People are always speculating: why I am as I am? To understandany person, his whole life, from birth, must be reviewed.

All our experiences fuse into our personalities. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

I was born in trouble!

Malcolm Littles Great Depression

A history of one African American boys journey through adolescence, poverty, fatherlessness, racism and crime during the Great Depression.
Khary WorldPeace Research Project

Thesis
The Great Depression period, 1929 to 1939, and its overlapping Nadir and Great Retreat were critical in the ideological development of Malcolm Xs philosophy and leadership style as one of Americas most prominent radical black nationalists.

Strange Moods Fill Our Children

We are the children of the black sharecroppers, the first born of the city tenements. We have trampled down a road three hundred years long. We have been shunted to and fro by cataclysmic social changes. We are a folk born of cultural devastation, slavery, physical suffering, unrequired longing, abrupt emancipation, migration, disillusionment, bewilderness, joblessness, and insecurity- all enacted within a short space of historical time!

Malcolm Little: Vital Statistics

Born May 19th, 1925 in Omaha Nebraska 7th of Earl Littles 10 children 4th of Louise Norton-Littles 8 children Eldest brother Wilfred born 1920, Eldest sister Hilda (1922), brother Philbert (1923) , brother Reginald (1927), brother Wesley (1928), sister Yvonne (1929), half-brother Robert Butch (1938) Earl Littles three children from first marriage- half-sister Ella (1914), half-sister Mary (1915) & half-brother Earl Jr. (1917)

Louisa Norton Little

Earl Little

Malcolms Parents

Born 1897 La Digue, Grenada 5 8 small boned and slender, fair skinned and head full of hair a skilled seamstress Well educated UNIA recruiter, organizer & secretary Mulatto of African, Scottish & Carib ancestry Fluent in French moved to Montreal, Canada in 1917

Born July 29th, 1890 Reynolds, Georgia 6 4 Big Man one of the strongest men I ever knew according to Wilfred Little, Malcolms oldest immediate brother a skilled carpenter UNIA recruiter and organizer abandoned his first wife and children in 1917 for unknown reasons moved to Montreal, Canada in 1917

Marcus Garvey and the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)

Garvey believed (like Washington) that African Americans should compete to win in the competition between racescivilizationism pg.208 Black nationalist, fraternal organization whose membership included millions of dues paying members from all over the world Motto- The motto of the organization is 'One God! One Aim! One Destiny!' Therefore, let justice be done to all mankind, realizing that if the strong oppresses the weak, confusion and discontent will ever mark the path of man but with love, faith and charity towards all the reign of peace and plenty will be heralded into the world and the generations of men shall be called Blessed."

Up You Mighty Race

The UNIA *Marcus Garveys Pan-Africanist organization]- whose motto was One God! One Aim! One Destiny!- had a distinctive theology and liturgy pg.206 Garveys black chauvinism looked to the races past and future for its glories pg.208

Little Family Migration: Spreading the UNIA Gospel

Montreal, Canada to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1918 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Omaha, Nebraska 1921 Omaha, Nebraska to Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1923* Milwaukee, Wisconsin to East Chicago, Indiana 1927 East Chicago, Indiana to Lansing, Michigan 1929

Omaha, Nebraska
According to US Census data, comparing population figures in 1890 and 1930, Nebraska contained forty-one counties with less than 10 blacks in their populations, including nine that had zero. By 1930, that state featured 28 counties with zero blacks, amongst 64 counties with less than 10.

The Great Retreat/Sundown Towns

Great Retreat- withdrawal of African Americans from towns and counties across the United States to black ghettoes in large northern cities Sundown Towns- any organized jurisdiction that for decades kept African Americans or other groups from living in it and was thus all-white on purpose

Creating Sundown Towns

How Sundown towns were created Affecting Little family

Created by Violence Created by Threat (direct or indirect) Created by Ordinance (legal or illegal) Created by Official government action Created by Freeze-out Created by Buyout Created by planned suburbs

The Nadir

Between 1890 and 1940, the Nadir described an intense period of political, social and economic disenfranchisemen t faced by African Americans and other ethnic and religious minorites. The era featured worsening race relations, lynchings and other acts of terrorism.

BLACKness a sin during the Nadir

Ever since the publication of Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro in 1896 helped usher in the age of Jim Crow, blackness had become an overwhelming social stigma marking criminality and other deviant behaviors.
Artist Felix Lewis cover of sheet music and song book- Quit Crying the Blues, features four white arms and hands shoving a negatively caricatured, and sobbing African American down and to the left. The higher the arm, the bluer the shade, indicating that the seemingly exclusionary stiff arms might be the cause of the stereotyped figures abundant tears, or blues

The Great Migrations Hard Economics

Push What factors conspire to push AfricanAmericans out of the south and into Northern Cities?

between 1916 and 1930 one of the largest population shifts in American history The continuing heavy migration of blacks into cities where they could vote, in states with large representation in the Electoral College, was a political fact of growing importance.

Pull What factors conspire to pull African Americans out of the south and into Northern Cities?

Walter Ellisons, TRAIN STATION, 1935

Great Migration North

They were drawn north by the prospect of industrial jobs- work that became available to large numbers of black laborers only during World War I. pg. 203
The Great Migration refers to the mass movement of approximately 1.5 million people from the primarily rural South to the Urban dominated North between 1916-1930.

Based on the picture of A Negro Family (bottom left), which state(s) are the African Americans pictured likely to have come from?

Living Conditions in the Northern Cities

Housing in Detroit Dunbar Housing Project in Harlem, New York Torched School in New Jersey

Housing in Pittsburgh

Housing in Chicago

Housing in Akron

Based on the pictures, how would you describe average living conditions of African Americans from the south who traveled north in the Great Migration?

#1

Great Migration(s) North: By the numbers

a) What does Map #1 tell us about early 20th century AfricanAmerican population growth rates? What types of information about African American migration can be gleaned from Map#2? Which northern US cities received the most African Americans, using Map#3?

b)
#2

#3

c)

"Detroit is the largest city of opportunity in the world." -Detroit City Directory, 1924-1925

Detroit promised the highest standard of living in the United States in the twenties as the auto industry which was centered there provided abundant good paying jobs.

During World War I, when foreign immigration slowedAfrican-American migration accelerated Restrictive covenants, real estate codes, and racial prejudice generally prevented Blacks, especially new arrivals, from randomly finding homes anywhere in the city. Migrants unaccustomed to northern winters suffered in the bitter cold without adequate insulation or heating in their horses. Migrants paid exorbitant rents for homes that were "ready to fall any moment. To maximize profits, many landlords divided up apartments and houses into smaller units so that they could collect money from more families. Migrants throughout the period before the Great Depression continued to be herded into already overcrowded neighborhoods. Migrants' homes were in disrepair before they owned them, and the buildings deteriorated even more as people with meager resources moved into them.

Living Black in Michigan during the Twenties

The reality for African Americans was discrimination, redlining and unfair hiring practices which limited opportunity and created unsanitary and inadequate housing for many.

Auto Industrys Abundant Jobs

By the time of the Great Depression starting in 1929, most automobile companies in Michigan, including Ford, GM, Chrysler, Cadillac and others were hiring large numbers of African Americans and paying relatively high salaries. Automobile companies responded to the Depression with wage cuts and worker layoffs, disproportionately affecting African American workers.

Settling in Lansing Michigan, 1929

The family ultimately settled near Lansing, Michigan where nearby Midwestern cities experienced dramatic increases in their African American populations between 1910 and 1920; Detroits population rising to over 40, 000, a 611% increase, and Chicagos to over 109,000 a 150% increase . Little family settles on the southern outskirts of Lansing Michigan on a small 4-to-6 acre farming plot after their original West Lansing homestead was burned to the ground under mystery. Most African Americans lived in Western Lansing so the Littles were isolated.
African American Population in Selected Cities 1920 City Chicago Number 109, 458

Percent Increase 148.2 53.2 307.8 611.3 59.0 37.4 66.3 58.9 47.2 58.9

Cincinnati Cleveland Detroit Indianapolis Kansas City New York Philadelphia Pittsburgh St. Louis

30,079 34,451 40,838 34,678 45,124 152,467 134,229 37,725 69,854

UNIA Ethic Works For and Against Littles

The family successfully subsisted on their own farm where they raised chicken, grew peas and other crops and hunted rabbit and other animals. The bulk of Negroes were either on welfare or W.P.A., or they starvedbut we were much better off than most town Negroes during the first years of the Depression writes Malcolm X in his Autobiography. This would remain true while Earl Little was alive.

Life in Lansing
Whites would refer to us as those uppity niggers or those smart niggers that live out south of town. In those days whenever a white person referred to you as a smart nigger that was their way of saying this is a nigger to watch because hes not dumbHe was always speaking in terms of Marcus Garveys way of thinkingtoward improving their own conditions. But in those days if you did that you were still considered a troublemaker- Wilfred Little

Racial Violence: Threat of the Black Legion

Littles under threat in Lansing

The Little familys movement into the United States coincided with the explosive rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Americas heartland.

In 1929, someone set fire to the Little home, burning it down to the ground. Earl accused whites. Earl was arrested for burning down his own house to acquire insurance money- a $2000 home policy with the Westchester Fire Insurance Company and a $500 policy on household contents.

Earl Littles Death, 1931 Accident or Murder?

Starting as the Klan Guard in late 1924 or early 1925 in Bellaire, Ohio, the formation more famously known as the Black Legion employed a blend of antiblack and anti-Catholic rhetoricwith their victims subjected to any number of humiliations, including whippings, being tarred and feathered, or just being run out of town. Reportedly active in Lansing in 1931, the Black Legion is rumored to have murdered Earl Little on September 8th.

Official reports describe Earl Littles death as an accident caused by him slipping on the railroad tracks while boarding a moving streetcar at night.
The possibility that Earl could have been the victim of racist violence was never considered.

 the elder Little children were forced to abandon their schooling in favor of odd-jobs and low-paying work that never added up to sustain the family. there were times when there wasnt even a nickel and we would be so hungry we were dizzy which led to increased oversight by state welfare officials who used the monthly Welfare check as an excuse to meddle into the familys struggling condition.

Fatherless, Life in Lansing deteriorates

An African American Depression

Figures cited from Cheryl Lynn Greenbergs To Ask For An Equal Chance: African Americans in the Great Depression, Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (Lanham, Maryland 2009) 38% of the black population could not support themselves without assistance in 1930 (pg.21) Black workers faced greater comptetion for even the worst jobs (21) The drop in cotton prices during the early Depression years disproportionately affected African Americans who worked the cotton fields in the American south (22). Underemploymenthit black workers harder than whites (26). In 1932, black unemployment approached 60 percent, in Detroit, Michigan (27). Of those unable to find work in 1940, 20 percent of African Americans reported that they had not been able to find work for four years or more (28). In theNorth Central states, the areas of greatest industrial activity, fewer than 40 percent of male skilled workers in 1936 reported holding jobs at their skill level.

as the Depression sinks in!

The bulk of Negroes were either on welfare or W.P.A., or they starvedbut *when Earl Little Sr. was alive] we were much better off than most town Negroes.

His mother would go into Lansing and find different jobs- in housework, or sewing- for white peopleand she would do fine until in some way or other it got to people who she was, widow of the renowned Garveyite trouble-makerEarl Little Sr.

In 1933 almost 20 percent of black urban dwellers relied on some form of aid, twice the proportion of whites (pg.49) By the start of 1935, almost one-third of all black families received financial help (49). More than $45 million of PWA funds were spent on building or improving black schools, hospitals, and the like (50). In the early years if the AAA, landowners kept the government subsidies for themselves rather than distribute them to their tenants an sharecroppers, who were disproportionately black and therefore suffered from a lack of support disproportionately (51). The CCC routinely hired whites firstAlthough the act creating the CCC prohibited discrimination by race, and more than twice as many Picketers in front of the WPA Walker-Johnson black young men as white were Building, 1734 New York Avenue. unemployed, proportionately fewer black youths received CCC placement (51).

A Black New Deal

Lansings Depression
By 1933, the industrial unemployment rate for Michigan as a whole was nearly 50%.

A family of four on relief had to exist on sixty cents a week, plus whatever free food was available was available at the soup kitchens that were located at the citys fire stations.

Blacks, many of whom had migrated to Lansing because of the employment opportunities created by the First World war and its prosperous aftermath, often received only half the wages of their white counterparts.

CCC in Michigan

Roosevelts Tree Army Blacks composed only 3.5 percent of Michigan's population in the early 1930s, and some early state CCC camps were integrated. But CCC annuals for 1937 show no integrated companies.
Michigan's first all black CCC company, the 670th, was created in late April 1933. The company, located at Camp Mack Lake near Mio, worked on forestry projects in the Huron National Forest. In 1935 the 670th relocated to Camp Bitely near Freesoil. Three other black companiesthe 2693th, 2694th and 2695thwere created in 1935. At Camp Axim, the 2695th helped build the Caberfae Ski Area.

Little Children during Lansings Depression

Wilfred, who was a pretty stable fellow, began to act older than his age He quietly quit school and went to town in search of workhe took any kind of job he could find and he would come home, dog-tired, in the evenings, and give whatever he had made to my mother. Hilda, who had always been quiet, too, attended to the babies Philbert and I didnt contribute anything. We just fought all the time Reginald came under my wing. Since he had grown out of the toddling stage, he and I had become very close.

Louise Littles Depression

My mother began to buy on credit. My father had always been strongly against credit. Credit is the first step into debt and back into slavery he had always said. My mother began to receive checks- a Welfare check and, I believe, a widows pension. The checks helped. But they werent enough, as many of us as there were. My mother was, above everything else, a proud woman, and it took its toll on her that she was accepting charity. And her feelings were communicated to us. We couldnt understand why, if the state was willing to give us packages of meat [and other food+, our mother obviously hated to accept. We really couldnt understand that my mother was making a desperate effort to preserve her pride- and ours.

Malcolms Poverty Stricken Depression

According to historian Bruce Perry, in winter, Malcolm wore nothing more than a loosely knit sweater or insubstantial jacket looked like a hand-me-down that he was not quite big enough to wear. According to Perry, in summertime, when school wasnt in session, Malcolm went barefoot, for shoes were scarcethe rest of the year, he wore beat-up sneakers Even more difficult to endure than the cold was the hunger, which intensified as the Depression deepened, writes Perry.

Malcolm and siblings reluctantly accepted food handouts at school and developed a decidedly negative attitude towards Christmas because his poverty disallowed him from contributing.

And knowing that my mother in there was a statistic that didnt have to be, that existed because of societys failure, hypocrisy, greed and lack of mercy and compassion. Hence I have no compassion in me for a society that will crush people and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.

Louise Little institutionalized

Malcolm Little copes with the Depression

Malcolm reacted to his mothers withdrawal by withdrawing himself, writes Perry. Malcolm starts to commit petty crimes. Late one night, Malcolm woke Reginald, grabbed his fathers hunting rifle, and led his younger brother to Levandowskis grocery. where he smashed a window to perform a robbery. Perry writes that the break into the store was prompted, not by hunger, but by a need to do something- anything- to relieve the helplessness they both[he and Reginal] felt as children of the Depression.

Malcolms grades begin to tumble as poverty and fatherlessness took their toll. Perry writes that played the role of class clown to the hilt, and that he was a behavior problem in most of his classes.

Malcolm emulates Joe Louis

On June twenty-seventh of that year, nineteen thirtyseven, Joe Louis knocked out James J. Braddock to become the heavyweight champion of the worldEvery Negro boy old enough to walk wanted to be the next Brown Bomber.

Malcolms brother Philbert was a successful amateur boxer so he figured that since we belonged to the same family, maybe I would become one too. Malcolm is knocked out by a slightly older, white amateur boxer, Bill Peterson, who ends Malcolms career by, once again, knocking him out in a rematch months later.
Spirit of Youth 1938, starring Joe Louis

Malcolm shows talent in Football but

In football, Malcolm excelled as a pass receiver because of his speed and his big, grabby hands and long arms, writes Bruce Perry. Perhaps Malcolm decided to drop his ambition for football because professional football was segregating, removing most of its African American players, during the heart of the Depression when economic conditions stimulated a rising tide of racism, and blacks and whites tended to separate into their own worlds, according to the NFL Hall of Fame biography of Ray Kemp, one of two black professional football players playing during the Great Depression.

Malcolm, Schoolhouse Terror

Not long after this (the fight), I came into a classroom with my hat on. I did it deliberately

After being forced walk around the classroom with the hat on as punishment, Malcolm snatched up a thumbtack and deposited it in the teachers chair.

Malcolm, Property of the State

Malcolm is expelled from school, and forced to attend a Reform school in Mason, Michigan, 12 miles outside of Lansing. To attend the school, Malcolm is also forced to live in a detention home. At the detention home, the Swerlins, a white couple who ran the facility, regularly used racial slurs to address African Americans. Despite describing the Swerlins as good people Malcolm remembers one day when Mr. Swerlin, as nice as he was, came in from Lansing where he had been through the Negro section, and said to Mrs. Swerlin right in front of me, I just cant see how those niggers can be so happy and be so poor.

Malcolms half-sister Ella arranged for official custody of me to be transferred from Michigan to Massachusetts.

Malcolm Escapes to Boston

My restlessness with Mason- and for the first time in my life a restlessness with being around white people- began as soon as I got back home and entered eight grade.

Malcolms Changing Worldview

I went gawking around the neighborhood- the Waumbeck and Humboldt Avenue Hill section of RoxburyI saw these Roxbury Negroes acting and living differently from any black people Id ever dreamed of in my life. They prided themselves of being incomparably more cultured, cultivated, dignified, and better off than their black brethren down in the ghetto, which was no further away than you could throw a rock

The Pullman Porters organized and founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) in 1925. The BSCP was the very first AfricanAmerican labor union to sign a collective bargaining agreement with a major U.S. corporation. A. Philip Randolph was the determined, dedicated, and articulate president of this union who fought to improve the working conditions and pay for the Pullman Porters.

A. Phillip Randolph and the Pullman Porter Strike

A. Philip Randolph first planned a March on Washington in 1941 to protest against governmental hiring practices that excluded African-Americans from federal employment and federal contracts. Randolph understood that this type of racial discrimination was the reason for the economic disparities between whites and blacks in this country. Randolph proposed that African-Americans march on Washington to demand jobs and freedom. Because of this, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which banned discrimination in the federal government and defense industries in June 1941.

Malcolm, the Pullman Porter

Old Man Rountree, an elderly Pullman porter and a friend of Ellas, had recommended the railroad job for me. Ella wanted to get me out of Boston and away from Sophia, Malcolms white Boston girlfriend. Sophia supported it because she thought the train job would keep me out of the Army.

Malcolm, in love with Harlem

Even as far back as Lansing, I had been hearing about how fabulous New York was, especially Harlemmy father had described Harlem with pride. Up and down along and between Lenox and Seventh and Eighth Avenues, Harlem was like some technicolor bazaar.

Depression Ends, Malcolm Hustles

Life of Crime Catches Up to Malcolm

By February, 1946 the Great Depression had been long over. The terrible World War II, almost ended. Franklin Deleanor Roosevelts leadership had steered the nation into future years of prosperity but for Malcolm, the lingering effects of his childhood experience during the Depression years had landed him in the Charlestown State Prison, serving a ten year prison sentence. The man that would emerge would quickly and famously go on to become the most controversial icon of black nationalismPeople are always speculating: why Malcolm X during Americas Civil I am as I am? To understandany Rights years. But to truly understand person, his whole life, from birth, the motivations and ambitions that must be reviewed. All our pushed him, one needs to look into the experiences fuse into our Depression years and all that young personalities. Everything that ever Malcolm experienced on his journey. happened to us is an ingredient.El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz