It was in jail that Malcolm X first encountered the teachings of Elijah Muhammad , head of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims, a Black nationalist group that identified white people as the devil. Malcolm was released from prison after serving six years and went on to become the minister of Mosque No. His admirers included celebrities like Muhammad Ali , who became close friends with Malcolm X before the two had a falling out.
Disenchanted with corruption in the nation of Islam, which suspended him in December after he claimed that President John F. A few months later, he traveled to Mecca, where he underwent a spiritual transformation: "The true brotherhood I had seen had influenced me to recognize that anger can blind human vision," he wrote. In June , he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which identified racism, and not the white race, as the enemy of justice. Malcolm X had predicted that he would be more important in death than in life, and had even foreshadowed his early demise in his book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Malcolm X began work on his autobiography in the early s with the help of Alex Haley , the acclaimed author of Roots. The Autobiography of Malcolm X chronicled his life and views on race, religion and Black nationalism.
It was published posthumously in and became a bestseller. Malcolm X. And while he no longer subscribed to a condemnation of the entire white race, he was unrelenting in his critique of global white supremacy. And while history seems to posit Malcolm as his polar opposite, Dr King had begun to articulate many of the same positions that made Malcolm so unpopular.
By the time each died, their positions had become virtually the same position. And that Malcolm was one of the people Martin saw on the mountaintop. Omar Suleiman. Imam Omar Suleiman is an American Muslim scholar and theologically driven activist for human rights. Published On 21 Feb Imam Dr Omar Suleiman is an American Muslim scholar and theologically driven activist for human rights. More from Author. Most Read. Infographic: What has your country pledged at COP26?
He had undertaken the hajj and, noting how people of different races embraced mainstream Islam, he rejected his earlier racism. He recalled in the days before his death his curt dismissal some years earlier of a white college girl who said she wanted to help and was sent away crying. One of his strengths, says Marable, certainly towards the end, was self-awareness. He was still a danger, to the government and the NoI, for by then his strategy was to make loud and common cause between the disadvantaged African-American communities of the US and administrations with whom he had forged alliances in Africa.
He planned to make black America's fight an international one, pursued through the UN. And he had that voice. The "ability to speak on behalf of those to whom society and state had denied a voice due to racial prejudice. He understood their yearnings and anticipated their actions," as Marable writes. But the threat was of a different quality, for towards the end of his life Malcolm was in favour of using the system to improve the system rather than standing aside.
And by , 34 years after his death, the journey was completed to mainstream America's satisfaction. The US postal service, Marable notes, celebrated Malcolm X and his "universal multiculturalism" with a commemorative stamp. This wasn't a journey his erstwhile friends in the Nation of Islam wanted him to make, and one of Marable's great tasks over the years of research was to piece together the parts played by the Nation and the FBI in the murder of Malcolm X.
Three men, all members of the Nation of Islam, were jailed for the murder but few considered the convictions safe, even at the outset. One assassin was himself shot at the scene and was clearly culpable, but the other two were merely NoI enforcers regarded by the police and the FBI as credible, useful suspects. The system condemned them and barely paused for breath.
Marable concludes that the gunmen and the helpers came from the NoI's Newark Mosque and says, as others have before him, that the fatal shot was fired by a year-old man who escaped capture.
Were the authorities involved? Not obviously or directly so, according to the evidence here, though there is speculation. But indisputably there was bitterness that the authorities, who were monitoring most of the major players, were unwilling or unable to save Malcolm X from the ambush at the Audubon.
These frustrations are voiced by Peter Bailey, a former aide to Malcolm in one of the two groups he established on leaving the Nation of Islam. But then, Malcolm knew it himself. He predicted to Haley that he probably wouldn't be around to see the publication of the autobiography, and he was right: it went on sale through a small radical imprint, Grove House, nine months after his death.
His actions and his words set a collision course that he couldn't or wouldn't alter. Former allies in the Nation boiled over at his renunciation of separatism and his personal criticisms of Muhammed, particularly his sharing of the open secret that the Nation's leader, while professing piety, fathered several children with his various secretaries.
Malcolm himself, reports Marable, had a deep affection for one of them. But Malcolm didn't need to attack the Nation directly to seem dangerous to it.
His pull was such, it was said, that merely by choosing a new path, he encouraged others to follow him. And why was he such an important figure to so many people?
Read on to find out more. When he was younger Malcolm and his family suffered racist abuse from a group called the Ku Klux Klan - they had to move around a lot to avoid this racist, violent group to avoid getting hurt. When he was six years old his father was killed in what many believe was a deliberate racist attack. These childhood experiences inspired him to join the civil rights movement.
The rights of a person in a society are called their civil rights. Civil rights include things like the right to freedom, the right to education, the right for adults to vote, and the right to a fair trial. For a long time in the US, African Americans were denied their civil rights. They were forced into being slaves and were bought and sold for money, in the same way animals and property were bought and sold.
Life as a slave was extremely hard and very difficult to imagine now. Most slaves were treated appallingly by their white owners and had no rights at all. Many had to change their name - sometimes to that of their owner. Though slavery was abolished or ended in England in , and in America in , black people still weren't treated fairly because of laws - or rules - of segregation keeping black and white people separate.
This mistreatment of black people, or anyone considered non-white, led to the civil rights movement in the s - when African Americans began to resist this inequality. They wanted to be treated the same way as white people. Huge protests of tens and often hundreds of thousands of people, put pressure on the government to change unfair, racist laws. Famous civil rights leaders at that time included Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm wanted to fight for the rights of black people because of the racist abuse he and his family had suffered.
He spoke passionately at rallies - big gatherings - and events and lots of people listened to his messages. We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.
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