Malcolm X received the recognition many sought for his contributions to the civil rights movement in the conservative Midwestern state where he was born, and for years was denied the honor as too controversial.
The Nebraska Legislature on Thursday passed a bill recognizing the civil rights icon each year on May 19, the day Malcolm X was born as Marco in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska Malcolm Little. The act did not declare the day, which was introduced in 1925, as a state holiday. A bill introduced by Omaha Sen. Terrell McKinney, one of two black members of the Nebraska Legislature.
McKinney’s bill failed to gain traction largely because of opposition to the estimated cost of declaring a state holiday, which would cost more than $500,000 a year. The cost comes from holiday pay for state workers.
Instead, McKinney added an amendment to a bill declaring Oct. 17 Missing Persons Day. The amendment designates May 19 as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X Day), allowing Nebraska schools to host events honoring the civil rights icon.
Recognition Day coincides with a ceremony held in May to commemorate the induction of Malcolm X into the Nebraska Hall of Fame.
During the ceremony, a bronze bust created by Lincoln artist Nathan Murray will be unveiled in the lobby of the Nebraska State Capitol and will be displayed alongside busts of other inductees.
“Malcolm X is one of the most fundamentally misunderstood people in American history,” McKinney said during a committee hearing on his bill last year. “If his achievements and contributions were recognized, perhaps the stigma surrounding him would disappear.”
Malcolm X was selected last year as the newest inductee into the Nebraska Hall of Fame, making him the state’s first black honoree. After 15 years, he was rejected as too controversial.
Born the son of a Baptist minister, Malcolm Little was an infant when he and his family traveled to Milwaukee following threats from the Ku Klux Klan.
At age 20, he was convicted of burglary in Boston and served nearly seven years in prison, during which time he converted to Islam and later changed his name.
He emerged as a fiery Nation of Islam minister with a message that blacks should escape white oppression “by any means necessary,” then split with the Nation of Islam and abandoned racial separatism.
He was assassinated by a gunman during a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan.
The firebrand was first nominated for the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 2004, but was rejected by an all-white committee, choosing instead a mid-1900s U.S. senator who was famous for his Known for launching campaigns to expel gays from government jobs in the 1940s and 1950s. Sen. Kenneth Wherry’s nomination was later canceled due to public meeting violations.
In 2007, Malcolm X was once again overlooked by the little-known botanist Charles Bessey.
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