Malcolm moved around the Lansing area several times during his younger years in Michigan. His first home, purchased by his father Earl in 1928, was in a white neighborhood. It was burned to the ground by the Black Legion, a white supremacist group, about a year later. The family moved Charles Street, but left soon afterward because of the harsh segregation scene. Earl Little built the family’s third home in South Lansing, where they lived together through Earl’s death in 1931 and Louise’s departure to the Kalamazoo state mental hospital in 1939. Subsequently, Malcolm started moving through foster homes; in 1941 he left Michigan for Boston.

Malcolm’s experiences with white supremacist groups and racist social workers disrupting his family and home life help form his ideology of separatism and Black Nationalism. Being one of the only African Americans in his schools and foster homes made him realize to what degree racism was ingrained in the Lansing area population; his work for racial equality later in life reflects his childhood experiences facing segregation.