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Boston Globe
a day ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
75 years later, Malcolm X's pardon request resurfaced in Massachusetts. What should the state do with it?
Malcolm X pardon file. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Nearly 75 years later, the pardon file for the future civil rights leader surfaced amid a routine renovation of a state government building. The documents provide a snapshot of the budding activist during a formative time. By the time of the report, he had converted to Islam in prison and begun advocating about racial issues. The discovery of the documents also provides an opportunity, according to the Governor's Council member whose staff found them, for the state to take a small step to acknowledge a historic wrong. Related : Advertisement Terrence Kennedy, the council member and a longtime defense attorney, said Governor Maura Healey's office should grant the pardon request posthumously for Malcolm X. The sentencing, Kennedy said, was unduly severe. 'It was excessive, and I cant believe that race wasn't a factor,' he told the Globe. Healey's office did not comment. Members of Malcolm X's family, who still live in Roxbury, said the documents bring an interesting opportunity for a teaching moment. Advertisement 'It was an exorbitantly harsh punishment,' said Malcolm X's grandnephew Arjun Collins. Still, a pardon just for pardon's sake would feel like an empty gesture, he said: 'Too little, too late.' But there's a way of doing this right, he said. The state could use this as an occasion to take a broader look at mass incarceration rather than just one man. Examine how Black people were by the criminal justice system treated before, and how disparities remain. 'In the end, words don't mean anything,' Collins said. 'Only action means something.' Malcolm X speaks to reporters in Washington, D.C., May 16, 1963. Uncredited/Associated Press Malcolm X's pardon request, filed Dec. 4, 1950, contains a small amount of biographical information in what appears to be his own hand. He wrote his name as Malcolm X. Little, adding that he was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 19, 1925. The file also contains reports created by state bureaucrats detailing Malcolm X's personal and criminal histories to analyze whether he should be granted a pardon. He grew up in Michigan until his teenage years when, in 1940, he came to live with his half-sister Ella Collins in Roxbury. He started taking odd jobs, according to reports and his autobiography: a busboy, a shoe shiner, and a soda jerk. He also began doing drugs and gambling. In 1945, according to the pardon file, he began burglarizing homes, a step up from the petty crimes he had been picked up for previously. The pardon board wrote that the 20-year-old Malcolm X, along with with two other men and three women, 'made a practice of driving around, spotting darkened houses that looked like good prospects to rifle, breaking in, and carrying off house furnishings, jewelry, and clothing.' Advertisement The reports in the pardon file lists breaks in Belmont, Milton, Arlington, Brookline, Newton, and Walpole, from November 1945 to January 1946, when he was arrested and admitted to the break-ins. He was arraigned in Quincy District Court that Jan. 16. Over the next several months he was sentenced in three different counties, in effect resulting in a sentence of eight to 10 years in prison. He appealed some of the sentences, the report says, and was denied. Malcolm X filed his sparse pardon request in December 1950. It doesn't appear to make much of an argument, other than citing his half-sister, Ella Collins, as someone who would vouch for him. Another piece of paper lists the name of a political science professor in Texas, but the purpose of that paper isn't clear. Pardon-board staff compiled a report of his personal and criminal history. The report, which is part of the file, says he would be eligible for parole a few months later, in June 1951, though his sentence could run through February 1956. That report ended with a recommendation that the governor deny his request. The application passed through the district attorney's and attorney general's offices. They, too, recommended denial. 'The members of the board have reviewed all the facts in connection with this case, but can find no extenuating circumstances which would warrant executive clemency,' the board wrote in a letter to Dever, the governor, on Jan. 30, 1951. The pardon file does not have any documentation of the governor's decision, though it's clear in retrospect that Malcolm X was not pardoned because he was paroled out in August 1952. Advertisement Over the 14 years after his release, Malcolm X's public persona would rise meteorically as the civil rights movement gained steam. He worked to found the Nation of Islam's No. 11 Mosque in Roxbury, and rose through the ranks of the Black nationalist organization. Related : But after he split with Elijah Muhammad, the Nation's leader, he was assassinated in 1965 at age 39. Three men who were members of the group were charged and convicted, though two of the men have won motions to have their convictions vacated in recent years. The firebrand activist gained fame with a more militant approach to the push for civil rights than his contemporary the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Sixty years after his death, Boston hasn't forgotten the man who lived here, who stole here, who found a purpose here, who preached here. A large street cutting through the middle of Roxbury bears his name, and so does the park near the Dale Street home where he and his sister lived. That home has been The fact that someone in Kennedy's office bothered to recognize the old document and potentially do something with it, Rodnell Collins said, means that people are interested in learning from the past and continuing to seek ways to improve. 'This is what my family and uncle were about,' Rodnell Collins said, clad in a florescent yellow work vest as he labored on the house. 'Teaching, and learning.' Advertisement Sean Cotter can be reached at
San Francisco Chronicle
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
The home of one of the largest catalogs of Black history turns 100 in New York
NEW YORK (AP) — It is one of the largest repositories of Black history in the country — and its most devoted supporters say not enough people know about it. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture hoped to change that Saturday, as it celebrated its centennial with a festival combining two of its marquee annual events. The Black Comic Book Festival and the Schomburg Literary Festival ran across a full day and featured readings, panel discussions, workshops, children's story times and cosplay, as well as a vendor marketplace. Saturday's celebration took over 135th Street in Manhattan between Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell boulevards. Founded in New York City during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, the Schomburg Center will spend the next year exhibiting signature objects curated from its massive catalog of Black literature, art, recordings and films. Artists, writers and community leaders have gone the center to be inspired, root their work in a deep understanding of the vastness of the African diaspora, and spread word of the global accomplishments of Black people. It is also the kind of place that, in an era of backlash against race-conscious education and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, exists as a free and accessible branch of the New York Public Library system. It's open to the public during regular business hours, but its acclaimed research division requires an appointment. 'The longevity the Schomburg has invested in preserving the traditions of the Black literary arts is worth celebrating, especially in how it sits in the canon of all the great writers that came beforehand,' said Mahogany Brown, an author and poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center, who participated in the literary festival. On Saturday, Dr. Jenny Uguru, director of nursing quality at NYC Health and Hospitals, said the Schomburg Center 'stands as an archive to celebrate, recognize and uplift what Black people bring to the table, will bring to future tables.' For the centennial, the Schomburg's leaders have curated more than 100 items for an exhibition that tells the center's story through the objects, people, and the place — the historically Black neighborhood of Harlem — that shaped it. Those objects include a visitor register log from 1925-1940 featuring the signatures of Black literary icons and thought leaders, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes; materials from the Fab 5 Freddy collection, documenting the earliest days of hip-hop; and actor and director Ossie Davis' copy of the 'Purlie Victorious' stage play script. An audio guide to the exhibition has been narrated by actor and literacy advocate LeVar Burton, the former host of the long-running TV show 'Reading Rainbow.' Whether they are new to the center or devoted supporters, visitors to the centennial exhibition will get a broader understanding of the Schomburg's history, the communities it has served, and the people who made it possible, said Joy Bivins, the Director of the Schomburg Center, who curated the centennial collection. 'Visitors will understand how the purposeful preservation of the cultural heritage of people of African descent has generated and fueled creativity across time and disciplines,' Bivins said. Novella Ford, associate director of public programs and exhibitions, said the Schomburg Center approaches its work through a Black lens, focusing on Black being and Black aliveness as it addresses current events, theories, or issues. 'We're constantly connecting the present to the past, always looking back to move forward, and vice versa,' Ford said. Still, many people outside the Schomburg community remain unaware of the center's existence — a concerning reality at a time when the Harlem neighborhood continues to gentrify around it and when the Trump administration is actively working to restrict the kind of race-conscious education and initiatives embedded in the center's mission. 'We amplify scholars of color,' Ford said. 'It's about reawakening. It gives us the tools and the voice to push back by affirming the beauty, complexity, and presence of Black identity.' Founder's donation seeds center's legacy The Schomburg Center has 11 million items in one of the oldest and largest collections of materials documenting the history and culture of people of African descent. That is a credit to founder Arturo Schomburg, an Afro-Latino historian born to a German father and African mother in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He was inspired to collect materials on Afro-Latin Americans and African American culture after a teacher told him that Black people lacked major figures and a noteworthy history. Schomburg moved to New York in 1891 and, during the height of the Harlem Renaissance in 1926, sold his collection of approximately 4,000 books and pamphlets to the New York Public Library. Selections from Schomburg's personal holdings, known as the seed library, are part of the centennial exhibition. Ernestine Rose, who was the head librarian at the 135th Street branch, and Catherine Latimer, the New York Public Library's first Black librarian, built on Schomburg's donation by documenting Black culture to reflect the neighborhoods around the library. Today, the library serves as a research archive of art, artifacts, manuscripts, rare books, photos, moving images and recorded sound. Over the years, it has grown in size, from a reading room on the third floor to three buildings that include a small theater and an auditorium for public programs, performances and movie screenings. Aysha Schomburg, the great-granddaughter of the center's founder, said she understands why many people still don't know about the library. When her parents first met, her mother had no idea what was behind the walls of the Schomburg Center, even being from Harlem herself. 'This is with every generation,' Schomburg told The Associated Press while out at the festival on Saturday. 'We have to make sure we're intentional about inviting people in. So even the centennial festival, we're bringing the Schomburg out literally into the street, into the community and saying, 'here we are.' ' Youth scholars seen as key to center's future For years, the Schomburg aimed to uplift New York's Black community through its Junior Scholars Program, a tuition-free program that awards dozens of youth from 6th through 12th grade. The scholars gain access to the center's repository and use it to create a multimedia showcase reflecting the richness, achievements, and struggles of today's Black experience. It's a lesser-known aspect of the Schomburg Center's legacy. That's in part because some in the Harlem community felt a divide between the institution and the neighborhood it purports to serve, said Damond Haynes, a former coordinator of interpretive programs at the center, who also worked with the Junior Scholars Program. But Harlem has changed since Haynes started working for the program about two decades ago. 'The Schomburg was like a castle,' Haynes said. "It was like a church, you know what I mean? Only the members go in. You admire the building.' For those who are exposed to the center's collections, the impact on their sense of self is undeniable, Haynes said. Kids are learning about themselves like Black history scholars, and it's like many families are passing the torch in a right of passage, he said. 'A lot of the teens, the avenues that they pick during the program, media, dance, poetry, visual art, they end up going into those programs,' Haynes said. 'A lot the teens actually find their identity within the program.'
Morocco World
5 days ago
- General
- Morocco World
Moroccan Scholar Honored for Global Work on Malcolm X's Legacy
Moroccan scholar and Columbia University professor Hisham Aidi has received the prestigious Vanguard Award for his decades-long work preserving and promoting the legacy of Malcolm X. The award was presented by Ilyasah Shabazz — daughter of Malcolm X — and the City of New York on May 19, during a ceremony at the Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center in Harlem, the site where the civil rights revolutionary was assassinated. Aidi, who also serves as an academic advisor at the center, has spent over thirty years researching Malcolm X's global influence. He has worked closely with the Shabazz family on cultural and educational projects aimed at empowering Harlem youth, including incarcerated and marginalized communities. His contributions include curating a new exhibition tracing Malcolm X's political journey and directing the documentary 'Malcolm X and the Sudanese,' which explores Sudan's influence on the activist's worldview. As lead researcher of the Columbia Malcolm X Project, Aidi has traveled the world collecting testimonies and studying international perceptions of Malcolm X. Recognized for shaping global discourse on justice and equality, Aidi has previously received the American Book Award, the Hip Hop Scholar Award, and the Carnegie Scholar Award. The event's host, academic Marc Lamont Hill, praised Aidi for playing a pivotal role in advancing Malcolm X studies worldwide.
CBC
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Malcolm X at 100: How his legacy has been celebrated — and co-opted — in pop culture
Social Sharing American civil rights activist and revolutionary Malcolm X would have turned 100 years old this year. Before he was assassinated in 1965 at the age of 39, Malcolm X had become a prominent figure in the Nation of Islam, known for his eloquent and passionate public speeches about Black nationalism and the critiques of American society. To commemorate his life, Commotion host Elamin Abdelmahmoud talks to professor Mark Anthony Neal, and culture critics Sandy Hudson and Matt Amha for a brief look at the commercialization of Malcolm X's legacy over the decades, and how it has or hasn't aligned with his actual mission and message. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Mark, Malcolm X came to prominence at a time when we obviously didn't have social media, internet. What do you think it was about his understanding of mass media that made him become this iconic voice that we now know? Mark: He came of age in the early parts of the electronic media era, right? He would have watched film as a kid. He would've been a young adult when television became a thing. So he was always sensitive to the representation of Black bodies and Black culture in the context of these films. Just think about a little Malcolm watching a Tarzan movie and trying to put in context what he was seeing, in terms of the way that Africans were treated. But I think more importantly, he was a photographer in his own right. So he was always concerned with capturing and documenting what was happening. And then, of course, the critical moment for him was when CBS News does their special, The Hate That Hate Produced, which really is a thing that allows more Americans in 1959 to find out what the Nation of Islam was and who Malcolm X was. He had to learn on the fly how to navigate media culture in that context. Elamin: Sandy, I'm curious for you because you are someone with real-world experience being an activist. As you look at the ways Malcolm X engaged with the media, what do you make of the way that he leveraged it? Sandy: I think it was wonderful. I think he really understood media. He was the one who said, "If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." And so he really understood the power of media, and he didn't trust it. But that didn't stop him from using the media as a tool for education and to try to influence people to understand his goals, and to reach his goals. I certainly take that lesson from him, and I have tried to use that lesson in my own activism — using the media as a tool for mass education. Elamin: Matt, obviously there's something quite intentional about the ways that Malcolm X leveraged media. What do you make of the way that he approached it? Matt: I mean, Malcom was a showman in a lot of ways, you know? He understood the theatre of emerging media which, as Mark points out, at the time would have been colour television. I think he was a master of spectacle — and that isn't to say that it is in any way shallow. But it's to say that you understand the way that media and public attention functioned, and he understood how to ultimately bend it to his will. He was a kind of forebearer in that sense, in a lot of ways. Elamin: I want to spend a moment on that idea of it being theatre, because I don't think you are saying that it's fictitious in any kind of way. But you're saying it's a way to sort of get attention, and direct it towards the thing that you want that attention to be on. Matt: Well, what I mean to say by theatre is, there's a famous instance in 1957 where a Black man named Johnson Hinton is beaten in Harlem. He takes thousands of Black men from Harlem and marches down to the precinct in his community and stands them outside and makes demands of the NYPD, who eventually yield. That imagery of having hundreds of Black men standing outside of the precinct, making this demand of the New York Police Department, is a moving image. I mean, radicalism is about your belief system, but there's also a kind of aesthetic demonstration of radicalism as well. And the press at the time, and still to this day, often respond to that, right? And he, to me, was a kind of master of using that and turning it on its head, as Sandy says, for the purposes of political education.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Springfield to honor Malcom X's legacy and impact with new mural
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – A new mural will be unveiled in the city of Springfield this weekend. Springfield Pride Parade Committee expands Pride festivities to support the youth The mural will honor the late Malcolm X, and will be unveiled at the mosque that the civil rights leader himself opened on Oak Street in the year 1958. This mural is part of an ongoing effort from city organizers to honor and celebrate the impact that black leaders have had in their community. The event will begin on Saturday, June 7th, at noon and will be hosted by Representative Bud Williams and Muralist Richard Johnson. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
