Malcolm X, 1925–65, militant
black leader in the United States, also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz,
b. Malcolm Little in Omaha, Neb. A petty criminal in Boston and Harlem, he
was convicted of burglary (1946) and sent to prison, where he read widely
and was introduced to the Black Muslims, joining the group and
becoming a Muslim minister upon his release in 1952. A charismatic and
eloquent spokesman for the doctrines of black nationalism and black
separatism, he quickly became very prominent, establishing many new temples
in the North, Midwest, and California, and acquiring a following perhaps
equaling that of the movement's leader, Elijah Muhammad. In 1963 Malcolm was suspended
by Muhammad after a speech in which Malcolm suggested that President
Kennedy's assassination was a matter of the “chickens coming home to
roost.” He then formed a rival organization of his own, the Muslim
Mosque, Inc. In 1964, after a pilgrimage to Mecca, he announced his
conversion to orthodox Sunni Islam and his new belief that there could be
brotherhood between black and white. In his Organization of Afro-American
Unity, formed after his return, the tone was still that of militant black
nationalism but no longer of separation. In Feb., 1965, he was shot and
killed in a public auditorium in New York City. Over 50 years later, two of
the men originally convicted for his murder, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam,
were exonerated based on the withholding of key evidence by the
government.
See his autobiography (as told to A. Haley, 1964) and selected speeches, Malcolm X
Speaks (1965); J. H. Clarke, ed., Malcolm X
(1969);
biographies by P. Goldman (1973, repr. 2013), B. Perry (1992), M. Marable
(2011), L. and T. Payne (2020), and P. E. Joseph, The Sword and the
Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King
Jr. (2020); studies by M. E. Dyson (1994), J. L. Conyers et
al., ed. (2008), R. E. Terrill, ed., The Cambridge Companion to
Malcolm X (2010), R. Roberts and J. Smith (2016), A. D. Farmer,
Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an
Era (2017), and K. N. Blain et al., ed. New
Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition (2018).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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