Malcolm X was born Malcolm
Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother, Louis Norton
Little, was a homemaker occupied with the family’s eight children. His
father, Earl Little, was an outspoken Baptist minister and avid supporter of
Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Earl’s civil rights activism
prompted death threats from the white supremacist organization Black Legion,
forcing the family to relocate twice before Malcolm’s fourth birthday.
Regardless of the Little’s efforts to elude the Legion, in 1929 their Lansing,
Michigan home was burned to the ground, and two years later Earl’s mutilated
body was found lying across the town’s trolley tracks when Malcolm was only
six. Louise had an emotional breakdown several years after the death of
her husband and was committed to a mental institution. Her children were
split up amongst various foster homes and orphanages.
Malcolm was a smart, focused
student and graduated from junior high at the top of his class. However,
when a favorite teacher told Malcolm his dream of becoming a lawyer was no
realistic goal for a nigger, Malcolm lost interest in school and eventually
dropped out at the age of fifteen. Learning the ways of the streets,
Malcolm became acquainted with hoodlums, thieves, dope peddlers, and pimps.
Convicted of burglary at twenty, he remained in prison until the age of
twenty-seven. During his prison stay he attempted to educate
himself. In addition, during his period in prison, he learned about and
joined the Nation of Islam, studying the teachings of Elijah Muhammed
fully. He was released, a changed man, in 1952.
The ‘Nation of Islam’
Upon his release, Malcolm went
to Detroit, joined the daily activities of the sect, and was given instruction
by Elijah Muhammad himself. Malcolm’s personal commitment helped build
the organization nation-wide, while making him an international figure. He
was interviewed on major television programs and by magazines, and spoke across
the country at various universities and other forums. His power was in
his words, which so vividly described the plight of blacks and vehemently
incriminated whites. When a white person referred to the fact that some
Southern university had enrolled black freshmen without bayonets, Malcolm
reacted with scorn:
When I slipped, the program
host would leap on the bait: Ahhh! Indeed, Mr. Malcolm X -- you can’t
deny that’s an advance for your race!
I’d jerk the pole then. I
can’t turn around without hearing about some ‘civil rights advance’!
White people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting
‘hallelujah’! Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long
knife in the black man’s back - and now the white man starts to wiggle the
knife out, maybe six inches! The black man’s supposed to be grateful?
Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it’s still going to leave a
scar!
Although Malcolm’s words often
stung with the injustices against blacks in America, the equally racist views
of the Nation of Islam kept him from accepting any whites as sincere or capable
of helping the situation. For twelve years, he preached that the white
man was the devil and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was God’s messenger.
Unfortunately, most images of Malcolm today focus on this period of his life,
although the transformation he was about to undergo would give him a completely
different, and more important, message for the American people.
The Change to True Islam
On March 12, 1964, impelled by
internal jealousy within the Nation of Islam and revelations of Elijah
Muhammad’s sexual immorality, Malcolm left the Nation of Islam with the
intention of starting his own organization:
I feel like a man who has been
asleep somewhat and under someone else’s control. I feel what I’m
thinking and saying now is for myself. Before, it was for and by guidance
of another, now I think with my own mind.
Malcolm was thirty-eight years
old when he left Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam. Reflecting on what
occured prior to leaving, he said:
At one or another college or
university, usually in the informal gatherings after I had spoken, perhaps a
dozen generally white-complexioned people would come up to me, identifying
themselves as Arabian, Middle Eastern or North African Muslims who happened to
be visiting, studying, or living in the United States. They had said to
me that, my white-indicting statements notwithstanding, they felt I was sincere
in considering myself a Muslim -- and they felt if I was exposed to what they
always called true Islam, I would understand it, and embrace it.
Automatically, as a follower of Elijah, I had bridled whenever this was
said. But in the privacy of my own thoughts after several of these
experiences, I did question myself: if one was sincere in professing a
religion, why should he balk at broadening his knowledge of that religion?
Those orthodox Muslims whom I
had met, one after another, had urged me to meet and talk with a Dr. Mahmoud
Youssef Shawarbi. . . . Then one day Dr. Shawarbi and I were introduced by a
newspaperman. He was cordial. He said he had followed me in the
press; I said I had been told of him, and we talked for fifteen or twenty
minutes. We both had to leave to make appointments we had, when he
dropped on me something whose logic never would get out of my head. He
said, No man has believed perfectly until he wishes for his brother what he
wishes for himself. (a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, may the mercy and
blessings of God be upon him).
The Effect of the Pilgrimage
Malcolm further continues about
the Hajj:
The pilgrimage to Mecca, known
as the Hajj, is a religious obligation that every orthodox Muslim fulfills, if
able, at least once in his or her lifetime.
The Holy Quran says it:
“..Pilgrimage to the House (of God built by the prophet Abraham)
is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey…” (Quran 3:97)
“God said: ‘And
proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each
lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine.’” (Quran 22:27)
Every one of the thousands at
the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could
be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages,
who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on.
Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out Labbayka!
(Allahumma) Labbayka! (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane
were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and
my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all
in turn giving equal honor to each other…
That is when I first began to
reappraise the white man. It was when I first began to perceive that white man,
as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described
attitudes and actions. In America, white man meant specific attitudes and
actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in
the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more
genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the
start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about white men.
There were tens of thousands of
pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from
blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating
in the same ritual displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my
experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the
white and the non-white... America needs to understand Islam, because
this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem.
Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even
eaten with people who in America would have been considered white - but the
white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I
have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors
together, irrespecitve of their color.
Malcolm’s New Vision of America
Malcolm continues:
Each hour here in the Holy Land
enables me to have greater spiritual insights into what is happening in America
between black and white. The American Negro never can be blamed for his
racial animosities - he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious
racism of the American whites. But as racism leads America up the suicide
path, I do believe, from the experiences that I have had with them, that the
whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and universities, will see
the handwriting on the wall, and many of them will turn to the spiritual path
of truth -- the only way left to America to ward off the disaster that racism
inevitably must lead to.
I believe that God now is
giving the world’s so-called ‘Christian’ white society its last opportunity to
repent and atone for the crimes of exploiting and enslaving the world’s
non-white peoples. It is exactly as when God gave Pharaoh a chance to
repent. But Pharaoh persisted in his refusal to give justice to those who
he oppressed. And, we know, God finally destroyed Pharaoh.
I will never forget the dinner
at the Azzam home with Dr. Azzam. The more we talked, the more his vast
reservoir of knowledge and its variety seemed unlimited. He spoke of the
racial lineage of the descendants of Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of
God be upon him, the Prophet, and he showed how they were both black and
white. He also pointed out how color, and the problems of color which
exist in the Muslim world, exist only where, and to the extent that, that area
of the Muslim world has been influenced by the West. He said that if one
encountered any differences based on attitude toward color, this directly
reflected the degree of Western influence.
The Oneness of Man under One God
It was during his pilgrimage that
he began to write some letters to his loyal assistants at the newly formed
Muslim Mosque in Harlem. He asked that his letter be duplicated and
distributed to the press:
“Never
have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true
brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this
ancient Holy Land, the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets
of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless
and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of
all colors…”
“You
may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage,
what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my
thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous
conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm
convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept
the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I
have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must
go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.”
“During
the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same
plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same
rug) - while praying to the same God - with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the
bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the
whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of
the “white” Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black
African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana.”
“We were truly all the same
(brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the “white” from
their minds, the ‘white’ from their behavior, and the ‘white’ from their
attitude.”
“I
could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness
of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -
and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their
“differences” in color.”
“With
racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called “Christian”
white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a
destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from
imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that
eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.”
“They
asked me what about the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, “The
brotherhood! The people of all races, color, from all over the world
coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . .
. All ate as one, and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage
atmosphere accented the Oneness of Man under One God.”
Malcolm returned from the
pilgrimage as El-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz. He was a fire with new spiritual
insight. For him, the struggle had evolved from the civil rights struggle
of a nationalist to the human rights struggle of an internationalist and humanitarian.
After the Pilgrimage
White reporters and others were
eager to learn about El-Hajj Malik’s newly-formed opinions concerning
themselves. They hardly believed that the man who had preached against
them for so many years could suddenly turn around and call them brothers.
To these people El-Hajj Malik had this to say:
“You’re
asking me ‘Didn’t you say that now you accept white men as brothers?’
Well, my answer is that in the Muslim world, I saw, I felt, and I wrote
home how my thinking was broadened! Just as I wrote, I shared true,
brotherly love with many white-complexioned Muslims who never gave a single
thought to the race, or to the complexion, of another Muslim.”
“My
pilgrimage broadened my scope. It blessed me with a new insight. In
two weeks in the Holy Land, I saw what I never had seen in thirty-nine years
here in America. I saw all races, all colors, -- blue-eyed blonds to
black-skinned Africans -- in true brotherhood! In unity! Living as
one! Worshipping as one! No segregationists -- no liberals; they
would not have known how to interpret the meaning of those words.”
“In
the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I
will never be guilty of that again -- as I know now that some white people are
truly sincere, that some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black
man. The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white
people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.”
To the blacks who increasingly
looked to him as a leader, El-Hajj Malik preached a new message, quite the
opposite of what he had been preaching as a minister in the Nation of Islam:
“True
Islam taught me that it takes all of the religious, political, economic,
psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human
Family and the Human Society complete.”
“I said to my Harlem street
audiences that only when mankind would submit to the One God who created all -
only then would mankind even approach the “peace” of which so much talk could be
heard...but toward which so little action was seen.”
Too Dangerous to Last
El-Hajj Malik’s new
universalistic message was the U.S. establishment’s worst nightmare. Not
only was he appealing to the black masses, but to intellectuals of all races
and colors. Now he was consistently demonized by the press as “advocating
violence” and being “militant,” although in actuality he and Dr. Martin Luther
King were moving closer together in outlook:
“The
goal has always been the same, with the approaches to it as different as mine
and Dr. Martin Luther King’s non-violent marching, that dramatizes the
brutality and the evil of the white man against defenseless blacks. And
in the racial climate of this country today, it is anybody’s guess which of the
“extremes” in approach to the black man’s problems might personally meet a
fatal catastrophe first -- ‘non-violent’ Dr. King, or so-called ‘violent‘ me.”
El-Hajj Malik knew full well
that he was a target of many groups. In spite of this, he was never
afraid to say what he had to say when he had to say it. As a sort of
epitaph at the end of his autobiography, he says:
“I
know that societies often have killed the people who have helped to change
those societies. And if I can die having brought any light, having
exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that
is malignant in the body of America - then, all of the credit is due to
God. Only the mistakes have been mine.”
The Legacy of Malcolm X
Although El-Hajj Malik knew
that he was a target for assassination, he accepted this fact without
requesting police protection. On February 21, 1965, while preparing to
give a speech at a New York hotel, he was shot by three black men. He was
three months short of forty. While it is clear that the Nation of Islam
had something to do with the assassination, many people believe there was more
than one organization involved. The FBI, known for its anti-black
movement tendency, has been suggested as an accomplice. We may never know
for sure who was behind El-Hajj Malik’s murder, or, for that matter, the murder
of other national leaders in the early 1960s.
Malcolm X’s life has affected
Americans in many important ways. African-Americans’ interest in their Islamic
roots has flourished since El-Hajj Malik’s death. Alex Haley, who wrote
Malcolm’s autobiography, later wrote the epic, Roots,
about an African Muslim family’s experience with slavery. More and more
African-Americans are becoming Muslim, adopting Muslim names, or exploring
African culture. Interest in Malcolm X has seen a surge recently due to
Spike Lee’s movie, “X”. El-Hajj Malik is a source of pride for
African-Americans, Muslims, and Americans in general. His message is
simple and clear:
“I
am not a racist in any form whatever. I don’t believe in any form of
racism. I don’t believe in any form of discrimination or segregation.
I believe in Islam. I am a Muslim.”
.
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