Unfortunately we don’t have full details on Martin Luther King Jr’s income. But due to some court cases, most notably a 1960 case on tax fraud, we’ve still got a decent idea of his income. He was acquitted on the fraud charges by an entirely white Alabama jury.

His primary source of income was his salary for being a minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church. This varies by year but appears to have generally been about $6,000 per year, a fairly typical middle class income. According to the Census Bureau, mean income in 1960 was $5,600. By 1968 this had grown to around $8,000. But that’s still in line with the 1970 mean income of $9,870. So he was making a decent but not extravagant living as a minister.

His salary for his position in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was set at $1 per year. Aside from his salaries he also received reimbursement for a lot of his civil rights work. So while he didn’t receive money for his travel, it also didn’t cost him anything. In addition to his minister’s salary, he also in theory got income for his 5 books he wrote and for prizes he received. But the money for the books, and things like his $54,000 Nobel Peace Prize cash award, was donated to groups like the SCLC. So in practice he limited himself to the income from his ministry position. This was largely what the 1960 fraud indictment centered on. But his personal journals proved to the jury’s satisfaction that he was indeed passing on his secondary incomes to charitable organizations.

His net worth at death was under $6,000 and his family had to rely on charity to get through the early years after his death. Although they’ve since made a lot more through the sale of memorabilia and the like.

I’ll leave Malcolm X to someone else, as I’m not terribly familiar with the details of his income.

For a majority of the time that Malcolm X was in the public eye, his expenses were paid for by the Nation of Islam.

In 1952, after he was released from prison, Malcolm worked a series of jobs: a furniture store, Gar Wood Factory, and Ford Motor Company. During this time, he was regularly attending the Nation of Islam’s Detroit Temple Number One and was demonstrating his devotion to both the religion and its leader, Elijah Muhammed. He also discovered his penchant for speaking to the congregation while working these jobs. Eventually, he quit traditional working altogether in order to dedicate the entirety of his time to the Nation of Islam (NOI).

Elijah Muhammed mentored Malcolm and began sending him places to speak for the NOI. In 1954, Elijah Muhammed assigned Malcolm to New York City, where he was to form and become the minister of Temple Number Seven. Although it was a struggle to get this temple up and running, it came to thrive under Malcolm’s leadership.

In The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley, Malcolm says, “It was in 1956 that Mr. Muhammed was able to authorize Temple Seven to buy and assign for my use a new Chevrolet. (The car was the Nation’s, not mine. I had nothing that was mine but my clothes, wrist watch, and suitcase. As in the case of all of the Nation’s ministers, my living expenses were paid and I had some pocket money)” (229).

Throughout his time as a minister, Malcolm X ensured that any money he made went to the NOI, who in turn paid for what he and his family needed. In the epilogue of his autobiography, which is written from Alex Haley’s point of view, Haley recalls Malcom’s reaction to the idea of an autobiography: “Malcolm X gave me a startled look when I asked him if he would tell his life story for publication. It was one of the few times I have ever seen him uncertain. ‘I will have to give a book a lot of thought,’ he finally said. Two days later, he telephoned me to meet him again at the Black Muslim restaurant. He said, ‘I’ll agree. I think my life story may help people to appreciate how Mr. Muhammed salvages black people. But I don’t want my motives for this misinterpreted by anybody - the Nation of Islam must get every penny that might come to me” (393).

Years later, following his falling out with Elijah Muhammed and his ousting from the Nation of Islam, Malcolm’s lack of personal income became a challenge. Alex Haley’s epilogue states that “A court had made it clear that Malcolm X and his family would have to vacate the Elmhurst house for its return to the adjudged legal owners, Elijah Muhammed’s Nation of Islam. And other immediate problems which Malcolm X faced included finances. Among his other expenses, a wife and four daughters had to be supported, along with at least one full-time OAAU [Organization of Afro-American Unity] official. Upon his return from Africa, our agent for the book had delivered to me for Malcolm X a check for a sizable sum; soon afterward Malcolm X told me, laughing wryly, ‘It’s evaporated. I don’t know where!’” (427).

Tragically, Malcolm did not live long enough to see his family into financial stability. He and his family remained in the Elmhurst house until February 13, 1965, when a Molotov cocktail was thrown through a window and the house was destroyed, quite possibly by members of the Nation of Islam. Malcolm and his wife were frantically trying to scrape together the money to buy a house of their own when he was assassinated on February 21, 1965.

Work Cited

X, Malcolm, and Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Ballantine Books, 1999.