He Was Born Here Too

On May nineteenth, nineteen twenty-five, a child was born in a house on Pinkney Street in North Omaha. His mother Louise, originally from Grenada, was attended by two doctors, and she named him Malcolm Little. The family would not stay long.

His father, Earl Little, was a Baptist minister and an organizer for the Universal Negro Improvement Association, Marcus Garvey's Black nationalist movement. While Louise was pregnant with Malcolm, the Ku Klux Klan rode to the house on Pinkney Street, breaking windows and demanding the family leave Omaha. They left in nineteen twenty-six, moving first to Milwaukee and then to Lansing, Michigan.

Malcolm Little grew up in Michigan, became Malcolm X, and became one of the most consequential voices in American history. His Omaha birthplace, the house on Pinkney Street, was demolished decades ago. A memorial site now marks the spot, owned by the Malcolm X Foundation. A Nebraska state historical marker was placed there, and the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The address is thirty-four forty-eight Pinkney Street in North Omaha. The plaza sits in a neighborhood that was then and remains predominantly Black, a neighborhood shaped by the same forces of redlining and disinvestment that shaped Black neighborhoods across the urban Midwest.

Malcolm X was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame in twenty twenty-four, a recognition that was controversial in some quarters and celebrated in others, reflecting a debate about how the state claims the figures it once drove out.