Malcom X Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Malcom X - Essay Example His school of thought was to encourage and exhorted black Americans to condemn racism ‘by any means possible† including violence. On this stand, he challenged other civil rights movement and had differences in opinion to other leaders like Martin Luther King, who championed nonviolent pursuit of integration. The civil rights activist broke with the Nation of Islam shortly before he was assassinated on the 21st of February, 1965 in Manhattan at the Audubon Ballroom where he prepared to deliver his speech. Malcolm X was the fourth child out of the eight born to Earl Little, the preacher and Louise Little, a homemaker. Earl Little was an active and dedicated member of Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and a great follower of Marcus Garvey then, the leader of black nationalists. Due to his civil rights activism, his family always faced threats from the white supremacist groups, for example, the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Legion. Malcolm X described the trauma from her mothers’ story during his speeches. He actually had his first experience with racism before he was born. When his mother was pregnant with him, Ku Klux Klan riders stormed their home with shotguns and rifles and commanded his father to get out. The frequent harassments influenced Earl Little to move his family to East Lasing, Michigan. The kind of racism the family went through in East Lasing was even greater because soon after they moved, in 1929, a mob of racist burnt their house. The firemen and the white police stood around and watched the house burn to the ground. It got much worse in 1931, when Earl Little’s body was found in a municipal streetcar where he laid dead. Although it was clear he was murdered, the police ruled out his death as suicide. Malcolm’s mother did not recover from the shock and got admitted in a mental institution while Malcolm lived with family friends. Malcolm X went to West Junior High School and was the only black student in the school.