MALCOLM X IS HIS OWN WORDS

 

A review of The Autobiography of Malcolm X As Told To Alex Haley (1965) (1999, my copy)

(Rating 5 of 5)

                The Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of the great American political works of the 20^th century.  It is quite an intimidating to review given so much has been said about the book that it makes it difficult to try to contribute something original.  The book was assembled from a series of interviews that Malcolm X had with journalist and author Alex Haley. 

Having a professional writer, it naturally raises the question of filter or embellishment.  How much of this is this Malcolm X’s natural story or how much has been sensationalized by Haley.  Fortunately, Haley put a rather lengthy epilogue in which he explains his working relationship with Malcolm X and how this book was assembled.  In that epilogue, Haley discusses the challenges of getting his approval for chapters in which he praises Elijah Muhammad, during a time when Malcolm X’s conflict with Muhammad was at its height.  After reading the epilogue I feel with a great deal of confidence that story presented is the authentic and genuine story of Malcolm X in his own words.

Alex Haley

The story has smooth narrative that gives the reader the feeling of actually being in room with Malcolm X as he explains his life to you.  It reminds me of the narrative that the reader gets when they read The Autobiography of Ulysses S Grant.  There is something about the narrator stopping for some human moment that the reader can easily relate to.  For example, during his hustler days he came to a moment of indecision as he wondered about a task that was sure he completed but suddenly formed doubts.  He then asks the reader if they have experienced anything the same, which obnoxiously the reader cannot answer him, but it does allow them to feel a connection.     

Malcolm X begins talking about his life growing up with his parents who were followers of the Black Nationalist movement of Marcus Garvey.   His father, Earl Little, is killed by a gang of white racists known as the Black Legion.   His mother, Louise, is left as a single parent.  Eventually the pressures of being a single parent in a huge family, losing a spouse to murder, being denied the full insurance payout, and being undermined and not helped by the state caused her to have a mental breakdown that she never recovered. As a result, her children went into foster care.  Malcolm X visited her years later and she didn’t know who he was.     

“I can’t describe how I felt.  The woman who had brought me into the world, and nursed me, and advised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn’t know me. It was as if I was trying to walk up the side of a hill of feathers.  I looked at her.  I listened to her “talk.” But there was nothing I could do.

I truly believe that if ever a state social agency destroyed a family, it destroyed ours.  We wanted and tried to stay together.  Out home didn’t have to be destroyed.  But Welfare, the courts, and their doctor gave us a one-two-three punch.  And ours was not the only case of this kind.” (pg. 22)

parents

Malcolm X does rather well in foster care.  Still going by the name Malcolm Little that he will keep until his conversion in 1950.  He attended an integrated school in the north that was primarily white.  Despite that he was really popular with his classmates and even elected class president.  It wasn’t until a conversation with his school guidance counselor that became a factor in the change of his direction in life.  When he said that he wanted to be a lawyer the man shot that down and told him using the N-word that since he was black, he had to be more realistic.  He encouraged him to try to get a job in the domestic field.  

Malcolm X as child

In many ways it’s the conversation with the guidance counselor that I find the most disturbing part of the book.  As someone who works in education it breaks my heart to see a smart promising young student have his dreams dashed without even being allowed to try.  I am still not sure how I am supposed to feel about this guidance counselor.  When discussing white people in his youth who use the N-word Malcolm X breaks them up into two categories, hateful racists and well-meaning ignorant people.  The second group is made up of people who probably wouldn’t use the N-word if they grew up in a different time period.  I am not sure about the guidance counselor.  One on hand I can understand him not wanting to mislead the student about the realities of the world into which he is entering.  Nevertheless, I feel that he still could have gone about it in a better way.  There were African-American lawyers back then; it would have been hard for him but not impossible. 

I enjoyed Malcolm X’s telling of his hustler days in New York because it was the section of the book where I learned the most.  As the reader, you got to see what the underside of New York City looked like in the 1940s.  It is interesting that the underworld was one of the most integrated places in the country.  Here the then Malcolm Little goes by the nickname “Detroit Red.”  He befriends and works as an enforcer for a number of pimps.  He participates in fencing with a fellow Black man and a couple of White women.  He has a number of different women in his life.  

The biggest thing I learned that never would have even guess existed unless a read this book was the “conk,” a type straightening method that African-American men used to alter the hairs appearance from its natural state to a more “white” look.  It was a process that was painful and could result in serious injury to the scalp.  After reading this I did go through some old pictures of African-American men in the first half of the 20^th century to see if I could spot it.   

Hustler days with "conk" hairstyle

His hustling days came to an end when he and his group of thieves were caught, tried, and sent to prison.  Now for most people going to prison would be rather bad thing, but Malcolm found himself there and would later reflect that his prison time was important part of his life.  While imprisoned he was able to get the education that he had been denied so many years ago.  He even notes at times that if he had gone to a traditional college, he may have been distracted by all that goes on in a community that a university offers.  In prison he was forced to read and he managed to give himself quite the education.  He read a lot of history and hearing of the horrors that people of his racial background went through radicalized his politics. 

“I will never forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery’s total horror.  It made such an impact on me that it later became one of my favorite subjects when I became a minister of Mr. Muhammad’s.   The world’s most monstrous crime, the sin and the blood on the white man’s hands, are almost impossible to believe.  Books like the one by Frederick Olmstead opened my eyes to the horrors suffered when the slave landed in the United States.  The European woman, Fannie Kimball, who had married a southern white slave owner, described how human beings were degraded.  Of course I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  In fact I believe that is the only novel I have ever read since I started serious reading.”  (p.179)

While imprison his brother Reginald introduced to him with his letters and visits the religion called the Nation of Islam.  Up into this point Malcolm X had been so openly atheist his fellow inmates nicknamed him Satan.  It is at this point where he ceases to be Malcolm Little and embraced his identity of Malcolm X.  Their leader Elijah Muhammad had his followers drop their surnames as these were just imposed on their ancestors by white slave masters. 

Elijah Muhammad

With his new religious identity, the reader can clearly see some of the good and bad that comes from religion.  It gave Malcolm X an instant community to come home to, it helped generate self-worth, and it gave him a purpose.  It also made him believe rather ridiculous things such as white people were created by a mad scientist thousands of years ago. 

Malcolm X during public career

Armed with his new faith, Malcolm X makes a lot of lifestyle changes to accommodate it such as giving up pork and cigarettes.  When he gets out of prison, he meets Elijah Muhammad and becomes a minister for the NOI.  He then embarks on the work that would make him world famous.  He would grow the NOI amongst the African-American community and in doing so challenge the white establishment that would be standing in his way.  To so would not only make enemies of white America but it would also bring him into conflict with the active civil rights leaders.       

“My decision came relatively quickly. I have always been an activist, and my personal chemistry perhaps made me reach more quickly than most minsters in the Nation of Islam that stage of dedication.  But ever minister in the Nation, in his own time, in his own way, in the privacy of his own soul, came to the conviction that is was written that all of his “before” life had become conditioning and preparation to become a disciple of Mr. Muhammad’s.” (p. 215)  

With Malcolm X as its most popular minister, the Nation of Islam experienced a swelling of its ranks.  It would multiple several times over.  However, in many ways his success would also be his undoing within the Nation.  Despite the fact that he had always presented himself as “representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” Malcolm X was by far the most visible Black Muslim and this would seem to create a jealousy in Muhammad.  Malcolm X also discovered that Muhammad had several sexual indiscretions fathering illegitimate children with former secretaries.  When Malcolm X gave his infamous “chickens come home to roust” remarks in the wake of the Kennedy assignation, Muhammad took the opportunity to silence him. 

This however ultimately just pushed him away.  After being contacted by more mainstream Muslims he starts to re-examine his own faith.  With that he leaves the NOI and becomes a Sunni Muslim.  With help of his sister, Ella^[1], he goes on a pilgrimage to Mecca required by all Muslims who are able.  There he refines a lot of his political views.  Where before he advocated for Black separation and supremacy, he now advocated for a universal brotherhood.  He never stopped attacking white supremacy for what it was though and would continue calls for a strong revolutionary change.  He adopted a new name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, although he never legally changed it.     

“White society hates to hear anybody, especially a black man, talk about the crime the white man had perpetrated on the black man.  I have always understood that’s why I have been so frequently called ‘a revolutionist.’  It sounds as if I have done some crime!  Well, it may be that American black man does need to become involved with a real revolution.  The word for ‘revolution’ in German is Umwalzung.  What it means is a compete overturn—a complete change.  The overthrow of King Farouk in Egypt and the succession of President Nasser is an example of a true revolution.  It means the destroying of an old system, and its replacement with a new system.” (p374)

The NOI never stopped giving him trouble however.  Since the Nation owned the house, he lived in with his wife Betty and their daughters, they evicted them and even fire-bombed the place when he did not leave.  His life ended when he was assassinated by members of the NOI.   Just recently it was uncovered that the US Government had information that that was going to happen and did nothing to stop it.

At civil rights rally

Legendary actor Ossie Davis who eulogized Malcolm X has a written response to question posed by a magazine editor to why he performed that action.  I find the piece very prophetic when he explains who he thinks Malcolm X will be remembered.   Davis makes an analogy to John Brown.    

“But even had Malcolm not change, he would still have been a relevant figure on the American scene, standing in relation as he does, to the ‘responsible’ civil rights leaders, just about where John Brown stood in relation to the ‘responsible’ abolitionists in the fight against slavery.  Almost all disagreed with Brown’s mad and fanatical tactics which led him foolishly to attack a Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, to lose two sons there, and later be hanged for treason.

Yet, today the world, and especially the Negro people, proclaim that Brown not a traitor, but a hero and a martyr in a noble cause.  So in future, I will not be surprised if men come to see that Malcolm X was, within his own limitations, and in his own inimitable style, also a martyr in that cause.” (p.466)

This prediction has certainly come to pass.  Malcolm X is certainly more popular today than he ever was in his own time.  In the book he and Alex Haley go over a poll taken among African-Americans about who they thought was the most important leader in their community.  The poll revealed both that Dr. King was at the top and he, Malcolm X, barley registered.  He acknowledged that a lot of that was his fault for as a minster of the NOI they were not supposed to get involved with politics outside of their group.  They would take bold stands in support of their members, as in the incident when one of them named Hinton Johnson had been beaten by the police during an arrest causing Malcolm X to lead companies of his fellow Muslims to the police station and demanded their member be taken to a hospital.  However, when it came to doing something for the oppression of others, they would do nothing similar. They talked a big game about white oppression but with the intention of getting potential members to turn their back on mainstream society and embrace their group.  On the one major issue of the day that was most important to African-Americans: integration, the NOI was opposed.  Their stand would even earn them the respect of white nationalists such as the KKK and George Lincoln Rockwell.  

One of things that Malcolm X tries stress at the end of his book, although he repudiated Black Supremacy and Nationalism (while still holding White society to account) he hopes that his readers will be able to understand why it was such an ideology would have naturally appealed to someone with his life experiences and situation.   My assessment as a reader is in that respect this book is truly successful.  His main achievement with this book is he does show the reader why his world view became his world view, not only in why he embraced the NOI but also why he held some other controversial views that are still controversial.  For example, his view on Jewish people and women in general, he clearly explains to the reader why he has such views in a way that the reader can understand and sympathize with while still not embracing them.  I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in autobiographies of important historical figures.            

[Video is from British Films Institute] 

---

[1] Ella Little-Collins is one of the more fascinating characters you get to meet in this book.  She led a life almost as interesting as her brother’s.