Malcolm X and Islam in America

In April 1964 the African-American leader Malcolm X made the pilgrimage to Makkah, and the journey changed him. He had risen to fame as the most powerful voice of the Nation of Islam, a heterodox movement that preached black separatism and an idiosyncratic doctrine far from mainstream Islam; but he had broken with it shortly before, and on the hajj, seeing Muslims of every race and colour worshipping together as equals, he embraced orthodox Sunni Islam, took the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and wrote home that the experience had reshaped his understanding of race and brotherhood. He returned to Harlem, the historic heart of black America, to preach a more universal message rooted in Islam and human equality, founding the Muslim Mosque, Inc., before he was assassinated in February 1965. He became one of the most influential figures in the story of Islam in America, a bridge between the distinct experience of African-American Muslims, with their storefront mosques in the inner cities, and the global ummah he had encountered on the pilgrimage. This scene depicts that moment in Harlem in 1964, a converted storefront mosque among the brownstones, the folded white ihram of the returned pilgrim, Islam taking root in an American city.