Malcolm X

Malcolm X 19 May 1925 - 21 Feb 1965

Gordon Parks's photograph shows Malcolm X on a New York sidewalk selling a special issue of Muhammad Speaks, the official newspaper of the black separatist group Nation of Islam. In covering the civil rights movement for Life magazine, Parks found Malcolm X "a spellbinding orator of bitter wit, power, and impressive intellect." Jailed for burglary as a youth, the former Malcolm Little rose to a position of authority in the early 1960s as an outspoken critic of Martin Luther King Jr. and others who were, in his words, "begging for integration." "We've shaken up the white man by asking for separation," he said in 1961. Although he would reject the Nation of Islam in 1964 and would reconcile his differences with King before being assassinated in 1965, Malcolm X was instrumental in making the campaign for civil rights more militant and in planting the seeds for the Black Power movement.

Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution