I was born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha Nebraska.  When I was born my birth name was Malcolm Little and in 1953 I changed my name to Malcolm X. My father Earl Little was a Baptist minister.  My father was found dead in 1931 on the trolley tracks in our town of Lansing Michigan. My mother Louise Norton Little was a homemaker with eight children. In 1929 our house was burned to the ground.  The police ruled the incident of my father’s death and our house burning as an accident, but our family thinks it was not.

Growing up I was smart and at the top of my class. Though I was at the top of my class one of my favorite teachers told me I would never become a lawyer. The ugly “N” word was used to discourage me. This caused me to drop out of school. Then I moved to Boston Massachusetts and later to Harlem New York working odd jobs and committing petty crimes. By 1942 I was selling drugs and gambling.

All the years of crime caught up with me and I was sent to a prison in Charlestown, Massachusetts for 8 to 10 years. I realized some thing I hadn’t thought of before.  I joined the black Muslims. I was paroled in 1952 that’s when I changed my name and became the Assistant Minister of Nation of Islam’s Detroit Temple. I added X to my name to symbolize my lost tribal name. The last name “Little” meant a slave name chosen by my master.

I met Sister Betty X in Lansing, Michigan and we married in 1958. We had two girls and 1 boy. For the next several years I began traveling to different parts of the world to spread my beliefs.  In February 14,1965 my house was firebombed. Seven days later I was shot to death at the Audubon Ballroom in New York while speaking.

Last reviewed August 27, 2008