Who was Malcolm X?

Summary

Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little in 1925, was a prominent figure in the fight against racism and a symbol of black liberation. His early life was marred by racial violence and personal tragedy, including the murder of his father and the institutionalization of his mother. Initially a petty criminal, Malcolm's time in prison transformed him into a powerful advocate for black nationalism and Islam. His break with the Nation of Islam led to a broader vision for his activism, globalizing his efforts and aligning with various civil rights movements. His assassination in 1965 remains a controversial subject, but his legacy endures, influencing generations and continuing to inspire the fight against racism and imperialism.

Highlights

• Malcolm X's childhood was shaped by racial violence and personal tragedy. 🚨
• His prison transformation led him to the Nation of Islam and black nationalism. 🕌
• He famously criticized other civil rights leaders, bringing attention to his views. 📢
• Malcolm X's Mecca pilgrimage broadened his perspective and message. 🌐
• His split with the Nation of Islam did not diminish his influence; it expanded it. 🚀
• Malcolm X's assassination left lasting questions and cemented his legacy. ❓

Key Takeaways

• Malcolm X went from a petty criminal to a global voice against racism. 🌍
• He was a key figure in black nationalism and a controversial leader. 🖤
• Malcolm X's transformation began in prison through the Nation of Islam. 🚔
• His pilgrimage to Mecca was a turning point, leading to a broader perspective. 🕋
• Even after breaking with the Nation, his message and influence grew. 📈
• Malcolm X remains an enduring figure in literature, hip-hop, and activism. 📚

Overview

Malcolm X's life was a journey from adversity to advocacy. Born into a world filled with racial strife, his family suffered greatly at the hands of white racists, shaping his early worldview. After a life of crime in his youth, his incarceration became a period of enlightenment and transformation, pulling him into the orbit of the Nation of Islam where he would find his voice and mission.

His climb in the ranks of the Nation of Islam saw him become a formidable leader and public figure, often sparking controversy with his direct and unyielding rhetoric. Malcolm's ability to mobilize and motivate both the Black community and the wider audience was unmatched, although it also led to tensions with not only the Nation of Islam but also the broader civil rights leadership.

Breaking away from the Nation marked a pivotal turn in his life, leading him to seek broader alliances and acknowledge the global dimensions of racial oppression. His hajj to Mecca was a revelation, inspiring him to embrace a more inclusive view of justice and equality. Despite his assassination, his ideas about empowerment, identity, and liberation continue to resonate, making him a timeless icon in the struggle for justice.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Malcolm X and His Early Life The chapter titled 'Introduction to Malcolm X and His Early Life' delves into the transformative journey of Malcolm X, questioning the societal influences that instill self-hatred in individuals. It challenges the reader to reflect on who or what teaches people to hate their own race, before pointing fingers at others. The narrative then transitions to outline Malcolm X's remarkable transformation from a petty criminal to a global advocate against racism, highlighting his influence as a prominent Muslim figure and a symbol of black liberation who continues to inspire generations.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Malcolm X's Family Background and Challenges Malcolm X was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925 to parents Earl and Louise Little, who were followers of pan-African activist Marcus Garvey. Due to their beliefs, the family faced harassment from the Ku Klux Klan, which included their home being burned down when Malcolm was four. Moving to Michigan did not spare them from aggression, as they were threatened by the Black Legion, an offshoot of the KKK. Additionally, four of Malcolm's uncles were subjected to violence and intimidation.
• 01:00 - 02:00: From Petty Criminal to Prison Transformation The chapter outlines Malcolm X's early life, highlighting the significant and traumatic events that shaped his youth. His father was murdered, but it was officially ruled as an accident. His mother's ensuing mental breakdown resulted in her institutionalization and the scattering of Malcolm and his siblings into foster care. Despite his academic prowess, a discouraging remark from a teacher led Malcolm to drop out of school. By 18, he had immersed himself in a life of crime while living in Harlem.
• 02:00 - 03:30: Joining the Nation of Islam and Rise to Prominence This chapter covers the period in Malcolm's life when he was arrested for robbery at the age of 21 and sentenced to eight to ten years in Charlestown State Prison. It marks the beginning of Malcolm's transformation as he begins learning about the Nation of Islam through correspondence with his siblings. They educate him about the teachings of its leader, Elijah Muhammad, about black independence and separatism, rejecting the idea of white superiority.
• 03:30 - 05:00: Increasing Influence and Criticism of Civil Rights Movement The chapter discusses the increasing influence and criticism of the Civil Rights Movement. It highlights Malcolm X's evolution from being hostile to religion to becoming an active member of the Nation of Islam. As part of his transformation, he adopted the name 'Malcolm X' to reject his 'slave name.' After his parole, he became an assistant minister in the Nation of Islam, illustrating his growing influence within the movement.
• 05:00 - 06:30: Tensions with Elijah Muhammad and Split from Nation of Islam The chapter discusses the rise of tensions with Elijah Muhammad and the eventual split from the Nation of Islam. It highlights the initial expansion of Islamic temples in Detroit, Boston, and Philadelphia. The narrative focuses on the leadership role in Harlem's Temple Number Seven and the refusal to promote passivity in response to white brutality, a key factor leading to the split.
• 06:30 - 09:00: Embracing Sunni Islam and International Outreach The chapter titled 'Embracing Sunni Islam and International Outreach' discusses the principles taught within Malcolm's community, emphasizing self-defense, respect for the law, and maintaining personal dignity. Despite acknowledging the importance of non-violence, the teachings also assert the right to defend oneself against aggression. The focus on these values led to increased attention from the FBI, reflecting Malcolm's growing prominence as a national figure.
• 09:00 - 10:30: Continued Black Nationalist Views and Global Perspective The chapter highlights Malcolm's rising prominence in 1957, which began when he stepped in to help members of his Nation who were unjustly beaten and detained by the New York police. His ability to command and control a large crowd of nearly four thousand supporters outside the police station notably unnerved the police department, leading to their decision to put him under surveillance and begin infiltrating the Nation of Islam.
• 10:30 - 12:30: Threats to Malcolm X and His Assassination The chapter titled 'Threats to Malcolm X and His Assassination' discusses Malcolm X's increasing exposure via print and television as he gained international recognition. It highlights his criticism of systemic racism and the control exerted by white individuals over black communities, particularly in Harlem. Malcolm X is mentioned as highlighting the injustices perpetuated by white individuals, such as controlling gambling, prostitution, and alcohol in black neighborhoods, and then penalizing those who indulge in these activities. The chapter also touches on his critique of the civil rights movement and leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, indicating a philosophical difference in approaches to achieving racial equality.
• 12:30 - 15:00: Legacy and Impact on Future Generations The chapter titled 'Legacy and Impact on Future Generations' delves into the themes of integration, non-violence, and the systemic oppression faced by African-Americans. Highlighting historical oppression, the chapter contrasts past and present forms of racial injustice. It draws a parallel between historical brutality—such as the use of bloodhounds and the Ku Klux Klan—and modern-day police violence. By reflecting on this continuity of violence, the chapter exposes the enduring nature of racial discrimination, urging readers to consider its pervasive impact on future generations.

Who was Malcolm X? Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 who taught you to hate your own kind who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don't want to be around each other no before you come asking mr muhammad does he teach hate you should ask who yourself who taught you to hate being what god gave you how did one man go from petty criminal to becoming a global voice against racism he's one of the most prominent muslims in modern history and a symbol of black liberation who has inspired generations
• 00:30 - 01:00 a gangster a preacher and a revolutionary this is the extraordinary journey of malcolm x malcolm x was born in 1925 in omaha nebraska his parents earl and louise little were followers of the pan-african activist marcus garvey as a result their family was subjected to constant harassment by the ku klux klan who burned down their home when malcolm was just four years old the family moved to michigan where they were threatened by the black legion an offshoot of the kkk four of malcolm's uncles were also
• 01:00 - 01:30 murdered by white racists malcolm's father died when he was six the incident was officially ruled a street car accident although his mother believed he had ultimately been murdered by the black legion when malcolm was 13 his mother was committed to a mental institution her children were split up and sent to different foster homes malcolm was an excellent student but dropped out of school after a white teacher told him it was unrealistic for a young black boy to have aspirations of being a lawyer after a few years in michigan and boston he moved to harlem at the age of 18 where he was involved in gambling robbery drug dealing and pimping
• 01:30 - 02:00 at the age of 21 after committing a string of robberies with a small gang in boston malcolm was arrested sentenced to eight to ten years of charlestown state prison incarceration was the beginning of malcolm's transformation while in prison his siblings began writing to him about the nation of islam and its leader elijah muhammad the nation of islam promoted black independence and rejected the notion of the superiority of white people instead elijah muhammad taught his followers a form of separatism from whites who were actually considered
• 02:00 - 02:30 devils inferior to black people who were the original inhabitants of earth malcolm initially hostile to the idea of any religion eventually became a member of the nation he read books constantly and began writing regularly to elijah muhammad muhammad's followers were taught to abandon their given family names as they were actually the names of former slave owners so malcolm little became malcolm x after being paroled malcolm visited elijah muhammad in chicago in june the next year he was named assistant minister of the nation of
• 02:30 - 03:00 islam's temple number one in detroit he later established boston's temple number 11 and expanded temple number 12 in philadelphia and those of you who think that you perhaps came here to hear us tell you to turn the other cheek to the brutality of the white man i say again you came to the wrong place finally he was selected to lead temple number seven in harlem where he was responsible for a huge surge in
• 03:00 - 03:30 membership we don't teach you to turn the other cheek we don't teach you to turn the other cheek in the spouse and we don't teach you to turn the other cheek in the knot we teach you to obey the law we teach you to carry ourselves in a respectable way but at the same time we teach you that anyone who put this hand on you do your best to see that he doesn't put it on anybody else the fbi now had him under surveillance due to his sudden profile as the nation's rising star malcolm's rise to
• 03:30 - 04:00 national prominence happened in 1957 when he intervened at a police station to arrange for medical assistance and legal help for members of the nation who had been beaten and arrested by new york police the crowd of protesters outside grew to almost four thousand witnessing malcolm's control of the crowd shook the new york police department within weeks they had him under surveillance and officially began infiltrating the nation in 1958 malcolm married his wife betty with whom he would have six daughters malcolm's profile continued to grow via
• 04:00 - 04:30 print and television appearances and he began to gain international exposure who is it that controls the prostitution in harlem it's the white man who controls the lives not a fail of whiskey in line just the right man who gives you the deck of cards in the zeitgeist that you used to gamble with it's the right man and after he sell them to you he kept you with him and pushing him in jail for using him he was deeply critical of the growing civil rights movement and its leaders like dr martin luther king who preached
• 04:30 - 05:00 integration that's what you mean by non-violence be defenseless be defenseless in the face of one of the most cruel uh beasts that has ever taken the people into captivity that's just this american white man 100 years ago they used to put on a white sheet and use a bloodhound against negro today they have taken off the white sheet and put on police uniforms they've traded in the bloodhounds for police dogs and they're still doing the same thing and just as uncle tom back doing slavery used to keep the negroes from resisting the bloodhound or resisting the ku klux klan by teaching them to
• 05:00 - 05:30 love their enemy or luke the king is just a 20th century or modern uncle tom or a religious uncle tom who was doing the same thing today malcolm's message was being heard louder than ever but his relationship with the man who had transformed his life was about to fracture tensions were growing within the nation over the amount of attention malcolm was receiving compared to his mentor elijah muhammad an unprovoked raid on a nation of islam mosque by police in los angeles led to one member being paralyzed and another being killed no charges were laid against the police
• 05:30 - 06:00 the white man believes you when you go to him with that old sweet talk because you've been sweet talking to him ever since he brought you here stop sweet talking tell him how you feel tell him how what kind of hell you've been catching and let him know that if he's not ready to clean his house up if he's not ready to clean his house up he shouldn't have a house it should catch on fire and burn down
• 06:00 - 06:30 malcolm was reportedly stunned by elijah muhammad's refusal to allow any form of response or retaliation for the incident the two also disagreed over malcolm's desire to begin working with civil rights organizations black politicians and other religious organizations then suddenly here is a bulletin from cbs news three shots were fired at president kennedy's motorcade in downtown dallas president kennedy has been seriously wounded malcolm's response to the kennedy assassination led to him being
• 06:30 - 07:00 officially silenced for 90 days malcolm x you were involved in the controversy some months ago with your leader is that over well i've been i've been silent for the past 90 days because of uh some statements i made concerning the president of the united states uh which were distorted they were destroyed and yes what did you say malcolm well i said the same thing that everybody says that uh his assassination was the result of the climate of hate but only i said the chickens came home the roof and which means the same thing in march of 1964 malcolm publicly
• 07:00 - 07:30 announced his break from the nation of islam he also expressed the desire to work with other civil rights leaders saying that elijah muhammad had prevented him from doing so then came a bombshell well in reality i never even left the muslim movement they put me out and they put me out because of what i knew and what i knew was told to me by mr muhammad's son wallace muhammad himself they put me out and they put him out who is the father of all of these various children whom you have enumerated uh the first one to tell me who the father was was wallace
• 07:30 - 08:00 mohammed and he told me that the father was elijah muhammad himself and how many of these illegitimate children did he father with the sisters well he made uh six sisters pregnant they all had children two of those six had two children i am told that there is a seventh sister who is supposed to be in mexico right now and she's supposed to be having a child by are you not perhaps afraid of what might happen to you as a result of making these revelations oh yes i probably am a
• 08:00 - 08:30 dead man already after splitting from the nation malcolm began learning the tenets and practices of sunni islam he founded the muslim mosque incorporated a religious organization and the organization of afro-american unity a non-religious group promoting pan-africanism he had softened his position on martin luther king who he met only once in person and later the same year he performed hajj the muslim pilgrimage to mecca this was to be yet another transformative experience for him when i was in on the pilgrimage i had
• 08:30 - 09:00 close contact with muslims whose skin would in america be classified as white and with muslims who were themselves would be classified as white in america but these particular muslims didn't call themselves white they looked upon themselves as human beings as part of the human family and therefore they looked upon all other segments of the human family as part of that same family now uh they had a different look or different air or a different attitude
• 09:00 - 09:30 than that which is uh reflected in the uh attitude of the man in america who calls himself white so i said that if islam had done this done that for them perhaps if the white man in america would study islam perhaps they could do the same thing for him after mecca malcolm made two trips to africa meeting officials and speaking on radio and television across the continent in cairo he attended the second meeting of the organization of african unity and met africa's most high profile leaders
• 09:30 - 10:00 including kwame nikuma of ghana gamal abdul nasser of egypt and ahmed bin bela of algeria who all offered him official positions in their respective governments he met with fidel castro and was one of the first african-american leaders to meet the newly created palestinian liberation organization and was one of the pioneers of a tradition of black palestinian solidarity that would be continued by the black panther party and the black lives matter movement a common misconception about malcolm's philosophical evolution is that his process of turning to sunni islam softened his political positions
• 10:00 - 10:30 while it's true that malcolm abandoned some of the nation's more extreme separatist positions on race he remained a staunch black nationalist i think what a lot of people are interested in malcolm is whether this experience has made you feel that that your feelings have changed that uh that the animosity you have expressed in the past toward all fights there's one thing that i want to make clear no matter how much respect no matter how much
• 10:30 - 11:00 recognition white show toward me as far as i'm concerned as long as that same respect and recognition is not shown toward every one of our people in this country it doesn't exist for me if anything malcolm's travel had led him to globalize his perspective seeing black liberation as something beyond the united states and as something that was intimately tied to struggles for independence across the third world has
• 11:00 - 11:30 remained a domestic problem it has remained within the jurisdiction of the united states and it has and as such it has been impossible for the afro-americans or american negroes to try and enlist the support of other dark-skinned people who are being oppressed the world over in in that struggle and the only way this can be done is by internationalizing the problem if you take up arms you'll end it but if you sit around and wait for the one who's who's in power to make his mind
• 11:30 - 12:00 that he should end it you'll be waiting a long time and in my opinion the young generation of whites blacks brown whatever else there is you're living at a time of extremism a time of revolution a time when there's got to be a change the nation of islam had not taken malcolm's exit and public criticism of elijah muhammad's misconduct lightly his family was repeatedly threatened their car was bombed and fbi surveillance records show that law enforcement was aware that elements within the nation were openly discussing his death
• 12:00 - 12:30 then his house was burned out [Music] on february 21st 1965 malcolm was addressing the organization of afro-american unity in manhattan's audubon ballroom he was shot 21 times three nation of islam members were tried and convicted of the murder but questions remained at the time of his death malcolm was under surveillance by both the nypd and the fbi's cointelpro operation for many there is simply no doubt that one or both organizations had a hand in his assassination
• 12:30 - 13:00 malcolm's legacy went on to be preserved in hip-hop film and literature most importantly his own autobiography which continues to be celebrated and was named one of the 10 most influential non-fiction books of the 20th century his politics continue to inspire generations of activism against racism and imperialism worldwide people in power have misused it and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built and the only way it's going to be built is with extreme methods and i for one will join in with anyone don't care what color you are as
• 13:00 - 13:30 long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth thank you malcolm's funeral was held in harlem some estimate that up to 30 000 people attended actor and activist aussie davis delivered the eulogy harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes extinguished now and gone from us forever many will ask
• 13:30 - 14:00 what harlem finds to honor in this stormy controversial and bold young captain and we will smile many will say turn away away from this man for he is not a man but a demon a monster a subverter and an enemy of the black man and we will answer and say unto them [Music]
• 14:00 - 14:30 did you ever talk to brother malcolm did you ever touch him or have him smile at you did you ever really listen to him malcolm was our manhood our living black manhood this was his meaning to his people and in honoring him we honor the best in ourselves what we place in the ground is no more now a man
• 14:30 - 15:00 but a seed which after the winter of discontent will come forth again to meet us and we shall know him then for what he was and is a prince our own black shining prince who did not hesitate to die because he loved us so you now use shabazz and drop x i'll probably continue to use malcolm x because and
• 15:00 - 15:30 i'll probably use it as long as the situation that produced it exists [Music] you