WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, our mission 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:05.660 is to unpack the life of one of the most explosive 00:00:05.660 --> 00:00:08.539 and genuinely transformative figures of the 20th 00:00:08.539 --> 00:00:11.820 century, Malcolm X. We're not just looking at 00:00:11.820 --> 00:00:14.599 a biography here, but at an identity mosaic, 00:00:14.779 --> 00:00:17.879 a life that changed names, religions, and philosophies 00:00:17.879 --> 00:00:21.620 at a speed that it's hard to find parallel. It's 00:00:21.620 --> 00:00:22.940 an incredible challenge. I mean, you're talking 00:00:22.940 --> 00:00:26.879 about a life packed into just 39 years, a life 00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:29.820 that went from you know, utter poverty and crime 00:00:29.820 --> 00:00:32.899 to becoming a revolutionary and then finally 00:00:32.899 --> 00:00:35.679 a global human rights advocate. The real story 00:00:35.679 --> 00:00:37.539 here is the sheer velocity of his evolution. 00:00:37.679 --> 00:00:40.039 The names themselves, they really tell the whole 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:41.899 story, don't they? Oh, absolutely. You start 00:00:41.899 --> 00:00:43.560 with Malcolm Little, that's just his given name. 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:45.880 Right. But then he becomes Malcolm X. Yeah. And 00:00:45.880 --> 00:00:49.640 that's a powerful symbolic rejection of the... 00:00:50.079 --> 00:00:51.939 You know, the slave master's name. And it doesn't 00:00:51.939 --> 00:00:54.479 even stop there. Not at all. After his pilgrimage, 00:00:54.679 --> 00:00:57.899 his Hajj, he becomes El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. 00:00:58.140 --> 00:01:00.520 It's a total spiritual and political rebirth. 00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:03.420 But the sources point to one name that he treasured, 00:01:03.420 --> 00:01:05.719 one that maybe captures his final vision best. 00:01:06.260 --> 00:01:09.299 Omowale. Omowale. It's Yoruba, given to him by 00:01:09.299 --> 00:01:12.040 Nigerian students. And it means the son who has 00:01:12.040 --> 00:01:15.060 come home. And that really speaks to his final 00:01:15.060 --> 00:01:18.400 global Pan -African vision. It's amazing. And 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:20.519 for all that complexity, he was, of course, a 00:01:20.519 --> 00:01:23.579 giant of the civil rights era. For 12 years, 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:27.620 from 1952 to 1964, he was the voice of the Nation 00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:29.760 of Olives. The undeniable voice. I mean, he was 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:32.000 the public face of the NOI. You could argue he 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:34.099 built it into what it became. He absolutely did. 00:01:34.239 --> 00:01:36.379 And then when he leaves, he doesn't slow down 00:01:36.379 --> 00:01:39.120 for a second. He immediately creates this dual 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:41.299 structure for his work. Yeah, that's right. He 00:01:41.299 --> 00:01:44.519 founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc., the MMI. for 00:01:44.519 --> 00:01:46.760 his religious followers under Orthodox Sunni 00:01:46.760 --> 00:01:49.439 Islam. And then for the political side, he creates 00:01:49.439 --> 00:01:51.700 the Organization of Afro -American Unity, the 00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:54.959 OAAU. So it's this incredibly strategic move. 00:01:55.099 --> 00:01:57.719 It allows him to shift from what had become a 00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:00.799 pretty rigid religious movement into a much broader 00:02:00.799 --> 00:02:04.620 secular global political strategy just overnight. 00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:06.840 But to really understand where that fire, that 00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:09.419 drive came from, you can't start in Harlem or 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:11.659 in prison. You have to go back, back to his childhood 00:02:11.659 --> 00:02:14.289 in the Midwest. Right. Back to Omaha, Nebraska. 00:02:14.969 --> 00:02:19.530 Born May 19, 1925, he was the fourth of seven 00:02:19.530 --> 00:02:22.509 children to Earl and Louise Little, and this 00:02:22.509 --> 00:02:25.750 family from day one was political. Deeply political. 00:02:25.990 --> 00:02:28.770 I mean, his parents, Earl and Louise, were devoted 00:02:28.770 --> 00:02:31.289 followers of Marcus Garvey. And Earl wasn't just 00:02:31.289 --> 00:02:33.590 some casual supporter, was he? No, not at all. 00:02:33.650 --> 00:02:35.490 He was a local leader for the Universal Negro 00:02:35.490 --> 00:02:38.669 Improvement Association, the UNIA, and his mother, 00:02:38.810 --> 00:02:41.849 Louise, was just as involved. She was a secretary 00:02:41.849 --> 00:02:44.530 and a branch reporter for the UNIA's newspaper, 00:02:44.830 --> 00:02:47.330 The Negro World. So this wasn't just a casual 00:02:47.330 --> 00:02:49.430 political interest. This was the family's core 00:02:49.430 --> 00:02:52.750 belief system. It was their ethos. Garveyism 00:02:52.750 --> 00:02:55.030 was baked into Malcolm's childhood. The ideas 00:02:55.030 --> 00:02:57.870 of self -reliance, of black pride, of economic 00:02:57.870 --> 00:02:59.870 independence without needing any kind of white 00:02:59.870 --> 00:03:02.169 validation. That was the bedrock of his youth. 00:03:02.310 --> 00:03:04.889 But holding those beliefs in the 1920s came at 00:03:04.889 --> 00:03:07.210 an immediate and very high price. A terrible 00:03:07.210 --> 00:03:09.370 price. The family was constantly on the run from 00:03:09.370 --> 00:03:11.270 white violence. They had to leave Omaha, then 00:03:11.270 --> 00:03:13.289 Milwaukee, then they settled in Lansing, Michigan, 00:03:13.509 --> 00:03:15.550 all because of direct threats from the Ku Klux 00:03:15.550 --> 00:03:18.469 Klan. And in Lansing, the harassment just continued. 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:21.099 It got worse. They were targeted by the Black 00:03:21.099 --> 00:03:23.520 Legion, another one of these vicious white racist 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:26.840 groups. And the threats became reality in 1929 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:29.060 when their family home was burned to the ground. 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:31.639 Earl accused the Legion of setting the fire. 00:03:32.060 --> 00:03:34.620 So for young Malcolm, racism wasn't an abstract 00:03:34.620 --> 00:03:38.039 idea. It was literal warfare against his family. 00:03:38.219 --> 00:03:40.379 And the defining trauma of his childhood, of 00:03:40.379 --> 00:03:43.120 course, was his father's death. Earl died when 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:45.539 Malcolm was just six years old. And the official 00:03:45.539 --> 00:03:48.460 story was that it was a streetcar accident. Officially, 00:03:48.460 --> 00:03:50.900 yes. But you have to understand, Louise Little 00:03:50.900 --> 00:03:53.500 and the entire black community there were convinced 00:03:53.500 --> 00:03:56.060 that he was murdered by white racists. And that 00:03:56.060 --> 00:03:58.300 gap, you know, between the official story and 00:03:58.300 --> 00:04:00.879 the community's lived truth, that's a critical 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:03.659 moment for him. It cemented a lifelong distrust 00:04:03.659 --> 00:04:06.139 of the system, didn't it? It had to. Malcolm 00:04:06.139 --> 00:04:08.319 himself went back and forth on it his whole life, 00:04:08.419 --> 00:04:10.319 sometimes accepting the accident, sometimes claiming 00:04:10.319 --> 00:04:12.879 it was murder. But that fundamental doubt, that 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:14.960 deep suspicion of the white world's institutions, 00:04:15.379 --> 00:04:17.800 that never left him. And the system just kept 00:04:17.800 --> 00:04:20.519 failing them. After Earl's death, the family's 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:23.839 financial support just sip evaporated. It was 00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:26.660 devastating. Louise got a very small life insurance 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:28.920 payout, but the larger policy refused to pay. 00:04:29.220 --> 00:04:31.959 They claimed his death was a suicide, not an 00:04:31.959 --> 00:04:34.639 accident or murder. So the system not only fails 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:37.579 to deliver justice, but it uses its own ruling 00:04:37.579 --> 00:04:40.540 to financially ruin the survivors. Precisely. 00:04:40.759 --> 00:04:42.740 Think about the message that sends to a child. 00:04:43.459 --> 00:04:46.699 Louise tried everything. Farming, renting out 00:04:46.699 --> 00:04:48.500 parts of the garden, her sons were out hunting 00:04:48.500 --> 00:04:51.459 for food. But the weight of the violence, the 00:04:51.459 --> 00:04:54.639 poverty, the constant instability, it was just 00:04:54.639 --> 00:04:56.540 too much. And it led to her nervous breakdown 00:04:56.540 --> 00:04:59.240 in 1938. She was committed to a state hospital. 00:04:59.500 --> 00:05:01.399 And the children were all separated, sent to 00:05:01.399 --> 00:05:03.839 different foster homes. But here's a detail that 00:05:03.839 --> 00:05:06.920 really speaks to the man he would become. He 00:05:06.920 --> 00:05:08.660 and his siblings never gave up on her. It took 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:11.180 them 24 years. but they eventually secured her 00:05:11.180 --> 00:05:13.480 release. It's just, you can't understand the 00:05:13.480 --> 00:05:15.860 Malcolm X of the 1960s without understanding 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:18.040 that his family was systematically destroyed 00:05:18.040 --> 00:05:20.720 piece by piece long before he ever committed 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:23.620 a crime. Exactly. And that feeling of being totally 00:05:23.620 --> 00:05:25.980 failed by the system, that set the stage for 00:05:25.980 --> 00:05:28.680 this pivotal moment in 1941 that pushed him away 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:30.980 from education for good. This wasn't just a kid 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:33.490 dropping out of school. No. This was a formative 00:05:33.490 --> 00:05:36.209 act of racial disillusionment. He was doing really 00:05:36.209 --> 00:05:38.149 well in junior high. He was one of the top students. 00:05:38.410 --> 00:05:42.329 He told a white teacher he trusted, Mr. Ostrowski, 00:05:42.550 --> 00:05:45.060 that he wanted to be a lawyer. And the teacher's 00:05:45.060 --> 00:05:47.300 response? The teacher told him that being a lawyer 00:05:47.300 --> 00:05:50.699 was no realistic goal for a nigger. Wow. And 00:05:50.699 --> 00:05:53.120 that one comment just shattered his ambition. 00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:55.740 It confirmed everything he had already experienced. 00:05:56.040 --> 00:05:58.399 That no matter how smart you are, no matter how 00:05:58.399 --> 00:06:01.199 hard you work, the white world offered no place 00:06:01.199 --> 00:06:04.939 for a career -oriented black man. So he left 00:06:04.939 --> 00:06:08.180 school. He was done. He heads for the city, first 00:06:08.180 --> 00:06:10.439 to Roxbury in Boston to live with his half -sister 00:06:10.439 --> 00:06:14.220 Ella, and then in 1943 to Harlem. He basically 00:06:14.220 --> 00:06:16.180 decides that if the system won't let him succeed 00:06:16.180 --> 00:06:18.420 legally, he'll do it illegally. And that's where 00:06:18.420 --> 00:06:21.180 the identity of Detroit Red is born. Right. He 00:06:21.180 --> 00:06:23.779 had jobs. Sure, he worked on the railroad. But 00:06:23.779 --> 00:06:26.279 his real energy, his real ambition went into 00:06:26.279 --> 00:06:28.720 the hustle. We're talking drug dealing, gambling, 00:06:28.939 --> 00:06:31.579 racketeering, robbery, pimping. Get the name 00:06:31.579 --> 00:06:33.720 Detroit Red because of his reddish hair. And 00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:36.480 it's a fascinating side note that one of his 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:38.959 close friends in that world was another red. 00:06:39.339 --> 00:06:41.579 Yeah, John L. Roy Sanford, who they call Chicago 00:06:41.579 --> 00:06:44.379 Red. He would later become, of all people, the 00:06:44.379 --> 00:06:47.220 legendary comedian Red Fox. It just paints a 00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:49.470 picture of that underground world. We also see 00:06:49.470 --> 00:06:52.829 his calculated defiance during this time with 00:06:52.829 --> 00:06:55.449 how he handled the World War II draft. Oh, that 00:06:55.449 --> 00:06:57.790 was pure performance art. Yeah. He wanted out 00:06:57.790 --> 00:07:00.350 of the military, but he also wanted to express 00:07:00.350 --> 00:07:02.970 his absolute contempt for the government. So 00:07:02.970 --> 00:07:05.189 when he went for his interview, he acted mentally 00:07:05.189 --> 00:07:07.329 unstable. He said outrageous things. He told 00:07:07.329 --> 00:07:09.290 him he wanted to go south and organize black 00:07:09.290 --> 00:07:11.730 soldiers. He did. He said, I want to be sent 00:07:11.730 --> 00:07:14.889 down south, organize them nigger soldiers, steal 00:07:14.889 --> 00:07:18.519 us some guns, and kill us some crackers. He was 00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:20.920 immediately declared mentally unfit for service. 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:24.100 It was a brilliant strategic move to defy the 00:07:24.100 --> 00:07:26.600 system. But that life couldn't last. He went 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:29.160 back to Boston, got involved in a string of burglaries, 00:07:29.160 --> 00:07:32.399 and in 1946, he was arrested. He got a harsh 00:07:32.399 --> 00:07:35.180 sentence, eight to ten years in prison. And that 00:07:35.180 --> 00:07:38.920 arrest is the hard stop. It's the end of Detroit 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:41.779 Red, and it's the beginning of Malcolm X's intellectual 00:07:41.779 --> 00:07:44.689 awakening. But before we get to that... We do 00:07:44.689 --> 00:07:46.930 have to touch on a really contentious historical 00:07:46.930 --> 00:07:50.310 claim from this period. The allegations of bisexuality. 00:07:50.389 --> 00:07:52.790 Right. This comes mainly from the work of historian 00:07:52.790 --> 00:07:56.050 Manning Marable. It adds this layer of complexity 00:07:56.050 --> 00:07:58.889 to a man who would later champion a very, very 00:07:58.889 --> 00:08:02.029 strict moral code. So what exactly did Marable 00:08:02.029 --> 00:08:06.750 claim? Marable argued that Malcolm. kind of exaggerated 00:08:06.750 --> 00:08:09.509 parts of his criminal life for the autobiography. 00:08:09.670 --> 00:08:12.310 But the main claim was that he had an early homosexual 00:08:12.310 --> 00:08:14.750 relationship with a white businessman for money. 00:08:14.870 --> 00:08:17.050 It's framed as something transactional, not about 00:08:17.050 --> 00:08:19.170 his orientation. Exactly. What some would call 00:08:19.170 --> 00:08:20.949 straight trade. Yeah. But it's a very specific 00:08:20.949 --> 00:08:23.290 claim and it's not based on, you know, Malcolm's 00:08:23.290 --> 00:08:25.810 own words. It's historical interpretation. And 00:08:25.810 --> 00:08:29.310 his family has pushed back on this hard. Fiercely. 00:08:29.550 --> 00:08:32.950 His daughter, Ilyasa Shavaz, has been very clear. 00:08:33.340 --> 00:08:35.620 She argues that her father was brutally honest 00:08:35.620 --> 00:08:38.120 about his past in the autobiography. I mean, 00:08:38.120 --> 00:08:40.120 he included all sorts of embarrassing details. 00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:43.259 Her point is, if he had a gay encounter, he likely 00:08:43.259 --> 00:08:45.220 would have talked about it. So for them, it feels 00:08:45.220 --> 00:08:47.379 like an attempt to sensationalize that period 00:08:47.379 --> 00:08:50.340 of his life. That seems to be their view. But 00:08:50.340 --> 00:08:52.940 regardless of that specific debate, the man who 00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:56.159 walked into prison in 1946 was not the man who 00:08:56.159 --> 00:08:59.100 walked out. And that brings us to the Nation 00:08:59.100 --> 00:09:02.409 of Islam. His conversion, his incredible rise, 00:09:02.570 --> 00:09:05.110 and the core beliefs that would define him for 00:09:05.110 --> 00:09:07.529 more than a decade. Prison for him wasn't an 00:09:07.529 --> 00:09:10.169 end. It was, in his own words, a kind of freedom. 00:09:10.509 --> 00:09:13.250 It's amazing, isn't it? He wrote that being in 00:09:13.250 --> 00:09:14.970 prison gave him a freedom he'd never known on 00:09:14.970 --> 00:09:17.529 the streets. He said, I had never been so truly 00:09:17.529 --> 00:09:20.029 free in my life. He would get so lost in reading 00:09:20.029 --> 00:09:22.490 that he'd forget he was even locked up. And that 00:09:22.490 --> 00:09:24.889 fire for learning, it was lit by another inmate, 00:09:25.009 --> 00:09:28.259 right? By a man named John Bembry. Bembry was 00:09:28.259 --> 00:09:31.200 self -educated and Malcolm was just in awe of 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:33.740 how he could command respect just with his words, 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:35.899 with his vocabulary. And Malcolm saw that and 00:09:35.899 --> 00:09:38.679 realized that's real power. It's not in a gun. 00:09:38.980 --> 00:09:42.340 It's in the mind. So that's what sparked his 00:09:42.340 --> 00:09:45.120 famous project to educate himself. That was the 00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:47.639 turning point. He started by literally copying 00:09:47.639 --> 00:09:50.159 the entire dictionary word for word onto a tablet 00:09:50.159 --> 00:09:53.000 just to absorb the language. He took all that 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:56.179 energy he'd put into hustling and channeled it. 00:09:56.509 --> 00:09:58.889 with incredible discipline, into mastering his 00:09:58.889 --> 00:10:01.429 own mind. The actual conversion to the Nation 00:10:01.429 --> 00:10:03.169 of Islam, though, that came through his family. 00:10:03.490 --> 00:10:05.370 It did. It was a letter from his brother Reginald 00:10:05.370 --> 00:10:08.309 in 1948. And the instruction was so simple. Don't 00:10:08.309 --> 00:10:10.470 eat any more pork and don't smoke any more cigarettes. 00:10:10.750 --> 00:10:13.169 I'll show you how to get out of prison. And Malcolm 00:10:13.169 --> 00:10:15.610 did it instantly. It was this immediate act of 00:10:15.610 --> 00:10:17.750 discipline. At first, he was skeptical of the 00:10:17.750 --> 00:10:20.610 core NOI teaching. You know, the idea that white 00:10:20.610 --> 00:10:23.269 people were literally devils. But his own life 00:10:23.269 --> 00:10:26.080 experiences made him receptive to it. They did. 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:28.820 He sought about all the white people who had 00:10:28.820 --> 00:10:31.320 betrayed him or hurt his family. And he already 00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:33.399 hated Christianity. They called him Satan, imprisoned 00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:36.419 because of it. So he was ready for a completely 00:10:36.419 --> 00:10:39.220 new way of seeing the world. And by 1950, he's 00:10:39.220 --> 00:10:41.000 writing back and forth with the leader of the 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:44.250 Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad. Yes. And Muhammad 00:10:44.250 --> 00:10:48.409 tells him to renounce his past, to pray, to submit. 00:10:48.629 --> 00:10:51.049 And this is when he makes that huge symbolic 00:10:51.049 --> 00:10:53.970 break. This is when he becomes Malcolm X. The 00:10:53.970 --> 00:10:56.669 X symbolizing the lost African name. Exactly. 00:10:57.190 --> 00:10:59.509 Muhammad taught that their family names were 00:10:59.509 --> 00:11:03.129 slave names imposed by their masters. The X was 00:11:03.129 --> 00:11:05.190 to represent the true ancestral name they could 00:11:05.190 --> 00:11:08.990 never know. Malcolm was very clear. His X replaced 00:11:08.990 --> 00:11:11.879 the white slave master name of Little. It's just 00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:14.460 incredible that in the exact same year he's having 00:11:14.460 --> 00:11:18.019 this profound internal transformation, the U 00:11:18.019 --> 00:11:20.259 .S. government starts a file on him. It's so 00:11:20.259 --> 00:11:22.480 significant. The FBI opened their file in 1950. 00:11:22.820 --> 00:11:24.759 And this is before he's anybody. It was just 00:11:24.759 --> 00:11:26.299 because he wrote a letter to President Truman 00:11:26.299 --> 00:11:28.360 opposing the Korean War and calling himself a 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:30.279 communist. It shows you they were watching from 00:11:30.279 --> 00:11:32.379 the very, very beginning. So he's paroled in 00:11:32.379 --> 00:11:36.720 1952 and his rise within the NOI is just meteoric. 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:38.779 He was a phenomenon. He goes from being an assistant 00:11:38.779 --> 00:11:41.879 minister in Detroit. to starting new temples 00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:45.639 in Boston and Philadelphia. By 1954, he's leading 00:11:45.639 --> 00:11:47.759 temple number seven in Harlem, which was the 00:11:47.759 --> 00:11:49.539 most important mosque in the country. And his 00:11:49.539 --> 00:11:51.840 charisma was a huge part of it. A huge part. 00:11:51.980 --> 00:11:54.399 He was this incredibly commanding figure. Six 00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:56.860 foot three, always perfectly dressed, an absolutely 00:11:56.860 --> 00:11:59.620 electrifying speaker. He radiated discipline 00:11:59.620 --> 00:12:02.059 and power. And the numbers speak for themselves. 00:12:02.379 --> 00:12:05.080 He's credited with the NOI's explosive growth 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:07.220 in this period. It was exponential. The estimates 00:12:07.220 --> 00:12:09.899 say the membership went from maybe... 1 ,200 00:12:09.899 --> 00:12:12.759 people when he joined to somewhere between 50 00:12:12.759 --> 00:12:15.779 and 100 ,000 by the early 60s. He brought in 00:12:15.779 --> 00:12:18.100 huge figures like Muhammad Ali. He was a star 00:12:18.100 --> 00:12:20.820 maker. And that power he had, it was put on stunning 00:12:20.820 --> 00:12:23.440 public display in 1957 during the Hinton Johnson 00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:27.039 incident. Ah, yes. This is the moment that really 00:12:27.039 --> 00:12:30.320 put him on the map for the authorities. Hinton 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:33.320 Johnson, an NOI member, was brutally beaten by 00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:36.409 the NYPD. Malcolm X gets the call. He goes down 00:12:36.409 --> 00:12:38.549 to the police station. And by the time he gets 00:12:38.549 --> 00:12:41.610 there, a huge angry crowd of thousands has gathered 00:12:41.610 --> 00:12:44.830 outside. Ready to explode. Absolutely. But he 00:12:44.830 --> 00:12:46.970 handles it with this chilling level of control. 00:12:47.269 --> 00:12:50.450 He goes inside, negotiates to get Johnson to 00:12:50.450 --> 00:12:52.929 a hospital. Then he comes back out, faces this 00:12:52.929 --> 00:12:56.769 massive seething crowd, and just raises one hand. 00:12:56.889 --> 00:12:58.750 And what happens? The Nation of Islam members, 00:12:58.870 --> 00:13:00.990 the Fruit of Islam, they turn and walk away. 00:13:01.579 --> 00:13:03.740 Silently. In perfect formation. And then the 00:13:03.740 --> 00:13:06.200 rest of the crowd just sort of dissolves. They 00:13:06.200 --> 00:13:08.220 follow their lead. And the police reaction to 00:13:08.220 --> 00:13:10.659 that silent display of power is the real story. 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:12.879 It is. A police officer was overheard saying, 00:13:13.039 --> 00:13:16.419 no one man should have that much power. And that 00:13:16.419 --> 00:13:18.519 wasn't just an observation. That was a threat 00:13:18.519 --> 00:13:21.389 assessment. Within a month, the NYPD had undercover 00:13:21.389 --> 00:13:24.210 officers infiltrating the Nation of Islam, specifically 00:13:24.210 --> 00:13:26.610 targeting Malcolm X. So let's talk about the 00:13:26.610 --> 00:13:28.830 ideology he was preaching at this time. It was 00:13:28.830 --> 00:13:32.149 radical. It was separatist. It was a direct inversion 00:13:32.149 --> 00:13:34.669 of white supremacy. That's a perfect way to put 00:13:34.669 --> 00:13:37.110 it. Yeah. The core teaching was that black people 00:13:37.110 --> 00:13:39.429 were the original people of the earth. And the 00:13:39.429 --> 00:13:42.629 counter narrative was the story of Yakub, an 00:13:42.629 --> 00:13:46.120 evil black scientist who... thousands of years 00:13:46.120 --> 00:13:49.500 ago, created the white race, a race of devils 00:13:49.500 --> 00:13:51.720 whose time on Earth was now coming to an end. 00:13:51.820 --> 00:13:54.200 And he justified using that explosive language 00:13:54.200 --> 00:13:56.879 by pointing directly to history. He did. He said, 00:13:56.899 --> 00:13:58.899 you just have to look at the historical record. 00:13:59.039 --> 00:14:01.220 Yeah. He would list the actions of European colonialism. 00:14:01.860 --> 00:14:04.919 Anybody who rapes and plunders and enslaves and 00:14:04.919 --> 00:14:07.860 steals and drops hell bombs on people is nothing 00:14:07.860 --> 00:14:10.230 but a devil. For his audience, this was incredibly 00:14:10.230 --> 00:14:12.629 powerful. The NOI also presented a completely 00:14:12.629 --> 00:14:15.090 new theology. A total rejection of Christianity. 00:14:15.450 --> 00:14:17.870 They called it the white man's religion, something 00:14:17.870 --> 00:14:20.450 imposed on slaves to keep them docile. Instead, 00:14:20.669 --> 00:14:22.809 they taught that the founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad, 00:14:23.129 --> 00:14:26.090 was God in person, that Elijah Muhammad was his 00:14:26.090 --> 00:14:28.610 chosen messenger or prophet. And this put him 00:14:28.610 --> 00:14:30.690 on a direct collision course with the mainstream 00:14:30.690 --> 00:14:32.710 civil rights movement and Martin Luther King 00:14:32.710 --> 00:14:35.759 Jr. Their goals were polar opposites. Malcolm 00:14:35.759 --> 00:14:38.519 X rejected integration completely. He wanted 00:14:38.519 --> 00:14:40.659 a separate black nation carved out of the United 00:14:40.659 --> 00:14:43.320 States, and he demanded reparations for slavery. 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:46.559 He called leaders like King Chumps and Stooges? 00:14:46.759 --> 00:14:49.570 He did. He felt they were begging the white establishment 00:14:49.570 --> 00:14:52.470 for rights that were already theirs. And he completely 00:14:52.470 --> 00:14:55.070 rejected nonviolence. He argued that black people 00:14:55.070 --> 00:14:57.470 had every right to defend themselves by any means 00:14:57.470 --> 00:14:59.990 necessary. Which is why he had such contempt 00:14:59.990 --> 00:15:02.909 for the 1963 march on Washington. He dismissed 00:15:02.909 --> 00:15:05.750 it entirely. He called it the farce on Washington. 00:15:06.299 --> 00:15:08.820 He saw it as a feel -good spectacle that had 00:15:08.820 --> 00:15:10.980 been co -opted and controlled by white liberals. 00:15:11.399 --> 00:15:14.080 He famously asked why black people were celebrating 00:15:14.080 --> 00:15:16.320 in front of a statue of Lincoln, a president 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:18.919 who didn't like us when he was alive. That brings 00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:21.340 us to the breaking point, the disillusionment, 00:15:21.340 --> 00:15:24.500 the departure, and the incredible global transformation 00:15:24.500 --> 00:15:27.299 of his final year. And this all starts with betrayal. 00:15:27.850 --> 00:15:31.230 His absolute faith in Elijah Muhammad was completely 00:15:31.230 --> 00:15:34.129 shattered by two events that exposed a deep, 00:15:34.149 --> 00:15:36.629 deep hypocrisy at the heart of the Nation of 00:15:36.629 --> 00:15:38.830 Islam. The first was the Ronald Stokes killing 00:15:38.830 --> 00:15:43.230 in Los Angeles in 1962. A brutal incident. LAPD 00:15:43.230 --> 00:15:45.509 officers beat and shot several unarmed Muslims 00:15:45.509 --> 00:15:48.460 outside their mosque. A Korean war vet named 00:15:48.460 --> 00:15:50.799 Ronald Stokes was shot in the back and killed 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:53.759 while he had his hands up. Another man was paralyzed 00:15:53.759 --> 00:15:56.460 for life. And Malcolm demanded action. He was 00:15:56.460 --> 00:15:59.320 furious. He wanted to retaliate or at least organize 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:02.200 a massive political response. He was ready to 00:16:02.200 --> 00:16:04.419 go to war for them. But Elijah Muhammad shut 00:16:04.419 --> 00:16:06.960 him down. He forbade any action at all. Why? 00:16:07.340 --> 00:16:10.120 It stunned Malcolm. He realized Mohammed cared 00:16:10.120 --> 00:16:12.080 more about protecting the organization's money 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:14.200 and stability than he did about getting justice 00:16:14.200 --> 00:16:16.620 for a murdered follower. That was the first major 00:16:16.620 --> 00:16:19.340 crack in his faith. But the final fatal blow 00:16:19.340 --> 00:16:22.139 was discovering Elijah Mohammed's sexual misconduct. 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:24.139 This was the crisis of conscience he couldn't 00:16:24.139 --> 00:16:26.279 overcome. Rumors were spreading that Mohammed 00:16:26.279 --> 00:16:28.299 was having affairs with his young secretaries, 00:16:28.379 --> 00:16:31.179 which was a grave violation of the NOI's strict 00:16:31.179 --> 00:16:33.639 moral code. He didn't want to believe it at first. 00:16:33.940 --> 00:16:36.440 No, he was completely loyal. But he investigated. 00:16:36.990 --> 00:16:39.429 He talked to the young women involved, and then 00:16:39.429 --> 00:16:42.070 he confronted Elijah Muhammad himself, who admitted 00:16:42.070 --> 00:16:45.129 it was true. He even tried to justify it by citing 00:16:45.129 --> 00:16:47.629 the polygamy of prophets in the Bible. And Malcolm's 00:16:47.629 --> 00:16:49.750 investigation uncovered something even darker 00:16:49.750 --> 00:16:53.009 than just affairs. That's right. He later testified 00:16:53.009 --> 00:16:55.990 publicly that his investigation confirmed multiple 00:16:55.990 --> 00:16:58.470 counts of child rape, and that several of the 00:16:58.470 --> 00:17:01.240 girls became pregnant. This wasn't just hypocrisy. 00:17:01.299 --> 00:17:04.440 This was profound corruption by the man he viewed 00:17:04.440 --> 00:17:07.299 as a divine messenger. And when he tried to expose 00:17:07.299 --> 00:17:10.079 this, the organization turned on him. Immediately. 00:17:10.259 --> 00:17:12.059 He started getting death threats. They found 00:17:12.059 --> 00:17:14.460 a bomb in his car. The very machine he helped 00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:16.920 build was now trying to kill him. And all this 00:17:16.920 --> 00:17:19.059 is boiling under the surface when he makes his 00:17:19.059 --> 00:17:21.160 infamous comment about the Kennedy assassination. 00:17:21.660 --> 00:17:25.799 Right. In December 1963, he says JFK's murder 00:17:25.799 --> 00:17:28.559 was a case of Chickens coming home to roost, 00:17:28.579 --> 00:17:30.460 meaning the violence the US government exported 00:17:30.460 --> 00:17:33.420 was now coming back to haunt it. The public outrage 00:17:33.420 --> 00:17:36.640 was immense and the NOI used it as their opportunity. 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:39.420 It was the perfect excuse for Elijah Muhammad 00:17:39.420 --> 00:17:42.759 to silence him. The NOI publicly censured him 00:17:42.759 --> 00:17:45.700 and banned him from speaking for 90 days. It 00:17:45.700 --> 00:17:47.660 was a way to push him out. And Malcolm knew it. 00:17:47.660 --> 00:17:51.019 So on March 8, 1964, he makes it official. He 00:17:51.019 --> 00:17:53.500 leaves the Nation of Islam. He does. He announces 00:17:53.500 --> 00:17:55.559 that the organization has gone as far as it can, 00:17:55.720 --> 00:17:58.460 that it's too rigid. And he immediately says 00:17:58.460 --> 00:18:01.519 he's forming a new black nationalist organization. 00:18:03.150 --> 00:18:05.490 And a huge shift that he's now willing to work 00:18:05.490 --> 00:18:07.930 with other civil rights leaders. He was free. 00:18:08.049 --> 00:18:09.849 And that year of freedom was one of the most 00:18:09.849 --> 00:18:12.849 intense periods of growth for any public figure 00:18:12.849 --> 00:18:16.130 in history. It starts with his famous the ballot 00:18:16.130 --> 00:18:19.230 or the bullet speech. That speech laid out his 00:18:19.230 --> 00:18:21.930 new strategy. Use the vote, he said. But if the 00:18:21.930 --> 00:18:23.549 government keeps denying you your rights, you 00:18:23.549 --> 00:18:26.059 may have to use the bullet. It was a pragmatic 00:18:26.059 --> 00:18:28.960 warning. And he framed it under a flexible black 00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:31.200 nationalism that could work with other groups 00:18:31.200 --> 00:18:33.319 on specific goals. In the middle of all this, 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:35.720 he has that one brief meeting with Martin Luther 00:18:35.720 --> 00:18:38.079 King Jr. Just a fleeting moment. They met at 00:18:38.079 --> 00:18:40.240 the U .S. Capitol just long enough for that iconic 00:18:40.240 --> 00:18:42.640 photograph. But it's telling that King later 00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:45.279 said he had deep affection for Malcolm and that 00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:47.740 Malcolm had this incredible ability to diagnose 00:18:47.740 --> 00:18:50.539 the root of the problem. But the truly life altering 00:18:50.539 --> 00:18:53.460 event was his pilgrimage to Mecca in April 1964. 00:18:54.460 --> 00:18:57.240 The Hodge. This is what transforms Malcolm X 00:18:57.240 --> 00:18:59.900 into al -Hajj Malik al -Shabazz. This was the 00:18:59.900 --> 00:19:02.960 experience that she just demolished the NOI's 00:19:02.960 --> 00:19:05.019 racial theology for him. He wrote back in these 00:19:05.019 --> 00:19:08.099 amazing letters about seeing Muslims of all colors, 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:10.779 from blue -eyed blondes to black -skinned Africans, 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:13.680 all praying together as equals. And that forced 00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:16.619 him to completely reevaluate his entire worldview 00:19:16.619 --> 00:19:19.160 on race. Completely. He said he had to toss aside 00:19:19.160 --> 00:19:21.279 his previous conclusions about all white people 00:19:21.279 --> 00:19:23.720 being devils. He converted to Orthodox Sunni 00:19:23.720 --> 00:19:26.200 Islam and immediately set up his new organizations, 00:19:26.539 --> 00:19:29.720 the Religious MMI and the Secular OAAU. And he 00:19:29.720 --> 00:19:32.299 used the OAAU to make a brilliant strategic move, 00:19:32.500 --> 00:19:34.980 reframing the civil rights struggle as a human 00:19:34.980 --> 00:19:37.900 rights struggle. This was revolutionary. By doing 00:19:37.900 --> 00:19:40.240 that, he was arguing that the U .S. treatment 00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:42.839 of its black citizens was a violation of international 00:19:42.839 --> 00:19:45.920 law. It meant he could take the United States 00:19:45.920 --> 00:19:49.160 before the U .N. Before the world court, it was 00:19:49.160 --> 00:19:51.500 a way to bypass the American system entirely 00:19:51.500 --> 00:19:54.640 and shame it on a global stage. Which is why 00:19:54.640 --> 00:19:57.140 he started this extensive tours of Africa and 00:19:57.140 --> 00:20:00.059 the Middle East. Exactly. He is connecting the 00:20:00.059 --> 00:20:02.279 struggle at home to the anti -colonial struggles 00:20:02.279 --> 00:20:05.339 all over the third world. And he was welcomed 00:20:05.339 --> 00:20:08.259 like a head of state. Leaders like Nkrumah in 00:20:08.259 --> 00:20:11.359 Ghana, Nasser in Egypt, they all met with him. 00:20:11.519 --> 00:20:13.759 Some even offered him positions in their governments. 00:20:14.019 --> 00:20:16.779 He used that platform to go after Western imperialism, 00:20:16.819 --> 00:20:19.259 especially in the Congo. He was furious about 00:20:19.259 --> 00:20:21.519 the situation in the Congo. He called the Western 00:20:21.519 --> 00:20:24.259 -backed leader Mwisichombe the worst African 00:20:24.259 --> 00:20:26.799 ever born for hiring white mercenaries to kill 00:20:26.799 --> 00:20:28.980 his own people. And he accused President Johnson 00:20:28.980 --> 00:20:31.319 and the U .S. of propping up this murderous regime. 00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:33.759 He also called out the media bias in how the 00:20:33.759 --> 00:20:35.779 conflict was being covered. A blatant double 00:20:35.779 --> 00:20:37.900 standard. He pointed out how the Western press 00:20:37.900 --> 00:20:40.519 obsessed over atrocities committed by African 00:20:40.519 --> 00:20:43.180 rebels against white missionaries, but completely 00:20:43.180 --> 00:20:45.480 ignored the war crimes being committed by the 00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:48.920 white mercenaries and CIA -backed pilots. It 00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:50.859 was only an emergency when white lives were at 00:20:50.859 --> 00:20:53.319 stake. And all of this global exposure forced 00:20:53.319 --> 00:20:56.539 him to reconsider his old hardline stance on 00:20:56.539 --> 00:21:00.130 race and integration. It did. In his last year, 00:21:00.230 --> 00:21:02.450 he started speaking with regret about how rigid 00:21:02.450 --> 00:21:04.450 he'd been. He told a story about turning away 00:21:04.450 --> 00:21:06.690 a young white college girl who wanted to help. 00:21:06.950 --> 00:21:09.269 He said his time in the NOI was like being a 00:21:09.269 --> 00:21:12.109 zombie, like he was hypnotized. He realized racism 00:21:12.109 --> 00:21:14.490 was a global problem, not just a black and white 00:21:14.490 --> 00:21:16.690 American one. His travels also took him to Gaza, 00:21:16.849 --> 00:21:18.710 where he engaged with the Palestinian cause. 00:21:18.950 --> 00:21:21.369 Yes, he met with the PLO and visited a refugee 00:21:21.369 --> 00:21:24.170 camp. He wrote an essay called Zionist Logic, 00:21:24.369 --> 00:21:26.430 where he argued that the occupation of Palestine 00:21:26.430 --> 00:21:29.589 had no intelligent or legal basis in history 00:21:29.589 --> 00:21:33.490 and called Zionism another form of European imperialism 00:21:33.490 --> 00:21:36.329 designed to divide the Arab world. And finally, 00:21:36.450 --> 00:21:39.009 he even opened the door to socialism. He did. 00:21:39.150 --> 00:21:42.009 After criticizing capitalism, he was asked if 00:21:42.009 --> 00:21:44.089 he was a socialist, and his answer was purely 00:21:44.089 --> 00:21:46.750 pragmatic. He said, if socialism is good for 00:21:46.750 --> 00:21:50.549 black people, then I'm for it. It shows how far 00:21:50.549 --> 00:21:53.150 he'd come from a rigid theology to a flexible, 00:21:53.250 --> 00:21:55.829 results -oriented political strategy. Which brings 00:21:55.829 --> 00:21:58.390 us tragically to the end. The assassination, 00:21:58.789 --> 00:22:01.529 the conspiracy, and his legacy. The moment he 00:22:01.529 --> 00:22:04.210 left the NOI, the threats became constant and 00:22:04.210 --> 00:22:07.089 very, very real. The escalation was terrifying. 00:22:07.490 --> 00:22:10.049 Just a month after he left, someone was ordered 00:22:10.049 --> 00:22:13.109 to bomb his car. The NOI's own newspaper, Muhammad 00:22:13.109 --> 00:22:15.390 Speaks, was publishing what were basically open 00:22:15.390 --> 00:22:17.609 calls for his death. The rhetoric from people 00:22:17.609 --> 00:22:20.190 like Louis X, who had been his protege, was chilling. 00:22:20.529 --> 00:22:23.710 Elijah Muhammad himself told Louis X that hypocrites 00:22:23.710 --> 00:22:25.589 like Malcolm should have their heads cut off. 00:22:25.750 --> 00:22:27.630 And then they published that horrific cartoon 00:22:27.630 --> 00:22:30.009 showing Malcolm's severed head bouncing down 00:22:30.009 --> 00:22:32.150 the street. It was a public death sentence. And 00:22:32.150 --> 00:22:34.509 a week before his death, his house was firebombed. 00:22:34.589 --> 00:22:38.950 On February 14th, 1965, he and his family barely 00:22:38.950 --> 00:22:41.809 escaped. He was certain it was the Nation of 00:22:41.809 --> 00:22:44.329 Islam. It's why that famous photo of him holding 00:22:44.329 --> 00:22:46.910 a rifle at his window is so powerful. He was 00:22:46.910 --> 00:22:49.589 a man under siege, defending his family. And 00:22:49.589 --> 00:22:53.049 seven days later, on February 21, 1965, at the 00:22:53.049 --> 00:22:55.769 Audubon Ballroom, it happened. He was just about 00:22:55.769 --> 00:22:58.690 to start his speech. A fight was staged in the 00:22:58.690 --> 00:23:01.210 audience to create a distraction. As Malcolm's 00:23:01.210 --> 00:23:03.670 security moved toward it, a man rushed the stage 00:23:03.670 --> 00:23:05.809 with a sawed -off shotgun and fired into his 00:23:05.809 --> 00:23:09.299 chest. Two other men then opened fire with handguns. 00:23:09.299 --> 00:23:12.680 He was hit 21 times. He was 39 years old. The 00:23:12.680 --> 00:23:14.839 crowd managed to catch one of the gunmen, an 00:23:14.839 --> 00:23:17.779 NOI member named Talmadge Heyer, or Thomas Hagen. 00:23:18.180 --> 00:23:20.180 Herein two other NOI members were eventually 00:23:20.180 --> 00:23:22.359 convicted, but that was never the whole story. 00:23:22.539 --> 00:23:24.559 No. This is where the conspiracy theories begin, 00:23:24.680 --> 00:23:26.180 and many of them have turned out to be true. 00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:28.960 For decades, Heyer, the one shooter who was caught 00:23:28.960 --> 00:23:31.559 at the scene, always confessed to his role. But 00:23:31.559 --> 00:23:33.619 he also always insisted that the other two men 00:23:33.619 --> 00:23:36.140 convicted with him, Butler and Johnson, were 00:23:36.140 --> 00:23:39.380 innocent. He named other people. He did. He named 00:23:39.380 --> 00:23:41.779 four other members from the Newark Mosque as 00:23:41.779 --> 00:23:45.359 the real accomplices. But for decades, nobody 00:23:45.359 --> 00:23:48.900 listened. Until 2021, when the two men were finally 00:23:48.900 --> 00:23:51.960 exonerated. Finally. A review found that the 00:23:51.960 --> 00:23:55.319 FBI and the NYPD had withheld crucial evidence 00:23:55.319 --> 00:23:58.119 at the original trial. Evidence that proved their 00:23:58.119 --> 00:24:01.000 innocence. So you have two men who spent decades 00:24:01.000 --> 00:24:03.539 in prison for a murder they did not commit. Which 00:24:03.539 --> 00:24:06.099 has led to these massive lawsuits against the 00:24:06.099 --> 00:24:08.500 government. Absolutely. The family filed a $100 00:24:08.500 --> 00:24:11.519 million wrongful death suit against the CIA, 00:24:11.839 --> 00:24:15.339 the FBI, and the NYPD, alleging that they were 00:24:15.339 --> 00:24:18.299 not just negligent, but were actively involved 00:24:18.299 --> 00:24:20.700 in the conspiracy to have him killed. So who 00:24:20.700 --> 00:24:22.680 do these theories point to? Well, there's a lot 00:24:22.680 --> 00:24:25.940 of focus on John Ali, a top NOI official, who 00:24:25.940 --> 00:24:28.420 was widely suspected of being an FBI informant. 00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:30.099 He apparently met with the shooter the night 00:24:30.099 --> 00:24:31.980 before the assassination. And then there's Louis 00:24:31.980 --> 00:24:34.940 Farrakhan, who has admitted that his fiery rhetoric 00:24:34.940 --> 00:24:37.180 at the time may have been complicit in creating 00:24:37.180 --> 00:24:39.039 the atmosphere that led to the murder. The reaction 00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:41.900 to his death was just as polarized as his life 00:24:41.900 --> 00:24:44.579 had been. It really was. In America, the mainstream 00:24:44.579 --> 00:24:46.819 press was brutal. The New York Times called him 00:24:46.819 --> 00:24:49.819 a twisted man whose life was pitifully wasted. 00:24:50.170 --> 00:24:51.750 But internationally, it was a different story. 00:24:51.930 --> 00:24:54.410 Completely. Across Africa and the third world, 00:24:54.630 --> 00:24:57.410 he was mourned as a revolutionary martyr, killed 00:24:57.410 --> 00:25:00.650 by American racists. And at his funeral, the 00:25:00.650 --> 00:25:02.970 actor Ozzie Davis gave that beautiful eulogy, 00:25:03.069 --> 00:25:06.470 calling him our shining black prince. Even Martin 00:25:06.470 --> 00:25:08.890 Luther King Jr., his great rival, expressed a 00:25:08.890 --> 00:25:11.769 profound sense of loss. He did. He called his 00:25:11.769 --> 00:25:14.390 murder a tragedy and acknowledged Malcolm's unique 00:25:14.390 --> 00:25:17.109 power to diagnose the core of America's racial 00:25:17.109 --> 00:25:21.089 sickness. And today, his legacy is just. It's 00:25:21.089 --> 00:25:23.150 immense. He's seen as one of the most influential 00:25:23.150 --> 00:25:26.130 African -Americans in history. Undeniably. He's 00:25:26.130 --> 00:25:28.210 largely responsible for the spread of Islam in 00:25:28.210 --> 00:25:30.289 the black community. His philosophy directly 00:25:30.289 --> 00:25:32.269 inspired the black power movement, black arts 00:25:32.269 --> 00:25:34.490 movement, the whole idea that black is beautiful. 00:25:34.710 --> 00:25:37.130 And so much of that legacy is preserved in his 00:25:37.130 --> 00:25:39.789 autobiography. The autobiography of Malcolm X 00:25:39.789 --> 00:25:43.069 is a monumental book, and he knew he wouldn't 00:25:43.069 --> 00:25:45.509 live to see it published. He told Alex Haley, 00:25:45.630 --> 00:25:48.329 if I'm alive when this book comes out, it will 00:25:48.329 --> 00:25:50.930 be a miracle. It's one of the most important 00:25:50.930 --> 00:25:53.390 nonfiction books of the century. His life continues 00:25:53.390 --> 00:25:56.049 to inspire art and culture, from the X -Men's 00:25:56.049 --> 00:25:59.049 Magneto to characters in movies like Black Panther. 00:25:59.269 --> 00:26:02.250 It's an archetype now, the revolutionary who 00:26:02.250 --> 00:26:05.619 speaks truth to power. He's been formally recognized 00:26:05.619 --> 00:26:08.220 with street names, holidays, and just recently, 00:26:08.339 --> 00:26:10.700 induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. So 00:26:10.700 --> 00:26:12.519 when you look at the whole arc, from Malcolm 00:26:12.519 --> 00:26:14.940 Little's shattered childhood, to Detroit Red's 00:26:14.940 --> 00:26:17.539 criminal life, to Malcolm X's radical ministry, 00:26:17.759 --> 00:26:20.359 and finally to El -Haj Malik El -Shabazz's global 00:26:20.359 --> 00:26:23.559 humanism, it's just a stunning story of evolution. 00:26:23.880 --> 00:26:26.000 A story about the cost of intellectual freedom 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:28.640 and the relentless pursuit of truth. And it leaves 00:26:28.640 --> 00:26:30.240 us with this profound question. Think about his 00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:33.039 final year. He was simultaneously trying to take 00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:35.400 on the entire U .S. government by bringing it 00:26:35.400 --> 00:26:37.380 before the World Court for human rights violations. 00:26:37.579 --> 00:26:39.980 And at the same time, he was trying to expose 00:26:39.980 --> 00:26:42.880 the deep criminal corruption inside the nation 00:26:42.880 --> 00:26:45.400 of Islam. Two incredibly dangerous fronts. The 00:26:45.400 --> 00:26:47.900 most dangerous. So what does it tell you about 00:26:47.900 --> 00:26:49.599 the nature of power when you have to challenge 00:26:49.599 --> 00:26:52.509 both the state and the church, so to speak? He 00:26:52.509 --> 00:26:54.730 proved that challenging a sacred internal power 00:26:54.730 --> 00:26:57.269 structure could be just as deadly as challenging 00:26:57.269 --> 00:27:00.269 the massive external one. He died because he 00:27:00.269 --> 00:27:03.430 refused to stay quiet, pursuing justice by any 00:27:03.430 --> 00:27:06.210 means necessary. And as a final thought for you, 00:27:06.309 --> 00:27:08.190 we've looked at these four distinct identities. 00:27:08.920 --> 00:27:12.259 the hustler, the NOI minister, the global pilgrim, 00:27:12.259 --> 00:27:14.400 and the martyr, will leave you to think about 00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:16.420 which of those four identities has had the most 00:27:16.420 --> 00:27:19.720 profound and lasting impact on the idea of Black 00:27:19.720 --> 00:27:22.079 identity and political self -determination, both 00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:24.099 in America and around the world today. Thank 00:27:24.099 --> 00:27:26.279 you for joining us for The Deep Dive. We'll see 00:27:26.279 --> 00:27:26.700 you next time.