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While in prison, Malcolm read widely and developed an interest in the Nation of Islam, a black nationalist religious movement whose members were known as. Malcolm studied the teachings of the leader of the Black Muslims, Elijah Muhammad, who advocated an independent black state. The Nation of Islam was based on a theology adapted from several models: traditional Islamic teachings, Marcus Garveys principles of black nationalism, and economic self-help programs that addressed the needs of African Americans living in urban ghettos. Unlike traditional Islam, which rejects all forms of racism, the Nation of Islam declared that whites were the devil by nature, and that God was black.
However, the Black Muslims predicted that in the near future a great war would take place in which whites would be destroyed and black people would rule the world through the benevolence of Allah, their creator. To prepare for this new order, the Nation of Islam stressed personal self-restraint, opposed the use of drugs and alcohol, and organized economic self-help enterprises that eventually included farms, food stores, restaurants, and small businesses. The Black Muslims recruited heavily among the poorest of urban blacks and in prisons, where Malcolm Little was converted to the faith When Malcolm was released from prison in 1952, he went to Detroit, Michigan, and joined the Nation of Islam temple in that city. He dropped his last name? considered a slave name by Black Muslims? and became Malcolm X.
In 1958 he married Betty Sanders, later known as Betty Shabazz, and they eventually had six daughters. Malcolm X rose rapidly in the Nation of Islam organization as a minister and recruiter of new members. Elijah Muhammed appointed him as the chief minister of Harlem's main temple in June 1954. Malcolm X also helped establish the movements main information and propaganda newspaper, Muhammad Speaks.
Within five years, Malcolm X had become a more prominent spokesperson for the Nation of Islam than Elijah Muhammad. During the decade between 1955 and 1965, while most black leaders worked in the to integrate blacks into mainstream American life, Malcolm X preached the opposite. He maintained that Western culture, and the Judeo-Christian religious traditions on which it is based, was inherently racist. Constantly attacking mainstream civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. , Malcolm X declared that nonviolence was the philosophy of the fool. In response to Kings famous I Have a Dream speech, Malcolm X quipped, While King was having a dream, the rest of us Negroes are having a nightmare. Malcolm X believed that black people must develop their own society and ethical values, including the self-help, community-based enterprises that the Black Muslims supported.
He also thought that African Americans should reject integration or cooperation with whites. His fiery style and natural speaking ability made Malcolm X a popular public speaker, but his growing reputation caused tension with Elijah Muhammad and other Black Muslim leaders. While Muhammad strenuously tried to maintain the Nation of Islam as a religious self-help movement, Malcolm was increasingly moving towards a political response to racism. He called for a black revolution, which he declared would be bloody and would renounce any sort of compromise with whites. In this way Malcolm X rejected the conservative values of the Nation of Islam in favor of a more radical, revolutionary approach to social change. Malcolm X also had come to reject some of the tenets of the Nation of Islam, including Elijah Muhammad's theory that the white race was created by a dissident mad scientist named Yakub.
In 1963 Elijah Muhammad silenced Malcolm X for his statement that the assassination of U. S. president John F. Kennedy had represented the chickens coming home to roost? a repayment for Americas continuing failure to end racial cruelty and hatred. This comment, often taken out of context, was not meant to be disrespectful to the late president, although in fact, Malcolm X had little respect or admiration for any white leaders.
Rather, he was trying to make the point that the violent treatment of blacks had now come back to the roost with violence against a white president. However, the insensitive nature of the statement reflected poorly on the Black Muslims and led Muhammad to silence Malcolm X. In essence, Muhammad told his most prominent follower that he could not speak in public and remain within the Black Muslim organization. Rather than accept this silencing, Malcolm X publicly broke with the Nation of Islam on March 8, 1964, and formed his own movement, the Muslim Mosque, Inc. Even before the split, however, Malcolm X had already begun to part ways with the Black Muslims because he felt stifled by the authoritarian organization of the Nation of Islam. He was ready to be his own leader, rather than to follow the dictates of Muhammad or anyone else The Autobiography of Malcolm X
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