It goes without saying that self-storage businesses will sometimes have delinquent customers, but who would have thought that anyone would have a treasure trove like this. Recently, renters defaulted on a rental storage unit in a Connecticut facility which housed documents and other artifacts that belonged to late musician Malcolm “Shorty” Jarvis—a close friend to Civil Rights leader Malcolm X. These documents included Jarvis’ 1976 pardon paper, a Ku Klux Klan hood, and signed document by Malcolm X and Rosa Parks.
The Omaha, Nebraska-based Malcolm X Memorial Foundation, which oversees the Malcolm X Center located at his birthplace, split the cost of the artifacts with the Black History 101 Mobile Museum. Mobile Museum founder and curator Khalid el-Hakim declined to identify the original buyer or the price the two organizations paid for the collection, but said that they will be taking some items on a multi-state tour.
What examples can we take away from learning this new information? Will there ever be a holiday to celebrate this man’s importance to American culture?
