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Black History and Blacks in U.S. History
The 1960's
 Malcolm X

Malcolm X
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 7 to 9
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   7.52

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    betterment, fired-up, notoriety, sawed-off, standing, oppressive, greatly, passion, better, militant, civil, overthrow, disturbance, teaching, religion, attempt
     content words:    Martin Luther King, Martin Luther, African American, Malcolm X., Malcolm Little, East Lansing, Reverend Little, Ku Klux Klan, Elijah Muhammad, African Americans

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Malcolm X
By Jane Runyon 		  
1     Martin Luther King became a civil rights leader during the 1960's. It was his goal to bring changes to the lives of black Americans in a peaceful manner. He taught that a nonviolent approach to making these changes would be accepted easier than by using violence. Not everyone agreed with Martin Luther King's ideas. One such African American who gained much notoriety was Malcolm X.
 
2     Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, in May of 1925. He came from a large family. He was in the middle of eight children. His father was a minister. His family moved to East Lansing, Michigan, when Malcolm was very young. He was barely six when his father was murdered. It was strongly believed that Reverend Little died at the hands of a racist group quite similar to the Ku Klux Klan. Malcolm's mother never recovered from this tragic loss. She spent most of the rest of her life in mental hospitals. Her children were made wards of the state. Malcolm was only sixteen when he made his way to Boston to live with relatives. What he found there was a life of crime that led him to prison.
 
3     While Malcolm was in prison, his life took a new path. He became interested in bettering himself. He set a goal to improve his mind and to educate himself by copying every page of a dictionary. He decided to improve his spiritual being by starting a correspondence with a man named Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad was the leader of the Nation of Islam. This was a group of African Americans who followed the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, the leader of the Islam religion.

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