The Autobiography Of Malcolm X

The Autobiography Of Malcolm X chronicles the life and work of one of the most influential members of the civil rights movement in the United States.

Malcolm Little would never have become the iconic figure with an X for his last name (which hinted at his true last name being taken by “some blue-eyed devil”) if it weren’t for all the things that happened in his childhood.

Due to his particularly light skin color, which resembled his mother’s (which in turn was a result of her mother being raped by a white man), he ended up being preferred by his father, but despised by his Mom. This made him enjoy his father’s company, who was very active in the black community and a civil rights movement leader himself.

Add to that the tragedy of his father’s alleged murder when he was six years old, his mother’s coercion into a mental hospital when he was 12, with him being sent to live with a white family and three of his uncle’s dying from violence and you already have someone who’s going to be hell bent on justice and fair treatment of black people.

School further increased this dedication, with teachers discouraging from his plans of being a lawyer (“Be more realistic, try being a carpenter, maybe!”) and him not being allowed to dance in front of white girls at basketball after parties.

His entire childhood channeled him into becoming someone, who hated the status quo and who saw only one way to escape it…

This escape brought him right into the crime scene of Boston and later Harlem in the 1940s. Malcolm spent the majority of his teenage and early adult years hustling, dealing drugs, “steering” white people to secret prostitution locations, resulting in bigger and more dangerous crimes as he went on.

He was caught when trying to pawn (loan to a money lender) a stolen watch in 1946 and received a hefty ten year prison sentence.

For most people, going to prison would mean the end. For Malcolm X, it was the only way to become who he was meant to be. I’m not saying you should become a master thief, but sometimes there’s no alternative to getting completely lost, confused and traveling along all the wrong paths to finally discover who you really are.

Malcolm spent all of his time in prison reading, learning about the religion of Islam and becoming a great public speaker, even getting his opponents to admit to statements such as “Jesus was brown.” After his parole in 1952, he was a changed man, ready to spread the message of the Nation of Islam and become a minister, activist and speaker.