The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

Six members of the Ku Klux Klan visit the house of Louise Little and demand to see her husband. The pregnant Louise tells them that her husband is not home. Five-year-old Wilfred Little watches. She argues when they tell her to leave town. A man knocks one of the windows out with a rifle butt. Wilfred and the other children will always remember their mother’s defiance.

Louise calls her husband, the Reverend Earl Little, sometimes referred to as “Early.” Earl is in Milwaukee and returns home quickly to Omaha where the Littles live in a farmhouse they rent from white neighbors.

Louise gives birth to Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925. He is Earl’s seventh child, and the fourth child of Earl and Louise. The nurses notice Malcolm’s light skin, which is similar to Louise’s complexion.

Earl was born in 1890. He wasn’t well educated and refused to defer to white superiority, gaining himself a reputation as “uppity” (9) among whites. His father worried about him and encouraged him to leave Georgia when things in the South grew too dangerous. Earl left Georgia, but he also left his first wife and their children.

Earl meets Louise in Montreal. They marry in May of 1919 and move to Philadelphia. Later they travel to Omaha to join Earl’s brother, who has a job at a meat packing plant. At the time, Omaha is only 5% black. Racial violence was constant in America that summer, which would become known as the Red Summer of the Chicago riots.

The Red Summer began when a white nineteen-year-old Agnes Loebeck said that a black man assaulted her when she was with her boyfriend. The newspaper printed the headline “BLACK BEAST” (15). After someone told police about a suspicious man named William Brown, police brought 40-year-old Brown to Agnes’s home as a possible suspect. She allegedly identified Brown as the attacker, although there are reasons to doubt this. Police barely managed to get him away from a mob that tried to hang him.

Another mob stormed the courthouse that Sunday. They strung the mayor up when he tried to intervene. He barely escaped with the help of special agents. The mob set fire to the building. Officials then delivered Brown to the mob, who beat him, hung him from a streetlamp, shot him body hundreds of times, doused his body with gasoline and set it alight. White residents posed for picture with the burning body in the background.

It was later revealed that an Irish crime boss—Tom Dennison—had paid white men in blackface to attack white women in an attempt to embarrass the mayor. No one was convicted for any part of Brown’s torture and murder. His remains were buried in an unmarked grave. Postcards with photos from the lynching were popular, and pieces of the rope used to hang Brown sold well.

Southern black people were scared during the 1920s. They began migrating North. After arriving in Omaha, Earl and Louise established a chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the city. UNIA was the project of Marcus Garvey, a prominent black separatist.

Prior to the arrival of the Littles, white residents of Omaha invited the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to start a chapter there. Klavern Number One was the first KKK chapter in Nebraska. Brown’s lynching inspired them.

The KKK was created to deny black people rights after the end of the Civil War. Its presence faded after formal Jim Crow laws were enacted, but it had a resurgence in 1915 after President Wilson screened the pro-Klan film The Birth of a Nation in the White House.

Hilda Little was born on October 22, 1921. Philbert was born eighteen months later. Earl and Louise gained a reputation as troublemakers after founding the UNIA chapter. UNIA’s complement was the NAACP, but the NAACP was largely white. By the time the Klan threatened the Littles at their house, they had already gotten Earl fired. He had no job when Malcolm was born but worked as a handyman when he could.

The Civil War had ended slavery, but legalized oppression and segregation took its place. When a delegation of people of color went to the White House to complain, President Wilson told them, “Segregation is not humiliating, but a benefit” (30).

W.E.B. Du Bois encouraged black people to serve in World War I. After the war, he proposed that they should protect themselves with violence when necessary.

Marcus Garvey encouraged flight to the homeland of Africa, instead.

Garvey had been galvanized by the British occupation of Jamaica when he was twenty-seven, which was when he founded UNIA. He then brought it to Harlem. He was a showman, often staging parades for the cause. He wanted the pomp to inspire feelings of dignity. He thought that Du Bois encouraged people to be ashamed of Africa and wanted them to reclaim their motherland. In 1920, UNIA’s New York convention had 25,000 black attendees. J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, tried to build a deportation case against Garvey after placing four spies inside UNIA.

Earl and Louse followed Garvey’s teachings, but Earl also subscribed to Booker T. Washington’s idea that black people must improve themselves and learn trades to gain respect. Garvey supported Booker T. Washington, but didn’t believe that his ideas prepared black people for the fight to come.

Du Bois and Garvey were also divided on the issue of skin color. Lighter skin could mean greater acceptance, and a sense of superiority over dark-skinned black people. This led to a “subcaste system among Negroes” (38). Frederick Douglass was mixed-race, but he argued against anyone that vaunted lighter skin. “Bright skin” (41) black people often barred darker Negroes from black colleges while screening applications. Du Bois was mixed, while Garvey was dark skinned and embraced it. Garvey created the UNIA doctrine as a plea for “a pure black race just as all self-respecting whites believe in a pure white race” (42). Louise was proud of her light skin and didn’t worry about Garvey’s claims. She was still devoted to the cause of black people everywhere, of any shade. She always made her children feel proud of their black father.

The U.S, government got involved against Garvey and UNIA. The KKK reached out to Garvey in support of his repatriation ideas. Garvey met with Imperial Kleagle Edward Young Clarke on June 25. He used the meeting as proof that black people should return to Africa. Du Bois and others argued that they had invested too much in America to leave. Garvey said that UNIA pursued the black version of the KKK’s charter: a fully black society. No document of agreement resulted.

The black infighting empowered the government. Hoover wanted to destabilize all of the black solidarity groups as they fought each other. Garvey was eventually arrested on charges of mail fraud and deported to Jamaica. The Littles continued to support Garvey’s message after his deportation. Earl incorporated Garvey’s pro-African teachings into his sermons.

Earl and Louise rented an apartment above a shop in an Italian neighborhood. Italians were also looked down on, partly for their Catholicism. Initially, the Littles got along with the Italians, but tensions became heated by the time the children were teenagers.

Louise and Earl expect their children to read and learn according to Garvey’s programs. In 1928 they move the family to Lansing Michigan and Earl works in a foundry. Soon, someone burns down the Littles’ house, but no one is harmed. Earl loses his job when the boss succumbs to criticisms about hiring a black worker. Earl and Louse move the family to some land on the outskirts of town.

In school, the children are taunted about the book Little Black Sambo. Louise and Earl have trained them to resist racial provocation. Eventually they gain some respect at school, due to their parent’s example.

Philbert says that his father did not value education. Louise, on the other hand, is formally educated. She teaches the children that white history classes distort the black experience. She often visits the teachers after they teach something false.

One day Earl tells Louise to cook a rabbit that he has killed. They are Seventh Day Adventists and don’t eat pork or rabbit. She loses the fight and cooks the rabbit. Over dinner, she tells Earl that she doesn’t want him to go town that evening. Sometimes people thought Louise was psychic. Malcolm later claims to have strong intuitions that he can’t explain.

Later that night, police come to their home and take Louise to the hospital, where she learns that Earl has been in an accident. A streetcar ran over his leg. The policeman claims that before he died, Earl told him he had slipped while trying to catch the car.

At the funeral home, Wilfred looks at Earl’s body. Malcolm feels that his anchor is gone.

Earl’s death leaves the family stricken in the middle of the Great Depression. Louise is determined to avoid welfare, as UNIA preaches. The insurance company rules without evidence that Earl’s death is a suicide. They refuse to pay Earl’s $10,000 life insurance policy to his family. Conspiracy theories about his death emerge, including rumors of KKK involvement, but no one ever took credit.

Louise continues to teach her children Garvey’s message about black stereotypes, referring to moves such as King Kong and the Tarzan novels. Louise grows desperate and sad. She stops singing. The children are always hungry. When Wilfred starts looking for work, the Littles’ reputation as defiant hinders him.

In 1935 Louise begins accepting welfare checks. Malcolm and his siblings are the only black children in school. Malcolm gets along with most of the white students. Whenever he says something that provokes a fight, Wilfred and Reginald do the fighting for him.

Discipline wanes in the house. To make money, the Littles take in boarders. Louise becomes involved with a man named Edgar Page and is soon pregnant with her eighth child, Robert. The welfare worker says she should have known better. Wilfred drops out of school to work full-time for a dry cleaner. Malcolm becomes a truant and is suspended. He and Philbert steal from Wilfred whenever they can find his money.

Philbert, inspired by Joe Louis, begins fighting for money. Malcolm lies about his age and boxes as well, getting beaten in his first match and knocked out in his second. Malcolm hates manual labor and knows that his wits are his strength.

Wilfred gets laid off and goes to Boston for a new job. His half-siblings from Earl’s first marriage, Ella and Mary, live there. Wilfred lives with Ella. Ella works in real estate, but also steals for money. Soon, Wilfred gets a message from a neighbor that Louise’s mental health is in jeopardy. At home, he finds that the situation is worse than he anticipated. They have almost no food and can’t keep up with their bills. Louise had stopped communicating. Malcolm and Philbert made the problem worse by stealing the money Wilfred had been sending home. Malcolm later apologized publicly.

On December 23, 1938, the court orders that Louis be committed to the Kalamazoo State Hospital. In January the court declares her insane. The older children get jobs. The State breaks up the family and places them in various homes. Malcolm and Philbert live with Thornton and Mabel Gohanna. Malcolm becomes involved with petty street criminals.