(bright music) - This house on Williams Street in Inkster, long sat vacant.

Once home to civil rights leader Malcolm X, it has a storied history.

Now the restoration led by the nonprofit Project We Hope Dream & Believe is almost finished.

Why was it important for you and your team to acquire a Malcolm X House and stop it from being demolished?

- It's a part of history.

When you look back and you see Malcolm and the things that Malcolm stood for.

And not just that but to know that he was born in Omaha, Nebraska, but majority of his family life is here in the state of Michigan.

- [Micah] Malcolm X lived in the house in Inkster from 1952 to 1953.

Saving it took persistence.

- Yeah, it was on the demolition list for years, took off the list.

It took us four different mayors just to get the house from the city which thankful for.

But yeah, it was just something that the city just let it sit, you know, and let it rot and we just didn't wanna see that happen no more to this city, let alone to this home and Malcolm's legacy.

- How did the house look when you all began working on it?

- The house was stripped out, there had been a fire in here, there was some roof damage and the front wall of the house was deteriorated, structurally unsound because of the weather.

So I had to first of all make the house stable, redo the roof, and then start the renovations on the inside.

We put all new heating/cooling system in, all new plumbing, all new electrical.

- [Micah] The multi-year transformation took the home back in time.

- We had to turn the house back into the 1950s timeframe when he lived here.

We actually had to pull the windows out and we gotta go back to the old steel crank windows.

So everything in the house has to go back to what it looked like in the 1950s and a lot of people didn't realize that.

We put out a thing on Facebook and everybody started calling.

We went to Ann Arbor, we got like the black and white TV that actually still works to today.

But we have couches, we have furniture so it was a blessing that people still held on to all of this stuff where we can actually furnish the house with.

- [Micah] Helping with the preservation is Tareq Ramadan the nonprofits project manager.

He's also a Wayne State University anthropology professor and got the college community involved.

- I pitched the idea of having Wayne State's Department of Anthropology come to the home and begin excavations at the house.

And so we did our first round in July of 2022 and we got volunteers, we got students, we got faculty, and we all began to engage in archeological excavations of the property surrounding the house.

And we did another round of excavations the following year in October of 2023.

Part of that's because I felt that Wayne State's Anthropology Department and its archeology team was well suited.

And also the fact that Malcolm X gave a speech at Wayne State University in 1963, I felt that this was kind of a full circle moment.

- Are you learning things you never knew about Malcolm X?

- In terms of learning new things, you know, of course.

We've been able to interview people, former neighbors of Malcolm, people who knew him, people who used to see him, you know, when he lived at the house in '52 and in '53.

And so all of that information that we've sort of accumulated has been really helpful in providing us with a more robust picture of what Malcolm's life was like.

Especially given that the time he spent Inkster is one of the most understudied aspects of his life.

- [Micah] During a tour of the house Sims shows the area Malcolm X and his brother Wilfred shared.

- So this room here is where Malcolm lived with, well Wilfred Jr.

So the story that I was told from Wilfred's daughter is that Wilfred was writing letters to Malcolm while he was in prison and telling him about the city of Inkster and he needs to come here when he get released.

- [Micah] He served time in Massachusetts for burglary from 1946 to 1952.

- Wilfred went to go pick up Malcolm when he got released and this is the room where Malcolm shared with Wilfred Jr. in the upstairs part.

I don't know if you'll be able to see it, but we did what was called the wall sign.

So if at any point in history that someone was to take down a piece of drywall here, you will see people's name engrave on the wall.

- [Micah] And there's a plan for future visitors to get a piece of history.

- In this room here, right where we're standing at, the house caught on fire.

So from when the fire department came, this was all the buckled up wood from the original floor.

So we had to find a guy who specializes in flooring and he had to make the wood that's here now back to the original.

Because everything, by being a historical house, it had to have like original wood pieces.

So when we open the house up, we're going to take this wood here and we're going to cut it into six inch pieces and we're going to have it stamped with the Malcolm X Project 4336 Williams Street.

And while, so it'll always be like while supplies last, you'll be able to have a piece of wood from the original floor of the house.

- What do you envision this space to be when it's completed?

- The house will be a museum and next to the house we have future plans to build a vo-tech center next door.

- [Micah] Next year's scheduled grand opening coincides with what would've been Malcolm X's 100th birthday.

- One thing that I love about Malcolm, is Malcolm said that if he could change, you know, anybody could change.

I think about all of the trouble that I got into growing up.

My life had did it like a total 360.

Your surroundings don't make you, you make your surroundings.