Malcolm X Research Paper
Little had to go into a mental institution for the events that occurred surrounding her husband. Malcolm ended up getting into some trouble, and did some time in prison for burglary. During the seven years that he served he grew extremely interested in the Muslim religion and spend most Of his time studying it. Reginald, his brother, introduced him to it and so essentially embraced it as his own faith. He eventually became an active leader and member of the nation of Islam. Malcolm resigned from his leadership role in the faith because he had covered Elijah Muhammad had not been a faithful follower and had multiple affairs.
Malcolm married and had children with his wife Betty, but after resigning his life and his family’s life was in grave danger. A ball of fire had been launched at his house while he was inside with his family but he managed to escape with them. A few days later, another attempt to assassinate him was made and his attackers were successful. He was shot fifteen times at an event that he was speaking at. The people who murdered him were all a part of the Nation Of Islam and were all arrested. Malcolm X played a huge role in the civil rights movement. Malcolm X had experienced segregation because he grew up in a time when it was at its peak.
Malcolm knew something had to be done. He wanted a drastic improvement for African-Americans in the United States, and he would be one of the few who were willing and able to go after that unquenchable desire. While Malcolm began to further his education and learn about Islam, he fell upon the teachings of Muhammad who firmly believed that the white man had an active agenda to keep the blacks from any time of success. 1 As I mentioned before, people who did not like what he was preaching murdered Malcolm father. He started to study more law because he was unable to go to school seeing as that he did not have the money to do so.
Malcolm was constantly getting himself into trouble and directing his anger and mischievous behavior towards the whites. His damaging lifestyle eventually landed him in prison when he got arrested for burglary. Most times when you hear of people going to prison, he does more harm to them than good. It was different in Malcolm case though. He used this time wisely and educated himself. This is when he began to learn more and take it upon himself to use to information to transform the world around him. An his little jail cell, he was planning a revolution, and becoming wiser and well versed in what he took interest in.
He was no longer just another felon, but a man who Was about to bring about change with his future forward ideas and his expectations of society. Malcolm brother belonged to the Nation of Islam, so when he visited Malcolm he would give him more and more information about the religion. Malcolm X emerged and was created in prison. The political and religious information that he studied and discovered would lead to a revolution. When he was released from prison he dropped his fathers sat name (Little) and replaced it with X, which symbolized his tribal name. Malcolm approach was a bit aggressive.
He thought that in order to make the whites give blacks equal fights, he would have to use violence. He became a leader in the Nation of Islam, and immediately started his path towards the freedom he believed black people in America deserved. His intelligence and movement attracted many people towards him and they started to follow him. In an eleven years span, the membership of the Nation of Islam went from about five hundred to thirty thousand. With more followers came more attention, especially from the media, so he became the target of a lot of resentment.
In 1957 Malcolm decided to go straight to the source of the issue he was against, the white man. He and a group of followers went to a police station in Harlem and enclosed it. They had beat a Black Muslim man and ordered that they not only release him but also take him to the hospital as well to get treated. They also demanded that the police department pay $70,000 for damages (peg. 153). For some reason, Malcolm always managed to get what he wanted very quickly because of the fact that he used violence. He anted to end the struggle that blacks endured in America, and he honestly didn’t really care much about the problems it caused.
For example, many people ended up dying or ending up in prison, and to some extent brought some more negative attention towards him and his followers. For Malcolm, however, these things were minor because there was a bigger plan and all of these things had to happen in order to achieve it. It is said that Malcolm X criticized Martin Luther King heavily because he took the non-violent approach and believed that peaceful marches and remaining calm would be the only way to get freedom. He had his own philosophy on what the black struggle was and his own Way of getting justice.
He was an independent thinker. He often mocked the Civil Rights Movement because he didn’t believe that anything would be accomplished by loving the enemy (Norton, 1964). Malcolm X eventually broke off from the Nation of Islam and took things into the direction he wanted them to go. He was his own movement. He believed that many people would not fully understand what was going on in the South against blacks if they didn’t know their African roots. Malcolm X had made plenty of enemies when he began this revolution, and ended up getting assassinated by Black Muslims while he was speaking at the Audubon.
