“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery”
–Malcom X, speech 11/10/1963
Racial tension, near the breaking point, as black citizens protest white authority figures and politicians; economic inequity being blamed for loss of the American dream; Muslim membership profiling; restless youth looking for solutions.
Headlines from today’s news stories mirror headlines from fifty years ago.
On February 21, 1965, the man born Malcolm Little, who died as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, but was known as Malcolm X was assassinated. His life and his death are still the subjects of books and movies. When you examine why Malcolm X is still important in contemporary discussion, you realize how some issues will always endure the evolution of society.
Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska May 19, 1925. His parents, Baptist minister Earl Little and Louise Norten, met at a Universal Negro Improvement Association convention. UNIA was led by Marcus Garvey and Rev. Earl Little was a devoted follower. This led to the Littles being threatened by the white supremacist group, the Black Legion. In 1929, the Legion burned down their Lansing, Michigan home. Two years later, Earl’s body was found lying across trolley tracks. Authorities ruled the burning and the death as accidents. Malcolm’s mother suffered a nervous breakdown, committed to a mental institution and the children were sent off to foster homes.
Malcolm became a street hustler known as “Detroit Red” and was eventually arrested and convicted of burglary crimes and sentenced to ten years in prison.
His brother Reginald was also in prison and introduced Malcolm to the teachings of the Nation of Islam and its leader Elijah Muhammad. The religion appealed to many black youths in prison with its goals of spiritual, mental, social and economic condition of blacks and humanity. Others claim Nation of Islam is seeking black supremacy and of that it is anti-Semitic. Malcom gave up his “slave name” of Little and took on the X to signify his lost tribal name.
Malcolm, upon his release after six years, became a devoted follower of Elijah Muhammad. His eloquence, intelligence and good looks made him a natural to recruit new members and open mosques. Malcolm became a well-known spokesman for the NOI and recruited many, such as the young boxer Cassius Clay, who became Muhammad Ali after his conversion.
In 1958 he married Betty Sanders.
His communication skills in writing and in speeches made him popular with the people and noticed by the media and the FBI. NOI leader Elijah Muhammad was getting very concerned that people and press gravitated away from him and to Malcolm X. “His aura was too bright,” was how poet Maya Angelou wrote of him. In 1963, speaking about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm stated, “Kennedy never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon.” The public was shocked and gave Elijah Muhammad a reason to suspend Malcolm from NOI for 90 days.
Malcolm was already very frustrated and disappointed in his leader as he learned Elijah Muhammad had many relationships with women in the organization and several had resulted in illegitimate births.
In his 2011 biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, Manning Marable recounts a chaotic confrontation between the Los Angeles Police Department and several members of a Nation of Islam mosque. After a standoff with a large crowd watching, NOI member Ronald Stokes was shot to death by LAPD when he was reportedly surrendering with his hands up. Malcolm X wanted to “recruit members for an assassination team to target LAPD officers.” NOI leader Elijah Muhammad refused his request. Malcolm was deeply disappointed and the decision forever fractured his relationship with Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.
In March 1964, Malcom resigned all duties and relationships with the Nation of Islam and founded his own organization, the Muslim Mosque, Inc. He made a retreat to Mecca where he studied and immersed himself with the people there. He was surprised that the Muslims he met were blond haired white people as well as many other cultures. His return gave him new perspectives, integration and speaking to all people not just blacks, became important missions. In June 1964, Malcolm founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
On February 14, 1965, the home of Malcolm and Betty and their four daughters (twin daughters were born after his death) was firebombed. This had not been the first attempt on his life. He was reasonably sure that his attackers were from the Nation of Islam. He spoke of his mortal danger in his speeches and comments.
In an interview less than a week before he was shot, Malcolm X reflected, “I live like a man who’s already dead.”
One week later, on February 21, Malcolm X made his way to the plywood lectern in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem to speak to the 400 gathered at his Organization of Afro-American Unity meeting. He greeted the public and made a few brief remarks when two men, seated very near the front, started a pre-arranged confrontation. That, and a sock doused with lighter fluid thrown in the back of the room, distracted the audience from another man, near the front, with a sawed off shotgun, who walked up to Malcolm X and fired. Several other well-placed gunmen produced weapons and fired over a dozen shots into Malcolm X. His wife Betty rushed from her seat to her husband’s side screaming, “They are killing my husband!”
The man with the shotgun, Talmadge Hayer aka Thomas Hagan, escaped to the stairwell where one of Malcolm X’s bodyguards shot him in the thigh. The crowd in the ballroom descended upon Hayer with the intent to kill him, but only broke his ankle before police rescued the shooter from certain death. The others escaped into the chaos. Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were identified but proclaimed their innocence. All are members of the Nation of Islam. Talmadge was sentenced to life but was released in 2010.
From February 23 to February 26, a public viewing of Malcolm X was held at Harlem’s Unity Funeral Chapel. A crowd of 13,000-14,000 viewed the open casket. At 9:20AM, February 27, the solid bronze casket was removed from the funeral home and taken to Bishop Alvin S. Child’s Faith Temple of God in Christ at 1763 Amsterdam Avenue in New York for the funeral service. 1500 were in attendance inside the building with 500 listening outside. Actor Ossie Davis was one of the officiants and delivered the eulogy. A funeral procession took Malcolm X to Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale. At the conclusion of the service, friends took shovels from the cemetery workers and filled in the grave themselves.
This man, who struck a chord with those unhappy with the slow pace of the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, took a harsher, more aggressive, more confrontational stance. His death was not at the hands of racists but men of his color and of his own religion.
When half a century of events barely changes the headlines, it is a call for the citizens and the politicians to find a new peaceful path.
“If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.”
–Malcolm X