(1925 – 1965) Often seen as the counterpart to Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X became the inspiration for militant activists during the later stages of the Civil Rights movement, as it moved away from non-violent protest to advocacy of Black Power. Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, and brought up largely in a detention home in Mason, Michigan, Malcolm X became a street hustler in Boston, MA and New York City, NY before converting in 1947 to the Nation of Islam while in prison. Largely self-educated and very intelligent, able to see through the hypocrisy of the way in which liberal white Americans responded to the Civil Rights movement, he quickly became national spokesman of the Black Muslims.

In opposition to King, Malcolm X proclaimed that the way for African Americans to advance was through force, not by seeking aid from white America. Preaching “an eye for an eye” and calling for fights against racism “by any means necessary” he underscored the paramilitary strength of the Black Muslims as the response to racial oppression and stressed self-help through black businesses.

Some commentators have argued that Malcolm X understood American society better than civil-rights leaders who believed they could move it towards racial equality and harmony He refused to accept the common notion of an “American Dilemma,” a tension between American ideals and the problems of caste and color. In this formulation, Americans merely needed to be persuaded to live according to their highest ideals. For Malcolm X, instead, American history was a record of violence against slaves, against American Indians and others; the great revolutionary documents had been formulated deliberately to exclude African Americans. As such, the United States was fundamentally violent; since power was the national obsession, African Americans needed to pursue power. Such ideas found adherents among student militants, like H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael.

In the eyes of some supporters, Malcolm X was widely misunderstood at the time.

Partly this was because he had a penchant for shocking white America, and did so very effectively Following President Kennedy’s assassination, he announced that the event was an instance of “chickens coming home to roost.” He was accused by his detractors of preaching hate and being a racist in reverse. But, according to James Baldwin, he was concerned less with whites than with building self-esteem among blacks and “decolonizing” the black mind. Nevertheless, he did acknowledge later that he had been wearing “a racist straight-jacket” while with the Black Muslims.

King and Malcolm X may have been opposites in a way but King depended upon Malcolm X for some of his success. While in the Birmingham Jail, King argued that white Americans needed to heed the call of moderate blacks like himself, lest they face more radical and violent elements. In their famous meeting in 1965, the two commented that in spite of obvious differences they both depended on each other.

Malcolm X broke with the Black Muslims in April 1964, following their reprimand for his Kennedy assassination comments. A pilgrimage to Mecca caused him to question much of Elijah Muhammad’s preaching. He returned to the United States as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabbazz with the plan of building a more inclusive and internationalist organization to oppose racial oppression (the Organization for Afro-American Unity). He was assassinated in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, NY on February 21, 1965.

Debates continue over whether the assassins were under the direction of the leadership of the Nation of Islam.

Malcolm X’s influence arguably increased after his death with the posthumous Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965). In 1992 Spike Lee produced a film relying heavily on the Autobiography, after many scripts by black intellectuals had gone unmade, debates continuing about the manner in which his life and politics should be portrayed.