Book title: The autobiography of Malcolm X
Author: Alex Haley and Malcolm X
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication year: 1964



I heard people speak of someone by the name Malcolm X. I’ve heard of someone who never schooled beyond the eighth grade but drilled on the street of Harlem and also of someone who attended the University of Charlestown Prison. I finally was privileged to meet him after several years of anticipation, yes on the pages of this good read.

On the account of this autobiographical narrative, Malcolm’s psychological approach to getting one's request granted in life is sped up through making some noise. I would open my mouth and let the whole world know about it... I learned early that crying out in protest could accomplish things [pg8]. And this he learnt during his childhood. This then affirms the African proverb which says, (paraphrased) what will become of a man can easily be identified during his formative years. The negroes in the early 50s have something in common. Most were poor, talented, maltreated, and hostile (even towards each other) and finds solace in religion. Even while Malcolm was been taken to live with the Gohannas, his weak mother still remembers to inform the state man that Malcolm shouldn't be fed with pig [pg19].

The analysis of any story with a strong theme of Afro-American activism and in this case, black Americans in a black populated city like Harlem wouldn't be complete without stating the poor mindset most black Americans had nurtured since time immemorial. You do odd jobs, get rich through tips, gamble and when you had your hit, you've got to buy your friends drinks and steaks, buy a Cadillac and in a brief squander those returns on gambling without any thought of investment. Most of the time it happens as a result of wanting to show off one's spending habit, in a quest to meet up with the status quo. Malcolm did well by tackling this demeaning mindset when he joined the Nation of Islam.


How ridiculous I was! Stupid enough to stand... (Pg 54)
Malcolm X is man with a ‘glass’ heart. His version of the Negro suffering was told in this biographical account of his without 'padding' things up. Even when he seems to be betraying the race to which he belongs, he says it in clearer terms. While Reginald plot out Malcolm's path into becoming a Muslim, his presumptions about the white folks will just be unrealistic as anything. Speaking about the anti-white policy and loss of identity syndrome which works hand in hand with the white’s hatred for the negroes, one might have just thought that is his best move towards working out the conversion of his anti-Christian brother. Malcolm wouldn't listen to anyone order than Reginald, but even at that he wouldn’t swallow all he's saying hook line and sinker. He still remembers some good white buddies. Several letters Malcolm got while he was in the prison hastened him to accept the Islamic religion. The fact that Elijah Muhammad in a way blast opens the truth about the black race, also in a way affirms Malcolm’s previous thought of his race. It also affirms James Brown pride in his colour when he sang in 1968 at Los Angles, 'I am black and proud' but in a way discouraged Michael Jackson's several surgeries which defeated the real him. While some of what Elijah Muhammad's studied might be true, there is still no proof up till this very day of this review that the white man ever brainwashed Negroes to accept Christianity on any oral or documented account. This makes Elijah Muhammad’s theory not substantial. Arguably, Christianity on the African continent only met with some taste of racial oppression, black's loss of identity, when slavery also was at its peak and therefore, just in correlation with that which has been said above, the black will always want to find solace in something. And then Christianity sets in for the black majority... Continue reading

https://niftyreview./2017/01/10/the-autobiography-of-malcolm-x/