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Early Life
On May 19, 1925 in Omaha,
Nebraska, Malcolm Little was born to Reverend Earl and Louise Little. Rev.
Little, who believed in self-determination and worked for the unity of
black people. Malcolm was raised in a background of ethnic awareness and
dignity, but violence was sparked by white racists trying to stop black
people such as Rev. Little from preaching the black cause.
The history of Malcolm's
dedication to black people, like that of his father, may have been
motivated by a long history of oppression of his family. As a young child,
Malcolm, his parents, brothers, and sisters were shot at, burned out of
their home, harassed, and threatened. This culminated in the murder of his
father by white racists when Malcolm was six.
Malcolm became a drop-out
from school at the age of fifteen. Learning the ways of the streets,
Malcolm became acquainted with hoodlums, thieves, dope peddlers, and pimps.
Convicted of burglary at twenty, he remained in prison until the age of
twenty-seven. During his prison stay he attempted to educate himself. In
addition, during his period in prison he learned about and joined the
Nation of Islam, studying the teachings of Elijah Muhammed fully. He was
released, a changed man, in 1952.
The Nation of Islam
Upon his release, Malcolm
went to Detroit, joined the daily activities of the sect, and was given
instruction by Elijah Muhammad himself. Malcolm's personal commitment
helped build the organization nation-wide, while making him an
international figure. He was interviewed on major television programs and
by magazines, and spoke across the country at various universities and
other forums. His power was in his words, which so vividly described the
plight of blacks and vehemently incriminated whites. When a white person
referred to the fact that some Southern university had enrolled black
freshmen without bayonets, Malcolm reacted with scorn:
When I "slipped,"
the program host would leap on the bait: "Ahhh! Indeed, Mr. Malcolm X
-- you can't deny that's an advance for your race!"
I'd jerk the pole then.
"I can't turn around without hearing about some 'civil rights
advance'! White people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting
'hallelujah'! Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife
in the black man's back -- and now the whit man starts to wiggle the knife
out, maybe six inches! The black man's supposed to be grateful? Why, if the
white man jerked the knife out, it's still going to leave a scar!
Although Malcolm words
often stung with the injustices against blacks in America, the equally
racist views of the Nation of Islam kept him from accepting any whites as
sincere or capable of helping the situation. For twelve years he preached
that the white man was the devil and the "Honorable Elijah
Muhammad" was God's messenger. Unfortunately, most images of Malcolm
today focus on this period of his life, although the transformation he was
about to undergo would give him a completely different, and more important,
message for the American people.
The Change to True Islam
On March 12, 1964, impelled
by internal jealousy within the Nation of Islam and revelations of Elijah
Muhammad's sexual immorality, Malcolm left the Nation of Islam with the
intention of starting his own organization:
I feel like a man who has
been asleep somewhat and under someone else's control. I feel what I'm
thinking and saying now is for myself. Before, it was for and by guidance
of another, now I think with my own mind.
Malcolm was thirty-eight
years old when he left Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam. Reflecting on
reflects that occurred prior to leaving, he said:
At one or another college
or university, usually in the informal gatherings after I had spoken,
perhaps a dozen generally white-complexioned people would come up to me,
identifying themselves as Arabian, Middle Eastern or North African Muslims
who happened to be visiting, studying, or living in the United States. They
had said to me that, my white-indicting statements notwithstanding, they
felt I was sincere in considering myself a Muslim -- and they felt if I was
exposed to what they always called "true Islam," I would
"understand it, and embrace it." Automatically, as a follower of
Elijah, I had bridled whenever this was said. But in the privacy of my own
thoughts after several of these experiences, I did question myself: if one
was sincere in professing a religion, why should he balk at broadening his
knowledge of that religion?
Those orthodox Muslims whom
I had met, one after another, had urged me to meet and talk with a Dr.
Mahmoud Youssef Shawarbi. . . . Then one day Dr. Shawarbi and I were
introduced by a newspaperman. He was cordial. He said he had followed me in
the press; I said I had been told of him, and we talked for fifteen or
twenty minutes. We both had to leave to make appointments we had, when he
dropped on me something whose logic never would get out of my head. He
said, "No man has believed perfectly until he wishes for his brother
what he wishes for himself."
The Effect of the Pilgrimage
Malcolm further continues
about the Hajj:
The pilgrimage to Mecca,
known as the Hajj, is a religious obligation that every orthodox Muslim
fulfills, if able, at least once in his or her lifetime.
The Holy Quran says it,
"Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a
duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97)
Allah said: "And
proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon
each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27).
Every one of the thousands
at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could
be a king or a peasant and no on e would know. Some powerful personages,
who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once
thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka!
(Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were
white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and
my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all
in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .
That is when I first began
to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to
perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion
only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In
America,"white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward
the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world,
I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly
than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical
alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men.
There were tens of
thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors,
from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all
participating in the same ritual displaying a spirit of unity and
brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never
could exist between the white an d the non-white...America needs to
understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its
society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have
met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been
considered white -- but the "white" attitude was removed from their
minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true
brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespecitve of their color.
Malcolm's New Vision of America
Malcolm continues:
Each hour here in the Holy
Land enables me to have greater spiritual insights into what is happening
in America between black and white. The American Negro never can be blamed
for his racial animosities -- he is only reacting to four hundred years of
the conscious racism of the American whites. But as racism leads America up
the suicide path I do believe, from the experiences that I have had with
them, that the whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and
universities, will see the handwriting on the wall and many of them will
turn to the spiritual path of truth -- the only way left to America to ward
off the disaster that racism inevitably must lead to. . . .
I believe that God now is
giving the world's so-called 'Christian' white society its last opportunity
to repent and atone for the crimes of exploiting and enslaving the world's
non-white peoples. It is exactly as when God gave Pharaoh a chance to
repent. But Pharaoh persisted in his refusal to give justice to those who
he oppressed. And, we know, God finally destroyed Pharaoh.
I will never forget the
dinner at the Azzam home with Dr. Azzam. The more we talked, the more his
vast reservoir of knowledge and its variety seemed unlimited. He spoke of
the racial lineage of the descendants of Muhammad (PBUH) the Prophet, and
he showed how they were both black and white. He also pointed out how
color, and the problems of color which exist in the Muslim world, exist
only where, and to the extent that, that area of the Muslim world has been
influenced by the West. He said that if on encountered any differences
based on attitude toward color, this directly reflected the degree of
Western influence.
The Oneness of Man Under One God
It was during his
pilgrimage that he began to write some letters to his loyal assistants at
the newly formed Muslim Mosque in Harlem. He asked that his letter be
duplicated and distributed to the press:
Never have I witnessed such
sincere hospitality and the overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is
practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land,
the House of Abraham, Muhammad, and all the other Prophets of the Holy
Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and
spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of
all colors. . . .
You may be shocked by these
words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and
experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns
previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This
was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always
been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as
new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open
mind, which necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with
every form of intelligent search for truth.
During the past eleven days
here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the
same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug) -- while praying
to the same God -- with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue,
whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of
white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the
"white" Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the
black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana.
We were truly all the same
(brothers) -- because their belief in one God had removed the
"white" from their minds, the 'white' from their behavior, and
the 'white' from their attitude.
I could see from this, that
perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps,
too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man -- and cease to
measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their
"differences" in color.
With racism plaguing
America like an incurable cancer, the so-called "Christian" white
American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a
destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from
imminent disaster -- the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism
that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.
They asked me what about
the Hajj had impressed me the most. . . . I said, "The brotherhood!
The people of all races, color, from all over the world coming to gether as
one! It has proved to me the power of the One God. . . . All ate as one,
and slept as one. Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the
Oneness of Man under One God.
Malcolm returned from the
pilgrimage as El-Hajj Malik al-Shabazz. He was afire with new spiritual
insight. For him, the struggle had evolved from the civil rights struggle
of a nationalist to the human rights struggle of an internationalist and
humanitarian.
After the Pilgrimage
White reporters and others
were eager to learn about El-Hajj Malik's newly-formed opinions concerning
themselves. They hardly believed that the man who had preached against them
for so many years could suddenly turn around and call them brothers. To
these people El-Hajj Malik had this to say:
You're asking me
"Didn't you say that now you accept white men as brothers?" Well,
my answer is that in the Muslim world, I saw, I felt, and I wrote home how
my thinking was broadened! Just as I wrote, I shared true, brotherly love
with many white-complexioned Muslims who never gave a single thought to the
race, or to the complexion, of another Muslim.
My pilgrimage broadened my
scope. It blessed me with a new insight. In two weeks in the Holy Land, I
saw what I never had seen in thirty-nine years here in America. I saw all
races, all colors, -- blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans -- in true
brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshipping as one! No
segregationists -- no liberals; they would not have known how to interpret
the meaning of those words.
In the past, yes, I have
made sweeping indictments of all white people. I will never be guilty of
that again -- as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that
some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black man. The true
Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as
wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.
To the blacks who
increasingly looked to him as a leader, El-Hajj Malik preached a new
message, quite the opposite of what he had been preaching as a minister in
the Nation of Islam:
True Islam taught me that
it takes all of the religious, political, economic, psychological, and
racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and the
Human Society complete.
Since I learned the truth
in Mecca, my dearest friends have come to include all kinds -- some
Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, and even atheists! I have
friends who are called capitalists, Socialists, and Communists! Some of my
friends are moderates, conservatives, extremists -- some are even Uncle
Toms! My friends today are black, brown, red, yellow, and white!
I said to my Harlem street
audiences that only when mankind would submit to the One God who created
all -- only then would mankind even approach the "peace" of which
so much talk could be heard...but toward which so little action was seen.
Too Dangerous to Last
El-Hajj Malik's new
universalistic message was the U.S. establishment's worst nightmare. Not
only was he appealing to the black masses, but to intellectuals of all
races and colors. Now he was consistently demonized by the press as
"advocating violence" and being "militant," although in
actuality he and Dr. Martin Luther King were moving closer together in
outlook:
The goal has always been
the same, with the approaches to it as different as mine and Dr. Martin
Luther King's non-violent marching, that dramatizes the brutality and the
evil of the white man against defenseless blacks. And in the racial climate
of this country today, it is anybody's guess which of the "extremes"
in approach to the black man's problems might personally meet a fatal
catastrophe first -- "non-violent" Dr. King, or so-called
"violent" me."
El-Hajj Malik knew full
well that he was a target of many groups. In spite of this, he was never
afraid to say what he had to say when he had to say it. As a sort of
epitaph at the end of his autobiography, he says:
I know that societies often
have killed the people who have helped to change those societies. And if I
can die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that
will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of
America -- then, all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have
been mine.
The Legacy of Malcolm X
Although El-Hajj Malik kenw
that he was a target for assassination, he accepted this fact without
requesting police protection. On February 21, 1965, while preparing to give
a speech at a New York hotel, he was shot by three black men. He was three
months short of forty, the age of maturity according to the Qur'an. While
it is clear that the Nation of Islam had something to do with the
assassination, many people believe there was more than one organization
involved. The FBI, known for its anti-black movement tendency, has been
suggested as an accomplice. We may never know for sure who was behind
El-Hajj Malik's murder, or, for that matter, the murder of other national
leaders in the early 1960s.
Malcolm X's life has
affected Americans in many important ways. His conversion must have had an
influence on Elijah Muhammad's son, Wallace Muhammad, who, after his
father's death, led the Nation of Islam's followers into orthodox Islam.
African-Americans' interest in their Islamic roots has flourished since
El-Hajj Malik's death. Alex Haley, who wrote Malcolm's autobiography, later
wrote the epic Roots about an African Muslim family's experience with
slavery. More and more African-Americans are becoming Muslim, adopting
Muslim names, or explor- ing African culture. Interest in Malcolm X has
seen a surge recently due to Spike Lee's movie, X. El-Hajj Malik is a
source of pride for African-Americans, Muslims, and Americans in general.
His message is simple and clear:
I am not a racist in any
form whatever. I don't believe in any form of racism. I don't believe in
any form of discrimination or segregation. I believe in Islam.
Adapted from the pamphlet Malcolm X: Why I Embraced Islam
by Yusuf Siddiqui. Quotes taken from The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told
to Alex Haley.
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