The Malcolm X Inkster Home Historical Preservation Project

In 2014, the Inkster-based non-profit organization Project We Hope, Dream, and Believe acquired the one-time residence of social revolutionary, Nation of Islam minister, and civil and human rights leader, Malcolm X at 4336 William St., Inkster, Michigan. The home belonged to his elder brother, Wilfred Little, himself an official in the Detroit-born Nation of Islam’s Temple No. 1, who had arranged for him to live there after Malcolm was granted parole by the Massachusetts State Parole Board after serving several years in prison. Malcolm arrived at the home, where Wilfred, his wife Ruth, and their children lived, on August 8, 1952, and resided there into 1953 as F.B.I. and local law enforcement records indicate.

While residing in Inkster, Malcolm held several jobs, including, locally, at Sam’s Cut-Rate Furniture store, with his brother Wilfred, at Gar Wood Industries in nearby Wayne, as well as at the Lincoln-Mercury Stamping Plant, also in Wayne, among other places. Malcolm had planned to build a Nation of Islam temple in Inkster, as well, but that never materialized, as Malcolm was dispatched to the east coast to help recruit members to the Nation of Islam’s other temples. Malcolm’s formal membership in the Nation of Islam, as well as his formal adoption of the name “Malcolm X”, also occurs while he was residing at this home. Malcolm refers to his time in Inkster during one of his final speeches, given in Detroit, at Ford Auditorium, on Feb. 14, 1965, stating, proudly, “I used to live out here, in Inkster”