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Malcolm X and the rise of Black Power Matt Bowen, Yoann Delisle, Jacob Reznik Biography ● 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 Actions ● 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 anticolonial 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 Changes ● Malcolm made africanamericans 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 Citations ● "Malcolm X." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Biography in Context. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.