Title: Little X
First published: 1997
Description: Little X is a firsthand account of an historical era: an illuminating portrait of a young girl growing up as a black Muslim in a predominantly white Christian America. It chronicles the multigenerational experience of her family, who broke from the traditional black church in the 1950s to join the radical Nation, then struggled to remain intact through disillusionment, shifting loyalties, and forays into Orthodox Islam.

Yet this is also an absorbing personal 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's contradictions and attitudes toward women 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.
Subjects: African American women, Afro-American women, Biography, Black Muslim, Black Muslims, Controversial literature, History, Islam, Nation of Islam (Chicago, Ill.)
People: Sonsyrea Tate