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Malcolm x was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother was a homemaker occupied with the family’s eight children. His father was an outspoken Baptist minister and an avid supporter of Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. His father’s civil rights activism prompted death threats from Black Legion, a white supremacist group, forcing Malcolm’s family to relocate several times throughout his childhood. Despite their efforts to elude the Black Legion, …

…After repeated attempts on his life, Malcolm rarely traveled anywhere without bodyguards. On February 14, 1965, the home where Malcolm, his wife, and four daughters were firebombed. They escaped without injury. At a speaking engagement in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965, three gunmen rushed Malcolm on stage and shot him 15 times at close range. The 39-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian hospital. Fifteen hundred people attended his funeral on February 27, 1965.