Malcolm X

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Malcolm X in March 1964

Malcolm X [ ˌmælkəm ˈɛks ] (born May 19, 1925 as Malcolm Little in Omaha , Nebraska ; after his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz ; † February 21, 1965 in New York City ) was an American activist and Civil rights activist . He was a leader of the civil rights movement in the United States .

Early years

family

Malcolm was born in Omaha, the son of the Reverend Earl Little, a casual laborer and supporter of the separation movement under Marcus Garvey , and his wife Louise, née Norton.

Malcolm's mother was born in Grenada in the British West Indies to a Scottish father and an African-American mother. Louise Norton lost her mother early and was abused by her father. As a very light-skinned black woman, she did not feel she belonged anywhere and emigrated to Canada early on , where she met Earl Little and married on May 10, 1919. Only later did she learn that Little had three children from a first marriage, Ella, Mary and Earl Jr., but left this family. Earl Little had seven children with Louise: Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Reginald, Yvonne and Wesley.

childhood

Earl and Louise Little moved first to Philadelphia , then to Omaha , where Malcolm was born on May 19, 1925, the fourth of seven children. From birth, Malcolm was very fair-skinned and had reddish-brown hair instead of black - a legacy of his mother, who repeatedly disadvantaged him because he reminded her of her own father. His father, on the other hand, preferred Malcolm as his brightest son.

After moving several times, they came to Lansing near Detroit , Michigan , in 1929 , where their father bought a house in an area preferred by whites. After a few weeks the sale was supposed to be canceled because of the color of the family's skin. Malcolm's father wanted to go to court for it, but the house burned down. When he accused whites of arson , the police arrested him for it. In 1931 Little was run over by a tram and died of the injuries. The circumstances were never cleared up; his wife was convinced that her husband would be murdered. One of the two insurance companies Little had taken out life insurance with , however, considered his death a suicide and refused to pay.

After the father died, the family lived on $ 1,000 from the other life insurance policy, Louise 's $ 18 monthly widow's pension, and rented property. The family suffered from poverty and hunger. The Welfare Department came to see the Littles regularly to place the children with foster parents , as they felt that Louise was mentally unstable and could not look after the children well. Louise had joined the Adventists after her husband's death and began dating men again in 1936. She was already planning to marry again, but when she became pregnant in 1937 the groom left her. In late 1938 she suffered a total nervous breakdown and was admitted to a state mental hospital by court order , where she spent about 26 years before her children took her from the clinic in 1963. From then on she lived with her son Philbert and his family in Lansing.

youth

The children were initially placed in a home and later with foster families ; Malcolm lived with a white family called the Gohannas, of whom he gradually felt a part. After graduating from high school, he was surprised and at the same time shocked to see that as a black man he did not have the same opportunities as his white classmates: Despite his intelligence and excellent academic achievements, he could not study , but at best begin an apprenticeship . After visiting his half-sister Ella, he moved to Boston in 1941 . There, to the annoyance of his sister, he frequented the Black Quarter and kept himself afloat with odd jobs.

During this time he changed his appearance: He bought modern suits and grew a Conk make (hair uncurl) what the then popular fashion among blacks corresponded to smooth her hair whites accordingly. In retrospect, Malcolm X cites the latter event as his first major step towards self-degradation .

Crime, Detention and Education

At the same time he moved in the criminal milieu and became known as "Red" and later as "Detroit Red". He made contacts through a job as a waiter in Harlem , acted as a drug dealer and broker for white customers for brothels and began breaking and entering. He escaped being called up for military service because he successfully faked a psychiatrist that he was mentally unfit for military service. During this time he started smoking marijuana. In 1944 he went to court for the first time for stealing a fur coat and selling it. Then he continued to work as a burglar.

He was arrested in early 1946 and sentenced to ten years in prison the following year. The reason for this was burglary he committed with a childhood friend from Boston, a married white woman (Sophia, with whom he also had an affair), her sister and another acquaintance. Malcolm and his friend were each sentenced to ten years of forced labor. Sophia got five years and was paroled after seven months.

Malcolm was first sent to Charlestown Prison, where the sanitary conditions were disastrous, but was transferred in 1948. In Charlestown he had made friends with a black speaker who encouraged him to read. Malcolm continued his self-taught education , particularly in philosophy and history. He trained his rhetoric in debating groups in prison. He used the time in prison very intensively for his studies. An example of this is that he deliberately read and copied entire (foreign) lexicons and other dictionaries.

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam

First contact and joining

During his detention, Malcolm made the acquaintance of the " Nation of Islam " through a letter from his brother Philbert . After persuading some of his remaining siblings who had also joined the "nation", he did the same. From then on he confessed to what the Nation of Islam regarded as “genuinely black culture”. In the belief of the "Nation", the surname of every black man was the one that the slaveholders once gave him. For true liberation from oppression, these names were rejected by the "nation". But since the original name of a descendant of slaves is not known, the members of the "Nation", including Little, gave themselves the surname "X". He took sun baths to appear darker, a measure his mother had already prescribed, and shaved his head.

In late 1952, Malcolm was released early, but was again in danger of arrest when he again refused to serve in the military (during the Korean War ). However, he was officially accepted as a conscientious objector because of his religion . He bypassed the alternative service with a certificate from a psychiatrist.

Spokesman for the Nation of Islam

After moving to Detroit, Malcolm met the leader of the Nation of Islam , Elijah Muhammad , who became a surrogate father. Soon after, Malcolm X, as a confidante of Muhammad, headed the Harlem Temple and established himself as one of the spokesmen of the organization. He achieved this position through his self-assured and eloquent demeanor and his limitless commitment to the "nation". He used all means to reach as many blacks as possible - for example, he went to the black quarters of the big cities and spoke to the residents in youthful slang, which gave him easy access to the street scene and won many followers there.

As the national spokesman for the Nation of Islam , Malcolm X denounced the racism of white society. Again and again he showed connections between American history and the enslavement of Africans. The whites are "devils" because they always acted as such. They lynched black people and preached "non-violence" to black people. They gave them the worst jobs and said black people were no good for anything else. They prevented the education of African Americans and took offense at their illiteracy. They spoke liberally and acted racist.

The Nation of Islam, which, under the strict leadership of the inner hierarchy under the "Ambassador of Allah" Elijah Muhammad, saw itself as a religious community (even if its teaching does not correspond to orthodox Islam in many points), slowed down concrete political protest actions. Their activism was also aimed exclusively at men. Women cannot take on important functions in the Nation of Islam , cannot join the Fruit of Islam , the self-defense organization of Black Muslims, and are referred to a supposedly “natural” role as housewife and mother, for which they are specifically prepared in their own courses.

The nation - and especially Malcolm X as its figurehead - has been stylized as an enemy in the media. Malcolm, who saw himself as an advocate of blacks' right to self-defense, was seen as a violent "hate preacher" and "black monster". The emphasis on an independent, combative, Afro-American story, the pride that the “Black Muslims” associated with being black, their uncompromising and radicalism made the Nation of Islam an important point of contact for the growing impatience and anger of the Afro-American ghetto youth . With this approach of “black nationalism”, the Nation of Islam and with it Malcolm X contributed significantly, if not seamlessly, to the “ black power movement” of the 1960s and were, in a sense, its forerunners.

Malcolm X at Queens Court in 1964

In 1958 Malcolm X married Betty Jean Sanders , who worked as a nurse for the organization. In the course of their marriage they had six daughters: Attallah (born November 16, 1958); Qubilah (born December 25, 1960); Ilyasah (born July 22, 1962); Gamilah Lamumbah (born December 4, 1964) and the twins Malaak and Malikah, who were born on September 30, 1965, seven months after their father was murdered.

Conflict with the civil rights movement

Malcolm X was a radical critic of the civil rights movement that was beginning under Martin Luther King . Its non-violent integration strategy was particularly strong among blacks from the rural southern states and within the small black middle classes, who for the most part wanted to end racial segregation and gain a share in the “ American Dream ”. For them, the north of the USA was often still something like the “Promised Land”. They hoped they would finally be accepted by the whites. Malcolm X was completely different. He knew the black neighborhoods in the north, which were often marked by poverty, and had grown up in them as "Detroit Red". Malcolm X spoke for the Afro-American slum dwellers of the north who no longer placed any hope in white “liberals” because they had learned on their way from the plantations to the ghettos that there was no room for their progress on the part of the whites.

Malcolm X (right) in a discussion with Martin Luther King (left)

For Malcolm X, King's non-violent Christian approach was just another attempt at this phase of his life to beg justice from the whites who, in his view, had already demonstrated their unwillingness enough. Accordingly, King was an " Uncle Tom " for him . In the context of his grassroots lectures in 1963 he shaped the distinction between subservient “house negroes” - to which he counted King - as helpers of the whites in the suppression of the rebellious “field negroes”. This comparison achieved international fame and in 2009 Al-Zawahiri , a leading member of al-Qaeda , referred to the newly elected US President Barack Obama as a "house negro", alluding to this speech.

400 years of white rule had shown, from Malxom X's point of view, that they would not want any compromises and that talk of equality was nothing but hypocrisy. Malcolm X therefore considered calls for non-violence to be a crime by the whites (and their black "Uncle Toms") against his people. From his point of view, the whites had chosen the language of violence again and again, so in his opinion the blacks should start by “speaking their language” in order to be understood. African Americans should stand up and do whatever it takes to defend themselves, "by any means necessary".

In order to awaken their self-esteem, African Americans would have to re-appropriate their own history, falsified by the whites. White historiography gave African Americans a reputation for being submissive, stupid, harmless and ignorant, and thereby "psychologically castrated" them. The blacks would have always resisted, e.g. B. through armed revolts against slavery. The white lie that Africa was just a wild jungle and that blacks were civilized through them had a similar effect. This ideology must be swept away and the “negroes” (as blacks called each other at the time) must begin to see themselves both as Africans and as Americans, as Afro-Americans .

fracture

With the growth of the Nation of Islam , for which Malcolm X also played a major role as an important temple leader, the wealth of Elijah Muhammad and his family grew. Voices were raised accusing Muhammad of corruption, enrichment and links with white racial segregationists. Malcolm X initially dismissed these allegations as rumors.

At the end of 1963, however, Malcolm X was increasingly distancing himself from his foster father. The first open conflict arose in December when Malcolm commented on the murder of John F. Kennedy with the phrase "a case of chickens coming home to roost" (meaning: "The mistakes you make fall back on you.") which earned him widespread outrage and condemnation, followed by a 90-day ban on speaking, from the Nation of Islam. Another source of conflict was Elijah Muhammad's extramarital affairs, which the latter justified by saying that he was the last of the prophets to repeat the sins of all prophets. After his break with the Nation of Islam, Malcolm repeatedly publicly stated in June 1964 that Elijah Muhammad had no fewer than six illegitimate children.

Malcolm X finally declared his break with the Nation of Islam publicly on March 8, 1964. Regarding his previous relationship with the Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad in particular, Malcolm X said: “I was a parrot. Now the parrot has jumped out of the cage. ”In his last year he turned to the Afro-American liberation movement. He didn't just want to talk anymore, he wanted to see action. However, Malcolm wanted to remain a Muslim: "Whenever I see a religion that doesn't want me to fight for my people, I say: to hell with this religion, that's why I'm a Muslim."

So he first founded the Muslim Mosque Inc. with some others who had also left the Nation of Islam. The intention was twofold: It was intended to be a new religious center for the former members of the Nation of Islam and at the same time to be part of the growing Afro-American liberation struggle intervene politically. "Our religion is Islam, our philosophy is 'Black Nationalism'," said Malcolm. He wanted to help unite Afro-Americans across their internal class barriers politically, and attacked other spokesmen of the Afro-American movement such as Martin Luther King with the uncompromising severity of yore. All available leverage had to be used now; his alternative to the liberation of African Americans was now: ballot or ball, "the ballot or the bullet".

Last years

Travel to Mecca and Africa

His pilgrimage to Mecca , which he undertook in April 1964, played an important role in Malcolm's reorientation . In the same year he was also in Gaza . He borrowed the money from the half-sister. The unity of all peoples and races impressed him so much that he reconsidered his racist attitude. He joined the Sunni branch of Islam and from then on called himself El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, but remained known by his previous name.

Following his stay in Mecca, he made a four-month journey through Africa. The contact with anti-colonialist fighters left a lasting impression on his thinking: So he came to the conviction that the orthodox-Islamic image of women needed a fundamental correction because in progressive states women are progressive and combative.

Connection to the African liberation struggle

Malcolm X now also established an international connection between the African and Afro-American liberation struggles, which cannot be separated from one another, because racism in the USA requires racism in the world market and vice versa. It was also fundamental to this attitude that many who had just fought for independence followed socialist models: “It is impossible for a white man to believe in capitalism and not in racism at the same time. There is no capitalism without racism. ”It is therefore the same structural principles that oppress Afro-Americans in the USA as Africans on the continent. The international exploitation of the “Third World” corresponds to the national exploitation of Afro-Americans (and other “Third World people” in the capitalist metropolises). Therefore "we cannot go a step faster than the Africans". In his opinion, advancement on a national scale alone is no longer possible. From then on, his entire commitment was directed towards the goal of combating this international system of domination and effectively combining the liberation struggles of Africans and Afro-Americans.

After his return to the USA, he therefore initiated the Organization for African American Unity (OAAU). It should create connections between African Americans and Africans and intervene in the national civil rights movement. In contrast to his line at the time in the Nation of Islam, he was now also ready to accept the support and help of the whites and to recognize, insofar as they consistently advocated an end to racial segregation; he said goodbye to all biologism and focused on the concrete actions of a person, regardless of skin color. However, he was only open to white membership in his organization after an establishment phase, because he believed that “there could be no black-white unity before black unity has first been achieved”.

Autobiography

From 1963 he wrote an autobiography in which Alex Haley participated. This was published under the title The Autobiography of Malcolm X in the year of his murder.

assassination

Photo from the crime scene

After Malcolm publicly discussed Elijah Muhammad's extramarital affairs several times in the summer of 1964, he had been under police protection since June 16, 1964 because of anonymous threats. On February 21, 1965, he was lecturing at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights when two listeners began an argument. When the bodyguards left Malcolm X unprotected on stage to deal with the troublemakers, a man stepped forward, pulled a sawed-off shotgun from his coat, and shot right at Malcolm X. Then two more assassins shot him, all in all Coroners found 21 gunshot wounds. The ensuing chaos was compounded by the explosion of a smoke bomb and enabled two assassins to escape. Only the third assassin, Thomas Hagan , was held until the police arrived.

The then 23-year-old Thomas Hagan, a member of the Nation of Islam , confessed to the assassination attempt on Malcolm X. In 1966, however, he described his two co-defendants, Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Kahlil Islam, as innocent. All three defendants were sentenced to between 20 years and life imprisonment. In a 1977 affidavit , Hagan stated that he planned the assassination of Malcolm X with several accomplices, not including his co-defendants, in order to retaliate for his criticism of Elijah Muhammad. As for the crime, he testified that first a man shot Malcolm X with a shotgun, and then he and another accomplice. Hagan was finally paroled on April 27, 2010.

In early April 2011, the US historian Manning Marable wrote the biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention ) was published. In it, Marable claims that most of those involved in the murder plot, which has not yet been fully resolved, are still at large. In addition, the FBI and the police learned of the attempted assassination in advance, but deliberately tolerated it and did not take any protective measures.

In the documentation as a miniseries from Netflix , the names of the assassins involved are named from Thomas Hagen's affidavit and their whereabouts, the connections are presented by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad , who investigated them. According to the autopsy report, the fatal shots came from the shotgun and were said to have been fired by Al-Mustafa Shabazz, later William Bradley.

reception

The following important information is missing from this section:
Type of influence, possibly further influence beyond the Black Panther Party.
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

The influence of Malcolm's views on the black movement was reflected in the founding of the Black Panther Party in 1966, a year after his assassination .

The American rap duo Gang Starr used an excerpt from Malcolm's speech Message to the Grass Roots in the piece Tonz 'O' Gunz , included on the album Hard to Earn . It says: "If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad." As early as 1988, the band Living Color sampled the first ten seconds of this speech in their song Cult of Personality .

Talk

  • George Breitman (Ed.): By any means necessary . Pathfinder Press, New York 1992, ISBN 0-87348-754-0 .
  • George Breitman (Ed.): Malcolm X on Afro-American History . Pathfinder Press, New York 1992, ISBN 0-87348-592-0 (reprinted New York 1967 edition).
  • George Breitman (Ed.): Malcolm X speaks. Selected speeches and statements . Pathfinder Press, New York 1993, ISBN 0-87348-546-7 .
  • Archie Epps (Ed.): Speeches at Harvard . Paragon House, New York 1991, ISBN 1-55778-479-5 (reprinted from New York 1968 edition).
  • Benjamin Karim (Ed.): The end of white world supremacy. Four speeches . Arcade Press, New York 1989 (?), ISBN 1-55970-006-8 (reprinted New York 1971 edition).
  • Bruce Perry: The last speeches . Pathfinder Press, New York 1989, ISBN 0-87348-543-2 .

literature

Cinematic adaptations

  • 1959 the documentary entitled " The Hate That Hate Produced " was actually directed against the Nation of Islam, but brought Malcolm X increased attention and led to numerous new members.
  • A 1972 documentary called Malcolm X was nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary (Feature) in 1973 .
  • In 1977 Malcolm X was portrayed by James Earl Jones in the film "The Greatest".
  • 1978: Dick Anthony Williams plays Malcolm X in the television series "King".
  • 1979: Al Freeman, Jr., who will play Elijah Muhammad in Spike Lee's film Malcolm X , plays Malcolm X in "Roots: The Next Generations."
  • From 1981 comes a TV adaptation of the last 24 hours of Malcolm X's life called Death of a Prophet (English title: Malcolm X - Death of a Prophet ) with Morgan Freeman in the lead role.
  • 1986: Ben Holt plays Malcolm X in the opera X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X at the New York City Opera.
  • 1989: Dick Anthony Williams plays Malcolm X again, this time on "The Meeting".
  • Malcolm X's life was in 1992 by Spike Lee with Denzel Washington filmed in the lead role, see Malcolm X .
  • The Last Days of a Legend - Malcolm X. Documentary, 60 min., Production: The Biography Channel , First broadcast: July 3, 2008 by The Biography Channel, 2008
  • 2000: Gary Dourdan plays Malcolm X in the TV movie "King of the World"
  • 2000: Joe Morton plays Malcolm X in the TV movie "Ali: An American Hero"
  • 2001: Mario Van Peebles plays Malcolm X in the film Ali .
  • 2020: Who Killed Malcolm X? , six-part documentary on Netflix.

Web links

Commons : Malcolm X  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Malcolm X  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sylvie Laurent: Malcolm X in Palestine - When the black civil rights activists emancipated themselves from their biblical parents and discovered their sympathy for the Palestinians . In: Barbara Bauer, Anna Lerch (Ed.): Le Monde diplomatique . No. 2/25 . TAZ / WOZ , February 2019, ISSN  1434-2561 , p. 7 .
  2. ↑ a b Disenchantment of a Myth , one day - Zeitgeschichten on Spiegel Online, April 7, 2011
  3. ↑ Peter Louis Goldman: The Death and Life of Malcolm X . University of Illinois Press 1979, ISBN 0-252-00774-3 , pp. 273-274 ( excerpt from Google book search)
  4. ↑ New speculation about the murder of Malcolm X in: Spiegel Online from April 2, 2011
  5. ↑ Malcolm X gunman released on parole after 45 years . BBC News, April 28, 2010
  6. ↑ Andy Newman, John Eligon: Killer of Malcolm X Is Granted Parole . New York Times, March 20, 2010
  7. ↑ New speculation about the murder of Malcolm X in: Spiegel Online from April 2, 2011
  8. ^ Hugh Muir: Malcolm X: the man behind the myth . Guardian, April 7, 2011
  9. ↑ a b Who Is Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, From The New Documentary 'Who Killed Malcolm X?' February 11, 2020, accessed February 21, 2020 (American English).
  10. ↑ Who Killed Malcolm X? Retrieved February 21, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Whosampled Fire & Fury Grassroots Speech , quote for reminiscence.
  12. ↑ Quotation for reading . (English)
  13. ↑ Malcolm X. In: Zelloloid.de. Archived from the original on June 7, 2015 ; accessed on September 6, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME X, Malcolm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Little, Malcolm (maiden name); El Hadjj Malik El Shabazz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American civil rights leader
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Omaha , Nebraska , United States
DATE OF DEATH February 21, 1965
Place of death New York City , United States