The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X - Part 6

The Autobiography of Malcolm X -
Malcolm X

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 165

June 14, 2017 

Book 48 - The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley
Malcolm X (1965)
 Part 6 - 271-331
Reading Time - 1 hour

One thing I learned... the "X" represents the lost African name of the believers of the Nation of Islam. But eventually it gets a little silly... like "James 67X" (the 67th James in the organization).

Malcolm did a lot of recruiting for the Nation of Islam and eventually got on the radar of the media. He engaged in debates with other mainstream Negro leaders (Malcolm himself uses the word Negro). "The white man is the enemy". The black man's original language was Arabic (that's a bit of a surprise - I would have thought they would have had Indigenous African languages - clearly historical accuracy is not big for them). Malcolm argues that the black people need self-respect - they need to lift up their own sense of values. Which makes sense... they need to be responsible for themselves and not wait for someone else to save them. Much of the section deals with the speeches of Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammed - which... after a while, become a little tedious.

Given, however, that these events took place 60 years ago... and America is still dealing with blatant racism against African Americans... one wonders if anything has really altered?