Malcolm’s family was a victim of racism before he was even born. His father, ReverendEarl Little, had experienced the death of three of his brothers by white men and one bylynching. This caused Rev. Little to become a preacher of Marcus Garvey’s pro-black andBack-to-Africa beliefs. Because of these beliefs, Malcolm’s family was often a target of racistacts. Due to an incident by the Ku Klux Klan while Malcolm’s mother was still pregnant withhim they moved from Omaha to Milwaukee. There their were still many hate crimes. They a couple more times and then to Lansing, Michigan. Malcolm experienced frictionbetween his parents and child abuse of his older siblings by his mother, Louise. One night inSeptember 1931 (Malcolm was six years old), after a fight caused Rev. Little to take a walk, Malcolm and his family were awakened by the terrible news of their father’s death by beating. A large insurance policy which Rev. Little had signed, refused to pay. With only menial jobs tosupport the nine person family, Louise began receiving welfare checks. With this came thedeterioration of her pride and eventually psychological downfall. Soon after, the family fellinto poverty and could not feed itself. Louise was committed to a mental institution inKalamazoo, Michigan and the younger children were placed in foster homes. Malcolm Hadalready been removed from his mother’s custody and was in foster care for juveniledelinquency. The welfare agency managed to put Malcolm in the home of a nearby family. Things were fine for a while but he was expelled from school for disruptive behavior. He thenmoved to a detention home where he showed how he was able to be reformed. Shortly after,he was accepted into the local school, nearly all white. In this school he interacted well withthe white students and got high marks. Then in eighth grade a teacher asked him if he hadany thoughts on a future career. The ...
