Malcolm X has become the first Black honoree to be inducted into Nebraska’s Hall of Fame, AP News reports.
On Monday (September 12), the organization’s commission voted for the civil rights activist 4-3 over late author and University of Nebraska educator Louise Pound.
“Malcolm X used the lessons he learned early in life and his intellectual power, dedication ad perseverance in the fight for freedom and equality for all during the civil rights movement in America,” commission chairman Ron Hull said. “His work and his legacy continue to impact the citizens of the world.”
In 1925, Malcolm X was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He and his family moved to Milwaukee the following year after receiving threats from the Ku Klux Klan.
The civil rights pioneer spent most of his life as an advocate for Black empowerment, urging Black Americans to cast off white oppression “by any means necessary.” He was a prominent figure in the Nation of Islam before his departure in 1964.
The following year, Malcolm X was assassinated while delivering a speech in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom at 39 years old.
He was initially nominated for the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 2004, but the commission, made solely of white men, declined to induct him. The civil rights leader again went unselected in 2007 when botanist Charles Bessey was inducted.
Now that the commission has voted in favor of his induction, a bronze bust of Malcolm X will sit in Nebraska’s state capitol.
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