Ella Little-Collins

Ella Little-Collins (1914 - 1996) was an American civil rights activist and the half-sister of Malcolm X.[1] She was born in Butler, Georgia, to Earl Little and Daisy Mason-Little; her grandparents were John (Big Pa) Lee Little and Ella Gray-Little, and her siblings, including half-siblings, were Mary, Earl Lee Jr, Wilfred, Philbert, Hilda, Reginald, Malcolm, Wesley, and Evonne.[2] She worked as congressman Adam Clayton Powell's secretary, the manager of her mother's grocery store, and an investor in house property, which she let out as rooming houses.[1] She converted to the Nation of Islam in the mid-1950s (though she left it in 1959 to join Sunni Islam), and helped to establish the Nation's mosque in Boston and a day-care center attached to it.[1][3] She supported black and ethnic studies programs in universities across the United States, and founded the Sarah A. Little School of Preparatory Arts in Boston.[2]

She led the Organization of Afro-American Unity after Malcolm X died; she was his half-sister and had been his guardian from when he was 14 to when he was 21.[1][3] She also paid his funeral and business expenses, and took over his project of giving 35 scholarships from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt and from the University of Ghana to students wishing to study overseas.[2]

Malcolm X had called her "the first really proud black woman I had ever seen," and it was she who paid for him to attend the Hajj.[1][2] Her home, the Malcolm X – Ella Little-Collins House, is the last-known surviving childhood home of Malcolm X.[4]

In 1988 both her legs were amputated due to gangrene.[3] She died in 1996.[1]

The Ella Collins Institute at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center is named after her; its goal is "to establish a vibrant community by joining a classical understanding of Islam with modern scholarship and a healthy understanding of the current cultural context.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Godfrey Hodgson (1996-08-07). "Obituary: Ella Collins - Obituaries - News". The Independent. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Who is Ella Collins? « Ella Collins Institute – Boston USA". Ellacollinsinstitute.org. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  3. 1 2 3 "Who is Ella Collins? « Ella Collins Institute – Boston USA". Ellacollinsinstitute.org. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  4. ↑ "Malcolm X â€" Ella Little-Collins House - National Trust for Historic Preservation". Preservationnation.org. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  5. ↑ "FAQs « Ella Collins Institute – Boston USA". Ellacollinsinstitute.org. Retrieved 2013-09-02.

Further reading

External links

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