Malcolm X

Black Educators: Who was Malcolm X

Malcolm X

Black educators: Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska in 1925, Malcolm X founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity that identified racism as the enemy of justice but not the white race. Malcolm X was assassinated on 21 February, 1965 by a Black Muslim at a rally for Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York’s Audubon Ballroom (Malcolm et al., 2013). Following his departure from the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X took a new position in politics and through this, he begun to advocate for women in leadership in the Black Nationalist movement (Ariel, 2016). He embraced black separatism, which played an important role in the debate associated with how to achieve equality and freedom for the Black American (Ćurčić, 2012). Further, Ćurčić (2012) shows that by believing the blacks were God’s chosen people, Malcolm’s embrace of black educators separatism laid the foundation for the Black educators Power movement associated with the 1960s. Two examples provided on the influence Malcolm X had were first, he opined that by studying Islam, whites would turn away from their racism and second, he was never afraid to say what was on his mind, like when he stated Kennedy’s assassination was ‘a case of chickens coming home to roost’ (Malcolm et al., 2013).