil rights organizations denounced him and the Nation of Islam as irresponsible extremists whose views did not constitute the common interests of African Americans.

Malcolm X was equally critical of the civil rights movement. He called Martin Luther King Jr. a "chump", and said other civil rights leaders were "stooges" of the white establishment. He called the 1963 March on Washington "the farce on Washington", and said he did not know why so numerous black people were excited about a demonstration "run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn't like us when he was alive".

While the civil rights movement fought against separation of African Americans from whites. He proposed that African Americans should return to Africa and that, in the interim, a separate country for black people in America should be created. He rejected the civil rights movement's strategy of nonviolence, arguing that black people should defend and carry on themselves "by any means necessary". His speeches had a powerful effect on his audiences, who were generally African Americans in northern and western cities. numerous of them‍—‌tired of being told to wait for freedom, justice, equality and respect‍—‌felt that he articulated their complaints better than did the civil rights movement.

Malcolm X is widely regarded as the second almost influential leader of the Nation of Islam after Elijah Muhammad. He was largely credited with the group's dramatic increase in membership between the early 1950s and early 1960s from 500 to 25,000 by one estimate; from 1,200 to 50,000 or 75,000 by another.

He inspired the boxer Cassius Clay to join the Nation, and the two became close. In January 1964, Clay brought Malcolm X and his nature to Miami to watch him train for his fight against Sonny Liston. When Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam, he tried to convince Clay who had just been renamed Muhammad Ali by Elijah Muhammad to join him in converting to Sunni Islam, but Clay instead broke ties with him, later describing the break as one of his greatest regrets.

Malcolm X mentored and guided Louis X later known as Wallace D. Muhammad; the son told Malcolm X about his skepticism toward his father's "unorthodox approach" to Islam. Wallace Muhammad was excommunicated from the Nation of Islam several times, although he was eventually re-admitted.