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| “ | Michael X was quite simply a hustler, who was hustling off of Malcolm’s name. He was a crook! He didn’t set up anything you could commit to – he didn’t organise anything political. | „ |
| ~ Darcus Howe, a black power activist who met Michael X in 1970. |
Michael de Freitas, better known as Michael X, was a Trinidadian civil rights activist and self-styled black revolutionary. While he spent most of his time in London, England, he eventually fled back to Trinidad and Tobago after jumping bail on an extortion charge. While there Michael was convicted of the murder of a follower of his named Joseph Skerritt and executed. His involvement in a second murder, that of Gale Benson, has been disputed.
Biography
Michael de Freitas was born in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, to an "Obeah-practising black woman from Barbados and an absent Portuguese father from St Kitts". Known as "Red Mike", he was expelled from school at age 14. De Freitas moved to the United Kingdom in 1957 and worked as an enforcer and frontman for extortionist Peter Rachman. While he claimed to dislike this job, de Freitas was perfectly willing to use the money to pay for his lifestyle.
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