International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

One of the most controversial figures of the American civil rights movement , Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shaba)zz was an outspoken critic of racism in the United States and throughout the world during the 1950s and 1960s. His uncompromising stands on the fate of non-white people across the world, combined with his withering critiques of the mainstream civil rights movement, made him a polarizing figure in the black freedom struggle. Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents, Earl and Louisa Little, were members of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Their political beliefs faced violent resistance in Nebraska, forcing the family to move to Milwaukee and, ultimately, Lansing, Michigan. In Lansing, the family's home was burned down in November 1929; less than two years later, Earl Little was killed by a street car under suspicious circumstances. The subsequent financial strain on the family eventually drove Louisa Little to a mental institution. Malcolm briefly stayed with a white foster family before settling with his half-sister, Ella Collins, in Boston in 1941. By his eighteenth birthday, he moved to Harlem and began working as a railway porter and waiter, later committing petty crimes, running numbers, and selling drugs. In 1946, he was found guilty of larceny in Boston and sentenced to eight to ten years ... log in or subscribe to read full text