Malcolm "X"

Louise Little's own story runs through Omaha. Born Louise Langdon in La Digue, Grenada, she met Earl Little through the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Montreal and married him on May 10, 1919. In Omaha from 1921 she was secretary and branch reporter of the local chapter, sending its news to Negro World. After Earl died in 1931, ruled a streetcar accident, one insurer refused to pay, calling it suicide. A breakdown in late 1938 sent her to Kalamazoo State Hospital and her children to foster homes. Malcolm and his siblings later won her release.

What the plaque says

Malcolm "X" El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was born Malcolm Little at University Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, May 19, 1925. He was the son of Earl and Louise Little, 3448 Pinkney Street. Reverend Little helped organize the Universal Negro Improvement Association. After threats by night riders, the family moved to Milwau- kee and later to Michigan, where Reverend Little allegedly was murdered. During his mother's illness, Malcolm was sent to Boston, then to New York, where he committed burglary. While serving a six and one- half year prison sentence, he became self-educated and converted to an American sect of Islam. After leaving prison, Malcolm took the name Malcolm X, studied under Elijah Muhammad, and became outspoken about mistreatment of Blacks. His Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1964. During a pilgrimage to Mecca, he converted to orthodox Islam. He abandoned concepts of racial antagonism and counseled the need for human brotherhood and international cooperation. Malcolm X formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1964 and became renowned as an articulate spokesperson for human rights. Malcolm X was assassinated February 21, 1965, in New York City. His teaching lives on. City of Omaha Malcolm X Memorial Foundation Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Malcolm X Birthsite — steps away
  The North Omaha lot where Malcolm Little was born in May 1925 and his family was driven out by the Klan, saved by Rowena Moore and now planned as a cultural center.
• Joslyn Art Museum — 2.3 mi
  Omaha's free art museum, a 1931 Art Deco memorial with two modern pavilions, and the keeper of Karl Bodmer's watercolors from the upper Missouri in 1833 and 1834.
• Winter Quarters and the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery — 3.1 mi
  The Latter-day Saint camp of 1846 to 1848 on Omaha land in what is now Florence, where hundreds died the first winter, and the cemetery and trail center beside it.
• The Durham Museum (Omaha Union Station) — 3.3 mi
  Omaha's 1931 Union Station, Gilbert Stanley Underwood's Art Deco depot for the Union Pacific, closed to trains in 1971 and kept as a city museum with its waiting room intact.

More markers nearby

• Nebraska School for the Deaf — 0.9 mi
• Historic Prospect Hill--Omaha's Pioneer Cemetery — 1.0 mi
• Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898 — 1.1 mi
• Fort Omaha — 1.2 mi