It’s Black History Month and I thought I would give you few things to think about that no one talks about. Malcolm X has always been seen as hero. Yet, I have always found it interesting that people do not know the following facts about him.

1- A believer in strict separation of the races, he once even entered into secret negotiations with the KKK. Yet after making a religious pilgrimage to Mecca in April 1964, he began, in his own words, to “reappraise the ‘white man.’” From that point forward, Malcolm moved away from black separatism and wholesale denunciations of whites, and instead embraced a more humanistic approach to fighting oppression.

2-Though he once revered Muhammad, Malcolm began having second thoughts after discovering that his mentor had fathered several illegitimate children in direct violation of the Nation of Islam’s teachings.

3- Malcolm announced his split from the Nation of Islam and converted to traditional Islam and took on the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.  In speeches, soon after he criticized Muhammad for his infidelities and for “religious fakery,” prompting the Nation of Islam to take retaliatory measures.

4- By the beginning of the 1960s however, Malcolm X’s hatred of whites began to dissipate slightly. While he once believed that all whites were devils, he began to think they could be cleared of responsibility if they acted in the right way. Instead of continuing to blame the whites as a collective, or even as individuals, he believed the fault lay in the very structure of society. When he started to preach on college campuses, he was surprised at the lack of hostility he faced. Malcolm began to realize that some educated whites also wanted to solve the race inequality problem.