Assassination of Malcolm X in the context of "Nation of Islam"

The Black power movement or Black liberation movement emerged in the mid-1960s from the mainstream civil rights movement in the United States, reacting against its moderate and incremental tendencies and representing the demand for more immediate action to counter White supremacy. Many of its ideas were influenced by Malcolm X's criticism of Martin Luther King Jr.'s peaceful protest methods. The 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, coupled with the urban riots of 1964 and 1965, ignited the movement. While thinkers such as Malcolm X influenced the early movement, the views of the Black Panther Party, founded in 1966, are widely seen as the cornerstone. Black power was influenced by philosophies such as pan-Africanism, Black nationalism, and socialism, as well as contemporary events such as the Cuban Revolution and the decolonization of Africa.

During the peak of the Black power movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many African Americans adopted "Afro" hairstyles, African clothes, or African names (such as Stokely Carmichael, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who popularized the phrase "Black power" and later changed his name to Kwame Ture) to emphasize their identity. Others founded Black-owned stores, food cooperatives, bookstores, publishers, media, clinics, schools, and other organizations oriented to their communities. American universities began to offer courses in Black studies, and the word Black replaced negro as the preferred usage in the country. Other leaders of the movement included Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, founders of the Black Panther Party.

Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an African American revolutionary and human rights activist who founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. (MMI) and the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). He was also a prominent figure during the civil rights movement until his assassination by members of the Nation of Islam (NOI) in 1965. A spokesman and minister for the Nation of Islam from 1952 until 1964, after which he left, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the African American community. A controversial figure accused of preaching violence, Malcolm X is also a celebrated figure with Black people and Muslims worldwide for his pursuit of racial justice.

Malcolm spent his adolescence living in a series of foster homes and with various relatives, after his father's death and his mother's hospitalization. He committed various crimes, being sentenced to eight to ten years in prison in 1946 for larceny and burglary. In prison, he joined the Nation of Islam, adopting the name Malcolm X to symbolize his unknown African ancestral surname while discarding "the white slavemaster name of 'Little'", and after his parole in 1952, he quickly became one of the organization's most influential leaders. He was the public face of the organization for 12 years, advocating black empowerment and separation of black and white americans, as well as criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. and the mainstream civil rights movement for its emphasis on non-violence and racial integration. Malcolm X also expressed pride in some of the Nation's social welfare achievements, such as its free drug rehabilitation program. From the 1950s onward, Malcolm X was subjected to surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).