Malcolm X is born as Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska. The Midwest, during this period, is permeated by discrimination and racially-motivated violence that culminates with the murder of his father and the institutionalization of his mother. After living in a Michigan detention home and completing the eighth grade, Malcolm moves to Boston, Massachusetts, to live with his half-sister Ella.

In Boston he quickly becomes involved in the urban nightlife, and passes for much older than he is, wearing flashy clothes, gambling, drinking, doing drugs, and dating an older white woman, Sophia. Malcolm finds work on the railways, which takes him to New York, where he settles permanently as one of Harlem's hustlers. Malcolm's various jobs include running numbers, selling drugs, steering white people to black brothels, and committing armed robbery. When his life becomes too dangerous in Harlem, he retreats back to Boston, where he becomes a house burglar and is eventually arrested.

In prison, Malcolm transforms himself, converting to the brand of Islam promoted by the Nation of Islam, which has already converted a number of Malcolm's siblings. Inspired by the faith, Malcolm stops using drugs, reads voraciously, prays, studies English and Latin, and joins the prison debate team.

When he gets paroled, Malcolm moves in with his brother Wilfred and becomes very active in the Detroit temple of the Nation of Islam, receiving permission to drop his "white" last name for the symbolic "X." Malcolm X soon meets the Nation's leader, Elijah Muhammad, and rises quickly from the rank of temple assistant in Detroit to the Nation's first National Minister. Malcolm X becomes known throughout the United States, even outside of Muslim circles, as a fiery advocate for black unity and militancy. His power grows so much, however, that he is suspended from the Nation of Islam, whose higher-ups resent and fear him despite his allegiance to the cause.

Facing death threats and eviction from his home, Malcolm uses his fame to found his own organization, Muslim Mosque, Inc., which he envisions as being more politically active than the Nation of Islam. At this time, Malcolm visits the Middle East and Africa, where he discovers "true" Islam, which contrasts considerably with the version of Islam he has been taught and has been teaching. At the end of his life, Malcolm X is an international figure, welcomed by foreign leaders and committed to Islam as a religion that can better the racial problems of the United States. He is assassinated in 1965.