Black Neighborhoods | Day 1 | Do You Know What Happened at 3448 Pinkney Street, Omaha, NE?

Day 1

“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” - Malcolm X

The Address: 3448 PINKNEY STREET OMAHA, NEBRASKA

The Story: The historical marker is behind the building. You cannot see it from the parking lot. Near the historical marker lies a small structure that is supposed to resemble the original house. The original house was the brick-and-mortar dreams of Reverend Earl and Louise Little.

The current building houses the Malcolm X Foundation. There are five sets of stairs inside to represent the five pillars of Islam. Outside the historical marker reads “El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was born Malcolm Little at University Hospital Omaha,” although neighborhood historian Bertha Calloway says he was actually born at home, right there at 3448 Pinkney Ave, attended to by doctor W.D. Lear and assisted by doctor A.S. Pinto. It was common practice back then for official birth certificates to conceal home births by listing a hospital name.

Malcolm would live in this house on the north side of Omaha for less than a year before the Nebraska KKK, which at the time had a membership of more than 45,000, including a women’s branch, a kids club, an annual state convention, ran them out of town.

Unfortunately, the family couldn’t run far enough, and on the corner of E. Michigan Ave and Detroit St. in Lansing, Michigan the terror caught up to them, killing Earl Little.

A quick google image search reveals that there is a Chevy car dealership sitting at the corner now. No one there to tell the story of how that intersection helped birth the great Malcolm X.

But during this episode we will tell that story, a story that starts at 3448 Pinkney Street.

The story of Malcolm’s birth home is a story set amidst a red summer and a mob rising. It includes the story Louise Norton Langdon Little who was born in Saint Andrew Parish, Grenada to Ella Langdon who was the daughter of Jupiter and Mary Jane.

We don’t know if their names were printed in a family bible, or if Earl would have had a chance to grab that bible before taking his family and fleeing.

What we do know is that the story didn’t end there on that street and that that street birthed one of the greatest revolutionaries of anytime.