Ella Little-Collins

Ella Little-Collins (February 11, 1914 – August 3, 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 Little (née Mason); her paternal grandparents were John (Big Pa) Lee Little and Ella Little (née Gray), and her siblings were Mary Little and Earl Lee Little Jr. She had seven half-siblings from her father's second marriage: Wilfred, Philbert, Hilda, Reginald, Malcolm, Wesley, and Yvonne.^[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 joined the Nation of Islam in the mid-1950s and helped establish its mosque in Boston and a day-care center attached to it, although she left the Nation in 1959 to become a Sunni Muslim.^[1][2] 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]

In his autobiography, Malcolm X wrote about the impact his first meeting with his half-sister had on him. She came to visit when he was in seventh grade, and he described her as "the first really proud black woman I had ever seen" and wrote: "I had never been so impressed with anybody."^[3] At the end of the school year, he moved to Roxbury to live with her, and she was his guardian until he turned 21.^[1][2] Her home, the Malcolm X—Ella Little-Collins House, is the last known surviving childhood home of Malcolm X.^[4] Its exterior was designated a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1998,^[5] and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.^[6]

Cuando Malcolm X abandonó la Nación del Islam en 1964, Little-Collins costeó su peregrinación a La Meca (Hajj) . También pagó sus gastos funerarios y empresariales tras su asesinato , y se hizo cargo de su Organización de la Unidad Afroamericana , incluyendo su proyecto de otorgar 35 becas de la Universidad de Al-Azhar en El Cairo, Egipto, y de la Universidad de Ghana a estudiantes que deseaban estudiar en el extranjero. ^{[ 2 ]} En 1986 fusionó la Organización de la Unidad Afroamericana con la Liga de Defensa Afroamericana. ^{[ 7 ]}

En 1988, a Little-Collins le amputaron ambas piernas debido a la gangrena . ^{[ 2 ]} Murió en 1996 a los 82 años. ^{[ 1 ]}

El Instituto Ella Collins del Centro Cultural de la Sociedad Islámica de Boston lleva su nombre; su objetivo es "establecer una comunidad vibrante combinando una comprensión clásica del Islam con la erudición moderna y una comprensión sana del contexto cultural actual". ^{[ 8 ]}

• Collins, Rodnell P.; con A. Peter Bailey (1998). Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X. Secaucus, NJ: Birch Lane Press. ISBN 978-1-55972-491-3.

• Ella Collins en IMDb
• Episodio " Say Brother" ; Malcolm X (1969); Entrevista a Ella Collins , Archivo Estadounidense de Radiodifusión Pública
• "Ella Collins, de 82 años, familiar que ayudó a Malcolm X" . The New York Times . 6 de agosto de 1996.
• "Informe de estudio de la Comisión de Monumentos Históricos de Boston sobre la Casa de Malcolm X y Ella Little-Collins" (PDF) . Comisión de Monumentos Históricos de Boston. 21 de agosto de 1998.