Malcom X

Early years

The young Malcolm X.

The young Malcolm X.

Malcolm Little was born in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, to Earl Little and Louise Helen (nÐ"©e Norton). He lived briefly at 3448 Pinkney Street in the North Omaha neighborhood. His father was an outspoken Baptist lay speaker and supporter of Marcus Garvey, as well as a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.[3] Three of Earl Little's brothers died violently at the hands of white men, and one of his uncles had been lynched.[4]

Earl Little had three children (Ella, Mary, and Earl, Jr.) by a previous marriage before he married Malcolm's mother. From his second marriage he had seven children, of whom Malcolm was the fourth. Earl and Louise Little's children's names were, in order, Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Reginald, Wesley, and Yvonne. Louise had her youngest son, Robert Little, several years after her husband's death by an unnamed relationship.

Louise Little was born in Grenada, and Malcolm said she looked like a white woman. Her father was a white man of whom Malcolm knew nothing except what he described as his mother's shame. Malcolm got his light complexion from him. Initially he felt it was a status symbol to be light-skinned, but later he would say that he “hated every drop of that white rapist's blood that is in me.” As Malcolm was the lightest child in the family, he felt that his father favored him; however, his mother treated him harshly for the same reason.[5] One of his nicknames, "Red," derived from the reddish tinge of his hair. He was described as having, at birth, "ash-blonde hair ... tinged with cinnamon," and at four, "reddish-blonde hair." His hair darkened as he aged but also resembled the hair of his paternal grandmother, whose hair "turned reddish in the summer sun."[6]

According to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, his mother had been threatened by Ku Klux Klansmen while she was pregnant with him in December 1924. His mother recalled the Klansmen warned the family to leave Omaha, because Earl Little's activities with UNIA were "stirring up trouble".[7]

The family relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1926, and to Lansing, Michigan, shortly after. In 1931, Malcolm's father was found dead, having been run over by a streetcar in Lansing. Authorities ruled his death a suicide.[8] Malcolm said that the black community disputed the cause of death. His family had frequently found themselves the target of harassment by the Black Legion, a white supremacist group his father accused of burning down their home in 1929, and many blacks felt that the Black Legion had killed Earl Little.[9] Malcolm doubted that his father could "bash himself in the head, then get down across the streetcar tracks to be run over."[10]

Though Malcolm’s father had two life insurance policies, his mother received death benefits solely from the smaller policy. Malcolm said the insurance company that had issued the larger policy accepted the police determination that Earl Little's death had been a suicide, and accordingly refused to pay.[10] Louise Little had a nervous breakdown and was declared legally insane in December 1938. Malcolm and his siblings were split up and sent to different foster homes. Louise Little was formally committed to the state mental hospital at Kalamazoo, Michigan. She remained there until Malcolm and his brothers and sisters secured her release 26 years later.

In his Autobiography, written more than 25 years later, Malcolm said that after the death of his father he lived on Charles Street in downtown East Lansing. The 1930 U.S. Census showed him living on a different Charles Street, in the low-income Urbandale neighborhood in Lansing Township, between Lansing and East Lansing. Later, when he was in high school, Malcolm Little lived in Mason, an almost all-white small town 12 miles (19 km) to the south.

Malcolm Little graduated from junior high school at the top of his class but dropped out soon after a teacher told him that his aspirations of being a lawyer were "no realistic goal for a nigger".[11] After enduring a series of foster homes, Malcolm was sent to a detention center. Then he moved to Boston to live with his older half-sister, Ella Little Collins. In Boston he held a variety of jobs and intermittently found employment with the New Haven Railroad. In 1942, at age 17, Malcolm became "involved with Boston's underworld fringe."[7]

Young adult years

Malcolm left Boston to live for a short time in Detroit and Inkster, Michigan. He moved to New York City in 1943. There he worked again briefly for the New Haven Railroad. Malcolm found work as a shoeshiner at a Lindy Hop nightclub. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, he said that he once shined the shoes of Duke Ellington and other notable African-American musicians. After some time in Harlem, he became involved in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery and steering prostitutes. During this time, his friends and acquaintances called him "Detroit Red."[12] Between 1943 and 1946, when he was arrested and jailed in Massachusetts, Malcolm drifted between Boston and New York City three more times.[7]

When Malcolm was examined for the draft, military physicians classified him to be "mentally disqualified for military service." He explained in his autobiography that he put on a display to avoid the draft by telling the examining officer that he could not wait to "kill some crackers." His approach worked; his classification ensured he would not be drafted.[13]

In early 1946, Malcolm returned to Boston. On January 12, he was arrested for burglary trying to steal a stolen watch he had left for repairs at a jewelry shop. Two days later, Malcolm was indicted for carrying firearms. On January 16, he was charged with Grand Larceny and Breaking and Entering. Malcolm was sentenced to eight to ten years in Massachusetts State Prison.[7]

On February 27, Malcolm began serving his sentence at the Massachusetts State Prison in Charlestown. While in prison, Malcolm earned the nickname of "Satan" for his vitriolic hatred towards the Bible, God and religion in general.[14] Malcolm met a self-educated man named Bimbi, who convinced him to educate himself.[15]. Malcolm developed a voracious appetite for reading, much of it after the prison lights had been turned off. In 1948, Malcolm received a letter from his brother, Philbert, telling him about the Nation of Islam. Malcolm wasn't interested