He began life as Malcolm Little and ended it as El-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz; in between he was "Detroit Red," "Jack Carlton," "Homeboy," "Satan," and most famously, Malcolm X. The "X" was not a surname so much as a placeholder. The Nation of Islam (NOI) required its converts to renounce their last names as remnants of slavery. They bore the "X" as a sign of the decolonization process they were undergoing while awaiting their "Original" names. According to NOI doctrine, black Americans were "Earth's Original People"; they belonged to the "Lost-Found Nation" that had been mentally and spiritually slumbering while the mutant white race (a race of devils genetically engineered by an evil black scientist named Yacub) acquired worldwide dominion.
