Malcolm X Contribution To The Civil Rights Movement

Malcolm X was an American Muslim leader who contributed to the Civil Rights Movement by spreading his ideas of black nationalism in the 1950s and early ’60s. He was an influential figure in a black Islamic organization, Nation of Islam, and served as a spokesperson for the organization. He was assassinated on February 21, 1965 while making a speech in Harlem. After his death, his life story was made well-known through his autobiography, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) (Mamiya 1). Malcolm X is a man whose background and activism contributed to the Civil Rights Movement and America as a whole. He had a difficult childhood and converted to Islam “while in prison for robbery from 1946 to 1952.” He was born in Omaha, Nebraska as Malcolm

When he joined the Nation of Islam, he changed his family name from “Little” to “X” as it was “a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders” (1). Malcolm benefited the organization by being a spokesman and expanding the movement (“Malcolm X.” History. History Channel, n.d 1). He “became the minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem and Temple No. 11 in Boston” (“Malcolm X Biography” 1). “An articulate public speaker, a charismatic personality, and an indefatigable organizer, Malcolm X expressed the pent-up anger, frustration, and bitterness of African Americans during the major phase of the Civil Rights Movement from 1955 to 1965” (Mamiya 1). He spread the idea that only a violent revolution would bring change and equality for black Americans. “You don't have a peaceful revolution. You don't have a turn-the-cheek revolution. There's no such thing as a nonviolent revolution,” he said (“Malcolm X Biography” 1). However, after his pilgrimage to Mecca, his beliefs changed and he came back to the United States with ideas of a peaceful revolution. “The true brotherhood I had seen had influenced me to recognize that anger can blind human vision,” he said. “America is the first country ... that can actually have a bloodless revolution” (1). Malcolm’s relations with