MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr MALCOLM X AFRICAN AMERICANS 8x10\" HAND COLOR TINTED PHOTO
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MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr MALCOLM X AFRICAN AMERICANS 8x10\" HAND COLOR TINTED PHOTO :
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Martin Luther King, Jr. & Malcolm X
Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent leader in the African-American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in the United States, and he has become a human rights icon: King is recognized as a martyr by two Christian churches. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King\'s efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his \"I Have a Dream\" speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history.In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and opposing the Vietnam War, both from a religious perspective. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. national holiday in 1986.Early life
Martin Luther King, Jr., was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. King\'s father was born \"Michael King,\" and Martin Luther King, Jr., was originally named \"Michael King, Jr.,\" until the family traveled to Europe in 1934 and visited Germany. His father soon changed both of their names to Martin Luther in honor of the German Protestant leader Martin Luther. He had an older sister, Willie Christine King, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel Williams King. King sang with his church choir at the 1939 Atlanta premiere of the movie Gone with the Wind.King married Coretta Scott, on June 18, 1953, on the lawn of her parents\' house in her hometown of Heiberger, Alabama. King and Scott had four children; Yolanda King, Martin Luther King III, Dexter Scott King, and Bernice King. King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama when he was twenty-five years old in 1954.Education
Growing up in Atlanta, King attended Booker T. Washington High School. He skipped ninth and twelfth grade and entered Morehouse College at age fifteen without formally graduating from high school. In 1948, he graduated from Morehouse with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, and enrolled in Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1951. King then began doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University and received his Doctor of Philosophy on June 5, 1955, with a dissertation on \"A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.\" A 1980s inquiry concluded portions of his dissertation had been plagiarized and he had acted improperly but that his dissertation still \"makes an intelligent contribution to scholarship.\"Influences
Populist tradition and Black populism
Harry C. Boyte, a self-proclaimed populist, field secretary of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and white civil rights activist describes an episode in his life that gives insight on some of King\'s influences:My first encounter with deeper meanings of populism came when I was nineteen, working as a field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964. One day I was caught by five men and a woman who were members of the Ku Klux Klan. They accused me of being a \"communist and a Yankee.\" I replied, \"I\'m no Yankee – my family has been in the South since before the Revolution. And I\'m not a communist. I\'m a populist. I believe that blacks and poor whites should join to do something about the big shots who keep us divided.\" For a few minutes we talked about what such a movement might look like. Then they let me go.When he learned of the incident, Martin Luther King, head of SCLC, told me that he identified with the populist tradition and assigned to organize poor whites.Thurman
Civil rights leader, theologian, and educator Howard Thurman was an early influence on King. A classmate of King\'s father at Morehouse College, Thurman mentored the young King and his friends. Thurman\'s missionary work had taken him abroad where he had met and conferred with Mahatma Gandhi. When he was a student at Boston University, King often visited Thurman, who was the dean of Marsh Chapel. Walter Fluker, who has studied Thurman\'s writings, has stated, \"I don\'t believe you\'d get a Martin Luther King, Jr. without a Howard Thurman\".Gandhi and Rustin
Inspired by Gandhi\'s success with non-violent activism, King visited the Gandhi family in India in 1959, with assistance from the Quaker group the American Friends Service Committee. The trip to India affected King in a profound way, deepening his understanding of non-violent resistance and his commitment to America\'s struggle for civil rights. In a radio address made during his final evening in India, King reflected, \"Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity. In a real sense, Mahatma Gandhi embodied in his life certain universal principles that are inherent in the moral structure of the universe, and these principles are as inescapable as the law of gravitation.\" African American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who had studied Gandhi\'s teachings, counseled King to dedicate himself to the principles of non-violence, served as King\'s main advisor and mentor throughout his early activism, and was the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Rustin\'s open homosexuality, support of democratic socialism, and his former ties to the Communist Party USA caused many white and African-American leaders to demand King distance himself from Rustin.Sermons and speeches
Main article: Sermons and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Throughout his career of service, King wrote and spoke frequently, drawing on his experience as a preacher. His \"Letter from Birmingham Jail\", written in 1963, is a \"passionate\" statement of his crusade for justice. On October 14, 1964, King became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him for leading non-violent resistance to end racial prejudice in the United States.Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955
Main articles: Montgomery Bus Boycott, Jim Crow laws#Public arena, Claudette Colvin, and Rosa Parks In March 1955, a fifteen-year-old school girl, Claudette Colvin, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in compliance with the Jim Crow laws. King was on the committee from the Birmingham African-American community that looked into the case; Edgar Nixon and Clifford Durr decided to wait for a better case to pursue. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, urged and planned by Nixon and led by King, soon followed. The boycott lasted for 385 days, and the situation became so tense that King\'s house was bombed. King was arrested during this campaign, which ended with a United States District Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses.Southern Christian Leadership Conference
In 1957, King, Ralph Abernathy, and other civil rights activists founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The group was created to harness the moral authority and organizing power of black churches to conduct non-violent protests in the service of civil rights reform. King led the SCLC until his death. In 1958, while signing copies of his book Stride Toward Freedom in Blumstein\'s department store on 125th Street, in Harlem, he was stabbed in the chest by Izola Curry, a deranged black woman with a letter opener, and narrowly escaped death.Gandhi\'s nonviolent techniques were useful to King\'s campaign to correct the civil rights laws implemented in Alabama. King applied non-violent philosophy to the protests organized by the SCLC. In 1959, he wrote The Measure of A Man, from which the piece What is Man?, an attempt to sketch the optimal political, social, and economic structure of society, is derived. His SCLC secretary and personal assistant in this period was Dora McDonald.The FBI, under written directive from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, began telephone tapping King in the Fall of 1963. Concerned that allegations (of Communists in the SCLC), if made public, would derail the Administration\'s civil rights initiatives, Kennedy warned King to discontinue the suspect associations, and later felt compelled to issue the written directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. J. Edgar Hoover feared Communists were trying to infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement, but when no such evidence emerged, the bureau used the incidental details caught on tape over the next five years in attempts to force King out of the preeminent leadership position.King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of southern segregation known as Jim Crow laws would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality and voting rights. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of the daily deprivation and indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights workers and marchers, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that convinced the majority of Americans that the Civil Rights Movement was the most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s.King organized and led marches for blacks\' right to vote, desegregation, labor rights and other basic civil rights. Most of these rights were successfully enacted into the law of the United States with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.King and the SCLC applied the principles of nonviolent protest with great success by strategically choosing the method of protest and the places in which protests were carried out. There were often dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities. Sometimes these confrontations turned violent.Albany movement
The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia in November, 1961. In December King and the SCLC became involved. The movement mobilized thousands of citizens for a broad-front nonviolent attack on every aspect of segregation within the city and attracted nationwide attention. When King first visited on December 15, 1961, he \"had planned to stay a day or so and return home after giving counsel.\" But the following day he was swept up in a mass arrest of peaceful demonstrators, and he declined bail until the city made concessions. \"Those agreements\", said King, \"were dishonored and violated by the city,\" as soon as he left town. King returned in July 1962, and was sentenced to forty-five days in jail or a $178 fine. He chose jail. Three days into his sentence, Chief Pritchett discreetly arranged for King\'s fine to be paid and ordered his release. \"We had witnessed persons being kicked off lunch counter stools ... ejected from churches ... and thrown into jail ... But for the first time, we witnessed being kicked out of jail.\"After nearly a year of intense activism with few tangible results, the movement began to deteriorate. King requested a halt to all demonstrations and a \"Day of Penance\" to promote non-violence and maintain the moral high ground. Divisions within the black community and the canny, low-key response by local government defeated efforts. However, it was credited as a key lesson in tactics for the national civil rights movement.Birmingham campaign
The Birmingham campaign was a strategic effort by the SCLC to promote civil rights for African Americans. Many of its tactics of \"Project C\" were developed by Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, Executive Director of SCLC from 1960–1964. Based on actions in Birmingham, Alabama, its goal was to end the city\'s segregated civil and discriminatory economic policies. The campaign lasted for more than two months in the spring of 1963. To provoke the police into filling the city\'s jails to overflowing, King and black citizens of Birmingham employed nonviolent tactics to flout laws they considered unfair. King summarized the philosophy of the Birmingham campaign when he said, \"The purpose of ... direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation\".Protests in Birmingham began with a boycott to pressure businesses to offer sales jobs and other employment to people of all races, as well as to end segregated facilities in the stores. When business leaders resisted the boycott, King and the SCLC began what they termed Project C, a series of sit-ins and marches intended to provoke arrest. After the campaign ran low on adult volunteers, SCLC\'s strategist, James Bevel, initiated the action and recruited the children for what became known as the \"Children\'s Crusade\". During the protests, the Birmingham Police Department, led by Eugene \"Bull\" Connor, used high-pressure water jets and police dogs to control protesters, including children. Not all of the demonstrators were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of the SCLC. In some cases, bystanders attacked the police, who responded with force. King and the SCLC were criticized for putting children in harm\'s way. By the end of the campaign, King\'s reputation improved immensely, Connor lost his job, the \"Jim Crow\" signs in Birmingham came down, and public places became more open to blacks.Augustine and Selma
King and SCLC were also driving forces behind the protest in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964. The movement engaged in nightly marches in the city met by white segregationists who violently assaulted them. Hundreds of the marchers were arrested and jailed.King and the SCLC joined forces with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Selma, Alabama, in December 1964, where SNCC had been working on voter registration for several months. A sweeping injunction issued by a local judge barred any gathering of 3 or more people under sponsorship of SNCC, SCLC, or DCVL, or with the involvement of 41 named civil rights leaders. This injunction temporarily halted civil rights activity until King defied it by speaking at Brown Chapel on January 2 1965.March on Washington, 1963
King, representing SCLC, was among the leaders of the so-called \"Big Six\" civil rights organizations who were instrumental in the organization of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28, 1963. The other leaders and organizations comprising the Big Six were: Roy Wilkins from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Whitney Young, National Urban League; A. Philip Randolph, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; John Lewis, SNCC; and James L. Farmer, Jr. of the Congress of Racial Equality. The primary logistical and strategic organizer was King\'s colleague Bayard Rustin. For King, this role was another which courted controversy, since he was one of the key figures who acceded to the wishes of President John F. Kennedy in changing the focus of the march. Kennedy initially opposed the march outright, because he was concerned it would negatively impact the drive for passage of civil rights legislation, but the organizers were firm that the march would proceed.The march originally was conceived as an event to dramatize the desperate condition of blacks in the southern United States and a very public opportunity to place organizers\' concerns and grievances squarely before the seat of power in the nation\'s capital. Organizers intended to excoriate and then challenge the federal government for its failure to safeguard the civil rights and physical safety of civil rights workers and blacks, generally, in the South. However, the group acquiesced to presidential pressure and influence, and the event ultimately took on a far less strident tone. As a result, some civil rights activists felt it presented an inaccurate, sanitized pageant of racial harmony; Malcolm X called it the \"Farce on Washington,\" and members of the Nation of Islam were not permitted to attend the march.The march did, however, make specific demands: an end to racial segregation in public school; meaningful civil rights legislation, including a law prohibiting racial discrimination in employment; protection of civil rights workers from police brutality; a $2 minimum wage for all workers; and self-government for Washington, D.C., then governed by congressional committee. Despite tensions, the march was a resounding success. More than a quarter million people of diverse ethnicities attended the event, sprawling from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial onto the National Mall and around the reflecting pool. At the time, it was the largest gathering of protesters in Washington\'s history. King\'s \"I Have a Dream\" speech electrified the crowd. It is regarded, along with Abraham Lincoln\'s Gettysburg Address and Franklin D. Roosevelt\'s Infamy Speech, as one of the finest speeches in the history of American oratory.Stance on compensation
Martin Luther King Jr. expressed a view that black Americans, as well as other disadvantaged Americans, should be compensated for historical wrongs. In an interview conducted for Playboy in 1965, he said that granting black Americans only equality could not realistically close the economic gap between them and whites. King said that he did not seek a full restitution of wages lost to slavery, which he believed impossible, but proposed a government compensatory program of US$50 billion over ten years to all disadvantaged groups. He posited that \"the money spent would be more than amply justified by the benefits that would accrue to the nation through a spectacular decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls, rioting and other social evils\". He presented this idea as an application of the common law regarding settlement of unpaid labor but clarified that he felt that the money should not be spent exclusively on blacks. He stated, \"It should benefit the disadvantaged of all races\".\"bloody Sunday\", 1965
King, James Bevel, and the SCLC, in partial collaboration with SNCC, attempted to organize a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery, for March 7, 1965. The first attempt to march on March 7 was aborted because of mob and police violence against the demonstrators. This day has since become known as bloody Sunday. bloody Sunday was a major turning point in the effort to gain public support for the Civil Rights Movement, the clearest demonstration up to that time of the dramatic potential of King\'s nonviolence strategy. King, however, was not present. After meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson, he decided not to endorse the march, but it was carried out against his wishes and without his presence on March 7 by the director of the Selma Movement, James Bevel, and by local civil rights leaders. Footage of police brutality against the protesters was broadcast extensively and aroused national public outrage.King next attempted to organize a march for March 9. The SCLC petitioned for an injunction in federal court against the State of Alabama; this was denied and the judge issued an order blocking the march until after a hearing. Nonetheless, King led marchers on March 9 to the Edmund Pettus bridge, then held a short prayer session before turning the marchers around and asking them to disperse so as not to violate the court order. The unexpected ending of this second march aroused the surprise and anger of many within the local movement. The march finally went ahead fully on March 25. At the conclusion of the march and on the steps of the state capitol, King delivered a speech that has become known as \"How Long, Not Long\".Chicago, 1966
In 1966, after several successes in the South, King and others in the civil rights organizations tried to spread the movement to the North, with Chicago as its first destination. King and Ralph Abernathy, both from the middle classes, moved into the slums of North Lawndale on the west side of Chicago as an educational experience and to demonstrate their support and empathy for the poor.The SCLC formed a coalition with CCCO, Coordinating Council of Community Organizations, an organization founded by Albert Raby, and the combined organizations\' efforts were fostered under the aegis of The Chicago Freedom Movement. During that spring, several dual white couple/black couple tests on real estate offices uncovered the practice (now banned in the U.S.) of racial steering. These tests revealed the racially selective processing of housing requests by couples who were exact matches in income, background, number of children, and other attributes, with the only difference being their race.The needs of the movement for radical change grew, and several larger marches were planned and executed, including those in the following neighborhoods: Bogan, Belmont Cragin, Jefferson Park, Evergreen Park (a suburb southwest of Chicago), Gage Park and Marquette Park, among others.In Chicago, Abernathy later wrote that they received a worse reception than they had in the South. Their marches were met by thrown bottles and screaming throngs, and they were truly afraid of starting a riot. King\'s beliefs mitigated against his staging a violent event, and he negotiated an agreement with Mayor Richard J. Daley to cancel a march in order to avoid the violence that he feared would result from the demonstration. King, who received death threats throughout his involvement in the civil rights movement, was hit by a brick during one march but continued to lead marches in the face of personal danger.When King and his allies returned to the south, they left Jesse Jackson, a seminary student who had previously joined the movement in the South, in charge of their organization. Jackson continued their struggle for civil rights by organizing the Operation Breadbasket movement that targeted chain stores that did not deal fairly with blacks.Opposition to the Vietnam War
Starting in 1965, King began to express doubts about the United States\' role in the Vietnam War. In an April 4, 1967 appearance at the New York City Riverside Church—exactly one year before his death—King delivered a speech titled \"Beyond Vietnam\". In the speech, he spoke strongly against the U.S.\'s role in the war, insisting that the U.S. was in Vietnam \"to occupy it as an American colony\" and calling the U.S. government \"the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today\". He also argued that the country needed larger and broader moral changes:A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: \"This is not just.\"King also was opposed to the Vietnam War on the grounds that the war took money and resources that could have been spent on social welfare services like the War on Poverty. The United States Congress was spending more and more on the military and less and less on anti-poverty programs at the same time. He summed up this aspect by saying, \"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death\".Many white southern segregationists vilified King; moreover, this speech soured his relationship with many members of the mainstream media. Life magazine called the speech \"demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi\", and The Washington Post declared that King had \"diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.\"King stated that North Vietnam \"did not begin to send in any large number of supplies or men until American forces had arrived in the tens of thousands\". King also criticized the United States\' resistance to North Vietnam\'s land reforms. He accused the United States of having killed a million Vietnamese, \"mostly children.\"The speech was a reflection of King\'s evolving political advocacy in his later years, which paralleled the teachings of the progressive Highlander Research and Education Center, with whom King was affiliated. King began to speak of the need for fundamental changes in the political and economic life of the nation. Towards the time of his murder, King more frequently expressed his opposition to the war and his desire to see a redistribution of resources to correct racial and economic injustice. Though his public language was guarded, so as to avoid being linked to communism by his political enemies, in private he sometimes spoke of his support for democratic socialism. In one speech, he stated that \"something is wrong with capitalism\" and claimed, \"There must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.\"King had read Marx while at Morehouse, but while he rejected \"traditional capitalism,\" he also rejected Communism because of its \"materialistic interpretation of history\" that denied religion, its \"ethical relativism,\" and its \"political totalitarianism.\"King also stated in his \"Beyond Vietnam\" speech that \"true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar....it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring\". King quoted a United States official, who said that, from Vietnam to South America to Latin America, the country was \"on the wrong side of a world revolution.\" King condemned America\'s \"alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America,\" and said that the United States should support \"the shirtless and barefoot people\" in the Third World rather than suppressing their attempts at revolution.King spoke at an Anti-Vietnam demonstration where he also brought up issues of civil rights and the draft.\"I have not urged a mechanical fusion of the civil rights and peace movements. There are people who have come to see the moral imperative of equality, but who cannot yet see the moral imperative of world brotherhood. I would like to see the fervor of the civil-rights movement imbued into the peace movement to instill it with greater strength. And I believe everyone has a duty to be in both the civil-rights and peace movements. But for those who presently choose but one, I would hope they will finally come to see the moral roots common to both.\"In 1967, King gave another speech, in which he lashed out against what he called the \"cruel irony\" of American blacks fighting and dying for a country which treated them as second class citizens:\"We were taking the young black men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem.... We have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them in the same schools\"Poor People\'s Campaign, 1968
In 1968, King and the SCLC organized the \"Poor People\'s Campaign\" to address issues of economic justice. The campaign culminated in a march on Washington, D.C. demanding economic aid to the poorest communities of the United States. King traveled the country to assemble \"a multiracial army of the poor\" that would march on Washington to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol until Congress created a bill of rights for poor Americans.However, the campaign was not unanimously supported by other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Rustin resigned from the march stating that the goals of the campaign were too broad, the demands unrealizable, and thought these campaigns would accelerate the backlash and repression on the poor and the black. Throughout his participation in the civil rights movement, King was criticized by many groups. This included opposition by more militant blacks and such prominent critics as Nation of Islam member Malcolm X. Stokely Carmichael was a separatist and disagreed with King\'s plea for racial integration because he considered it an insult to a uniquely African-American culture. Omali Yeshitela urged Africans to remember the history of violent European colonization and how power was not secured by Europeans through integration, but by violence and force.King and the SCLC called on the government to invest in rebuilding America\'s cities. He felt that Congress had shown \"hostility to the poor\" by spending \"military funds with alacrity and generosity\". He contrasted this with the situation faced by poor Americans, claiming that Congress had merely provided \"poverty funds with miserliness\". His vision was for change that was more revolutionary than mere reform: he cited systematic flaws of \"racism, poverty, militarism and materialism\", and argued that \"reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced\".Assassination
On March 29, 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee in support of the black sanitary public works employees, represented by AFSCME Local 1733, who had been on strike since March 12 for higher wages and better treatment. In one incident, black street repairmen received pay for two hours when they were sent home because of bad weather, but white employees were paid for the full day.On April 3, King addressed a rally and delivered his \"I\'ve Been to the Mountaintop\" address at Mason Temple, the world headquarters of the Church of God in Christ. King\'s flight to Memphis had been delayed by a bomb threat against his plane. In the close of the last speech of his career, in reference to the bomb threat, King said the following:And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don\'t know what will happen now. We\'ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn\'t matter with me now. Because I\'ve been to the mountaintop. And I don\'t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I\'m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God\'s will. And He\'s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I\'ve looked over. And I\'ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I\'m happy, tonight. I\'m not worried about anything. I\'m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.King was booked in room 306 at the Lorraine Motel, owned by Walter Bailey, in Memphis. The Reverend Ralph Abernathy, King\'s close friend and colleague who was present at the assassination, swore under oath to the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations that King and his entourage stayed at room 306 at the Lorraine Motel so often it was known as the \'King-Abernathy suite.\' King was shot at 6:01 p.m. April 4, 1968 while he was standing on the motel\'s second floor balcony. The bullet entered through his right cheek smashing his jaw and then traveled down his spinal cord before lodging in his shoulder. According to Jesse Jackson, who was present, King\'s last words on the balcony were to musician Ben Branch, who was scheduled to perform that night at an event King was attending: \"Ben, make sure you play \"Take My Hand, Precious Lord\" in the meeting tonight. Play it real pretty.\" Abernathy heard the shot from inside the motel room and ran to the balcony to find King on the floor. The events following the shooting have been disputed, as some people have accused Jackson of exaggerating his response.After emergency chest surgery, King was pronounced dead at St. Joseph\'s Hospital at 7:05 p.m. According to biographer Taylor Branch, King\'s autopsy revealed that though only thirty-nine years old, he had the heart of a sixty-year-old man, perhaps a result of the stress of thirteen years in the civil rights movement.The assassination led to a nationwide wave of riots in more than 100 cities. Presidential nominee Robert Kennedy was on his way to Indianapolis for a campaign rally when he was informed of King\'s death. He gave a short speech to the gathering of supporters informing them of the tragedy and asking them to continue King\'s idea of non-violence. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared April 7 a national day of mourning for the civil rights leader. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey attended King\'s funeral on behalf of Lyndon B. Johnson, as there were fears that Johnson\'s presence might incite protests and perhaps violence. At his widow\'s request, King\'s last sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church was played at the funeral. It was a recording of his \"Drum Major\" sermon, given on February 4, 1968. In that sermon, King made a request that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to \"feed the hungry\", \"clothe the naked\", \"be right on the [Vietnam] war question\", and \"love and serve humanity\". His good friend Mahalia Jackson sang his favorite hymn, \"Take My Hand, Precious Lord\", at the funeral. The city of Memphis quickly settled the strike on terms favorable to the sanitation workers.Two months after King\'s death, escaped convict James Earl Ray was captured at London Heathrow Airport while trying to leave the United Kingdom on a false Canadian passport in the name of Ramon George Sneyd on his way to white-ruled Rhodesia. Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King\'s murder. He confessed to the assassination on March 10, 1969, though he recanted this confession three days later. On the advice of his attorney Percy Foreman, Ray pleaded guilty to avoid a trial conviction and thus the possibility of receiving the death penalty. Ray was sentenced to a 99-year prison term. Ray fired Foreman as his attorney, from then on derisively calling him \"Percy Fourflusher\". He claimed a man he met in Montreal, Quebec with the alias \"Raoul\" was involved and that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy. He spent the remainder of his life attempting (unsuccessfully) to withdraw his guilty plea and secure the trial he never had. On June 10, 1977, shortly after Ray had testified to the House Select Committee on Assassinations that he did not shoot King, he and six other convicts escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Petros, Tennessee. They were recaptured on June 13 and returned to prison.Allegations of conspiracy
Ray\'s lawyers maintained he was a scapegoat similar to the way that alleged John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is seen by conspiracy theorists. One of the claims used to support this assertion is that Ray\'s confession was given under pressure, and he had been threatened with the death penalty. Ray was a thief and burglar, but he had no record of committing violent crimes with a weapon.Those suspecting a conspiracy in the assassination point out the two separate ballistics tests conducted on the Remington Gamemaster recovered by police had neither conclusively proved Ray had been the killer nor that it had even been the murder weapon. Moreover, witnesses surrounding King at the moment of his death say the shot came from another location, from behind thick shrubbery near the rooming house – which had been inexplicably cut away in the days following the assassination – and not from the rooming house window.Developments
In 1997, King\'s son Dexter Scott King met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray\'s efforts to obtain a new trial. Two years later, Coretta Scott King, King\'s widow, along with the rest of King\'s family, won a wrongful death claim against Loyd Jowers and \"other unknown co-conspirators\". Jowers claimed to have received $100,000 to arrange King\'s assassination. The jury of six whites and six blacks found Jowers guilty and that government agencies were party to the assassination. William F. Pepper represented the King family in the trial. King biographer David Garrow disagrees with William F. Pepper\'s claims that the government killed King. He is supported by author Gerald Posner who has researched and written about the assassination.In 2000, the United States Department of Justice completed the investigation about Jowers\' claims but did not find evidence to support allegations about conspiracy. The investigation report recommended no further investigation unless some new reliable facts are presented. The New York Times reported a church minister, Rev. Ronald Denton Wilson, claimed his father, Henry Clay Wilson—not James Earl Ray—assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr. He stated, \"It wasn\'t a racist thing; he thought Martin Luther King was connected with communism, and he wanted to get him out of the way.\"King\'s friend and colleague, James Bevel, disputed the argument that Ray acted alone, stating, \"There is no way a ten-cent white boy could develop a plan to kill a million-dollar black man.\" In 2004, Jesse Jackson, who was with King at the time of his death, noted:The fact is there were saboteurs to disrupt the march. And within our own organization, we found a very key person who was on the government payroll. So infiltration within, saboteurs from without and the press attacks. ...I will never believe that James Earl Ray had the motive, the money and the mobility to have done it himself. Our government was very involved in setting the stage for and I think the escape route for James Earl Ray.Riots
After King\'s assassination riots broke out in Chicago, Boston, Detroit, and Washington. Black leader James Farmer, Jr. and other called for non-violent action. \"Dr. King would be greatly distressed to find that his blood had triggered off bloodshed and disorder... I think instead the nation should be quiet; black and white, and we should be in a prayerful mood, which would be in keeping with his life. We should make that kind of dedication and commitment to the goals which his life served to solving the domestic problems. That\'s the memorial, that\'s the kind of memorial we should build for him. It\'s just not appropriate for there to be violent retaliations, and that kind of demonstration in the wake of the murder of this pacifist and man of peace.\"Stokely Carmichael called for immediate forceful action. \"White America killed Dr. King last night. She made a whole lot easier for a whole lot of black people today. There no longer needs to be intellectual discussions, black people know that they have to get guns. White America will live to cry that she killed Dr. King last night. It would have been better if she had killed Rap Brown and/or Stokley Carmichael, but when she killed Dr. King, she lost.\"FBI and wiretapping
Allegations of Communist connections
J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, for years had been paranoid about potential influence of communists in social movements such as labor unions and civil rights. Hoover directed the FBI to track King in 1957, and the SCLC as it was established (it did not have a full-time executive director until 1960); its investigations were largely superficial until 1962, when it learned that one of King\'s most trusted advisers was New York City lawyer Stanley Levison. The FBI found Levison had been involved with the Communist Party USA. The FBI had observed his alienation from the Party leadership, but it feared he had taken a low profile in order to work as an \"agent of influence\" in order to manipulate King, a view it continued to hold despite its own reports in 1963 that Levison had left the Party. Another King lieutenant, Hunter Pitts O\'Dell, was also linked to the Communist Party by sworn testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). However, by 1976 the FBI had acknowledged that it had not obtained any evidence that King himself or the SCLC were actually involved with any communist organizations.The Bureau received authorization to proceed with wiretapping from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in the Fall of 1963 and informed President John F. Kennedy, both of whom unsuccessfully tried to persuade King to dissociate himself from Levison. Although Robert Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King\'s phones \"on a trial basis, for a month or so\", Hoover extended the clearance so his men were \"unshackled\" to look for evidence in any areas of King\'s life they deemed worthy. The Bureau placed wiretaps on Levison\'s and King\'s home and office phones, and bugged King\'s rooms in hotels as he traveled across the country.For his part, King adamantly denied having any connections to Communism, stating in a 1965 Playboy interview that \"there are as many Communists in this freedom movement as there are Eskimos in Florida\", and claiming that Hoover was \"following the path of appeasement of political powers in the South\" and that his concern for communist infiltration of the civil rights movement was meant to \"aid and abet the salacious claims of southern racists and the extreme right-wing elements\". Hoover did not believe his pledge of innocence and replied by saying that King was \"the most notorious liar in the country.\" After King gave his \"I Have A Dream\" speech during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, the FBI described King as \"the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country\". In December 1963, FBI officials who were gathered to a special conference alleged that King was \"knowingly, willingly and regularly cooperating with and taking guidance from communists\" whose long-term strategy was to create of a \"Negro-labor\" coalition detrimental to American security.The attempt to prove that King was a Communist was related to the feeling of many segregationists that blacks in the South were happy with their lot but had been stirred up by \"communists\" and \"outside agitators\". The civil rights movement arose from activism within the black community dating back to before World War I. Levison did have ties with the Communist Party in various business dealings, but the FBI refused to believe its own intelligence bureau reports that Levison was no longer associated in that capacity. In response to the FBI\'s comments regarding communists directing the civil rights movement, King said that \"the Negro revolution is a genuine revolution, born from the same womb that produces all massive social upheavals—the womb of intolerable conditions and unendurable situations.\"Allegations of adultery
Having concluded that King was dangerous due to communist infiltration, the focus of the Bureau\'s investigations shifted to attempting to discredit King through revelations regarding his private life. FBI surveillance of King, some of it since made public, attempted to demonstrate that he also engaged in numerous extramarital affairs. Further remarks on King\'s lifestyle were made by several prominent officials, such as Lyndon Johnson, who once said that King was a \"hypocritical preacher\". Ralph Abernathy, a close associate of King\'s, stated in his 1989 autobiography And the Walls Came Tumbling Down that King had a \"weakness for women\". In a later interview, Abernathy said he only wrote the term \"womanizing\", and did not specifically say King had extramarital sex. King\'s biographer David Garrow detailed what he called King\'s \"compulsive sexual athleticism.\" Garrow wrote about numerous extramarital affairs, including one with a woman King saw almost daily. According to Garrow, \"that relationship, rather than his marriage, increasingly became the emotional centerpiece of King\'s life, but it did not eliminate the incidental couplings that were a commonplace of King\'s travels.\" King explained his extramarital affairs as \"a form of anxiety reduction.\" Garrow noted that King\'s promiscuity was the cause of \"painful and overwhelming guilt\".The FBI distributed reports regarding such affairs to the executive branch, friendly reporters, potential coalition partners and funding sources of the SCLC, and King\'s family. The Bureau also sent anonymous letters to King threatening to reveal information if he did not cease his civil rights work. One anonymous letter sent to King just before he received the Nobel Peace Prize read, in part, \"The American public, the church organizations that have been helping—Protestants, Catholics and Jews will know you for what you are—an evil beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there, is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy fraudulent self is bared to the nation.\" King interpreted this as encouragement for him to commit suicide, although William Sullivan, head of the Domestic Intelligence Division at the time, argued that it may have only been intended to \"convince Dr. King to resign from the SCLC.\" King refused to give in to the FBI\'s threats.On January 31, 1977, United States district Judge John Lewis Smith, Jr., ordered all known copies of the recorded audiotapes and written transcripts resulting from the FBI\'s electronic surveillance of King between 1963 and 1968 to be held in the National Archives and sealed from public access until 2027.Across from the Lorraine Motel, next to the rooming house in which James Earl Ray was staying, was a fire station. Police officers were stationed in the fire station to keep King under surveillance. Using papered-over windows with peepholes cut into them, the agents were watching the scene while Martin Luther King was shot. Immediately following the shooting, officers rushed out of the station to the motel, and Marrell McCollough, an undercover police officer, was the first person to administer first-aid to King. The antagonism between King and the FBI, the lack of an all points bulletin to find the killer, and the police presence nearby have led to speculation that the FBI was involved in the assassination.
Malcolm X, May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. Detractors accused him of preaching racism, black supremacy, antisemitism, and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.
Malcolm X\'s father died—killed by whites, it was rumored—when he was young, and at least one of his uncles was lynched. when he was thirteen his mother was placed in a mental hospital, and he was placed in a series of foster homes. In 1946, at age 20, he went to prison for breaking and entering.
In prison Malcolm X became a member of the Nation of Islam and after his parole in 1952 he quickly rose to become one of its leaders. For a dozen years Malcolm X was the public face of the controversial group, but disillusionment with Nation of Islam head Elijah Muhammad led him to leave the Nation in March 1964. After a period of travel in Africa and the Middle East he returned to the United States, where he founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In February 1965, less than a year after leaving the Nation of Islam, he was assassinated by three members of the group.
Malcolm X\'s expressed beliefs changed substantially over time. As a spokesman for the Nation of Islam he taught black supremacy and advocated separation of black and white Americans—a stark contrast with the civil rights movement\'s emphasis on integration. After breaking with the Nation of Islam in 1964—saying of his association with it, \"I was a zombie then ... pointed in a certain direction and told to march\"—and becoming a Sunni Muslim, he disavowed racism and expressed willingness to work with civil rights leaders, though still emphasizing black self-determination and self defense.
Early years
Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, the fourth of seven children to Earl Little and Louise Norton. His father was an outspoken Baptist lay speaker. He supported Pan-African activist Marcus Garvey and was a local leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Malcolm never forgot the values of black pride and self-reliance that his father and other UNIA leaders preached. Malcolm X later said that three of Earl Little\'s brothers, one of whom was lynched, died violently at the hands of white men. Because of Ku Klux Klan threats, the family relocated in 1926 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and shortly thereafter to Lansing, Michigan.
Earl Little, who was dark-skinned, was born in Reynolds, Georgia. He had three children from his first marriage: Ella, Mary, and Earl Jr.—and seven with his second wife, Louise: Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Reginald, Yvonne, and Wesley.Louise Norton Little was born in Grenada. Because her father was Scottish, she was so light-skinned that she could have passed for white. Malcolm inherited his light complexion from his mother and maternal grandfather. Initially he felt his light skin was a status symbol, but he later said he \"hated every drop of that white rapist\'s blood that is in me.\" Malcolm X later remembered feeling that his father favored him because he was the lightest-skinned child in the family; however, he thought his mother treated him harshly for the same reason. One of Malcolm\'s nicknames, \"Red\", derived from the tinge of his hair. According to one biographer, at birth he had \"ash-blonde hair ... tinged with cinnamon\", and at age four, \"reddish-blonde hair\". His hair darkened as he aged, yet he also resembled his paternal grandmother, whose hair \"turned reddish in the summer sun.\" The issue of skin and hair color took on very significant implications later in Malcolm\'s life.
In December 1924, Louise Little was threatened by klansmen while she was pregnant with Malcolm. She recalled that the klansmen warned the family to leave Omaha, because Earl Little\'s activities with UNIA were \"spreading trouble\". After they moved to Lansing, their house was burned in 1929; however, the family escaped without physical injury. On September 8, 1931, Earl Little was fatally struck by a streetcar in Lansing. Authorities ruled his death an accident. The police reported that Earl Little was conscious when they arrived on the scene, and he told them he had slipped and fallen under the streetcar\'s wheels. The black community in Lansing disputed the cause of death, believing there was circumstantial evidence of assault. His family had frequently been harassed by the Black Legion, a white supremacist group that his father accused of burning down their home in 1929. Some blacks believed the Black Legion was responsible for Earl Little\'s death. One of the adults at the funeral told eight-year-old Philbert Little that his father had been hit from behind and shoved under the streetcar.
Though Earl Little had two life insurance policies, his family received death benefits solely from the smaller policy. The insurance company of the larger policy claimed that his father had committed suicide and refused to issue the benefit. The payout from the insurance policy was $1,000 (comparable to about $15,000 in 2010 dollars), and the probate court awarded Louise Little a monthly \"widow\'s allowance\" of $18. She rented space in the garden to raise more money, and her sons would hunt game for supper.
In 1935 or 1936, Louise Little began dating an African-American man. A marriage proposal seemed a possibility, but the man disappeared from their lives when Louise became pregnant with his child in late 1937. In December 1938, Louise Little had a nervous breakdown and was declared legally insane. The Little siblings were split up and sent to different foster homes. The state formally committed Louise Little to the state mental hospital at Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she remained until Malcolm and his siblings secured her release 24 years later.
Malcolm Little was one of the best students in his junior high school, but he dropped out after a white eighth-grade teacher told him that his aspirations of being a lawyer were \"no realistic goal for a nigger.\" Years later, Malcolm X would laugh about the incident, but at the time it was humiliating. It made him feel that there was no place in the white world for a career-oriented black man, no matter how smart he was. After living with a series of white foster parents, Malcolm moved to Boston in February 1941 to live with his older half-sister, Ella Little Collins.
Young adult years
Collins lived in Roxbury, a predominantly African-American middle-class neighborhood of Boston. It was the first time Little had seen so many black people. He was drawn to the cultural and social life of the neighborhood. In Boston, Little held a variety of jobs and found intermittent employment with the New Haven Railroad. Between 1943 and 1946, he drifted from city to city and job to job. He left Boston to live for a short time in Flint, Michigan. He moved to New York City in 1943. Living in Harlem, he became involved in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery, and pimping. During this period, Little became known as \"Detroit Red\" because he came from Michigan and because of the reddish color of his hair. According to recent biographies, Little occasionally engaged in sex with other men, usually for money.
In 1943, the U.S. draft board ordered Little to register for military service. He later recalled that he put on a display to avoid the draft by telling the examining officer that he could not wait to \"steal us some guns, and kill us some crackers.\" Military physicians classified him as \"mentally disqualified for military service\". He was issued a 4-F card, relieving him of his service obligations. In late 1945, Little returned to Boston. With a group of associates, he began a series of elaborate burglaries targeting the residences of wealthy white families. On January 12, 1946, Little was arrested for burglary while trying to pick up a stolen watch he had left for repairs at a jewelry shop. The shop owner called the police because the watch was very expensive, and the police had alerted all Boston jewelers that it had been stolen. Little told the police that he had a gun on his person and surrendered so the police would treat him more leniently. Three days later, Little was indicted for carrying firearms. On January 16, he was charged with larceny and breaking and entering, and eventually sentenced to eight to ten years in prison.
On February 27, Little began serving his sentence at the Charlestown State Prison in Charlestown, Boston. While in prison, Little earned the nickname of \"Satan\" for his hostility toward religion. Little met a self-educated man in prison named John Elton Bembry (referred to as \"Bimbi\" in The Autobiography of Malcolm X). Bembry was a well-regarded prisoner at Charlestown, and Malcolm X would later describe him as \"the first man I had ever seen command total respect ... with words.\" Gradually, the two men became friends and Bembry convinced Little to educate himself. Little developed a voracious appetite for reading, and he frequently read after the prison lights had been turned off. In 1948, Little\'s brother Philbert wrote, telling him about the Nation of Islam. Like the UNIA, the Nation preached black self-reliance and, ultimately, the unification of members of the African diaspora, free from white American and European domination. Little was not interested in joining until his brother Reginald wrote, saying, \"Malcolm, don\'t eat any more pork and don\'t smoke any more cigarettes. I\'ll show you how to get out of prison.\" Little quit smoking, and the next time pork was served in the prison dining hall, he refused to eat it.
When Reginald came to visit Little, he described the group\'s teachings, including the belief that white people are devils. Afterward, Little thought about all the white people he had known, and he realized that he\'d never had a relationship with a white person or social institution that wasn\'t based on dishonesty, injustice, greed, and hatred. Little began to reconsider his dismissal of all religion and he became receptive to the message of the Nation of Islam. Other family members who had joined the Nation wrote or visited and encouraged Little to join. In February 1948, mostly through his sister\'s efforts, Little was transferred to the Norfolk Prison Colony, an experimental prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts, that had a much larger library. In late 1948, he wrote a letter to Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad advised him to atone for his crimes by renouncing his past and by humbly bowing in prayer to Allah and promising never to engage in destructive behavior again. Little, who always had been rebellious and deeply skeptical, found it very difficult to bow in prayer. It took him a week to bend his knees. Finally he prayed, and he became a member of the Nation of Islam. For the remainder of his incarceration, Little maintained regular correspondence with Muhammad. On August 7, 1952, Little was paroled and was released from prison. He later reflected on the time he spent in prison after his conversion: \"Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I had never been so truly free in my life.\"
Nation of Islam
When Little was released from prison in 1952, he had more than a new religion. He also had a new name. In a December 1950 letter to his brother Philbert, Little signed his name as Malcolm X for the first time. In his autobiography, he explained why: \"The Muslim\'s \'X\' symbolized the true African family name that he never could know. For me, my \'X\' replaced the white slavemaster name of \'Little\' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears.\"
Shortly after his release from prison, Malcolm X visited Elijah Muhammad in Chicago, Illinois. In June 1953, Malcolm X was named assistant minister of the Nation of Islam\'s Temple Number One in Detroit. Soon, he became a full-time minister. By late 1953, Malcolm X established Boston\'s Temple Number 11. In March 1954, he expanded Temple Number 12 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two months later Malcolm X was selected to lead Temple Number Seven in Harlem, and he rapidly expanded its membership.
The FBI had opened a file on Malcolm X in 1950 after he wrote a letter to President Truman stating his opposition to the Korean War and declaring himself to be a communist. It began surveillance of him in 1953, and soon the FBI turned its attention from concerns about possible Communist Party association to Malcolm X\'s rapid ascent in the Nation of Islam.
During 1955, Malcolm X continued his successful recruitment efforts on behalf of the organization. He established temples in Springfield, Massachusetts (Number 13); Hartford, Connecticut (Number 14); and Atlanta, Georgia (Number 15). Hundreds of African Americans were joining the Nation of Islam every month. Beside his skill as a speaker, Malcolm X had an impressive physical presence. He stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed about 180 pounds (82 kg). One writer described him as \"powerfully built\", and another as \"mesmerizingly handsome ... and always spotlessly well-groomed\".
Johnson Hinton incident
Malcolm X first came to the attention of the general public after the police beating of a Nation of Islam member named Johnson Hinton. On April 26, 1957, two police officers were beating an African-American man with their nightsticks when three passersby who belonged to the Nation of Islam tried to intervene. They shouted: \"You\'re not in Alabama or Georgia. This is New York!\" One of the officers began to beat one of the passersby, Johnson Hinton. The blows were so severe, a surgeon later determined, that they caused brain contusions, subdural hemorrhaging, and scalp lacerations. All four men were arrested and taken to the police station.
A woman who had seen the assault ran to the Nation of Islam\'s restaurant. Within a few hours, Malcolm X and a small group of Muslims went to the police station and demanded to see Hinton. The police captain initially said no Muslims were being held there, but as the crowd grew to about 500, he allowed Malcolm X to speak with Hinton. After a short talk, Malcolm X demanded that Hinton be taken to the hospital, so an ambulance was called and Hinton was taken to Harlem Hospital.
Hinton was treated and released into the custody of the police, who returned him to the police station. By this point, about 4,000 people had gathered; the police realized there was the potential for a riot and called for backup. Malcolm X went back into the police station with an attorney and made bail arrangements for the other two Muslims. The police said Hinton could not go back to the hospital until he was arraigned the following day. Malcolm X realized things were at a stalemate. He stepped outside the station house and gave a hand signal. The Nation of Islam members in the crowd silently walked away. The rest of the crowd dispersed minutes later. One police officer told the editor of the New York Amsterdam News: \"No one man should have that much power.\"
The following month, the Bureau of Special Services and Investigation of the New York Police Department (NYPD) began its surveillance of Malcolm X. The NYPD\'s Chief Inspector asked for information from the police department in every city where Malcolm X had lived, and from the prisons where he had served his sentence. In October, when a grand jury declined to indict the officers who had beaten Hinton, Malcolm X wrote an angry telegram to the police commissioner. In response, undercover NYPD officers were placed inside the Nation of Islam.
Marriage and family
Malcolm X met Betty Sanders in 1955. She had been invited to listen to his lecture, and she was very impressed by him. They met again at a dinner party. Soon Sanders was attending all of Malcolm X\'s lectures at Temple Number Seven. In mid 1956, she joined the Nation of Islam.
Malcolm X and Betty X did not have a conventional courtship. One-on-one dates were contrary to the teachings of the Nation of Islam. Instead, the couple shared their \"dates\" with dozens, or even hundreds of other members. Malcolm X frequently took groups to visit New York\'s museums and libraries, and he always invited Betty X.
Although they had never discussed the subject, Betty X suspected that Malcolm X was interested in marriage. On January 12, 1958, he called from Detroit and asked her to marry him, and they were married two days later in Lansing, Michigan.
The couple had six daughters. Their names were Attallah, born in 1958 and named after Attila the Hun; Qubilah, born in 1960 and named after Kublai Khan; Ilyasah, born in 1962 and named after Elijah Muhammad; Gamilah Lumumba, born in 1964 and named after Patrice Lumumba; and twins, Malikah and Malaak, born in 1965 after their father\'s assassination and named for him.
The Hate That Hate Produced
After a 1959 television broadcast in New York City about the Nation of Islam, The Hate That Hate Produced, Malcolm X became known to white Americans. Representatives of the print media, radio, and television frequently asked him for comments on issues. By the late 1950s, Malcolm X had acquired a new name, Malcolm Shabazz or Malik el-Shabazz, although he was still widely referred to as Malcolm X.
In September 1960, Fidel Castro arrived in New York to attend the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. He and his entourage stayed at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. Malcolm X was a prominent member of a Harlem-based welcoming committee made up of community leaders who met with Castro. Castro was so impressed by Malcolm X that he requested a private meeting with him. At the end of their two-hour meeting, Castro invited Malcolm X to visit him in Cuba. During the General Assembly meeting, Malcolm X was also invited to many official embassy functions sponsored by African nations, where he met heads of state and other leaders, including Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea, and Kenneth Kaunda of the Zambian African National Congress.
From his adoption of the Nation of Islam in 1952 until he left the organization in 1964, Malcolm X promoted the Nation\'s teachings. He taught that black people were the original people of the world, and that white people were a race of devils. In his speeches, Malcolm X said that black people were superior to white people, and that the demise of the white race was imminent. While the civil rights movement fought against racial segregation, Malcolm X advocated the complete separation of African Americans from white people. He proposed the establishment of a separate country for black people as an interim measure until African Americans could return to Africa. Malcolm X also rejected the civil rights movement\'s strategy of nonviolence, and instead advocated that black people use any necessary means of self-defense to protect themselves. Malcolm X\'s speeches had a powerful effect on his audiences, generally African Americans who lived in the Northern and Western cities, who were tired of being told to wait for freedom, justice, equality and respect. Many blacks felt that he articulated their complaints better than the civil rights movement did.
Many white people, and some blacks, were alarmed by Malcolm X and the things he said. He and the Nation of Islam were described as hatemongers, black supremacists, violence-seekers, and a threat to improved race relations. Civil rights organizations denounced Malcolm X and the Nation as irresponsible extremists whose views were not representative of African Americans. Malcolm X was accused of being antisemitic.
Malcolm X was equally critical of the civil rights movement. He described its leaders as \"stooges\" for the white establishment, and said that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a \"chump\". He criticized the 1963 March on Washington, which he called \"the farce on Washington\". He said he did not know why black people were excited over a demonstration \"run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn\'t like us when he was alive\". Malcolm X has been widely considered the second most influential leader of the Nation of Islam after Elijah Muhammad. He was largely credited with increasing membership of the group; from 500 in 1952 to 25,000 in 1963 by one author\'s estimate, or from 1,200 in 1953 to 50,000 or 75,000 in 1961 by another\'s. He inspired the boxer Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) to join the Nation of Islam. Ali later left the group and became a Sunni Muslim, as did Malcolm X.
In early 1963, Malcolm X started collaborating with Alex Haley on The Autobiography of Malcolm X. In 1964, he told Haley, \"If I\'m alive when this book comes out, it will be a miracle.\" The book was not finished when Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. Haley completed it and published it later that year. In 1998 Time named The Autobiography of Malcolm X one of the ten most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.<
Leaving the Nation
On December 1, 1963, when he was asked for a comment about the assassination of President Kennedy, Malcolm X said that it was a case of \"chickens coming home to roost\". He added that \"chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they\'ve always made me glad.\" The New York Times wrote, \"in further criticism of Mr. Kennedy, the Muslim leader cited the murders of Patrice Lumumba, Congo leader, of Medgar Evers, civil rights leader, and of the Negro girls bombed earlier this year in a Birmingham church. These, he said, were instances of other \'chickens coming home to roost\'.\" The remarks prompted a widespread public outcry. The Nation of Islam, which had issued a message of condolence to the Kennedy family and ordered its ministers not to comment on the assassination, publicly censured their former shining star. Although Malcolm X retained his post and rank as minister, he was prohibited from public speaking for 90 days.
On March 8, 1964, Malcolm X publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam. He said that he was still a Muslim, but he felt the Nation of Islam had \"gone as far as it can\" because of its rigid religious teachings. Malcolm X said he was going to organize a black nationalist organization that would try to \"heighten the political consciousness\" of African Americans. He also expressed his desire to work with other civil rights leaders and said that Elijah Muhammad had prevented him from doing so in the past.
One reason for the separation was growing tension between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad because of Malcolm X\'s dismay about rumors of Muhammad\'s extramarital affairs with young secretaries, actions that were against the teachings of the Nation. Although at first Malcolm X had ignored the rumors, after speaking with Muhammad\'s son Wallace and the women making the accusations, he came to believe that they were true. Muhammad confirmed the rumors in 1963 but tried to justify his actions by reference to precedents set by Biblical prophets. Another reason for the separation was growing resentment by people within the Nation. As Malcolm X had become a favorite of the media, many in the Nation\'s Chicago headquarters felt that he was over-shadowing Muhammad. Louis Lomax\'s 1963 book about the Nation of Islam, When the Word Is Given, featured a picture of Malcolm X on its cover and included five of his speeches, but only one of Muhammad\'s, which greatly upset Muhammad. Muhammad was also envious that a publisher was interested in Malcolm X\'s autobiography. After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., a religious organization, and the Organization of Afro-American Unity, a secular group that advocated Pan-Africanism. On March 26, 1964, he met Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C., after a press conference held when both men attended the Senate to hear the debate on the Civil Rights bill. This was the only time the two men ever met and their meeting lasted only one minute—just long enough for photographers to take a picture. In April, Malcolm X made a speech titled \"The Ballot or the Bullet\" in which he advised African Americans to exercise their right to vote wisely. Several Sunni Muslims encouraged Malcolm X to learn about Islam. Soon he converted to Sunni Islam, and decided to make his pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj).
International travel
Pilgrimage to Mecca
On April 13, 1964, Malcolm X departed JFK Airport in New York for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His status as an authentic Muslim was questioned by Saudi authorities because of his United States passport and his inability to speak Arabic. Since only confessing Muslims are allowed into Mecca, he was separated from his group for about 20 hours.
According to his autobiography, Malcolm X saw a telephone and remembered the book The Eternal Message of Muhammad by Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, which had been presented to him with his visa approval. He called Azzam\'s son, who arranged for his release. At the younger Azzam\'s home, he met Azzam Pasha, who gave Malcolm his suite at the Jeddah Palace Hotel. The next morning, Muhammad Faisal, the son of Prince Faisal, visited and informed Malcolm X that he was to be a state guest. The deputy chief of protocol accompanied Malcolm X to the Hajj Court, where he was allowed to make his pilgrimage.
On April 19, Malcolm X completed the Hajj, making the seven circuits around the Kaaba, drinking from the Zamzam Well, and running between the hills of Safah and Marwah seven times. After completing the Hajj, he was granted an audience with Prince Faisal. Malcolm X said the trip allowed him to see Muslims of different races interacting as equals. He came to believe that Islam could be the means by which racial problems could be overcome.
Africa
Malcolm X visited Africa on three separate occasions, once in 1959 and twice in 1964. During his visits, he met officials, gave interviews to newspapers, and spoke on television and radio in Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Senegal, Liberia, Algeria, and Morocco. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria invited Malcolm X to serve in their governments.
In 1959, Malcolm X traveled to Egypt (then known as the United Arab Republic), Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana to arrange a tour for Elijah Muhammad. The first of the two trips Malcolm X made to Africa in 1964 lasted from April 13 until May 21, before and after his Hajj. On May 8, following his speech at the University of Ibadan, Malcolm X was made an honorary member of the Nigerian Muslim Students\' Association. During this reception the students bestowed upon him the name \"Omowale\", which means \"the son who has come home\" in the Yoruba language. Malcolm X wrote in his autobiography that he \"had never received a more treasured honor.\"
On July 9, 1964, Malcolm X returned to Africa. On July 17, he was welcomed to the second meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Cairo as a representative of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. By the time he returned to the United States on November 24, 1964, Malcolm had met with every prominent African leader and established an international connection between Africans on the continent and those in the diaspora.
France and the United Kingdom
On November 23, 1964, on his way home from Africa, Malcolm X stopped in Paris, where he spoke at the Salle de la Mutualite. A week later, on November 30, Malcolm X flew to the United Kingdom, and on December 3 participated in a debate at the Oxford Union. The topic of the debate was \"Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice; Moderation in the Pursuit of Justice is No Virtue\", and Malcolm X argued the affirmative. Interest in the debate was so high that it was televised nationally by the BBC.
On February 5, 1965, Malcolm X went to Europe again. On February 8, he spoke in London, before the first meeting of the Council of African Organizations. The next day, Malcolm X tried to go to France, but he was refused entry. On February 12, he visited Smethwick, near Birmingham, which had become a byword for racial division after the 1964 general election, when the Conservative Party won the parliamentary seat after rumors that their candidate\'s supporters had used the slogan \"If you want a nigger for your neighbour, vote Labour.\"
Return to United States
After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X spoke before a wide variety of audiences in the United States. He spoke at regular meetings of Muslim Mosque, Inc., and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He was one of the most sought-after speakers on college campuses, and one of his top aides later wrote that he \"welcomed every opportunity to speak to college students.\" Malcolm X also spoke before political groups such as the Militant Labor Forum.
Tensions increased between Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. As early as February 1964, a member of Temple Number Seven was given orders by the group to wire explosives to Malcolm X\'s car. In September 1964, Ebony published a photograph of Malcolm X holding an M1 Carbine and peering out a window. The photo was intended to illustrate his determination to defend himself and his family against the death threats he was receiving.<
The Nation of Islam and its leaders began making both public and private threats against Malcolm X. On March 23, 1964, Elijah Muhammad told Boston minister Louis X (later known as Louis Farrakhan) that \"hypocrites like Malcolm should have their heads cut off.\" The April 10 edition of Muhammad Speaks featured a cartoon in which his severed head was shown bouncing. On July 9, John Ali, a top aide to Muhammad, answered a question about Malcolm X by saying that \"anyone who opposes the Honorable Elijah Muhammad puts their life in jeopardy.\" The December 4 issue of Muhammad Speaks included an article by Louis X that railed against Malcolm X, saying \"such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death.\"
Some threats were made anonymously. During the month of June 1964, FBI surveillance recorded two such threats. On June 8, a man called Malcolm X\'s home and told Betty Shabazz to \"tell him he\'s as good as dead.\" On June 12, an FBI informant reported getting an anonymous telephone call from somebody who said \"Malcolm X is going to be bumped off.\"
In June 1964, the Nation of Islam sued to reclaim Malcolm X\'s residence in Queens, New York, which they claimed to own. The suit was successful, and Malcolm X was ordered to vacate. On February 14, 1965, the night before a scheduled hearing to postpone the eviction date, the house burned to the ground. Malcolm X and his family survived. No one was charged with any crime.
AssassinationOn February 21, 1965, as Malcolm X prepared to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity in Manhattan\'s Audubon Ballroom, a disturbance broke out in the 400-person audience —a man yelled, \"Nigger! Get your hand outta my pocket!\" As Malcolm X and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot him in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Two other men charged the stage and fired handguns, hitting Malcolm X 16 times. He was pronounced dead at 3:30 pm, shortly after he arrived at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
One gunman, Nation of Islam member Talmadge Hayer (also known as Thomas Hagan) was seized and beaten by the crowd; witnesses identified the others as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, also Nation members. Hayer confessed at trial but refused to identify the other assailants except to assert that they were not Butler and Johnson. All three were convicted.
Butler, now known as Muhammad Abdul Aziz, was paroled in 1985 and became the head of the Nation\'s Harlem mosque in 1998. He continues to maintain his innocence. Johnson, who changed his name to Khalil Islam, rejected the Nation\'s teachings while in prison and converted to Sunni Islam. Released in 1987, he maintained his innocence until his death in August 2009. Hayer, now known as Mujahid Halim, was paroled in 2010.
Funeral
A public viewing was held at Harlem\'s Unity Funeral Home from February 23 through February 26, and it was estimated that between 14,000 and 30,000 mourners attended. The funeral was held on February 27 at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ in Harlem. The church was filled to capacity with more than 1,000 people. Loudspeakers were set up outside the Temple so the overflowing crowd could listen and a local television station broadcast the funeral live.
Among the civil rights leaders attending were John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, James Forman, James Farmer, Jesse Gray, and Andrew Young. Actor and activist Ossie Davis delivered the eulogy, describing Malcolm X as \"our shining black prince\".
There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times. Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain—and we will smile. Many will say turn away—away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter and an enemy of the black man—and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate—a fanatic, a racist—who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him.
Malcolm X was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. At the gravesite after the ceremony, friends took the shovels from the waiting gravediggers and completed the burial themselves. Actor and activist Ruby Dee (wife of Ossie Davis) and Juanita Poitier (wife of Sidney Poitier) established the Committee of Concerned Mothers to raise funds to buy a house and pay educational expenses for Malcolm X\'s family.
Responses to assassination
Reactions to Malcolm X\'s assassination were varied. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sent a telegram to Betty Shabazz, expressing his sadness over \"the shocking and tragic assassination of your husband.\"
While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race.
Elijah Muhammad told the annual Savior\'s Day convention on February 26, \"Malcolm X got just what he preached.\" \"We didn\'t want to kill Malcolm and didn\'t try to kill him,\" Muhammad said. \"We know such ignorant, foolish teachings would bring him to his own end.\"
The New York Times wrote that Malcolm X was \"an extraordinary and twisted man\" who \"turned many true gifts to evil purpose\" and that his life was \"strangely and pitifully wasted\". The New York Post wrote that \"even his sharpest critics recognized his brilliance—often wild, unpredictable and eccentric, but nevertheless possessing promise that must now remain unrealized.\"
The international press, particularly that of Africa, was sympathetic. The Daily Times of Nigeria wrote that Malcolm X \"will have a place in the palace of martyrs.\" The Ghanaian Times likened him to John Brown and Patrice Lumumba among \"a host of Africans and Americans who were martyred in freedom\'s cause\". Guangming Daily, published in Beijing, stated that \"Malcolm was murdered because he fought for freedom and equal rights\", while in Cuba, El Mundo described the assassination as \"another racist crime to eradicate by violence the struggle against discrimination\".
Allegations of conspiracy
Within days of the assassination, questions were raised about who bore ultimate responsibility. On February 23, James Farmer, the leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, announced at a news conference that local drug dealers, and not the Nation of Islam, were to blame. Others accused the NYPD, the FBI, or the CIA, citing the lack of police protection, the ease with which the assassins entered the Audubon Ballroom, and the failure of the police to preserve the crime scene.
In the 1970s, the public learned about COINTELPRO and other secret FBI programs directed towards infiltrating and disrupting civil rights organizations during the 1950s and 1960s. John Ali, national secretary of the Nation of Islam, was identified as an FBI undercover agent. Malcolm X had confided in a reporter that Ali exacerbated tensions between him and Elijah Muhammad. He considered Ali his \"archenemy\" within the Nation of Islam leadership. On February 20, 1965, the night before the assassination, Ali met with Talmadge Hayer, one of the men convicted of killing Malcolm X.<br><br>
In 1977 and 1978, Talmadge Hayer submitted two sworn affidavits re-asserting his claim that Butler and Johnson were not involved in the assassination. In his affidavits Hayer named four men, all members of the Nation of Islam\'s Newark Temple Number 25, as having participated with him in the crime. Hayer asserted that a man, later identified as Wilbur McKinley, shouted and threw a smoke bomb to create a diversion. Hayer said that another man, later identified as William Bradley, had a shotgun and was the first to fire on Malcolm X after the diversion. Hayer asserted that he and a man later identified as Leon Davis, both armed with pistols, fired on Malcolm X immediately after the shotgun blast. Hayer also said that a fifth man, later identified as Benjamin Thomas, was involved in the conspiracy. Hayer\'s statements failed to convince authorities to reopen their investigation of the murder.
Some, including the Shabazz family, have accused Louis Farrakhan of being involved in the plot to assassinate Malcolm X. In a 1993 speech, Farrakhan seemed to boast of the align=\"left\">Was Malcolm your traitor or ours? And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours? A nation has to be able to deal with traitors and cutthroats and turncoats.<br><br>
In a 60 Minutes interview that aired during May 2000, Farrakhan stated that some of the things he said may have led to the assassination of Malcolm X. \"I may have been complicit in words that I spoke\", he said. \"I acknowledge that and regret that any word that I have said caused the loss of life of a human being.\" A few days later Farrakhan denied that he \"ordered the assassination\" of Malcolm X, although he again acknowledged that he \"created the atmosphere that ultimately led to Malcolm X\'s assassination.\" No consensus on who was responsible has been reached.
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