From Fatherless to Famous

By Keeya McSwain

An encouraging collection of biographies detailing the amazing lives of celebrities. Who grew up without their dads, and overcame adversity.  Fully colored with over 70 editorial photos.   Can you really make it without a father figure? Keeya McSwain challenges that notion in Fatherless to Famous, her debut novel.  Keeya McSw

• Language: English
• Publisher: Keeya McSwain
• Release date: Feb 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9780996965811

Keeya McSwain

Keeya McSwain-McAlister Keeya, a Detroit native residing in North Carolina . She is a first time self-published author of the book From Fatherless to Famous. She obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Health Administration at the University of Phoenix. Keeya obtained her Master of Science Degree in Information Resource Management from Central Michigan University in 2011. She has a deep-seated love for young people. Her motivation stems from many things, including being raised by a single mother who owned a day care, as well as her desire to motivate young people to seize their dreams. From Fatherless to Famous, is her attempt at inspiring youth to ruthlessly pursue their dreams.

Book preview

MALCOLM X

Revolutionary Civil Rights Leader

Of all the civil rights leaders of the twentieth century, Malcolm X probably led the most controversial life. After leaving a group of Black Muslims known as the Nation of Islam, he set out to build a new black liberation movement.

He was a confident man, an excellent public speaker, and a charismatic leader. He had thousands of followers who were tired of their existing conditions and wanted to see change in the way black people were treated in the United States.

During his life, and for many years after his death, most people thought of Malcolm X only as the young minister for the National of Islam who openly called himself the angriest man in America. Many people today also remember his teachings about racial pride and the contributions of black people throughout history.

The future civil rights leader was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Louise Little and the Reverend Earl Little, a Baptist minister. His father had three children by a previous marriage (Ella, Earl, and Mary, who lived in Boston) and six children in his second marriage (Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, and Yvonne.)

Shortly after Malcolm was born, the Little family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, because the Ku Klux Klan was threatening to kill Reverend Little. The Klan did not like Little because he was an organizer for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Little was helping Garvey to promote black race purity and black pride. Garvey advised black people to return to their ancestral homeland in Africa. Malcolm’s father accepted Garvey’s teachings because he believed that black people could never achieve freedom, independence, and self-respect in the United Sates.

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Malcolm’s father had reasons for his beliefs. Four of his six brothers had died violently. White men had killed three of them, including Malcolm’s uncle Oscar, who was shot by a white police officer. Because of these stories about his uncles, Malcolm grew up worrying that he, too, would die a violent death. He spent his youth preparing himself for death.

The Little family lived in Milwaukee for only a short time. (Malcolm’s younger brother, Reginald, was born there.) After that, they moved to Lansing, Michigan, where his sister, Yvonne, was born. There, a hate group called the Black Legion threatened the family. The members of the Legion did not like Malcolm’s father because he had brought a house outside the black area and he often talked about blacks returning to Africa. Some black people in the community told white people lies about Little to cause whites to hate him even more. Four-year-old Malcolm experienced his first racially motivated attack when men with guns set the Little house on fire. When the family moved to East Lansing, they were again harassed by whites. Finally, they settled in a four-room his father built in the country, two miles outside of town.

In 1931, Malcolm’s father died from a beating by unknown assailants who were never found. Malcolm’s mother, who was then thirty-four, was left to raise her children. She was unable to provide for her children alone, and the family went on welfare. The family’s situation because even worse in 1934, the middle of the Great Depression. Malcolm and his brothers shot rabbits, trapped muskrats, and speared frogs. They then earned money by selling these animals, however, there still wasn’t enough money to support the family. Feeling deprived and hungry, Malcolm began stealing apples and other treats from stores.

Malcolm’s mother and the welfare workers who visited the Little home began to worry more about Malcolm than the other children. His mother eventually had a nervous breakdown and was committed to a mental hospital. At age thirteen, Malcolm was placed in a foster home. Soon after, he was sent to a juvenile state detection ward because of his bad behavior. As a state ward, Malcolm began to do well in school. Even though many of the white students and teachers regularly called him a nigger, he still became very popular. Elected class president, he was ranked as one of the top three students of his seventh grade class.

During the summer between seventh and eighth grades, Malcolm went to stay with his stepsister, Ella, in Boston. After finishing eighth grade, he moved to Boston, where he decided to work instead of returning to school. Ella encouraged him to get to know people in the better parts of Boston, but he was more attracted to the city’s ghetto. There he met his friend, Shorty, who showed him how to straighten his hair in a style called a conk.

Malcolm X 2 Malcolm X’s and Martin Luther King Jr.’s only meeting on March 26, 1964 Credit Marion S. Trikosko, U.S. News & World Report Magazine

Malcolm soon began copying the sharply dressed men who hung around the pool rooms, bars, and restaurants trying to hustle money. One of his first jobs was as a shoe shiner at the Roseland State Ballroom. As he supplemented his income by selling marijuana, Malcolm’s love for the underworld grew.

In 1942, Malcolm moved to New York City, where he joined the black community’s underworld of hustling and stealing. His street name was Detroit Red. While staying high on marijuana, opium, and Benzedrine, he soon turned to armed robbery. Scrapes with other hustlers sent him fleeing back to Boston, where his criminal ways finally caught up with him. Connected to a burglary in 1946, Malcolm was sentenced to ten years in prison.

In prison, Malcolm smoked cigarettes and marijuana the guards smuggled inside. He had a bad temper and would drop his tray on the floor of the prison dining hall and refused to answer to his prison number. He cursed so much his cellmates called him Satan. Another inmate, Bimbi, began talking to Malcolm about religion and education. As he listened, Malcolm discovered that his reading and writing skills were rusty because he had not used them very much since dropping out of school. His sisters encouraged him to study, and after a year he could once more compose well-written letters.

In 1948, he received a letter from his older brother, Philbert, saying he had discovered the natural religion for the black man. Reginald and Hilda also wrote Malcolm and told him to accept Allah, the Muslim name for God, and Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Members of this group, called Black Muslims, sought to instill racial pride and promote self-sufficiency among black