Why Malcolm Lee is Influential

Spike Lee's depiction of Malcolm Little was bordering on propaganda, reminding moviegoers that this was the man who raised the esteem of Afro-Americans and reconnecting them with their African heritage. It was hard not to be swayed, but he was Malcolm X.

Malcolm X Day, a holiday honoring the man himself, falls on the third Sunday of May. (For this year, it's May 19.) Although the commemoration has legal status in cities like Berkeley, California, not everyone agree to pay homage to him, when there are suggestions of observing the day alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which is on the third Monday of January. This is due to Little's checkered past.

Malcolm X didn't have an easy life, where some incidents shaped him into an influential figure that he was. He recalled violence by white men when he was a boy, killing three of his father's brothers. His old man died when he was six, which was officially ruled as streetcar accident. But there were rumors of white racists behind his death. He excelled in school, but dropped out after being put down by one of his teachers due to his skin color. This led to a life in crime, engaging in racketeering, pimping, and robbery. Imprisonment followed, which was when he found his true calling.

"His aura was too bright," the poet Maya Angelou said of her first meeting with Malcolm X. "His masculine force affected me physically. A hot desert storm eddied around him and rushed to me, making my skin contract, and my pores slam shut."

There was no doubt that Malcolm X would get under anyone's skin because of what he had been through. He was a petty criminal to a long-term prisoner to an influential minister to a separatist political activist to a humanist to a martyr. For most people, their image of a martyr is someone like a religious saint. This would be unfair to the likes of Malcolm X, who lived during America's tumultuous period. After all, his struggles was a representation of what black Americans have gone through to break barriers. Not that King's was less significant, but despite the shortcomings, Malcolm X deserved respect.

"I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem just to avoid violence."

During his imprisonment, Malcolm X became a member of the Nation of Islam, a new religious movement back then. The organization's goal was to improve the spiritual, social, mental, and economic condition of African Americans, but critics accused them of being black supremacists and antisemitic. He would leave the group to become a Sunni Muslim, which would give him trouble during his later years. In post-9/11 era, this makes some think twice about Malcolm X, but the time will come when everyone, including critics, will accept the man for who he is, despite his early life which contradicts some of his beliefs. He was influential. He still is.