Malcolm X’s Harlem and Early Black Power Activism

Abstract

“We respect authority, but we are ready to fight and die in defense of our lives,” Malcolm X once told reporter Louis Lomax.¹ The resolute candor behind these words provides insight into the remarkable political journey, personal travails, and intellectual evolution of Malcolm Little, born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19,1925. Malcolm’s childhood was defined by the death of his father, Earl Little, a political activist and part-time preacher who followed the black nationalist teachings of Marcus Garvey. Earl’s death, in Lansing Michigan in 1931, remembered by Malcolm as a lynching at the hands of local white terrorists, left psychic scars on Malcolm and the rest of the family, straining their financial resources and personal strength. Malcolm’s mother, Louise Little, experienced bouts of mental illness that forced her eight children to lead scattered lives bereft of the safety and security provided by a stable family. From this point onward, Malcolm would try to replace the spiritual and physical home shattered by Earl Little’s untimely death.² Malcolm’s memories of the small and large humiliations of poverty would haunt him for the rest of his life. So would images of Earl, strong and fierce, passing out pictures of Marcus Garvey at sparsely attended Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) meetings that attracted blacks in Lansing, brave enough to listen to taboo discussions of racial pride and black power. The fact that family lore attributed Earl’s death to his militant crusading made less of an impression on Malcolm than the swaggering, larger-than-life aura of bravado that he exuded while alive.³