The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X - Part 1

Autobiography of Malcolm X -
Malcolm X

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 160

  June 9, 2017 

Book 48 - The Autobiography of Malcolm X -
as told to Alex Haley
Malcolm X (1965)
 Part 1 - ix-xv, 1-46
Reading Time - 1 hour

This book is on my 2017 reading list! Hooray! I'm sort of reading whatever books I can easily get my hands on at the local library. I have some requests in with them but it can take weeks for some of the books to come in.

I really know nothing about Malcolm X. I know that he was a black rights activist and imagined he was something like Martin Luther King Jr. Turns out... he's nothing like MLK!!

Malcolm grew up pretty much dirt poor. His father died when he was 6 and by the time he was 13, his mother had been committed to a mental institution and he and his 7 siblings were split up between various foster homes. He blames the welfare system (run by whites) for destroying the family. Early on, one realizes that Malcolm has some pretty negative views of white people and white culture. He also admits that many blacks try to fit into the white system, try to integrate. It reminds me quite a bit of our relationship with Indigenous people up here in Canada. Us white people really have no clue of the Indigenous experience... none whatsoever... no matter how many First Nations friends we have. We don't have a clue. And it is the height of hubris to think that we somehow understand their situation.

Malcolm's options were fairly limited growing up in small-town Michigan. He once told his Grade 8 teacher that he wanted to be a lawyer (he was one of the smartest kids in the class). His teacher told him that it was "not possible as a Nigger". Malcolm then moved to Boston to live with his older half sister.

Malcolm sounds like a really "with-it" kid. He was very independent and a mover and a shaker. He wasn't going to take anything lying down and he learned a lot from his experiences. Reading about the situation of African Americans in the 1930s and 1940s... I wonder how much the situation has really changed in America?