El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), better known as Malcolm X, is an African American minister, and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his time spent as a vocal spokesman for the Nation of Islam.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Malcolm X spends his teenage years living in a series of foster homes after his father's death and his mother's hospitalization.

He engages in several illicit activities there, eventually being sentenced to ten years in prison in 1946 for larceny and breaking and entering.

In prison, he joins the Nation of Islam, adopts the name Malcolm X, and quickly becomes one of the organization's most influential leaders after being paroled in 1952.

Malcolm X serves as the public face of the organization for a dozen years, where he advocates for black supremacy, black empowerment, and the separation of black and white Americans, and publicly criticizes the mainstream civil rights movement for its emphasis on nonviolence and racial integration.

Malcolm X also expresses pride in some of the Nation's social welfare achievements, namely its free drug rehabilitation program.

Throughout his life beginning in the 1950s, Malcolm X endures surveillance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for the Nation's supposed links to communism.

In the 1960s, Malcolm X begins to grow disillusioned with the Nation of Islam, as well as with its leader Elijah Muhammad.

He subsequently embraces Sunni Islam and the civil rights movement after completing the Hajj to Mecca, and becomes known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.

After a brief period of travel across Africa, he publicly renounces the Nation of Islam and founds the Islamic Muslim Mosque, Inc. (MMI) and the Pan-African Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU).

Throughout 1964, his conflict with the Nation of Islam intensified, and he is repeatedly sent death threats.

On February 21, 1965, he is assassinated.

Three Nation members are charged with the murder and given indeterminate life sentences.

Speculation about the assassination and whether it had been conceived or aided by leading or additional members of the Nation, or with law enforcement agencies, will persist for decades after the shooting.

A controversial figure accused of preaching racism and violence, Malcolm X is also a widely celebrated figure within African-American and Muslim American communities for his pursuit of racial justice.

He will be posthumously honored with Malcolm X Day, where he is commemorated in various cities across the United States.

Hundreds of streets and schools in the U.S. will be enamed in his honor, while the Audubon Ballroom, the site of his assassination, will be partly redeveloped in 2005 to accommodate the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center.