Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [320]
23 “as suddenly as they had come.” Malcolm X and Haley, Autobiography, p. 1.
23 and a public picnic drew twenty-five thousand followers. Schuyler, “The Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska, 1920-1930,” pp. 236, 237-39.
23 The boy, Earl’s seventh child, was christened Malcolm. Goldman, The Death and Life of Malcolm X, p. 26. Malcolm later recalled, “I was born in a segregated hospital of a segregated mother and a segregated father.”
23 “much alive to its part in carrying on the great work.” Negro World, March 27, 1926. Louise Little’s report in the Negro World of July 3, 1926, noted that the Omaha division of the UNIA’s meeting of that day featured a poetry reading, prayer, a musical selection, and a discussion “about matters of the organization.” See Louise Little, “Omaha, Neb. Report,” Negro World, July 3, 1926.
23 Black Star Line and given a five-year sentence. Hill and Blair, eds., Marcus Garvey: Life and Lessons, p. lxv.
24 to reverse Garvey’s conviction. Rolinson, Grassroots Garveyism, p. 158.
24 higher than in many other cities. Joe William Trotter, Jr., Black Milwaukee: The Making of an Industrial Proletariat, 1915-45, second edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007), p. 60.
24 “black city within the city.” Ibid., pp. 87, 90, 93.
24 preventing racial strife between striking workers. Ibid., p. 57.
24 to elevate African Americans to elective office. Ibid., pp. 125, 135-36. Also see “News of Divisions,” Negro World, January 29, 1927, February 5, 1927, and February 19, 1927.
24 June 8, 1927, asking for Garvey to be released. Earl Little, W. M. Townsend, and Robert Finney, Officers, International Industrial Club of Milwaukee, to President Calvin Coolidge, June 8, 1927, in Hill, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 6, September 1924-December 1927 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 561-62. Two years earlier, on April 27, 1925, the Milwaukee UNIA Division No. 207 had appealed to President Coolidge to grant executive clemency to Garvey. The UNIA branch’s appeal noted that “Mr. Garvey is suffering, and has for some years been suffering, from chronic bronchial asthma and is subject to attacks of vertigo.” In ibid., p. 204.
24 delayed only by the birth of yet another son, Reginald. Actually, the Little family may have moved from Milwaukee earlier. According to the Negro World issue of May 27, 1927, Earl Little is reported to have been the leader of the Indiana Harbor (East Chicago, Indiana) UNIA branch organization.
25 a lawyer, who filed an appeal. DeCaro, On the Side of My People, pp. 44-45.
25 “and they knew where the baby was.” Wilfred Little (Wilfred Shabazz) interview, in Strickland and Greene, eds., Malcolm X: Make It Plain, p. 21.
25 “away from the house,” Wilfred recalled. Ibid.
26 February 26, 1930, when it was quickly dismissed. G. W. Waterman, Special Report, Case 2155, “Suspected Arson,” People of the State of Michigan v. Earl Little (colored), November 8, 1929, in Department of State Police, State of Michigan, Lansing, Michigan; and information on George W. Waterman in 1910 and 1920 censuses.
26 would surely have made the late payment first. DeCaro, On the Side of My People, pp. 45-46.
27 and ultimately the Sweets were freed. See Joseph Tumini, “Sweet Justice,” Michigan History Magazine, vol. 83, no. 4 (July / August 1999), pp. 23-27; and Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age (New York: Henry Holt, 2004). Gladys Sweet contracted tuberculosis during her incarceration and died at the age of twenty-seven. Dr. Ossian Sweet moved back into the Garland Avenue residence in 1928. Financial problems forced