Malcom X Said it Best.........

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   "Was BORN" 
Malcolm was born in Omaha, Nebraska to Earl Little and Louise Little (n�e Norton). His father, an outspoken Baptist lay preacher and supporter of Marcus Garvey, was believed to have been killed by the Black Legion, a white supremacist group in Lansing, Michigan in 1931. Malcolm and his siblings had been split up and sent to different foster homes when Louise Little was declared legally insane. In 1939, she was formally committed to the State Mental Hospital at Kalamazoo, Michigan, and remained there until Malcolm and his brothers and sisters got her released twenty-six years later.
Malcolm graduated from junior high school at the top of his class, but dropped out when his favorite teacher crushed his dream to be a lawyer by saying that it was "no realistic goal for a nigger"^[1]. After enduring a series of foster homes, Malcolm was first sent to a detention center and then later moved to Boston to live with his older half-sister, Ella Little Collins.
He found work as a shoeshiner at a Lindy Hop nightclub; in his autobiography, he says that he once shined the shoes of Duke Ellington and other notable black musicians. After some time, he moved to New York City, where, in Harlem, he became involved in drug dealing, gambling, pimping, racketeering, robbery, and, according to some biographers, working as a rentboy^[2] (referred to collectively by Malcolm as "hustling"). According to his biographer Bruce Perry, Malcolm X was involved in sexual relationships with both men and women at his early 20's, while Spike Lee called the book "blatant character assassination"^[3]. When he was examined for the World War II draft, military physicians found him to be insane^[4], barring him from military service; he claimed to have feigned insanity to avoid being drafted.
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Prison
Malcolm became a small time hustler and was known on the street as "Detroit Red", due to his naturally red hair. He was arrested in Boston on January 12, 1946 at the age of 20 and sentenced to eight to ten years imprisonment on charges of breaking and entering, carrying firearms, and larceny. He later earned the nickname Satan in the Charlestown State Prison for his constant cursing, especially of God and the Bible. While in jail in 1948, he received letters from his brother Reginald, asking him to join the Nation of Islam (NOI). The NOI defined itself as a militant Islamic sect that preached that most African slaves were Muslims before they were captured and sent to the Americas. They argued that Blacks should "reconvert" to Islam to reclaim the heritage that was stolen from them. The NOI considered itself to be a black nationalist group which supported the idea of a separate Black nation within the United States. The NOI also considers non-Blacks as subhuman, in particular Jews and Anglo-Saxons whose existence is owed to an experiment by a black scientist named Yakub gone wrong.
Malcolm diligently studied the teachings of the Nation of Islam's leader Elijah Muhammad. His sister Ella helped to transfer him to the lower-security prison colony in Norfolk, Massachusetts where he became an avid reader and found justification for the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam in history and philosophy. He participated in the colony's weekly debates, and copied an entire dictionary from the colony's library to expand his knowledge and to improve his handwriting. His first contact with Elijah Muhammad was in prison, where he corresponded with Muhammad by mail. As he progressed in his self-education, he began to write to the leader daily. After his release on parole on August 7, 1952, he bought a suitcase, eyeglasses, and a watch, later saying that these were the items he used most in his later life.

Edited by BIGGMike