Malcolm [X] Little Is Born in Omaha, Nebraska
Malcolm Little, the future civil rights leader known as Malcolm X, was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on this day.
His family soon moved to Michigan. The Omaha birth site is now a historic landmark and the location of the Malcolm X Center (see the link below).
As an adult, Malcolm settled in Boston as an adult and became involved in various crimes. He was eventually arrested and sentenced to prison where, ime a prominent national leader for African Americans, advocating a unique version of separatism that challenged tnfluenced by other inmates, he converted to Islam. A charismatic leader, he soon rose to prominence in the Nation of Islam, where he gradually came into conflict with the culturally and politically conservative leaders. As he becahe integrationist position of national civil rights leaders, he caught the attention of the FBI, which opened an FBI file on him May 4, 1953.
See also Malcolm X’s prophetic “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech on April 3, 1964, in Cleveland, Ohio, in which he warned that violence could erupt if American society did not grant full equality to African-Americans.
Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, in New York City, in circumstances that are still a matter of controversy.
Read the new biography: Les Payne and Tamara Payne, The Dead Are Rising: The Life of Malcolm X (2021)
Read the great new book on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King: Peniel Joseph, The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King (2020)
Visit the Historical Marker: http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/civilrights/ne1.htm
Read the acclaimed biography: Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011)
Visit the Malcolm X Center in Omaha
Watch a compilation of Malcolm X speeches and interviews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9AmuYqjRyg
See the Spike Lee film: Malcolm X (1992)