Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May
19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, one of eight children. His father, Earl
Little, was a Baptist preacher who supported Marcus Garvey's Back to Africa
movement. When Malcolm was four, the family moved to Lansing, Michigan,
where Earl tried opening a store while continuing his preaching. But a group
of white supremacists calling themselves the Black Legion (a sub-branch of
the Ku Klux Klan) became irate to him.
Upon his return to the USA,
death threats continued leading to his house in Queens, New York, being
fire-bombed in February 1965, to his assassination a week later at the
Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York City, where he held weekly meetings.
Although the Nation of Islam was suspected of being behind Malcolm's murder,
his three killers, who were convicted of the murder, denied being part of
the Nation of Islam or knowing each other despite the fact that they were
Black Musilms and later revealed to be members. When questioned about
Malcolm X's murder, Elijah Muhammad maintained (as he did with a lot of
other things) that neither he nor his organization had anything to do with
Malcolm X's assassination.