Malcolm X's Background

• • Malcolm Little- born- struggling Midwestern family- 1925
  • Bright boy- ambition to be a lawyer- teacher told him it was unrealistic for him to be one
  • Left school at 14
  • Moved from Nebraska to Boston
  • Like many black American males- he worked as a shoeshine boy & railroad porter
  • More profitable career- as a drug dealer, burglar & pimp resulted in his incarceration in 1946
  • While in jail- joined the Nation of Islam- black American religion that became very popular in the ghettos