Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 15 February 2001 — Page 17

The Muncie Times, February 15, 2001, page 17

MALCOLM X FROM PAGE 1 reputation, in a sense, by being on the other side of the civil rights divide. While Dr. King and his coalition favored nonviolence and other passive resistance methods to gain more rights and privileges for African Americans, Malcolm X took a more militant stance. He was among those who said there was nothing wrong with using violence to oppose violence. He became one of the most militant civil rights spokespersons, a strong advocate for his Islam religion and one of the heroes of the younger militants who favored a more forceful approach in the civil rights struggle. One of his most notable quotes was that people of African descent should use “any means necessary” to get their rights. He explained his position this way: “When you hear me say, ‘by any means necessary,’ I mean exactly that. Political, economic, social , physical—anything that’s necessary—as long as it’s intelligently directed and designed to get results.” Malcolm was never shy about what he stood for or why. But he did not start out that way. He was the son of the Rev. Earl Little, a Baptist minister who was a strong supporter of Marcus Garvey, the man who had led the Back-to-Africa movement in the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan was not amused about the senior Little’s views and made the Little family miserable. As a result the Little family was peripatetic. When Earl Little was killed, presumably by racists, Malcolm’s mother, Louise Little, was forced to rely on welfare programs to support her family. It was too much for her. She ended up in a mental institution. Her

children were sent to various foster homes. Despite Malcolm’s good grades, he had to endure racist comments from one of his teachers. He left school and started working. That apparently explained one of his more provocative comments about education: “Just because you have colleges and universities, doesn’t mean you have education. The colleges and universities in the American educational system are skillfully used to miseducate.” While living with one of his sisters in Boston, Mass., Malcolm began associating with gamblers, pimps, drug dealers and other assorted criminal elements. He developed a drug habit. To support that, he resorted to robbery. In 1946, he was arrested for robbery and sentenced to 10 years in state prison. Incarceration was a turning point for Malcolm. Although he lived by his own code in the prison system, often ignoring rules and regulations, he also met j another inmate who turned him to Islam and the Nation of islam. The leader of the ; Nation of Islam was Elijah

Muhammad, a black man who favored keeping black men and women apart from whites. According to various sources, that experience changed Malcolm, who changed his name from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X. He became a devout

Muslim. By the time Malcolm was freed from prison in 1952, he had dedicated himself to Islam. In time he emerged as one of Elijah Muhammad’s most outspoken defenders. Eventually he would become the spokesman for the Nation of Islam, a

position at which he excelled because he was focused, eloquent and uncompromising. Among some of his more quotable statements are the following, as reported in Black Heroes:

MALCOLM X SEE PAGE 18

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