Answer:
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska. His father was a Baptist preacher and follower of Marcus Garvey. The family moved to Lansing, Michigan after the Ku Klux Klan made threats against them, though the family continued to face threats in their new home. In 1931, Malcolm’s father was allegedly murdered by a white supremacist group called the Black Legionaries, though the authorities claimed his death was an accident. Mrs. Little and her children were denied her husband’s death benefits. At age 6, the future Malcolm X entered a foster home and his mother suffered a nervous breakdown. Though highly intelligent and a good student, he dropped out of school following eighth grade. He began wearing zoot suits, dealing drugs and earned the nickname “Detroit Red.” At 21, he went to prison for larceny.t was in jail that Malcolm X first encountered the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, head of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims, a Black nationalist group that identified white people as the devil. Soon after, Malcolm adopted the last name “X” to represent his rejection of his “slave” name.
Malcolm was released from prison after serving six years and went on to become the minister of Mosque No. 7 in Harlem, where his oratory skills and sermons in favor of self-defense gained the organization new admirers: The Nation of Islam grew from 400 members in 1952 to 40,000 members by 1960. His admirers included celebrities like Muhammad Ali, who became close friends with Malcolm X before the two had a falling out.
His advocacy of achieving “by any means necessary” put him at the opposite end of the spectrum from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s nonviolent approach to gaining ground in the growing civil rights movement. After Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington, Malcolm remarked: “Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing ‘We Shall Overcome’ … while tripping and swaying along arm-in-arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against?”
Malcolm X’s politics also earned him the ire of the FBI, who conducted surveillance of him from his time in prison until his death. J. Edgar Hoover even told the agency’s New York office to “do something about Malcolm X.”
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