Malcolm X :: essays research papers

Malcolms life is a Horatio Alger story with a twist. His is not a "rags to riches" tale, but a aright narrative of self-transformation from petty hustler to internationally known political leader. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Louise and Earl Little, who was a Baptist preacher active in Marcus Garveys Universal inkiness Improvement Association, Malcolm, along with his siblings, experienced dramatic confrontations with racism from childhood. Hooded Klansmen burned their home in Lansing, Michigan Earl Little was killed under mysterious circumstances welfare agencies offend up the children and eventually committed Louise Little to a state mental institution and Malcolm was forced to live in a detention home result by a racist white couple. By the eighth grade he left school, moved to Boston, Massachussetts, to live with his half-sister Ella, and discovered the underground world of African American hipsters. Malcolms entry into the masculine culture of the zoot suit, th e "conked" (straightened) hair, and the lindy hop coincided with the outbreak of World War II, rising black militancy (symbolized in part by A. Philip Randolphs threatened March on Washington for racial and economic justice), and outbreaks of race riots in Detroit, Michigan, and other cities (see Detroit Riot of 1943). Malcolm and his partners did not seem very "political" at the time, but they dodged the draft so as not to lose their lives over a "white mans war," and they avoided wage work whenever possible. His search for leisure and pleasure took him to Harlem, bran-new York, where his primary source of income derived from petty hustling, drug dealing, pimping, gambling, and viciously exploiting women. In 1946 his luck ran out he was arrested for burglary and sentenced to ten years in prisonMalcolms downward furrow took a U-turn in prison when he began studying the teachings of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam (NOI), the black Muslim group founded by Wall ace D. Fard and led by Elijah Muhammad (Elijah Poole). Submitting to the discipline and guidance of the NOI, he became a voracious reader of the Quran (Koran) and the Bible. He also immersed himself in works of literature and history at the prison library. Behind prison walls he right away emerged as a powerful orator and brilliant rhetorician. He led the famous prison debating team that beat the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, arguing against heavy(p) punishment by pointing out that English pickpockets often did their best work at public hangings