Little X

Growing Up In The Nation Of Islam

Sonsyrea Tate

Narrated by Janina Edwards

Available from Audible

Book published by University of Tennessee Press

In Little X, Sonsyrea Tate reveals, through the acute vision and engaging voice of a curious child, the practices and policies of the mysterious organization most know only through media portrayals of its controversial leaders Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. First published in 1997, Little X chronicles the multigenerational experience of Tate’s family, who broke from the traditional black church in the 1950s to join the radical Nation of Islam, then struggled to remain intact through disillusionment, shifting loyalties, and forays into Orthodox Islam.

Little X is also an absorbing story of a little girl whose strict Muslim education filled her with pride, confidence, and a longing for freedom, of a teenager in an ankle-length dress and headwrap struggling to fit in with non-Muslim peers, and of a young woman whose growing disillusionment with the Nation finally led to her break with the Muslim religion. Little X offers a rare glimpse into the everyday experience of the Nation of Islam, and into a little-understood part of America’s history and heritage.

Sonsyrea Tate has been a staff writer for the Virginian Pilot, Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post. The recipient of four coveted Echoes of Excellence awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, Tate has also worked as assistant to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton. She currently works as a political reporter for The Gazette, a Post-Newsweek publication.

REVIEWS:

“A temperate and sympathetic treatment of an African-American family’s religious evolution.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A compelling story. It provides an honest, inside view of one of America’s most controversial religious movements and perceptively points to social tensions of race, gender and religious identity”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Extremely valuable. Recent literature is interested almost exclusively in male leaders. Tate’s book provides a new perspective. I have used the book in a number of teaching contexts to very good results.”

—Judith Weisenfeld, Vassar College