How Malcolm became X

This is not a quote from a famous historian, it’s from the firebrand civil rights activist Malcolm X. Those who have read about his transformation from petty street criminal to formidable civil rights activist will not be surprised by his passion for history.

Author Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcolm X´s daughter, shares her father’s passion for history. She is co-author of a new young adult book, “X: A Novel,” which recounts the story of her father’s conversion for a new generation of readers. This release is a timely one: Malcolm X was assassinated in New York 50 years ago on Saturday.

“X: A Novel” is an extraordinary coming-of-age story covering the life of a young Malcolm Little between 1930 and 1948, beginning with his formative years in Lansing and ending with his religious conversion and his adoption of the name Malcolm X. Shabazz, a 63-year-old author and consultant in New York, says that she wants to reinforce the fact that Malcolm X began life with “a solid foundation.”

“My father was born into a whole household: father, mother and siblings, and the parents were educated,” she says. “That characterization of him has been lost in the media.”

Earl and Louise Little and their four children arrived in Lansing in 1929 when Malcolm was 4. The family had been living in a temporary home in Milwaukee after being terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan and driven out of Omaha.

The family’s time in Lansing was marked by tragedy. Early on, the family was ordered to leave their first home in northwest Lansing because of the restricted covenant which allowed only Caucasians to live there.

The house burned to the ground before the family was able to move. Malcolm’s father was charged with arson but exonerated. The family believed that an offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan set fire to the home.

In 1931, further tragedy struck when Earl Little either fell or, as Shabazz contends in her book, was thrown under a street car on West Michigan Avenue. She says that family stories and firstperson recollections lead her to believe that her grandfather was killed by the KKK. (Although, in a speech at MSU, Malcolm X pulled back from that theory.)

Earl Little’s death set in motion a series of events that would result in Malcolm X’s mother´s commitment to Kalamazoo State Hospital after a nervous breakdown.

At 13, Malcolm was sent to a foster home in Mason where he would excel as a student, but was also exposed to further racism.

Malcolm X wrote in his autobiography that a Mason teacher admonished him for aspiring to be a lawyer, telling him “A lawyer — that’s no realistic goal for a nigger.” Malcolm dropped out of school after eighth grade, moved to Boston and later Harlem where he fell into a life of crime. At 20, Malcolm was imprisoned for six years. While in prison, he converted to the Nation of Islam faith and would go on to become a leader in the group, first in Detroit then eventually New York.

Shabazz believes that the tragedies in her father’s life are crucial to understanding the passion he brought to the civil rights movement.

“It’s important for people to understand how he found himself pained by a society he thought was unjust,” she says.

Shabazz says she co-wrote this novel, as well as her recent children’s picture book, “Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to be Malcolm X,” so that “the important work my father did is remembered.”

“I believe that it is appropriate for young people in society to revisit Malcolm’s journey and his role in history,” she says.