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The man who would be known to the world as Malcolm X was named Malcolm Little, and was born in 1925 at University Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents, Earl and Louise Little, were activist supporters of Marcus Garvey's black nationalist organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Attallah Shabazz, the eldest daughter of Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz, writes: "My grandmother had a direct hand in the cultural, social, and intellectual education of her children... (As) members of the Garvey movement cognizant of the true origins of the African in the Western Hemisphere, both my grandmother and her husband were intent on equipping their children with a clear awareness of the seed of their origins and its ancestral power." In 1928 the Little family purchased a home in Lansing, Michigan. But less than two years later the house was destroyed by fire. Earl Little was found dead in 1931, probably the victim of racist violence. Louise Little struggled to keep their family together, but in early 1939 she was institutionalized in a state mental hospital, where she would remain for a quarter century. Malcolm was placed in various foster homes, and for a time was placed in the Michigan State Detention Home. In 1941, Malcolm's half-sister on his father's side, Ella Collins, brought the teenager to her home in Boston, Massachusetts. Over the next five years, Malcolm held a wide variety of jobs in both Boston and New York City. Known to the streets of Harlem as "Big Red" and "Detroit Red," Malcolm entered the underground economy of the ghetto, running numbers, liquor and selling illegal drugs. As presented in the Spike Lee film biography of Malcolm X, Detroit Red's lifestyle reflected the "hep cat" world of the zoot suited young black and Latino urban males of the World War II era. In the Autobiography, Malcolm vividly recalls the swinging music and acrobatic dancing of the young black couples at Boston's Roseland and Harlem's Savoy Ballroom: "They'd jam pack that ballroom, the black girls in wayout silk and satin dresses and shoes, their hair done in all kinds of styles, the men sharp in their zoot suits and crazy conks, and everybody grinning and greased and gassed." Malcolm became friends with many jazz musicians and entertainers, including Billie Holiday and Lionel Hampton. Historian Robin D.G. Kelley emphasizes that the zootsuited Malcolm Little, so immersed in the black popular culture of the 1940s, should not be overlooked or forgotten in our understanding the complex personality we identify as Malcolm X.
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