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The State of Michigan has provided an $80,000 grant to help complete the rehabilitation of the childhood Inkster home of iconic Civil Rights leader Malcolm X. Per FOX 2 Detroit, the home in question is located on Williams Street, and efforts to give it a facelift had been challenging.
However, the grant provided by the state will reportedly help toward the completion of the project. “I just want to thank everyone that believes in us in making this house a part of Michigan’s history,” Aaron Sims said.
“It’s been amazing – Malcolm X was a childhood intellectual hero of mine – I only grew up about five miles away,” Tareq Ramadan added. State Rep. Dylan Wegela also provided details on how the funds were secured.
“In the Michigan Democrats Budget we secured funding for museums across the state and this a portion of that,” Wegela explained. The grant money will be channeled toward the completion of the project.
“We are moving forward with the property 75 to 80 percent finished have to do the windows, refinish the bathroom and kitchen,” Arthur Edge told FOX 2 Detroit. “Paint the outside and be ready to go,”
Sims also added: “What we’re trying to do is tell the story what Malcolm Little’s life was, before he took the X.”
As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, Malcolm X faced poverty and violence growing up before becoming an influential Black leader of the 1960s American civil rights movement. He did not believe in non-violent, civil disobedience as the means to attack racial prejudice in America unlike other Black leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X wanted a more militant approach to achieving equal rights for Black people by “any means necessary.”
But after leaving the Nation of Islam in 1964, saying that the group was refusing to take a more active role in the fight for Civil Rights, a new Malcolm X emerged. In April of 1964, the iconic Black leader visited North Africa and the Middle East, and these visits helped change his views on race in America. He began softening his stance. Seeing White Muslims and Black Muslims united during his visit to Mecca changed how he viewed racism.
During his final days before his assassination, Malcolm X was building the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), a Pan-African organization that was modeled on the Organization of African Unity, which had impressed Malcolm X during his visit to Africa in 1964. He had had prior visits to the continent with his first in 1959 when he touched down in the United Arab Republic (a short-lived political union between Egypt and Syria), Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana to make arrangements for a tour by Elijah Muhammad.
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was speaking at an Organization of Afro-American Unity event at Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom when a group of men suddenly rushed to the podium and fatally shot him several times. Three Nation of Islam members were held responsible for the shooting and convicted in 1966.
Malcolm X’s death shocked the world considering he was such a charismatic leader. He had become known as a champion of human rights from the moment he split with the Nation of Islam (NOI) following ideological differences between him and NOI leader Elijah Muhammad.
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