Malcolm’s Family
Malcolm X, also known as EI-Hajj Malik EI-Shabazz, was originally born Malcolm Little, in Omaha,
Nebraska to Earl and Louis Little on May 19, 1925. Very few details are known about Malcolm’s parents
except that they were early followers of Marcus Garvey, leader of the “Back to Africa” movement and
dedicated organizers for Garvey’s organization, the U.N.I.A (United Negro Improvement Association).
Malcolm’s mother, Louise Norton Little, immigrated to the United States from the British West Indian colony
of Grenada. where she may have been born of an illegitimate birth, for she was very fair-skinned.
There is not a great deal of information available about Earl Little either. He was born in Reynolds,
Georgia in 1890 and was married once before. He had three children from that previous marriage, Ella.
Earl and Mary, who moved to Boston. Earl Little met and married Louise, Malcolm’~ mother. in Philadelphia
where their first child. Wilfred. was born. The family moved around quite ~ bit and the Littles settled in
Omaha for a time where Malcolm’s older siblings. Hilda and Philbert were also born.
Earl Little was a Baptist preacher and a devoted organizer of African Americans in Omaha for the
Garvey movement. He delivered fire and brimstone sermons about separation of the white and black races
and black race purity. As Garvey did. Earl Little taught his people about the accomplishments of great
African Americans down through history and in so doing raised the banner of black race pride. Louise was
also an organizer In her own right and was responsible for sending news of chapter activities to Garvey’s
international newspaper, The Negro World. Holding aloft the banner of Black nationalism. Garvey’s
philosophy was one that many-both white and black-considered dangerous.
The family seemed to be always on the move and did not stay in Omaha very long either. The
move from Omaha, Malcolm’s birthplace, happened because of an incident that took place before Malcolm
was born. One night while his father was away preaching in Milwaukee, Klansmen appeared at their door
and warned Malcolm’s mother that the people of Omaha weren’t going to tolerate the militant rhetoric that
Earl Little was becoming increasingly well known for. Malcolm recounts the incident In his autobiography.
“When my mother was pregnant with· me, she told me later. a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped
up to our home in Omaha, Nebraska., one night. Surrounding the house, brandishing their shotguns and
rifles, they shouted for my father to come out … The Klansmen shouted threats and warnings at her that we
had better get out of town because ‘the. good Christian white people’ were not going to stand for my father’s
‘spreading trouble’ among the ‘good’ Negroes of Omaha with the ‘back to Africa'” teachings of Marcus
Garvey.” (Haley, 1).

Malcolm’s Childhood
Pressured by the Klan for his organizing success in Omaha, the family left Nebraska for Wisconsin.
The family moved at least four times: from Omaha, Nebraska; to Milwaukee, Wisconsin; to Lansing and
finally to East Lansing, Michigan. In Lansing Earl Little bought a house in an aI/-white neighborhood that
prohibited “anyone other than persons of the Caucasian race” from renting or buying there. Two months
later, the house was burned to the ground by whites, partly as a warning and as an attempt to thwart Little’s
aspiration to open up a store In the neighborhood. It didn’t work.

Earl Little did not abandon his politics or his aspirations and moved his family to East Lansing, to a
home he built with his own hands, just outside of town on their own property. Here they raised their own
food in accordance with the teachings of Garvey who preached complete economic independence from the
white man. Earl Little had the audacity to live outside of the “Negro district” and did not abandon his dream
to own his own store. In September 1931, he was mysteriously run over by a trolley car, which was officially
ruled an accident, but Louise always maintained that it was murder. The insurance company claimed it was
a suicide and balked at paying the claim.
That incident triggered chaos in a home that had been previously ruled by order and discipline –
order which was enforced by the head of the family. With the loss of the powerful presence of Earl Little, a
man of extreme discipline and strength, the family was left without direction and the signs began to show.
Malcolm and his brothers had always been precocious and in his absence began to misbehave. The strain
began to show on Louise Little whose control over the family lessened and the children were parceled out to
foster homes. At the same time, Louise Little’s mental state became increasingly unstable. Her grip on
reality slowly began to unravel. She was taken to the state mental facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
First Malcolm went to live with a family that he knew well. By the seventh grade Malcolm became
something of a troublemaker and was expelled from school. Later, Malcolm went to live at a white juvenile
home in Mason, Michigan. Under the direction of the headmistress at the home, he attended Mason Junior
High, managed to stay out of trouble-thrived even, and eventually took a job as a dishwasher at a
restaurant.
Malcolm was elected class President of his junior high school and made the honor roll as a straight
“A student.” But Malcolm soon began to realize that the teacher and students there saw him as little more
than “a mascot”. They used the term “nigger” in his presence. The word slowly began to bother him after an
incident with his English teacher. When asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, Malcolm expressed
his aspirations to become a lawyer. He was told by this teacher, “We all here like you, you know that. But
you’ve got to be realistic about being a nigger. A lawyer – that’s no realistic goal for a nigger. You need to
think about something you can be. You’re good with your hands-making things. Everybody admires your
carpentry shop work. Why don’t you plan on carpentry? People like you as a person-you’d get all kinds of
work.” (Haley, 38)
Malcolm longed for something more and wrote a letter to his half sister, Ella, who he admired
greatly for her outspoken views calling her “the first really proud black woman I had ever seen in my life.”
He asked if he could come to live with her in Boston. Ella lived “On the Hill” in Roxbury where blacks owned
property, maintained businesses, and comprised an important middle class black population of Boston.
Malcolm described it as the “snooty black neighborhood.” (Haley, 42)
Malcolm the Hustler
When a young Malcolm Little moved to Boston in 1941, zoot suits, hair conking, and the lindy hop
_/ were all the rage. Malcolm immersed himself in the fast life of reefer smoking, woman-chasing, and hustling
quickly transforming from an “A student” to a self described con-artist, hustler of gambling and women in
Boston. By day he worked a variety of odd jobs; a shoeshine boy, busboy, soda jerk, factory and shipyard
worker, but by night he plied his true craft at places like the Roseland Ballroom.

Malcolm was soon pining for greener pastures with his eyes set on New York City. In 1942, he
moved to Harlem, after having served as a porter on the New Haven Railroad between Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. He lived in Harlem until his criminal activities caught up with him at age 17. He ran afoul of Harlem numbers runner, West Indian Archie, and moved once again back to Boston.
In New York, they called him “Detroit Red.” ln Boston, they called him “New York Red.” In 1945, he organized a gang to burglarize the homes of prominent families in Beacon Hill and other affluent parts of Boston. The other gang members included his friend Malcolm “Shorty” Jarvis, his white girlfriend, Bea, as
well as two other white women. Malcolm and his gang were arrested for larceny, carrying firearms, and breaking and entering. On February 27,1946, Malcolm began serving an 8-10 year prison sentence in Charlestown, Massachusetts where he began intense reading, study and writing.

Malcolm in Prison

“As a ‘fish’ (prison slang for a new inmate) at Charlestown I was physically miserable and as evil-tempered as a snake, being suddenly without drugs … ” (Haley, 155) While in the Charlestown prison, Malcolm met a person who would spark his transformation. “The first man I met in prison who made a positive impression on me whatever” was his fellow inmate, Bimbi. Bimbi sparked Malcolm’s thinking on a number of topics and his devotion to studying, “Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, Or those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies.” (Haley,174) Malcolm’s brother Philbert wrote him a letter in 1948 about having joined something called the “Nation of Islam.” (Haley, 158) His siblings, Wilfred and Hilda, were already members, as well as Reginald, a younger brother with whom he was closest during his hustling days. Malcolm studied the teachings of Elijah Muhammad while in prison. He referred to this period in his life many times throughout numerous speeches and sermons, using his own life as an example of the power of Islam to transform lives. Malcolm was released from prison and placed on parole taking with him what he had learned about the Nation of Islam. He also took with him a love of reading which he gained from his time of intense study in the prison library and stayed with him for the rest of his life. As he said in many speeches, Malcolm X
owed his education to the reading he did in prison. “Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, of I was not reading in the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of books with a wedge. Between Mr. Muhammad’s teachings, my
correspondence, my visitors–usually Ella and Reginald–and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.”
(Haley, 176)

Malcolm and Nation of Islam

When Malcolm X was released from prison in 1952, he was taken in by his family in Detroit where
he lived and worked for a short time while waiting for his “X”. The “X”, represents the unknown in
mathematics and is taken to replace the “slave name” of the “so-called Negro”. In Malcolm’s case his “X”
replaced the name Little. By September 1953 Malcolm X had become a minister in the Nation of Islam
returned to Boston to found the Nation of Islam Boston Temple No. 11. He served for a short time in Boston
before going on to found temples in Philadelphia and New York, where he was appointed minister before
finally becoming appointed national minister. Malcolm had pledged to tell the “white man the truth to his face.”

He went about doing exactly that as he criss-crossed the country building temples in almost every major city for the Nation of Islam. Perhaps
it was for this reason then, that Malcolm felt complete betrayal when he was placed on 90-day suspension
by Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, for speaking after President Kennedy assassination in 1963. Malcolm compared the assassination to “chickens coming home to roost”~ meaning that the violence that America had perpetrated around the world was now coming back around to affect America and had taken the form of violence. This statement started Malcolm down a path of difficult relations with the Nation of Islam.
Everything culminated in a shocking revelation when Malcolm discovered that Elijah Muhammad had
allegedly fathered several children with women in the Nation. Because such acts were prohibited by the
Nation, this punctuated Malcolm’s complete departure from the Nation of Islam. Malcolm’s faith, his
complete devotion to Elijah Muhammad and to the Nation of Islam was shattered.

Malcolm and Mecca
He decided to pursue the right and duty of every Moslem to purse a “Hajj” or pilgrimage to Mecca,
the Muslim holy land. It was on this journey that Malcolm’s eyes were once again opened. He witnessed
“blond-haired, blue eyed” white Muslims, alongside followers of Islam from every corner of the globe,
worshipping and studying the teachings of Islam as they made their pilgrimage together. Malcolm talked
about sharing food and drink with fellow Muslims and for the first time, feeling like a complete human being.
It is difficult to say exactly when it happened, but Malcolm’s views about whites began to change.
More accurately, Malcolm began thinking for himself instead of speaking the words, thinking the thoughts
and expressing the philosophy of Elijah Muhammad, who taught that all whites were devils. Malcolm
began to embrace a new worldview, not only toward whites, but also toward other Black leaders. He
renounced the many bad things that he said about them, including calling them “Uncle Tom Negroes” and
in many speeches and criticizing the civil rights movement then underway as “having a sit down
philosophy.”
While much has been made of Malcolm’s later transformation from black separatist to a move to
embrace all races, this was just one more re-invention in Malcolm’s life, a life full of transformation. Today,
in yet another transformation, Malcolm X has reemerged as one of America’s harshest and most insightful
critics after having been somewhat forgotten after his untimely death ‘in 1965. His memory and legacy were
resurrected in the early 1990s, through films, books, rap music and even fashion, with interest in the life of
Malcolm X reaching an all time high.
As the fiery spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X described in eloquent. terms, the
plight of African-American at the hands of white racism. He was considered a dangerous man by the
government and political observers and was watched closely until his death. In his autobiography, Malcolm
not only dismantles many of the pillars of American racism through humor, wit and irony, but he offers up
his story as a testament to the depths of degradation that a soul can sink and to what one man can
accomplish.