El-Hajj Malik El- Shabazz

Also known to the world as Malcolm X as well as Malcolm Little. Today is his birthday and though Brother Malcolm passed a few years before I made my entry into this world, I stop today to ponder an amazing man and say Happy Birthday.

I was 17 when I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, like many others it was a book that had a profound impact on me, I cannot not even put into words how but it did. This book ranks almost up there with the Bible for me as far as life changing books.

Anyway Happy Birthday, and if you have not read this book, get thee a copy like yesterday and if you have read it, now is a great time to reread it in light of how the world has changed. Yet Malcolm remains relevant to us all and not because he was brought to our national conscience by Spike Lee in the late 1980’s early 1990’s through his movies and on t-shirts and caps but because his words and actions left us with truths that are still relevant and inspiring.