Malcolm X to be honored at former Queens home


Malcolm X lived here.

Now, he will be permanently memorialized here.

Thanks to an admirer, a bust of the human rights activist will adorn the home he shared with his family until the week before his assassination nearly 50 years ago.
The Queens Council on the Arts has put out a call for artists to submit designs for the bronze or marble sculpture to be erected outside the modest home at 23-11 97th St. in East Elmhurst.

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, the council's executive director, said artists - "preferably of African-American or of Muslim descent" - are sought for the project.

"We're excited about moving forward with it," she said. "It's not going to be tomorrow; however, it will be something very important for that district."

The memorial is Councilman Hiram Monserrate's idea. Inspired by the Spike Lee film "Malcolm X," Monserrate (D-Corona) recently provided $11,000 in funding.

"That movie had a great impact on me," he said. "It made clear a lot of what I read in the history books about civil rights and the struggle. It brought a different perspective to me about who Malcolm X was."

Monserrate decided to ensure that the detached, two-story dwelling where the family lived for about five years during the 1960s was enshrined in the area's lore.

"Young people of this community, primarily African-Americans, knew who Malcolm X was, but they didn't know he lived in the neighborhood," he said.

"The young people should take pride in what Malcolm did, and partly because he was from this neighborhood," he added.

The block where the house stands also is named for Malcolm X.

The house has a troubled history.

While Malcolm X and his family lived at the site, it was owned by the Nation of Islam, for which he was long a spokesman. After a major split with the group, Malcolm was fighting eviction from the home in the weeks before he was gunned down at age 39 while delivering a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan.

On Feb. 14, 1965, a week before his death, the home was firebombed. Later, from 1967 to 1969, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan lived there.

Monserrate wanted to make the home into a museum in Malcolm X's honor. The councilman's district also includes Corona, where the Louis Armstrong House Museum is located.

"It would be wonderful if we were able to have another museum," he said. But he noted that the seven-room house - which the city Finance Department lists as a parsonage - is privately owned, and the owner wasn't interested in selling.

"They agreed to the putting up of a memorial bust in front of the home with a plaque," he said. "It would be another point of interest for our neighborhood."

Monserrate said the owner and his family are "very supportive" and are on a committee including himself and the Queens Council on the Arts that is coordinating the project.

Ilyasah Shabazz, the third of Malcolm's six daughters and director of Arts & Culture for the city of Mount Vernon, thanked Monserrate "for cherishing all of the good that my father has done. My sisters and I are gratified by your commitment to preserving his legacy, especially for the benefit of the next generation of leaders and especially those from Queens," she said.

Minister Kevin Muhammad of Nation of Islam Mosque No. 7 in Manhattan said the recognition of the home where both Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan lived would "take the Nation of Islam's history into permanent history."

Malcolm X to be honored at former Queens home -- Newsday.com