On the 56th anniversary of the murder of Malcolm X, it somehow never sank into my thick head that the former Malcom Little was six-feet-four. I can’t blame Spike Lee or Denzel Washington — it’s basically my fault, my lack of focus. Nor had I paid much attention to the fact that Martin Luther King was only five-foot-seven. I knew he wasn’t Wilt Chamberlain but I never understood that he was what most people would consider “on the short side.” He shared the same height as Al Pacino. Then again he was an inch taller than Alan Ladd.
