Hitchhiker's Guide to Religion
Black Church

Malcolm X

The Sword of the Era

Black Church Black self-determination, prophetic anger, conversion narratives, the international Black liberation frame
Attribute Value
Combat
ATK 95
DEF 80
SPR 94
SPD 88
INT 96
Rank Minister, Nation of Islam (1952-1964) / Sunni Muslim (1964-1965) / Founder, Organization of Afro-American Unity
Domain Black self-determination, prophetic anger, conversion narratives, the international Black liberation frame
Alignment Holy / Prophetic (Islamic, not Christian)
Weakness Father (Earl Little, a Garveyite Baptist preacher) murdered by white supremacists when Malcolm was six. Spent six years in prison. Broke with Elijah Muhammad in 1964 after discovering the Nation of Islam leader's moral hypocrisies. Assassinated by NOI gunmen on February 21, 1965, while preaching at the Audubon Ballroom
Key Act Born Malcolm Little, 1925. Converted to the Nation of Islam in prison, 1948. Rose to become the NOI's most charismatic spokesman through the 1950s and early 1960s. Pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj), 1964 -- saw multiracial Islam, broke with NOI's separatist racial theology, took the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. Founded the OAAU. Assassinated at thirty-nine
Source *The Autobiography of Malcolm X* (with Alex Haley, 1965); Manning Marable, *Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention* (2011)

“We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.” — Malcolm X, OAAU founding rally, 1964

Malcolm X was a Muslim, not a member of the Black Church. He is included here because he is theologically and historically inseparable from the Black religious response to white supremacy in the Civil Rights era, and because his confrontation with King — and later, his partial reconciliation with King’s project after Mecca — shaped the Black religious imagination as deeply as either man’s individual ministry. His full treatment lives in Islamic.md and the Nation of Islam tradition.


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Combat Radar

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