Malcolm X—Ella Little-Collins House
Description and history
The Malcolm X—Ella Little-Collins House is located southwest of Roxbury's Nubian Square, on the south side of Dale Street just east of Malcolm X Park. The house is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, set on a foundation of Roxbury puddingstone and covered by a gabled roof. Its exterior includes remnants of its original Queen Anne styling, while the interior retains a number of original period features. An Art Deco brick garage stands at the rear of the property.
The house was built in 1874 by William Rumnil, a local builder, on land that had previously been a country estate and farm. It was purchased in 1941 by Ella Little-Johnson, an African-American native of Georgia who moved to Boston as part of a major migration of African-Americans out of the southern United States. In that year, she also took in her brother Malcolm, who had been effectively orphaned by the institutionalization of his mother in 1939. It was Malcolm's primary residence until 1944. Malcolm's conversion to Islam (and adoption of the name "Malcolm X") began with exposure to the religion in Roxbury, and he returned to the neighborhood to establish a temple of the Nation of Islam in the 1950s. His sister Ella (who married Kenneth Collins in 1942) was also active in the Nation and other community organizations, and died here in 1996.
See also
References
- ^ "Weekly listing". National Park Service.
- ^ "MACRIS inventory record for Malcolm X—Ella Little-Collins House". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2021-02-17.
- ^ Levy, Claudia (1996-08-06). "ELLA MAE COLLINS DIES AT 84". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2022-03-09.