Malcolm X

Malcolm X
May 19th 1925 –February 21st 1965

Malcolm X was an American Black Muslim. Three of his father’s brothers died violently at the hand of white men and one of his uncles was lynched (the practice of humiliating and killing black people by mobs of white people acting outside the law. These murders, most of them unpunished, often were hanging and burning after the white mobs tortured the victim by cutting off the victim's body parts).

Malcolm X had 7 other brothers and sisters, where he had the lightest skin out of all of them. He felt his fathered favored him more because of his complexion and his mother treated him like a step child for the same reason.

In 1931, Malcolms father ( Earl Little) was found dead, ran over by a car. The authorities said his death was considered a suicide. This cause of death was disputed within the black community and his family found themselves the target of harassement by the Black Legion; an organisation within the Klu Klux Klan, that his father acused them of burning down their home in 1929. After the death of his father, his mother (Louise Little) had a nervous breakdown and was considered ilegally insane in 1938. Malcolm and his seven other siblings were split up and sent to different foster homes. Louise Little was sent to the state mental hospital in Michigan where she stayed there, untill Malcolm and his sibling released her 26 years later.

Malcolm graduated at the top of his class, but soon droped out when a teacher told him his goal of being a lawyer were “no realistic goal for a nigger”. After moving from foster home to foster home and going to live in a detention center he moved to Boston with his older half sister. After some time in Harlem, Malcolm became involved with dealing drugs, gambling, robery, blackmail and even prostituting himself.

Malcolm was sentenced to jail plenty of times, for burglary, possessing firearms, breaking and entering. On janurary 12th 1946, he was arrested and senteced to 8 to 10 years in prison in Massachusetts State Prison.

Malcolm decided to change his last name to “X”, which means it’s a symbole for replacing slave names. The “X” is also the brand that many slaves had on their upper arms. Malcolm intented on making blacks the top of the social order. He became a leader, he was seen to be the second most influential leader of the movement after Elijah Muhammed.

On February 14th 1965, Malcolms house was burned to the ground, him and his familly had survived and no one was charged with any crime. On February 21st 1965 in Manhattan, Malcolm just started to give a speech when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. A man yelled, "Get your hand outta my pocket! Don't be messin' with my pockets!", Malcolm and his body guards moved to quiet the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm in the chest with a shotgun. Two other men came on the stage and started to fire handguns are Malcolm. He was shot
16 times, angry people in the crowd caught and beat the assassins as they tried to leave the ballroom. He was pronounced dead at New Yorks Hospital.

"Malcolm was murdered because he fought for freedom and equal rights."