The Developing Philosophy of Malcolm X
This research examines the development of a philosophy of life by Malcolm X. The research will set forth the context in which Malcolm's philosophical evolution took place, and then discuss the manner in which his intellectual discipline emerged, the role of religion in shaping the structure of his life's work, and the core features of his views of social justice.
To appreciate the nature of Malcolm X's emergence as a leader in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, it is necessary to be aware of the racially stratified social structure that prevailed in the US in the 1920s. By the time Malcolm Little was born in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, the seventh of eight children, Malcolm's father, the Rev. Earl Little, was known for preaching a "back to Africa" doctrine that originated with the Jamaican/American black separatist Marcus Garvey. The family moved around a great deal for the first six years of Malcolm's life, finally settling in Lansing, Michigan, in 1931.
Shortly after, Earl Little was murdered by a white hate group known as the Black Legion. This forced the surviving Littles onto welfare, or "relief," as it was then called. Things spiraled into "some kind of psychological deterioration" (Malcolm and Haley 14): Malcolm's mother was eventually committed to a mental institution, and the children were sent to separate foster homes.
Malcolm was placed with a white family in Mason, Michigan. In his Autobiography, Malcolm refers to emotional scars of the family breakup, the experience of being continually dissuaded from leadership or academic studies on racial grounds (the white principal suggested he take up carpentry), the white foster parents' petitioning to have him removed from their home, and his dropping out of the eighth grade. He moved from Michigan to Boston to live with a half sister and fell into street life there--hustling drugs, numbers, women, and other people's property. When he...