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Malcolm X Outline “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything. ” Thesis Statement: Malcolm??X 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, anti-Semitism, and violence. Introduction I. Malcolm X opposed the mainstream civil rights movement, publicly calling for black separatism and rejecting nonviolence and integration as effective means of combating racism.
Body I. Main Point 1: Hard times Malcolm X had growing up. II. Main Point 2: How getting in trouble with law effect his way of life & how it change him forever. III. Transitional Sentence: Now that you know how Malcolm X was shape by society, I’ll explain the route that the Nation of Islam betrayal Malcolm. IV. Main Point 3: The way the Nation Islam took to assassinate Malcolm X. ; Conclusion I.
Malcolm X achieved his goal on opposed the mainstream civil rights movement, black separatism and rejecting nonviolence and integration as effective means. Malcolm X opposed the mainstream civil rights movement, publicly calling for black separatism and rejecting nonviolence and integration as effective means of combating racism; 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, anti-Semitism, and violence. Malcolm came from the humblest roots, was the most radical, most outspoken, and angriest “All Negroes are angry, and I am the angriest of all,” he often would say. The powerful speaker gathered huge crowds around him when he was associated with Elijah Muhammad’s Lost-Found Nation of Islam movement, and afterwards with Malcolm X’s own organization.
Many Americans, white and black, were afraid of the violent side of Malcolm X’s rhetoric unlike Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s, doctrine of non-violent resistance, Malcolm X believed in self-defense. Malcolm X’s father was a Baptist minister and a member of the United Negro Improvement Association. In a parallel belief, Nation of Islam supporters in Malcolm X’s time held that a section of the United States secede and become a nation onto itself for disenfranchised blacks.
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little, on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, NE; He died of gunshot wounds, on February 21, 1965, in Harlem, NY; He was the son of Reverend Earl (a Baptist minister), and Louise Little; Malcolm X was married Betty (a student nurse), 1958; Activist Worker in Lost-Found Nation of Islam religious sect, 1952-64, began as assistant minister of mosque in Detroit, Ml, then organized mosque in Philadelphia, PA, became national minister, 1963; established Muslim Mosque, Inc. founded Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York City, 1964; lecturer and writer. Malcolm X described in his autobiography (written with Alex Haley) the harassment of his father, including terrifying visits from the Ku Klux Klan; one of Malcolm X’s first memories is of his home in Omaha burning down. The family moved to Lansing, Michigan, in 1929 and there Malcolm X’s memories were of his father’s rousing sermons and the beatings the minister gave his wife and children.
Malcolm X believed his father to be a victim of brainwashing by white people, who infected blacks with self-hatred therefore he would pass down a form of the abuse he received as a black man. After his father was killed, the state welfare representatives began to frequent the house, and it seemed to Malcolm X that they were harassing his mother. Terribly stricken by her husband’s death and buckling under the demands of raising many children, Louise Little became psychologically unstable and was institutionalized until 1963.
In his autobiography, he used his own young adulthood to illustrate larger ideas about the racist climate in the United States. In high school, Malcolm began to fight what would be a lifelong battle of personal ambition versus general racist preconception. Lansing did not hold many opportunities of any kind for a young black man then, so without a particular plan, Malcolm X went to live with his half-sister, Ella, in Boston. Malcolm X looked, and almost immediately found trouble. He fell in with a group of gamblers and thieves, and began shining shoes at the Roseland State Ballroom.
There he learned the trades that would eventually take him to jail dealing in bootleg liquor and illegal drugs. Malcolm X characterized his life then as one completely lacking in self-respect. Many journalists would emphasize Malcolm X’s “shady” past when describing the older man, his clean-cut lifestyle, and the aims of the Nation of Islam. In some cases, these references were an attempt to damage Malcolm X’s credibility, but economically disadvantaged people have found his early years to be a point of commonality, and Malcolm X himself was proud of how far he had come.
He spared no detail of his youth in his autobiography, and used his Nation of Islam ideas to interpret them. Dancing, drinking, and even his hair style were represented by Malcolm X to be marks of shame and self-hatred. Relaxed hair in particular was an anathema to Malcolm X for the rest of his life; he described his first “conk” in the autobiography this way: “This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: when I endured all of that pain of the hair-straightening chemicals, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man’s hair.
I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that the black people are inferior and white people superior that they will even violate and mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look pretty by white standards…. It makes you wonder if the Negro has completely lost his sense of identity, lost touch with himself. ” It was while Malcolm X was in prison that he was introduced to the ideas of Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.
Fundamentally, the group believes in the racial superiority of blacks, a belief supported by a complex genesis fable, which includes an envious, evil white scientist who put a curse on blacks. The faith became a focus for Malcolm X’s fury about his treatment and his family’s at the hands of whites, about the lack of opportunity he had as a young black man, and the psychological damage of systematic anti-black racism that is, the damage of self-hatred. Malcolm X quoted “I found out that the history-whitening process either had left out great things that black men had done, or the great black men had gotten whitened. The group also emphasizes scrupulous personal habits, including cleanliness and perfect grooming, and forbids smoking, drinking, and the eating of pork, as well as other traditional Muslim dietary restrictions. When Malcolm X left prison in 1952, he went to work for Elijah Muhammad, and within a year was named assistant minister to Muslim Temple Number One in Detroit, Michigan. Malcolm X’s faith was inextricably linked to his worship of Elijah Muhammad. Everything Malcolm X accomplished was accomplished through Elijah Muhammad.
In his autobiography, he recalled a speech which described his devotion: “I have sat at our Messenger’s feet, hearing the truth from his own mouth, I have pledged on my knees to Allah to tell the white man about his crimes and the black man the true teachings of our Honorable Elijah Muhammad. I don’t care if it costs my life. ” His devotion would be sorely tested, then destroyed within nine years. Now that you know how Malcolm X was shape by society, I’ll explain the route that the Nation of Islam betrayal Malcolm.
Muhammad had been the judge and jury for the Nation of Islam, and had sentenced many other Black Muslims to terms of silence, or excommunication, for adultery or other infractions of their religious code. Malcolm X discovered that Muhammad himself was guilty of adultery, and was appalled by his idol’s hypocrisy. Other ministers were vying for the kind of power and attention that Malcolm X had, and some speculate that these men filled Elijah Muhammad’s ears with ungenerous speculations about Malcolm X’s ambitions.
A “hajj” is a pilgrimage to the holy land of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad; “Malik” was similar to Malcolm, and “Shabazz,” a family name. On March 8, 1964, Malcolm X had announced that he was leaving the Nation of Islam to form his own groups, Muslim Mosque, Inc. , and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In an effort to express his dedication to Islam, and thereby establish a more educated religious underpinning for his new organization, Malcolm X declared he would make a hajj. His travels were enlarged to include a tour of Middle Eastern and African countries, including Egypt, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Ghana.
These expeditions would expand Malcolm X in ways that would have seemed incredible to him earlier. “Packed in the plane to Jedda were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair all together, brothers! All honoring the same God Allah, all in turn giving equal honor to the other. ” As a result of his experiences, Malcolm X gained a burgeoning understanding of a global unity and sympathy that stood behind America’s blacks???less isolated and more reinforced, he revised his formerly separatist notions.
Still full of resolve, Malcolm X returned to the States with a new message. He felt that American blacks should go to the United Nations and demand their rights, not beg for them. When faced with a bevy of reporters upon his return, he told them, “The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks. ” This new message, full of renewed vigor and an enlarged vision, plus the fact that the media was still listening to Malcolm X, was not well-received by the Nation of Islam.
Malcolm X was aware that he was being followed by Black Muslims, and regularly received death threats. A few minutes into his message, three men stood and fired sixteen shots into Malcolm X, who died before medical help could arrive. Politically sophisticated, Malcolm X told everyone who would listen about the tenacious and pervasive restraints those centuries of racism had imposed on American blacks. Although Malcolm X’s own organizations were unsteady at the time of his death, the posthumous publication of his autobiography insures that his new and old philosophies will never be forgotten.
In 1990, twenty-five years after his assassination, Malcolm X and his ideas were still a huge component in the ongoing debate about race relations. “Malcolm’s maxims on self-respect, self-reliance and economic empowerment seem acutely prescient,” said Newsweek in 1990. In conclusion, Malcolm X was man who led by example. To me, Malcolm X achieved his goal on opposed the mainstream civil rights movement, black separatism and rejecting nonviolence and integration as effective means.