A request pending approval from Mayor Michelle Wu would give civil rights icon Malcolm X the recognition that city councilors say he deserves.

The City Council on Wednesday unanimously supported a resolution to make May 19, Malcolm X’s birthday, a municipal holiday in Boston for residents to commemorate his legacy.

“For me and for many of my close friends, Malcolm X represents so much more,” said Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who sponsored the resolution. “He was a man of great depth who embodied values of selflessness, of love, of patience and of passion for humanity … I look up to him as a symbol of hope.”

Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, and his older sister Ella Collins in the early 1940s moved to Roxbury, where they lived for years at 72 Dale St., across from what is now recognized as Malcolm X Park.

Their residence, now called the Malcolm X – Ella Little Collins House, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2021, and the resolution seeks to renovate the 2 ½-story home and add it to the city’s Black Heritage Trail.

“It is considered part of the heritage in Boston, but it is completely dilapidated,” Fernandes Anderson said of the house. “I don’t think Malcolm X has been included significantly, or enough, in anything historic in Boston.”

The house is near Malcolm X Boulevard, a busy Roxbury thoroughfare. The City Council is suggesting officials to designate and develop a spot along the road for a Malcolm X statue , which would then be added to the Black Heritage Trail.

Malcolm Little joined the Nation of Islam while in prison in Massachusetts and quickly became the Detroit-founded organization’s principal spokesman during its rapid rise in the 1950s and 1960s, establishing temples and mosques across the country.

Malcolm X dropped his surname in favor of “X” to represent his family’s lost African ancestral name. He eventually left the Nation of Islam but was gunned down by its adherents at a speech in New York City in 1965 at the age of 39.

At least fifteen states, including California, Florida and Georgia, recognize Malcolm X’s birthday as an official holiday on May 19.

“Recognizing Malcolm X’s birthday as a municipal holiday would not only honor his presence in Boston but pay tribute to his enduring legacy of civil rights and social justice,” Councilor Brian Worrell said.

Councilor Frank Baker supported the resolution with a “caveat.”

“I am hesitant around signing onto another holiday until we get … Evacuation Day back,” he said. “That was basically when our country was started, the birth of our country happened right at South Boston Heights.”

Evacuation Day recognizes when British troops and loyalists fled Boston by ship for Canada on March 17, 1776.