Queens Student's Name 'Malcolm X' Banned From His School Hoodie

MIDDLE VILLAGE, QUEENS -- Chants of "I am Malcolm X" rang out at the gates of Christ the King High School as a crowd rallied to support a student whose request to put his birth name -"Malcolm X" - on his senior sweater was reportedly mocked and shot down by the Queens school's assistant principal.

Malcolm Xavier Combs said the trouble started when he was sitting in English class and got called to the principal's office for the first time in his high school career.

"I didn't even know where it was - I had to ask my friends," Combs told the crowd that gathered outside the private Catholic school in Middle Village to support him on Wednesday.

The teen said Veronica Arbitello, the school's assistant principal, sat him down and told him he couldn't put his name - "Malcolm X" - on the back of his senior sweatshirt, because the slain civil rights activist wasn't someone he should want to be associated with. The New York Daily News first broke the story earlier this month.

Combs said as he sat in silence unsure of what to say, Arbitello mocked his name to another faculty member that walked into the office.

"She said to him, 'This is the new Malcolm X,' and they both laughed,” he said.

Christ the King did not immediately return Patch's request for comment on the encounter.

When Combs told his parents about the exchange, they were furious.

“They pulled him out of class to tell him that a man who said, ‘A man without an education, you have nothing,’ is someone he shouldn’t be associated with,” his mother, Mychelle Combs, told the Daily News.

Weeks later, word of the incident had spread. Politicians, religious leaders and activists alike shared the family's rage.

They organized a rally outside the high school on the anniversary of the black rights activist's assassination and demanded an apology for the tone-deaf comments. The crowd then took to Metropolitan Avenue in a peaceful protest, sporting Malcolm X T-shirts and posters as they marched.

Among the crowd were leaders from civil rights group National Action Network, along with state and local politicians.

Rev. Kevin McCall, a crisis director with the NAN, said they organized the rally to make sure Christ the King gets the message that "we will not sit back and allow them to tell us we cannot have our name."

"This is the name that his mother and father gave him at birth," McCall said. "This is not a nickname, this is not a name that he made up, this is his government-issued name."

Minister Kirsten Foy, Northeast regional director for the NAN, also made an appearance at the rally to condemn the school.

"Today in 2018, it's unacceptable for a so-called institution of education to be miseducating our children about a man even the federal government said needs to be honored with his image on a stamp," he said.

NYC Public Advocate Letitia James called on Christ the King to issue Combs a public full apology and offered to speak at the school to educate its students and educators on the history behind Malcolm X.

"This is a teaching moment," James said. "It's an opportunity to talk about the constitution, an opportunity to talk about history, an opportunity to talk about the legacy of African American people, as painful as it is."

But first, Combs wants answers from the school officials.

"I need to know why I am, in 2018, fighting for my own name," he said. " I need to know why they made my name feel like it was a crime being on that sweater."

Lead photos via Danielle Woodward/Patch