Malcolm X on March 5, 1964 Photo Credit: Eddie Adams/AP On Feb. 21, 1965, Malcom X was assassinated. He was at a speaking engagement in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom when three gunmen rushed the stage and opened fire. He was pronounced dead at the age of 39. Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Ne. His mother, Louise Helen Norton Little was from Grenada. His father, Reverend Earl Little, was a Baptist minister and an organizer for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). Malcolm X was the seventh of his father’s nine children — three by a previous marriage — and his mother’s fourth child.