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A man of many names -

Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925. He eventually abandoned what he called his "slave name" and adopted the X instead. But he died under a different name still, el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, a name he received after he'd experienced a second conversion to Sunni Islam.

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His upbringing -

He was born in Nebraska and moved to the Midwest with his family at a young age where he suffered the loss of his father (suspected to have been murdered by white supremacists) and the subsequent institutionalization of his mother. He spent his childhood in foster homes with his siblings until he moved to Boston, then Harlem, and found various kinds of work, most notably as a drug dealer, hustler, gambler, and burglar. He was eventually arrested in 1946 and jailed for seven years.

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How he got into religion -

In Spike Lee's 1992 film, based on 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X,' written with Alex Haley and published in 1965, the zoot-suited Malcolm Little goes to jail where he meets a character called Baines, who convinces him to turn to the Nation of Islam. But in real life, Malcolm's prison buddy was John Elton "Bimbi" Bembry, who introduced him to literature but not religion, The Guardian reports. Baines was merely a composite character.

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How he got into religion -

In reality, it was Malcolm's family who suggested he join the Nation of Islam, notably his siblings, who wrote to him in prison and encouraged him to convert to the Muslim faith. Pictured speaking is his brother Wilfred.

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His siblings -

The 1992 film and other portrayals of Malcolm X regularly leave out his siblings, which is a big decision since in reality they were of major importance to the path Malcolm took. Pictured is his half sister Ella Collins, who was also a civil rights activist. She practically raised Malcolm, and gave him money for his pilgrimage to Mecca.

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Becoming a minister -

By the time Malcolm was released from prison he was a devout Muslim. Soon after meeting with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad (pictured center), who was also a black separatist, Malcolm agreed to work for the NOI and was soon appointed as a minister and national spokesperson, which he would be devoutly for 12 years.

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His strong beliefs about race -

Malcolm X has often been accused of being racist against white people, advocating for a separate black state and the right to self-defense against "white devils," and his on-screen portrayals do not shy away from his controversial messaging, which has been particularly contrasted with Martin Luther King Jr.'s advocacy for peaceful protest.  But while the mythology frames them as opposites, and they did indeed criticize each other, they were both fundamentally radical figures central to the fight for racial justice.

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The importance of Islam to him is sometimes downplayed -

While his strong beliefs about race are often at the forefront, Malcolm's work for the Nation of Islam was an equally major focus for him, if not more, since he eventually believed Islam was the key to eradicating the race problem. He's largely credited with the increase in the NOI membership from 500 in 1952 to 30,000 in 1963, according to Wesleyan University.

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Family drama -

After becoming a minister in the Nation of Islam, as is told in the portrayals, Malcolm indeed realized the leaders of the Nation were corrupt and that Elijah Muhammad was guilty of sexual misconduct. So he turned his back on the NOI to form his own group. But the film leaves out the family drama of the Nation turning on him, as Malcolm's brothers remained active within the Nation. Pictured on the left is his brother Philbert X.

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His relationship with his wife -

The film shows a scene in which Malcolm argues with his wife, Betty Shabazz (played by Angela Bassett), who criticizes his devotion to the NOI and Elijah Muhammad.  Their argument gets quite heated and they're shouting at each other, leading audiences to believe that Betty wasn't fully on board.

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His relationship with his wife -

Malcolm's real wife, however, claimed that was not at all true, Screen Rant reports. Betty said that she was always supportive of him, and after his death she never remarried and went on to raise their six children on her own and to become a college professor.

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His supposed encouragement of violence -

Betty Shabazz also said her husband's famous line, “freedom by whatever means necessary,” was interpreted by others as violence but wasn't actually what he'd meant, The New York Times reported. “It's a comprehensive statement that says use more than one option. It could be political, social, educational, or it could be self-defense,” she said, adding that people superimposed their own violent thinking onto him.

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The queer question -

A film adaptation of 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X' was first written in 1967 by James Baldwin, but it was criticized for reflecting Baldwin's own sexuality and politics, as he was an openly gay man who also believed in integration over separatism, The Guardian reports.

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The queer question -

However, since Baldwin's death in 1987, more than one biography has alleged that Malcolm indeed had homosexual encounters in the early 1940s. In 2011, his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz denied the allegations specifically made in 'Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,' written by prominent African-American scholar Manning Marable who died just days before its release. In a tense interview with NPR, she said that her father wouldn't have hidden any homosexual relationships if he did have them because of how humanist he was.

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The queer question -

By the time the autobiography was adapted into Spike Lee's 1992 film, however, Lee had cut all of Baldwin's queer references. So the film is faithful to Malcolm's own account, but there are naturally still suspicions of how honest the autobiography was in the first place.

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His pilgrimage to Mecca -

On Malcolm's famed pilgrimage to Mecca, he indeed had a transformative experience praying alongside people of all races, which strengthened his beliefs about the importance of Islam. But one thing that is left out from the retelling is that Malcolm was reportedly mistaken everywhere in Saudi Arabia for his friend and fellow Muslim, boxer Muhammad Ali. Ali is in fact totally absent from the 1992 film despite the two being friends.

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A vital shift -

One thing the Smithsonian's 'Lost Tapes' highlights is how Malcolm's vision evolved after his pilgrimage, where he got to share his beliefs with people of all different cultures. He returned to the US with a focus on human rights, freedom, and community not only for African Americans but for people of all races and ethnicities. This shift in his thinking was a huge reason why the civil rights movement had a human rights agenda, as his daughter Ilyasah Al Shabazz told the Smithsonian.

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The assassination -

On February 21, 1965, a year after leaving the NOI, Malcolm was about to deliver a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York about the new group he was starting, the Organization of Afro-American Unity. But he was soon attacked by three gunmen who rushed the stage, firing at him in front of his pregnant wife and three of his daughters, and killing him at age 39.

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The assassination -

Spike Lee's film recreates the scene accurately according to FBI reports and witness accounts of the time. Three Black Muslim men—Talmadge Hayer (now Mujahid Abdul Halim), Norman 3X Butler (Muhammad A. Aziz), and Thomas 15X Johnson (Khalil Islam)—were all convicted of the murder, but since then much controversy has arisen over who really killed Malcolm X, as the original accounts were proven extremely shaky.

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The arrests -

Hayer (Halim) was apprehended in the ballroom after being shot in the thigh. Butler (Aziz, who is also pictured here) was arrested five days later. He would, many years later, have his alibi proven that he was not involved in the shooting but was actually at home at the time.

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The arrests -

Johnson (now Islam) was arrested another five days after Hayer, and within a week the three men, all members of the Nation of Islam, had been charged with murder.

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Suspicions -

The FBI, which was tracking Malcolm at the time, has been viewed with suspicion by some biographers. Others have accused Louis Farrakhan, the current leader of the Nation of Islam, of ordering the murder since two months prior he'd written of Malcolm that "such a man is worthy of death." Farrakhan is notably absent from the films.

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There might be a reason why Farrakhan is absent -

Spike Lee allegedly received death threats from Farrakhan, prompting him to remove all mentions of the religious leader from his film. In his place, the fictional composite character of Brother Baines takes over once again.

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Clear doubts -

Doubt about the assassination only grew stronger as both Butler (Aziz) and Johnson (Islam) maintained their innocence, and as Hayer (Halim, pictured) confessed to the murder at trial while also confirming that the other two men were innocent. Hayer even claimed four others were involved instead.

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Neglected evidence -

After years of neglect and misconduct from law enforcement, a pile of FBI documents came to light too late. It included information that implicated other suspects and pointed away from Aziz and Islam. According to The New York Times, prosecutors' notes said that there were actually undercover officers in the ballroom at the time of the shooting that went unreported, and Police Department files revealed that a reporter for The New York Daily News had received a call the morning of the shooting plainly informing them that Malcolm X would be murdered.

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It was well known that Malcolm was being targeted -

Attempts were made on Malcolm's life before his assassination, along with threats against him and his family. Just one week before his murder, his family home was firebombed, and while everyone made it out alive, no one was ever charged with the crime.

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Exonerating two men much too late -

In November 2021, Aziz (pictured) and Islam (who passed away in 2009)—who were convicted in 1966 of killing Malcolm X and who each spent more than 20 years in prison—were exonerated, finally rewriting the history of one of the most notorious assassinations of the civil rights era, The New York Times reports.

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Thanks to Hollywood, in part -

The reopening of Aziz and Islam's case was spurred on by the explosive six-part Netflix documentary 'Who Killed Malcolm X?' (2020), which renewed interest in the case. Neither the review nor the documentary identify who really killed Malcolm X, though many believe a man named William Bradley was involved, as he was an enforcer for a Nation of Islam mosque in Newark who Halim even named as one of the assassins and who matched the witness descriptions.

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The tragic irony -

While Malcolm's ideas may have felt provocative, and still might to many, the fact remains that two of the people convicted of killing him—black Muslim men arrested on shaky evidence—were themselves victims of the discrimination and injustice that Malcolm denounced, and only in 2021 were they released from public memory for a crime they didn't commit.

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Which Malcolm is the most real? -

What all the portrayals get right, even when they appear to get it wrong, is that there were so many transformations that Malcolm went through over his short life, and while some versions may be favored over others according to personal agendas or political beliefs, it's of the utmost importance that we remember he was all of them.

Sources: (The New York Times) (The Guardian) (Smithsonian Magazine) (Carnegie Council) (NPR) (Screen Rant) (Wesleyan University)

See also: Defining moments in black history

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