Malcolm X and the rise of Black Power

Matt Bowen, Yoann Delisle, Jacob Reznik

● Born Malcolm Little

● His Father, Earl Little, was an outspoken supporter of Black

Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey, which was calling for Black

separatism, an idea later revived by Malcolm X.

● Supporting Garvey made the Littles the target of white terrorists.

● They moved to Lansing, Michigan, where they were attacked by the

Black Legion, a white terrorist organization

● Members of the Legion burned his family house to the ground in

1929

● In 1931 Earl Little was found on some streetcar tracks with his

skull crushed and his body nearly severed in half

● Little’s wife never recovered and was soon admitted to a mental

hospital

Biography

● Attended West Junior High School, he was the only black student

● Exceeded academically - Elected class president

● Quit school because of racial issues there and moved to Boston

● Got involved selling drugs and other criminal activity

● Liked to wear pinstriped suits and lived a very lavish, if illegal lifestyle

● Arrested in 1946 on larceny charges and was sentenced to 10 years in prison

● Learned of the Nation of Islam, a group that embraced the concept of black

nationality, while incarcerated and converted to it

● Changed his surname to “X” upon his release as he considered “Little” a relic of

slavery

● Traveled to Detroit where he became deeply involved with the Nation of Islam,

becoming a minister of two of the group’s temples in Boston and Detroit

Biography

● Throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s, Malcolm X led the

Nation of Islam from a group of about 400 people to an organization of

10,000 official members and an untold number of sympathizers.

● Black Muslims worked in prisons, they urged prisoners to follow Islam.

They stressed black pride, unity and self-help.

● The message he shared with his audiences was very different from that

of other civil rights activists who called for the integration of American

society through nonviolent means.

● Malcolm X called for black separatism, and he advised blacks to take up

arms in self-defense against white hostility.

Actions

● In 1963 Malcolm X broke with Nation of Islam

● Created two new African American Muslim groups of his own

● In 1964 he made a pilgrimage to Mecca and toured in Africa. He

then called for the freedom of all colonial people, comparing anti-

colonial struggles to the American Civil Rights movement

● When he came back in the US he started criticizing the Nation of

Islam, creating a conflict between his organization and Nation of

Islam

● On February 21 of 1965 he was assassinated while giving a speech

at Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom

● The assassins were affiliated with the Nation of Islam and were all

sentenced to life in prison

Actions

● Malcolm made african-

americans feel that they had

the power to stand up to

white men

● He was one of the first to say

that blacks should stand up

and make something happen

Changes

● "Malcolm X." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Biography in Context. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

Citations