Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, 1925-1965) was a Muslim minister and an important leader in the Black civil rights struggle in the United States.
His parents — a Georgian father and a Grenadine mother — were both active in Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, which preached Black unity and pan-Africanism. Born in Omaha, family moves in his childhood took Malcolm to Milwaukee and then Lansing, Michigan, where he was a strong student — but he dropped out of high school after a teacher told him his dream of becoming a lawyer was "no realistic goal for a n——." After a string of robberies in Boston, he was sentenced to a Massachusetts prison, where he read copiously and became a member of the Nation of Islam, a religious movement preaching Black self-reliance and an eventual return to Africa. In 1950, following NOI guidance, he dropped his "slave name" surname and began referring to himself as Malcolm X.
His intelligence, charisma, oratory, and forceful presence quickly made him a leader in the Nation of Islam and a magnet for media coverage. He took a far more aggressive stance on civil rights matters than his frequent point of comparison, Martin Luther King, Jr.; he preached the separation of the races and decried a sole focus on non-violence resistance, arguing Black rights should be achieved "by any means necessary."
His growing prominence sparked jealousy in the movement's leader, Elijah Muhammad, who began trying to curtail his public actions; Malcolm X also began to sour on Elijah Muhammad's leadership and personal ethics. In 1964, Malcolm X announced he was breaking with NOI and embracing mainstream Sunni Islam. After his departure and undertaking a pilgrimage to Mecca and a tour of Africa, his political views began to evolve. He abandoned the stark "white devils" talk of his Nation days and became more open to cross-racial cooperation. His travels pushed him to see American civil rights struggles within the context of global human rights struggles.
But Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam saw an independent Malcolm X as a rival and a threat. On February 19, 1965 — after several failed NOI attacks, including a car bombing — three Nation of Islam members rushed Malcolm X during a speech at Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom and shot him with two semiautomatic handguns and a sawed-off shotgun. It is generally accepted that he was assassinated on orders from Elijah Muhammad, with the assistance of future NOI leader Louis Farrakhan; some have theorized additional involvement by the CIA, FBI, and/or NYPD.
This embedding is based on 30 images cooked for a total of 300 steps on base SD 1.5: 16 vectors per token, a 0.004 learning rate, a batch size of 6, and 5 gradient steps.
Your ratings, especially of the five-star variety, are very much appreciated.