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<\/a>Grave Plaque for Malcolm & Betty Shabazz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
I think of Malcolm X and I think of America, I think of spiritual pilgrimages, and I think of what might save us.<\/p>\n
Malcolm Little was born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 19th, 1925. He was the fourth of seven children. His father was a Baptist preacher and an outspoken advocate of Black self-reliance. From Omaha the family moved first to Milwaukee and then to Lansing.<\/p>\n
His father was killed when he was six years old. The family believed his death, while ruled an accident, was murder for his outspoken calls for social justice. And all fell apart from there. Malcolm\u2019s mother was committed to a mental institution when he was thirteen. And for Malcolm, after bouncing from foster home to foster home, he fell onto the streets and into crime.<\/p>\n
At the age of twenty, while serving a term in prison Malcolm discovered the Nation of Islam<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Nation was a controversial American religious movement with little connection to historic Islam. But it offered him sobriety and a purpose. And he embraced it like a life raft in a raging sea.<\/p>\n There he also received that name.\u00a0Malcolm X.<\/p>\n Malcolm quickly rose to leadership. He also studied his new faith and was increasingly aware of how far the Nation\u2019s teachings were from authentic Islam. He delved deeply into the religion that the Nation had lifted its name from, and eventually converted into that complex and ancient tradition.<\/p>\n Within his conversion we find the beauty to be found in the Muslim faith. For him it was a major step in his deepening spirituality, now as Hajj-Malik El Shabazz.<\/p>\n I think about his relationship first with the Nation and later with normative Islam.<\/p>\n For African Americans, particularly black Americans in the mid nineteen sixties, the complicity of the Christian churches not only with slavery, but with its half life continuing at that point for just shy of a century, had soured many hearts with that tradition.<\/p>\n With Islam, however, here was a religion that, while it has its own many, many shortcomings, at least preached racial unity from its inception. A critical thing for an American black man. And this proved something powerful. It opened a world of possibilities both for him as a person, and, truthfully, for all of us. While still holding everyone to a sharp accountability, Malcolm X\u2019s Islam was a path toward reconciliation of both the spirit and the world.<\/p>\n Sometime in 1963 he began collaborating on a memoir with Alex Haley.\u00a0And then it all ended. On the 21st of February in 1965, he was assassinated. Three men were convicted of the murder. Two of the men were exonerated<\/a> of the murder two years ago. The tragedy continues to play out.<\/p>\n Malcolm left behind a wife and six young daughters. He was 39 years old.<\/p>\n