Malcolm X Still Scares America That’s Why Schools Erase Him

Quintessa Williams, Word in Black

Not teaching Malcolm X in schools deprives students of the truth — and the tools — to understand themselves and fight injustice.

Despite Malcolm X being one of the most influential figures in American history, his story is still largely missing — or misrepresented — in K-12 education. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), just 13 states explicitly mention Malcolm X in their K-12 social studies standards, compared to 37 states that mandate teaching about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

“When young Black students don’t learn about Malcolm X,” Hagopian says, “they lose the opportunity to understand systemic oppression and their own power to challenge it. Malcolm’s brilliance was that he spoke plainly about injustice. He named it. And he made it clear that another world was possible.”

Flattening Malcolm’s Legacy

When Malcolm does appear, he’s reduced to a foil  — King’s “angry” counterpart. Teachers instruct students to compare and contrast the two. The standard classroom narrative goes like this: King was peaceful, and Malcolm was violent. King had a hopeful dream about integration, while Malcolm hated white people. And that’s been the case for decades.

A 1992 opinion piece in the Harvard Crimson noted that “Little is taught regarding Malcolm X and the limited amount said usually portrays him as Dr. King’s violent alternative who marginalized whites while contributing little to the movement’s success as a whole.”

Read more to understand how they are erasing Malcolm X.

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