Chuck Bryan

His dad, Earl, was a Baptist lay speaker.

His mother, Louise Little, they were both members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which was a Marcus Garvey joint, someone else we never learned about in high school.

And they moved to Milwaukee for a little while.

Then eventually in 1928, when little Malcolm was three, landed in Michigan.

And they landed in a white neighborhood.

And that was a big problem because they were not wanted there.

And Earl Little was not the kind of guy to just pack up and leave because his neighbors didn't want him there.

So he stayed.

And the community had a clause in their HOA covenant that said that basically no one was allowed to sell a house to non-white people.

And so they sued to evict them.

And while that was kind of going through, even before the eviction was finalized, a group of white men burned their house to the ground without any firefighters even showing up.

Yeah, I mean, there was actual evidence that was ignored.

He had clearly been beaten and placed on the tracks.

So it was kind of just brushed under the table.

It was very upsetting for a young Malcolm because that was like the rumor.

It was all around the school and everything.

So he was hearing all these stories.

And it was, you know, definitely a big early sort of kind of fork in the road for him in that his family was left without their dad.

They, like you said, ruled it a suicide, but I think she got like $1,000 in one life insurance payment, Louise did, which would be about $25,000 today, but was denied because of the suicide claim, a much larger insurance claim.

I see.