26 Years After Death, Malcolm X Inspires New Generation of Blacks : Pride: Books, T-shirts and buttons featuring the controversial ‘60s leader are selling big to teens who praise him as a role model.

“As-salaam alai-kum (Peace be unto you),” Corrie Brown said Wednesday to fellow students, opening a Black History Month assembly at Tustin High School with the Muslim greeting.

Though the 18-year-old is not old enough to remember the days when black Muslim leader Malcolm X greeted his followers the same way, Brown and a growing number of black youth in Orange County are showing a renewed interest in the controversial figure who was assassinated in a Harlem ballroom 26 years ago today. Throughout the county, T-shirts, posters and pins with Malcolm X’s picture sell as fast as stores that cater to blacks can stock them. In local bookstores, employees say sales of books documenting his life have increased steadily for the past two years and are purchased more than any other book dealing with black history.

But while little is taught in classrooms about the controversial Malcolm X, local black students say are trying to learn more about him on their own.

“I’ve never read a thing about him in my history books,” said senior Brown, clutching a book about Malcolm X in his left hand and wearing a pin with his picture on it on his jacket lapel. “The information I know, I’ve gotten from friends and from going out myself learning about him. For some reason they (teachers) don’t want to tell us Malcolm’s story.”

During the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, Malcolm X was the leader of the Nation of Islam (black Muslims), a national movement which espoused segregation and preached that racism would continue as long as blacks were economically dependent on whites.

Malcolm X, who often called white Americans “blue-eyed devils” and preached black supremacy, was often ostracized by both black and white Americans who viewed his action as spreading hate and advocating violence.

But the nationwide resurgence in interest has been prompted in part by rap groups such as Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions, whose controversial lyrics often contain quotes from Malcolm X’s speeches, and by filmmaker Spike Lee, an outspoken admirer of Malcolm X who later this year will direct a major motion picture based on the Muslim minister’s life.

“At first I thought it was fad, a trend these kids wouldn’t stick with very long,” said Judy Sampson, an eighth-grade English teacher at Sierra Intermediate in Santa Ana. “I saw the shirts and the buttons, but worried if they understood what Malcolm was really talking about, since most of the country didn’t and the history books certainly ignored him. But these kids are making it a point to find out about Malcolm and are letting the world know about it.”

The T-shirts selling out in Orange County read “By Any Means Necessary,” Malcolm’s most famous quote, and “No Sell Out,” a comment he made after the famous “March on Washington” in August of 1963 led by Martin Luther King Jr., that urged Congress to pass the landmark Civil Rights Bill.

Billy Kirby, owner of Mr. B’s Unisex Barbering in Santa Ana, who also sells all types of paraphernalia and T-shirts depicting King, Nelson Mandela and Jesse Jackson, said the Malcolm X shirts outsell them all.

“I may purchase about two or three dozen T-shirts at a time with Malcolm and his messages on the front, and within a week’s time they’re gone,” Kirby said. “And it’s not just black people buying either. Hispanics and whites come in for his stuff too.” In the past year, he said, as many people visited the shop to buy the T-shirts as to get haircuts.

Kirby, who well remembers when Malcolm X frequently made front-page headlines in the 1960s, said, “I knew selling this stuff would do well because there are no leaders out there today for young black people to look up to, so they’ve decided to reach back and get Malcolm.”

At Our Boutique, a clothing shop in Santa Ana, the Malcolm X T-shirts have been sold out for weeks.

“It’s remarkable the selling power a man who has been dead for that long can have,” said owner Celeste Branch. “I can’t keep them in. Blacks from 10 years old to 60 years old come in and buy them.”

The books keep selling too. At Crown Bookstore in Costa Mesa, sales of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” written with author Alex Haley, are steady, “which is quite rare for a book that is more than 25 years old,” said store manager Bill Hicks. “It’s a book that I make sure is always in stock because there is a pretty significant demand for it. “

The book follows the former Malcolm Little from his birth in Omaha, Neb., through his stint in prison for armed robbery and to his entrance into the Nation of Islam, where he gained national prominence as one of the most eloquent and radical speakers of the ‘60s.

“I am now reading the autobiography and other stuff about him,” said high school sophomore Wellington Harris, who also was wearing a Malcolm button. “For me, Malcolm represents strength and determination. He just wanted the best for black people but no one understood that back then.”

Tustin High school activities director Adriene Jackson said the “kids see him as a strong black man, one who said what he felt and wasn’t afraid of the consequences. They see a very positive role model in him that black youth thirst for today.”

But for 17-year-old Diedra Barber, Malcolm X means more than T-shirts and buttons--he was the motivation for her refusal to read “Huckleberry Finn” in a literature class because she was insulted by the portrayal of blacks. She opted instead to read a novel by a black author. “Malcolm didn’t believe in compromise,” she said, “and neither do I.”