Ella Little-Collins (1914 – 1996, aged 82) was an American civil rights activist and the half-sister of
Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an African American revolutionary, Islam in the United States, Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figur ...
.
She was born in
Butler, Georgia, to Earl Little and Daisy Little (née Mason); her paternal grandparents were John (Big Pa) Lee Little and Ella Little (née Gray), and her siblings were Mary Little and Earl Lee Little Jr. She had seven half-siblings from her father's second marriage: Wilfred, Philbert, Hilda, Reginald,
Malcolm, Wesley, and Yvonne.
She worked as congressman
Adam Clayton Powell's secretary, the manager of her mother's grocery store, and an investor in house property, which she let out as rooming houses.
She joined the
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A centralized and hierarchical organization, the NOI is committed to black nationalism and focuses its attention on the Afr ...
in the mid-1950s and helped establish its mosque in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
and a day-care center attached to it, although she left the Nation in 1959 to become a
Sunni Muslim
Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Musli ...
.
She supported black and ethnic studies programs in universities across the United States and founded the
Sarah A. Little School of Preparatory Arts in Boston.
In his
autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...
, Malcolm X wrote about the impact his first meeting with his half-sister had on him. She came to visit when he was in seventh grade, and he described her as "the first really proud black woman I had ever seen" and wrote: "I had never been so impressed with anybody." At the end of the school year, he moved to
Roxbury to live with her, and she was his guardian until he turned 21.
Her home, the
Malcolm X—Ella Little-Collins House, is the last known surviving childhood home of Malcolm X. Its exterior was designated a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1998, and was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 2021.
When Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam in 1964, Little-Collins paid for him to make the
Hajj
Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetim ...
. She also paid his funeral and business expenses after
his assassination, and took over his
Organization of Afro-American Unity, including his project of giving 35 scholarships from
Al-Azhar University
The Al-Azhar University ( ; , , ) is a public university in Cairo, Egypt. Associated with Al-Azhar Al-Sharif in Islamic Cairo, it is Egypt's oldest degree-granting university and is known as one of the most prestigious universities for Islamic ...
in Cairo, Egypt, and from the
University of Ghana
The University of Ghana is a public university located in Accra, Ghana. It is the oldest public university in the country.
The university was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast in the British colony of the Gold Coast ...
to students wishing to study overseas.
In 1986 she merged the
Organization of Afro-American Unity with the African American Defense League.
In 1988, both of Little-Collins' legs were amputated due to
gangrene
Gangrene is a type of tissue death caused by a lack of blood supply. Symptoms may include a change in skin color to red or black, numbness, swelling, pain, skin breakdown, and coolness. The feet and hands are most commonly affected. If the ga ...
.
She died in 1996 at age 82.
The Ella Collins Institute at the
Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center is named after her; its goal is "to establish a vibrant community by joining a classical understanding of Islam with modern scholarship and a healthy understanding of the current cultural context."
References
Further reading
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External links
*
*''Say Brother'' Episode; Malcolm X (1969)
Ella Collins interview American Archive of Public Broadcasting
The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH Educational Foundation, founded through the efforts of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The AAPB is a national effort to di ...
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Little-Collins, Ella
1914 births
1996 deaths
American activists with disabilities
American amputees
Black studies scholars
American women civil rights activists
Family of Malcolm X
People from Roxbury, Boston
People from Taylor County, Georgia
Converts to Sunni Islam
American Muslim activists
Former Nation of Islam members