Malcolm X
"There can be no black-white unity until there is first some black
unity." (New York City, March 8, 1964).
In March of 1964, Malcolm X, who had been ordered to remain silent
by Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, formally left the Black
Muslims and founded his own mosque. The son of a murdered black
nationalist, Malcolm Little was imprisoned in 1946 on a burglary
conviction. It was in prison that he encountered the Nation of
Islam, which advocated African-American nationalism and racial
separatism. Elijah Muhammad's teachings had a strong effect on
Malcolm, who entered into an intense program of self-education and
took the last name of X to symbolize his stolen African identity.
After six years, Malcolm left prison and became an effective
minister of the Nation of Islam in New York City's Harlem area. In
contrast to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X
advocated self-defense and the liberation of African Americans "by
any means necessary." A fiery orator, Malcolm was admired by the
African-American community in New York and around the country. In
the early 1960s, he began to develop a more outspoken philosophy
than that of Elijah Muhammad, whom he felt was lacking in his
support of the civil rights movement.
In December of 1963, Muhammad suspended him from the Nation of
Islam. The following March, Malcolm formally left the Nation, and in
April, made a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, where he was profoundly
affected by the lack of racial discord among orthodox Muslims. |
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Upon his return to the United States,
Malcolm founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which advocated
black identity and held that racism, not the white race, was the
greatest foe of the African American. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X
was shot to death by Nation of Islam members while speaking at a rally
of his organization in New York City.
Click here to hear
Malcolm X discusses challenges to African-American society
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