Highlighted Crime
Story of the Week -
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated by rival
Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the
Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska,
in 1925, Malcolm was the son of James Earl Little, a Baptist preacher who
advocated the Black Nationalist ideals of Marcus Garvey. Threats from the Ku
Klux Klan forced the family to move to Lansing, Michigan, where his father
continued to preach his controversial sermons despite continuing threats. In
1931, Malcolm’s father was brutally murdered by the white supremacist Black
Legion, and Michigan authorities refused to prosecute those responsible. In
1937, Malcolm was taken from his family by welfare caseworkers. By the time he
reached high school age, he had dropped out of school and moved to Boston,
where he became increasingly involved in criminal activities.
In 1946, at the age of 21, Malcolm was sent to prison on
a burglary conviction. It was there he encountered the teachings of Elijah
Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, whose members are popularly known
as Black Muslims. The Nation of Islam advocated Black Nationalism and racial
separatism and condemned Americans of European descent as immoral. Muhammad’s
teachings had a strong effect on Malcolm, who entered into an intense program
of self-education and took the last name “X” to symbolize his stolen African
identity.
After six years, Malcolm was released from prison and
became a loyal and effective minister of the Nation of Islam in Harlem, New
York. In contrast with civil rights leaders such as 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 did not sufficiently
support the civil rights movement. In late 1963, Malcolm’s suggestion that
President John F. Kennedy’s assassination was a matter of the “chickens coming
home to roost” provided Elijah Muhammad, who believed that Malcolm had become
too powerful, with a convenient opportunity to suspend him from the Nation of
Islam.
A few months later, Malcolm formally left the
organization and made a Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, where he was profoundly
affected by the lack of racial discord among orthodox Muslims. He returned to
America as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and in June 1964 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. Malcolm’s new
movement steadily gained followers, and his more moderate philosophy became
increasingly influential in the civil rights movement, especially among the
leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. On February 21,
1965, one week after his home was firebombed, Malcolm X was shot to death by
Nation of Islam members while speaking at a rally of his organization in New
York City.
Check back every
Monday for a new installment of “This Week in Crime History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is a columnist for www.crimemagazine.com and is the author
of seven nonfiction books that includes the soon to be released In the Company of Evil Thirty Years of
California Crime 1950-1980 and the award willing Murder and Mayhem 52 Crimes that Shocked Early California 1849-1949.
Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His books can be purchased from Amazon through the
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