Lindsay Little - Perception of the X lyrics

The main perception of Malcolm X was his devotion to the m**m faith through his teachings and as a civil rights activist whose speeches awakened the desire for change within his listeners. Throughout his life he had many names which represented a stage in his life and the many names described his metamorphosis of beliefs and teachings. Originally Malcolm X was named "Malcolm Little" which was a name taken after his forefather's slave master. As a teenager, Malcolm had the name of "Detroit Red" which was his street name given to him because he had red hair and was a drug dealer, a pimp, and later a burglar who went o prison for 10 years. During his time in prison, Malcolm became a m**m which reformed him leading him to be a spokes person for the Nation of Islam and a civil rights activist giving himself the name of "Malcolm X". After becoming disillusioned with the Nation of Islam, he took the pilgrimage to Mecca where he rename himself "El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz" which remained his title until his d**h at the age of 39. October 25, 1943 -Malcolm X avoided being drafted into WWII Excerpt from "The Influence of Malcolm X on Black Militancy" written by Frederick D. Harper: "Malcolm X indicated creativity in originating unique and different phrases that depicted his point well. He had the ability to create laughter in other people. In a number of his speeches, he had to ask the audiences to try to hod their applause and laughter to save him time. Malcolm X also had a talent of getting his point over by using literary techniques, with a specialty in employing animal figures. Plain logic, humor, and literary techniques were the cornerstones of his creative rhetoric." (1971) January 12, 1946- Malcolm Little was imprisoned for 10 years Excerpt from Gwendolyn Brooks' "Malcolm X": "Original. Hence ragged-round, Hence rich-robust. He had the hawk-man's eyes. We gasped. We saw the maleness. The maleness raking out and making guttural the air And pushing us to walls. And in a soft and fundamental hour A sorcery devout and vertical Beguiled the world. He opened us — Who was a key. Who was a man." (1968) August 7, 1952- Malcolm Little became Malcolm X Excerpt from "Malcolm X–An Autobiography" written by Larry Neal: "I am the Seventh Son of the Son who was also the Seventh. I have drunk deep of the waters of my ancestors have traveled the soul's journey towards cosmic harmony, the Seventh Son. Have walked slick avenues and seen grown men, fall, to die in a blue doom of d**h and ancestral agony, have seen old men glide, shadowless, feet barely touching the pavements. I hustler. I pimp. I unfulfilled Black man bursting with destiny. New York city Slim called me Big Red, and there was no escape, close nights of the smell of d**h. Pimp. hustler. The day fills these rooms. I am talking about New York. Harlem. talking about the neon madness." (1967) 1960-Malcolm X had photographer, Eve Arnold take his picture Excerpt from "The Five Faces of Malcolm X" written by Charles Alva Hoyt: "And it is for this reason most of all that all men of good will must bitterly lament his d**h, for he was the one black leader, and one of a very few of any color, who indisputably combined brains, courage, integrity, maturity and real magnetism, particularly for ghetto people. He had earned his way to the top; not inherited it, or bought it or fallen into it, as almost every other American political leader seems to have done, but earned it by the pain of his own experience, his growth from mascot to hustler to criminal to controversialist to philosopher, as I think we may call him--lover of wisdom seeker of the truth that has not been tampered with." (1970) May 2-10, 1963: The launching of Martin Luther King's Project C Excerpt from "When the word is given; a report on Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and the Black m**m world" written by Louis E. Lomax: "'Martin Luther King is a chump, not a champ. Any man who puts his women and children on the front lines is a chump, not a champ.' This was Malcolm's most inglorious hour. It will take him months of hard work to regain the ground he lost among non-m**m Negroes with that single statement." (1963) March 8, 1964- Malcolm X split from the Nation of Islam Excerpt from "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" written by Malcolm X with Alex Haley: "All that I knew, really, I said, was that I had heard Malcolm X refer in pa**ing to his life of crime and prison before he became a Black m**m; that several times he had told me: 'You wouldn't believe my past,' and that I had heard others say that at one time he had peddled dope and women and committed armed robberies. I knew that Malcolm X had an almost fanatical obsession about time. 'I have less patience with someone who doesn't wear a watch than with anyone else, for this type is not time-conscious,' he had once told me. 'In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.'" (1964) April 1964- Malcolm X took on the name of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz after his pilgrimage to Mecca Excerpt from Robert Hayden's "El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)": "The icy evil that struck his father down and ravished his mother into madness trapped him in violence of a punished self struggling to break free. As Home Boy, as Dee-troit Red, he fled his name, became the quarry of his own obsessed pursuit. He conked his hair and Lindy-hopped, zoot-suited jiver, swinging those chicks in the hot rose and reefer glow. His injured childhood bullied him. He skirmished in the Upas trees and cannibal flowers of the American Dream-- but could not hurt the enemy powered against him there." (1970) February 21, 1965 -Malcolm X died Excerpt from "For Malcolm X" written by Margaret Walker: "All you violated ones with gentle hearts; You violent dreamers whose cries shout heartbreak; Whose voices echo clamors of our cool capers, And whose black faces have hollowed pits for eyes. All you gambling sons and hooked children and bowery bums Hating white devils and black bourgeoisie, Thumbing your noses at your burning red suns, Gather round this coffin and mourn your dying swan." (1970)