Malcolm X was one of the most powerful and provocative voices of the African American struggle in the twentieth century, an electrifying orator whose advocacy of Black pride and self-determination challenged the mainstream civil rights movement. Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, he endured a traumatic childhood — his father died violently and his family was broken up — and drifted into crime, ending up in prison as a young man.
In prison he underwent a transformation, converting to the Nation of Islam, a Black separatist religious movement, and emerging as its most charismatic spokesman. Taking the name Malcolm X to reject his "slave name," he preached Black self-reliance, dignity, and self-defense, and sharply criticized the nonviolent, integrationist approach of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., insisting that freedom be won "by any means necessary."
His fiery rhetoric made him a national figure, admired by many young Black Americans and feared by others. In the early 1960s, however, he grew disillusioned with the Nation of Islam and its leader, Elijah Muhammad, and broke with the movement.
A pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 deepened his transformation; encountering Muslims of all races, he moderated his views on racial separatism and began to envision a broader human-rights struggle. This evolution was cut short in February 1965, when he was assassinated while giving a speech in New York. His posthumously published autobiography made him an enduring symbol of Black empowerment.