Malcolm's defiant behavior toward authority remained a problem, and at thirteen, he was sent to the Michigan State Detention Home, bound for reform school. The other children became wards of the state. Little suffered a severe nervous breakdown and was sent to the state mental hospital. After this, family unity began to dissolve: first Malcolm, who had become a discipline problem, was sent to live with another family in 1937 and later that year, Mrs. Although the Little family was poor, they were self-sufficient until Reverend Little's death in 1931. Most of Malcolm's early life was spent in and about Lansing, Michigan, where the family lived on a farm. His father, Reverend Earl Little, was a Baptist minister and an organizer for Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, a black separatist 'back-to-Africa' group of the 1920s. Malcolm was the seventh of his father's nine children - three by a previous marriage - and his mother's fourth child.

Changing small words or phrases in quotes such as 'um' or 'like' for clarity is also normal, but standards from the Society of Professional Journalists say that direct quotes should never be changed significantly.Įig said on Twitter that it's also possible King never complained about being misquoted because he rarely complained about press coverage and 'probably didn't read the whole interview.Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, on he dropped the 'slave name' Little and adopted the initial X (representing an unknown) when he became a member of the Nation of Islam. It is typical journalistic practice to negotiate with sources who say that their quotes have been misquoted or taken out of context, so it's possible King may have made additions to Haley after the interview.

'They're like 'oh my god, I've been teaching that to my student for years, and now I have to rethink it,'' Eig told the Post. Eig gave the paper a copy of the transcript that shows the section of the interview - published in Playboy by journalist Alex Haley in 1965 - appears to have portions that are fabricated or taken out of context.Įig told the paper that he shared his findings with several other King historians, who said the differences 'jumped out' as 'a real fraud.'

The autobiography of malcolm x author