US civil rights activist, Malcolm X

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On May 19, 1925 AD, US civil rights activist, Malcolm X was born as Malcolm Little, and after conversion to Islam, became known as al-Haj Malik ash-Shabazz. He was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who criticized white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans.
He has been called one of the greatest and most influential Afro-Americans in history. Malcolm X became a member of the Nation of Islam in 1952 and quickly rose to become one of its leaders. For a dozen years he was the public face of this controversial group, but disillusionment with its chief, Elijah Muhammad, led him to leave the group in March 1964.
After a period of travel in Africa and the Middle East, where he performed the Hajj pilgrimage to holy Mecca, he returned to the US, and founded "Muslim Mosque, Inc." and the "Organization of Afro-American Unity." On 21st February 1965, he was assassinated by FBI agents as he prepared to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom.
A man seated in the front row rushed forward and shot him once in the chest with a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun. Two other men charged the stage and fired semi-automatic handguns, hitting him several times. According to the autopsy report, Malcolm X's body had 21 gunshot wounds to his chest, left shoulder, and both arms and legs, many of them fatal; ten of the wounds were buckshot to his left chest and shoulder from the initial shotgun blasts. Recently his maternal grandson, also named Malcolm Shabazz was brutally killed in Mexico by US agents for being a staunch Muslim.