Described as one of the greatest African American leaders and hailed as the person who laid the foundations of the Black Power movement, Malcolm X would be 96 years old had he lived.

The civil rights leader was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City on Sunday, February 21, 1965, just three months before he turned 40.

In his lifetime, he was not always recognised for his achievements. Many dismissed him as an angry young man. This is his story:

Carpenter instead of lawyer

• Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1925. When he was six years old, his father, Reverend Earl Little, a Baptist minister, died after being hit by a car.
• The family was so poor that Malcolm’s mother, Louise Little, resorted to cooking dandelion greens from the street to feed her children. Louise was placed in a mental hospital when Malcolm was 13. He lived in a series of foster homes after that.
• Malcolm excelled at school, but after one of his teachers told him he should become a carpenter instead of a lawyer, he lost motivation and ended his formal education.
• At the age of 27, Malcolm changed his last name to X. He later wrote that Little was the name that “the white slavemaster … had imposed upon [his] paternal forebears”.

Nation of Islam

• In his teenage years, he was involved in criminal activities and was imprisoned from 1946 to 1952.
• In prison, he went through a transformation and ended up joining the Nation of Islam, an African American movement that combined Islam with black nationalism.
• Malcolm quit smoking and gambling. With the ambition to re-educate himself, he spent long hours reading books in the prison library and memorised a dictionary.
• After his release from prison, he helped lead the Nation of Islam, marking a period of its greatest growth. He founded the Nation’s newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, and led the administration of mosques for the Nation in New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything

by Malcolm X

Civil rights movement