Frequently Asked Questions TOP
Since my web-site is online, many people from all over the world have written
to me and asked me all sorts of questions. Of course, all the people had a
special intention when they asked me. Quite a few of them were high school
students who were working on a school project about Malcolm X. Some were as
young as 12 years!
Here is a list of some of the more interesting questions and my particular
answers to those requests.
Why did Malcolm X call himself "X"?
Malcolm was born Malcolm Little in 1925. When he joined the Nation Of Islam he
changed his last name to X and later, after his pilgrimage to Mecca, he changed
his name to El Hajj Malik El Shabazz. He is still known to the public (and in
the media) as Malcolm X, while his late wife used the name Betty Shabazz.
The slaves that were brought to the US from 1619 on of course had African names.
Since most slave-masters couldn't pronounce these names and also thought of
them as non-Christian names, they gave the slaves "Christian" names. These
names often were very simple and common names. [Note: see Alex Haley's book
"Roots" on this]
Since slaves were the property of their masters, they were referred to as
"Johnson's Tom" or "Carver's George". After the civil war, the former
slaves kept these names. George W. Carver for example kept the name "George
Carver" and later added the middle initial since there was already another
person in town with the same name. People later said the W. stood for
Washington, but Carver never intended this [Note: see books on George W. Carver]
The Nation Of Islam and their leader, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, tought
that the family names used by most African-Americans in the US were not their
family names, but the family names of the slave-masters who once owned
their ancestors. Their real family names had been forgotten [Note: see
Alex Haley's "Roots" on how he discovered the story of his ancestor Kunta Kinte]. Therefore, the members of the Nation Of Islam replaced their last name
with an "X". "X" for unknown, since they didn't know their "real" family
name, and "X" as a sign that they didn't agree with the deeds of the
slave-owners, who often had raped and abused the slaves.
Since in some towns there were several members of the Nation of Islam with
the same first name, some called themselves "Michael 5X" and some also
kept their last names like "George 3X Johnson" [Note: these name examples
are fictional!].
After Malcolm had changed his name to "Shabazz" and especially in the 70s and
after Alex Haley's "Roots" was released, many people changed their last
names to African names or even changed their names completely.
How did you become interested in Malcolm X?
Why You And Malcolm?
In the mid 80s, when I was about 13 years old, I started listening to
Public Enemy songs, we spoke about the US in our English class, and there
was a lot of talk about South Africa's apartheids system.
All this, and the lack of precise and neutral information made me start
to search the libraries in our area.
Quite difficult, since the 60s were long gone and there were no new books
available on these topics (the first Malcolm X book to be republished
in German came out after Spike Lee's film X in 1992 !!!).
In some encyclopaedias Malcolm wasn't even mentioned at all.
(Today that's my criteria for a good encyclopaedia - if they have a good
article on Malcolm - fine, if not, dump it.)
I read a lot during that time, started doing serious research with the
help of the University library in Mainz which has a very decent collection.
I only heard Malcolm's voice in samples in rap songs; here we can be lucky
if German TV aires a documentation on Martin Luther King on Jan. 15 or
April 4, but the only thing they ever showed on Malcolm was Spike's movie
and reports concerning that movie. And all this only since 1991.
Today, I have quite a collection on Malcolm and African-American history.
Just yesterday some books I ordered at www.books.com arrived after 8 weeks
of delivery.
So I'll read Clarence Clayborne's "Malcolm X - The FBI files" over the
weekend. (Besides, do you know what the K. in Malcolm K. Little means ?)
My parents probably won't be too happy about the books, since I've spent
so much money on books already. And listening to rap, soul, jazz and
gospel music and reading books on African-American history (like
Lerone Bennett's "Before the mayflower" which I read during the
late 80s and which I now finally have since yesterday) isn't very common
in Germany.
Today, I'm very thankful for the internet, which helps me to "talk" to other
people. During the 80s, I didn't have anyone to discuss all of this.
I was wondering if you were a Muslim and if you want to convert to islam?
1. What is your opinion of Malcolm X?
2. Do you think that his ideas about race relations were right? Why or why not?
3. Do you think he was a racist person?
1. I admire him and his possibility to change. My paper