The childhood home of famous American human rights defender Malcolm X in Boston has been added to the United States National Register of Historic Places.
The two-story home is the only remaining residence associated with the years of the murdered civil rights leader’s growing up in the city, according to Massachusetts Secretary William Galvin, who chairs the state’s historic committee that requested the classification.
The house, which was originally built in 1874 and designated a city landmark in 1998, was officially listed in the Federal Register last month, according to the National Park Service that oversees the listing this week.
Malcolm X, or formerly Malcolm Little, was a teenager in the 1940s when he came to live with his sister Ella Little Collins.
Rodnell Collins, son of Little Collins, said this week that the family, who still owns the house, hopes to convert it into housing for graduate students studying black history and civil rights, in addition to opening it for private events and public tours at certain times of the year.
He added that the national listing opens access to tax incentives and other government programs to preserve history in order to help make this dream possible.
Little Collins, a civil rights organizer in her own way, became her brother’s legal guardian after his father’s death and his mother was placed in the care of a mental institution.
Malcolm Little joined the Nation of Islam while in prison in Massachusetts and quickly became the main spokesperson for the organization that was founded in Detroit during its rapid rise in the 1950s and 1960s, setting up temples and mosques across the country.
