Malcolm X was elected class president by his all-white peers in Lansing, MI. How did it make him feel, though?

In his autobiography co-written with Alex Haley, Malcolm X detailed what it was like growing up in Lansing, MI as the seventh and lightest-skinned child of Earl and Louisa Little. Earl was a Baptist preacher and Louisa was a fair-skinned woman from Grenada whose black mother had been raped by a white man Louisa never knew. Louisa was able to pass as a white house keeper until her employers discovered her blood-line and fired her.

By the time young Malcolm was in middle school, his father had been killed, his mother was in a mental institution, and his brothers and sisters were separated. Malcolm was living in a foster home, attending Mason Junior High in Lansing, Michigan. He was proud when elected class president. But he confesses to feeling like a "pink poodle." That is, he felt more like an oddity than a human being—a mascot to be paraded around proudly while he was still clearly in a subservient position. Although he was performing at the top of his class intellectually, he was discouraged by his teachers, who told him that no black man should have such high aspirations.

He went on to prove them all wrong.

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