Essay On Malcolm X

Born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebr., he was one of eight children. The family moved to Lansing, Mich,.in 1929. His father, a Baptist preacher and activist who supported Marcus Garvey’s separatist “back to Africa” movement, was run over by a streetcar in 1931, in what many believed was a murder by white supremacists. With his mother institutionalized after an emotional breakdown, Malcolm lived in foster care; he eventually left school, took up odd jobs, and became involved in drugs and street crime. Convicted of burglary at the age of 20, he became attracted to the Black Muslim Nation of Islam movement while in jail. After he was released in 1952, he met the Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and studied his teachings, which emphasized black pride, opposed integration, and portrayed white people as evil. Taking the name Malcolm X, he adopted the group’s tight discipline and soon became its best-known spokesperson, as he traveled widely and helped establish mosques in various cities. His fiery rhetoric caused him to be regarded by many as a fanatic, and he was not embraced by black civil rights leaders. After 1958, when he married Betty Sanders (1936–97; later, Betty Shabbaz), he
There he converted to a more traditional form of Islam, renounced his previous teaching that all whites are evil, and advocated racial cooperation. He also adopted the Arabic name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabbaz.
Threats against life were followed by firebombing of his home; and on Feb. 21, 1965, while addressing a rally at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City, Malcolm X was assassinated by three men linked to the Nation of Islam. Soon after, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written with Alex Haley, was published; this widely read account of his life helped make Malcolm X a hero to many young African Americans and influenced the Black Power movement (see Black Panther