Malcolm X, a.k.a. Malcolm Little, Detroit Red, El Hajji Malik El-Shabazz Timeline and Summary

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• Malcolm is born and his family moves to a rural area in order to get away from racist threats.
• When he is six years old, Malcolm's father is killed by the Black Legion, leaving his mom and older siblings to support the family.
• It all gets to be too much for Malcolm's mom, and she has a mental breakdown. This leaves the kids in the hands of the government, who turns out not to be a very good mom.
• Malcolm ends up getting in all sorts of trouble and lands in a detention home.
• His half-sister Ella comes to visit and Malcolm decides to go stay with her in Boston for a while. It totally blows his mind.
• He gets kicked out of the detention home because he can't stand the white people around him saying the n-word anymore, and decides to go live in Boston with Ella.
• In Boston, Malcolm meets a guy named Shorty who teaches him how to straighten his hair, talk jive, and how to pick a fashionable zoot suit.
• Malcolm meets Laura and drops her for a white girl named Sophia.
• Ella hates Sophia, so she gets Malcolm a job on a railroad. This is when he decides he has to live in Harlem.
• Malcolm becomes a drug dealer while in Harlem, and eventually gets run out of town by an old gambler named West Indian Archie.
• Back in Boston, Malcolm starts to steal and is caught and sent to prison.
• While in prison, he undergoes a transformation that ends with his conversion to the Nation of Islam.
• Malcolm is the most dedicated member of the Nation of Islam and rises to prominence, but when he gets too big others start to get jealous of him.
• After commenting on the death of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm is kicked out of the Nation of Islam.
• He travels to Mecca and changes his entire perspective on race and religion.