Malcolm X

Racism is a problem that the American people have grappled with since colonial times. All who were not of white ancestry were thought to be inferior and were treated in an inhumane manner. This type of division amongst human beings can still be seen in some parts of the world today. The Civil Rights movement was therefore created to fight for the rights of black Americans and speak for those who had no voice. The 1960's saw the rise of Malcolm X, who not only influenced the civil rights movement but attempted to solve the problem of racism in this country.

Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Louise and Earl Little. Louise Little was a mulatto born in Grenada in the British West Indies and Earl Little was a six-foot, very dark skinned man from Reynolds, Georgia. He was a Baptist minister and organizer for Marcus Garvey, who wanted all Afro-Americans to go back to the land of their ancestors, Africa. Louise, his second wife, bore six children: Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Yvonne, and Reginald. Earl Little also had three children by a first wife: Ella, Earl, and Mary. Because of the father's advocacy for Garvey's movement, the whole family was terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan in Omaha and Milwaukee. They had such incidents as death threats made to Malcolm's father and members of the KKK busting out the windows of their home while Malcolm's mother was pregnant.

To avoid any more harassment by these white racists, Little had to migrate with his family to Lansing, Michigan. It did not help. They had their house set on fire while they were in it and watched it burn to the ground. They moved to the country where Malcolm's father built them a four bedroom house with his very own hands. One night after fighting with Malcolm's mother, Earl Little went out of the house walking, a group of white racists called the Black Legions of Lansing killed Malcolm's father and laid him on a railway track, claiming he committed suicide. The family lost their provider and unfortunately so, it was during the depression.

Alone and without money, Louise Little got more and more desperate, a potential fiancÐ"©e bailed on her, and the white authorities pestered her and her family constantly. Eventually they got what they wanted and sent her to a mental hospital. Malcolm got many experiences living with different families (people he knew and liked as already having been friends with them) but he also stayed with the white Swerlins after being sent to the detention home. Malcolm was liked by them but had to deal with being treated like a pet and listen to them call other blacks Ð''niggers'it bothered him a little but he was brainwashed and used to it. Malcolm went to school until eighth grade where he was at the top of his class, when his teacher stopped him from trying to become a lawyer and told him he should be a carpenter instead, realistically. That comment changed Malcolm and the way he thought of white people. He stopped trying to fit in to the worry of all the whites that favored him. He dropped out of school and went to live with his older half sister, Ella, who lived in Boston.

There, he took a job as a shoeshine boy at the Roseland Ballroom. With the help of his friend Shorty he quickly learned how to be cool and fit in where he wanted to. A career as a hustler seemed a more tempting option, and he was soon peddling marijuana. He really didn't know how to dance but it soon became natural and he was the best lindy-hopper around. He took a black girl that he met working as a concessionist at a drug store named Laura to a lindy hop dance with him he said she was his best dance ever, while at that dance he met Sophia, a white girl who quickly became his girlfriend. Having a white girl and being a very good dancer, he soon was a notorious young man with crazy clothes and his hair Ð''conked' made to resemble the hair of white people, which he was very ashamed of later. But Roxbury proved to be too small for him, and in 1942 he took a job as a railroad dining-car porter, working out of Roxbury and New York. Settling in Harlem, New York, he became more and more involved in criminal activities. He pimped, and he quickly became addicted to the narcotics that he sold. He was friends with many famous musicians in that day such as Billie Holidae. Malcolm soon learned to survive in the hustler society, which was constantly threatened by internal wars that could render every man your enemy. He constantly had to move form apartment to apartment because the police were always after him along with other criminals. In Harlem he got his nickname "Detroit Red", because his home town Lansing was close to Detroit and his hair was red.

He returned to Boston in 1945 after one too many near death experiences and continued a life of crime, forming his own house robbing gang. Arrested for robbery in February 1946, he was convicted and sentenced to prison for seven years. While in prison, Malcolm became a follower of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of a small black cult, the "Nation of Islam", with branches in Detroit, Chicago and New York. Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad corresponded by mail. Malcolm's brothers Philbert and Reginald, visiting him in prison, urged him to join Muhammad's cult, and while still