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The Autobiography of Malcolm X [Alex Haley, Malcolm X] on * FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. If there was any one man who articulated the. ONE OF TIME'S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally. During the Civil Rights Movement of the s, Malcolm X acceded to international prominence Malcolm X is born as Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska.

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"On Malcolm X" by Ossie Davis previously appeared in Group magazine The autobiograhy of Malcolm X / with the assistance of Alex Haley; introduction. The newscast continued, "Among the items sold was the original manuscript of _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_, with actual handwritten notes by Malcolm X. Julie Gabriel's insightful green beauty tips into practice, they are also being. Appendix B: Toxic Cosmetic Ingred The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told.

In this book summary, we get to know the man from his own perspective: where he came from; how he joined the Nation of Islam; his travels to the Middle East and Africa. These are all crucial pieces of the puzzle behind one of the most influential African-Americans of the last century. Kennedy; and why he broke with the Nation of Islam. Note: The following book summarys contain strong, offensive language. Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19,

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By the late s, nearly three million copies of the work had been sold worldwide. Many regard him as the force behind the Black Power movement in the late s, and by the late s, Malcolm X began to emerge as a cultural icon. This popularity has continued to swell, with many prominent hip-hop artists drawing on his words and image in their works. In director Spike Lee adapted the Autobiography for his film Malcolm X, renewing interest in the title subject around the world.

Most black historians rank Malcolm X among the most influential personalities in African American history, a powerful group that includes Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, still relevant today, is an important book that documents the African American struggle for equality and justice and tells the story of a remarkable man who evolved from anger and ignorance to spiritual, political, and intellectual enlightenment. After a crime-tinged life in Boston and Harlem, he is sentenced to prison for armed robbery.

There he embraces the Muslim faith and adopts X as his surname. After Nation leader Elijah Muhammad betrays his Muslim ideals, however, Malcolm X breaks with the Nation and makes a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he undergoes a profound transformation. He begins to advocate pan-Africanism, his political views evolving and becoming more inclusive as he fights for human rights and justice for African Americans.

Alex Haley, the author, spent two years interviewing Malcolm. It is the only time in the book that he shares his particular viewpoint.

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Elijah Muhammad is the spiritual leader of the Nation of Islam. Malcolm is devastated to learn that Elijah has committed adultery and had children out of wedlock, violating the tenets of his faith. Elijah tries to silence Malcolm and allegedly orders other Muslims to kill Malcolm. One of the few women Malcolm has ever trusted, she witnesses his assassination. She is a strong, assertive woman, a symbol of black pride. She constantly supports Malcolm, arranging for him to live with her in Boston and later financing his pilgrimage to Mecca.

Later, he and Malcolm commit robberies and are sentenced to prison. An outspoken, imposing authority figure and a target of white racist groups for his activism, he is savagely beaten and killed in She is a West Indian woman who is often mistaken as white. She loses jobs when her employers discover that she is black. After the death of her husband, she struggles to support her eight children.

Welfare agents separate her from her children, and she enters a mental hospital, where she remains for almost twenty-six years. For Malcolm, she is initially a status symbol. Laura is a quiet, intelligent, middle-class black woman from Roxbury Hill. She talks with Malcolm at the soda shop, and although they start a tentative relationship and go to dances at Roseland, Malcolm leaves her for Sophia.

Later, Laura becomes a drug addict and prostitute, a turn of events for which Malcolm blames himself. He is a pimp and drug dealer. Malcolm and Sammy work together, hustling and committing robberies. West Indian Archie is an older Harlem hustler who runs a gambling ring. He and Malcolm violently split over a misunderstanding. Bimbi is a prison inmate who is well read and speaks to the prisoners and the guards about a range of subjects. He encourages Malcolm to read and to enroll in the prison correspondence courses.

While Malcolm is in prison, Reginald urges him to convert to Islam. After the Muslims expel Reginald, he experiences a mental breakdown. Wilfred remains a minister for the Nation of Islam even after Malcolm has broken with the organization. Over two years and many interviews, Malcolm X told his story to Haley, who shaped the material into a book.

Haley writes in the first-person point of view, giving readers the impression that Malcolm is speaking directly to them. While this unusual authorship has provoked questions about accuracy and authenticity, most critics agree the final result is a rich, complex, personal narrative that could not have been possible without such a collaboration.

The first major change occurs in Chapter 3, when he leaves Michigan for Boston, where he takes on the persona Homeboy, and for the first time in his life, lives in a large African American neighborhood. In Chapter 10, in prison, he is called Satan, symbolizing his anger and antireligious attitude. After he converts to the Nation of Islam, he replaces his surname with X. Chapters 10 through 15 document his life as a minister for the Nation of Islam.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X PDF Summary

Yet as Eakin argues, the narrative then takes the traditional conversion narrative one step further. In Chapters 18 and 19, he tries to rise above his old image as the controversial minister of the Nation of Islam, as he evolves into a more open-minded revolutionary; however, before this transformation can be completed, he is tragically murdered.

Despite the many stages of his life, the narrative voice also remains consistent. It is a detached, even-toned, and authorial voice that is still laced with anger and is often moralizing. At the same time, Malcolm shows an ability to laugh at himself, as with the outlandish zoot suit. Despite his self-awareness and the lectures to his audience, usually what Malcolm condemns later in life does not detract from the vivid descriptions offered of his rise and transformation, including his portrayal of lindy-hopping and of hustling.

As critic David Demarest, Jr. The result is that the early scenes in Boston and Harlem jump to life, and many critics consider them the most vivid in the book. The Autobiography documents the history of race relations in America, with a focus on religion and politics. And yet, more than a record of the times, the book provides psychological insight into a fascinating figure. He is a complex character—fearless and dogmatic, yet willing to change. Thus, by beginning with this scene, Malcolm shows how early experiences shape his understanding of racism in the United States.

Malcolm is born May 19, , in Omaha, Nebraska. He is the fourth child of his father and mother his father also has three children from a previous marriage ; following his birth, his mother will have four more children. Malcolm relates this personal experience to portray how deeply racism runs in America—that even a black man, an advocate of African American pride, favors light skin. His mother, born in Grenada the British West Indies , is able to be perceived by many as white.

Malcolm claims that after beating him savagely, the murderers laid his body over the streetcar tracks, where it was then crushed. Despite the incriminating details of his death, an insurance company rules it suicide and refuses to pay off the policy.

As the country plunges into the Great Depression, Louise must raise eight children 21 on her own, without any financial support. Passing as white, she takes on work as a housekeeper, but once her employers discover that she is black, she is fired. Unable to make ends meet, the family has no choice but to go on welfare, which proves to be a devastating experience.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X - Google книги

Pride was just about all we had to preserve. Sometimes they have nothing to eat but boiled dandelion greens. It was a sensing that something bad was going to happen. We wanted and tried to stay together. As a child, Malcolm sees that his father is killed for promoting a strong, independent black community, while his mother is driven crazy by a white agency that does not trust her to take care of her own children. The teachers and kids are friendly to him, and he is well liked, but only within the structures of a racist system.

I was in demand. I had top priority.

Restaurants made the streets smell—rich, greasy, down-home black cooking! These feelings deepen after a meeting with his English teacher, Mr. Ostrowski is surprised. Instead he writes to Ella every day, and she arranges for custody of him. No physical move in my life has been more pivotal or profound in its repercussions.

When Ella encourages him to go exploring before tying himself down to a job, Malcolm happily wanders all over Boston, to white downtown, the piers, and the black neighborhoods. Throughout the book, Malcolm criticizes the black middle class, a view that begins to develop when he is in Boston, as he observes the differences in Roxbury and the ghetto neighborhood. He feels irritated by African Americans in Roxbury Hill, inflating their status as security guards, janitors, and servants, and looking down on the poor.

When the two start talking, they discover they are both from Lansing. He quickly embraces this new lifestyle—he shoots craps, plays cards, gambles, drinks, smokes, and uses drugs. We both were grinning and sweating. Though Malcolm is critical of the middle-class blacks for imitating whites, he later realizes his conk is a symptom of the same kind of self-defacement. The conk represents a loss of black identity and serves as a distraction from the real problems of exploitation and oppression.

Malcolm feels uncomfortable and resentful of the middle-class black customers. He is surprised that Laura is such a good dancer.

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His first train trip is to Washington, D. This is one of many observations that will later contribute to shaping his ideology. After a few runs to Washington, D. This world was where I belonged. On that night I had started on my way to becoming a Harlemite.

It was like popping your shoeshine rag. My ears soaked it up like sponges. These chapters vividly portray the tough side of the ghetto but also depict the strength of the black community. Within the uncivilized space of white America, there is another uncivilized space, the ghetto. White society has oppressed blacks for centuries, from the days of slavery and continuing through segregation.

By patronizing Harlem and demanding drugs or prostitutes, whites make it harder for the black inhabitants to rise above the conditions. Malcolm points out the unrealized potential of his various friends.

For example, Sammy the Pimp could have been a good businessman, and the gambler West Indian Archie, with his photographic memory and ability with math and computation, could have been successful in a legitimate line of work, had he been given an opportunity.

Despite the struggles and the depth of their despair, Malcolm also points out the strong feeling of community, which later will fuel his views on black separatism: 30 Many times since, I have thought about it, and what it really meant. Although Sophia marries a white man, she continues to see Malcolm while her husband is overseas serving in World War II.

With the help of Sammy the Pimp, he turns to selling drugs to New York jazz musicians. It becomes truly the survival of only the fittest. His drug-dealing business is a success until the local narcotics squad begins tailing him, and he must move to a new apartment each week to avoid being arrested on planted evidence. By dressing outlandishly and telling the army psychologist that 31 he wishes to lead southern blacks in an uprising to murder southern whites, he evades the draft.

I would risk just about anything. When the mayor shuts down the Savoy Ballroom, the Harlem community believes it is to put a stop to interracial dating. I came to rely more and more upon my brother Reginald as the only one in my world I could completely trust. Malcolm insists he remembered correctly. Archie gives Malcolm a day to return the money, but Malcolm proceeds only to get high on drugs. He is then being pursued by the hustler he punched, the police, West Indian Archie, and Italian racketeers who accuse him of robbing their craps game.

I viewed narcotics as most people regard food. I wore my guns as today I wear my neckties. The two women scope out the white neighborhoods, since they will not arouse suspicion, then the men commit armed robbery, one of them driving the getaway car. The man hunts for Malcolm later that night but then leaves his apartment without an altercation.

Malcolm realizes that he is at the breaking point. His life of crime ends when he drops off a stolen watch to a jewelry store to get a crystal replaced. When he returns to the store to pick it up, the police are waiting. And that saved my life. In prison, Malcolm develops his understanding of race, beginning to see all black people, and not just himself, as victims of racism and exploitation.

This changing perception will influence the antiwhite rhetoric and militant black separatist views that he will come to embrace. Malcolm and Shorty are each sentenced to ten years in prison, while the women receive one to five years. And my favorite targets were the Bible and God. Malcolm encounters one positive influence during his first year in prison, a confident, well-read older black prisoner, Bimbi, who commands the respect of both the guards and inmates.

Throughout the book, Malcolm gravitates to father figures that provide him with guidance and express confidence in him. He instructs Malcolm to stop smoking and eating pork but does not tell him why. There was plenty of fresh air to breathe. There is a debate team, a library with a diverse selection of books, and classes taught by instructors from Harvard and Boston universities.

Malcolm discovers that all of his siblings in Detroit and Chicago have converted to Islam. As Malcolm begins to think of the other whites he has known in his life, such as the welfare workers who broke up his home, the teacher who discouraged him from becoming a lawyer, and the judge who sentenced him, the idea begins to make sense to him. This religious sect began as a militant, separatist movement, an authoritarian religious organization with a very small following.

Many of the views and doctrines reversed white racist beliefs. According to Elijah Muhammad, the original human race was black and lived peacefully in Africa under Allah in Mecca, until a mad scientist, Mr. It taught him that everything white was good, to be admired, respected, and loved.

In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. I believe it took me a day.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting. Predictably, it got worse: When Malcolm was six years old, his father was murdered.

Despite having been fatally beaten, the police called his death an accident. After that, Louise struggled to keep the family together as a single mother.

They finally succeeded, putting Louise in a state mental hospital when Malcolm was 12 and sending the kids to live with different families. As a result, Malcolm was expelled from school and sent to a detention home. A year later, Malcolm entered junior high, where this sort of treatment continued. He was one of only a few black students in the school, and did his best to integrate with his white classmates.

Malcolm was even elected class president that year, but he came to believe that his classmates were treating him as a mascot, not an equal. But Malcolm soon saw a new world on a visit to Boston. The summer after seventh grade, Malcolm accepted an invitation to visit his half-sister Ella, who lived in the Roxbury area of the city. For the first time, he saw black people proudly being themselves in their own neighborhood and not trying to be white.

When Malcolm returned to Lansing, he could no longer tolerate the racist jokes of his teachers and classmates; he knew there was a better place for him. By coincidence, one of the first people Malcolm met was a man named Shorty, who just happened to be from Lansing, Michigan.

Not only did young Malcolm shine the shoes of musicians like Duke Ellington and Count Basie, but he also learned how to hustle: the job of the shoeshine boy also entailed providing musicians and customers with booze, marijuana or the phone numbers of local prostitutes. During this time, Malcolm himself indulged in booze, marijuana, flashy clothes and dancing. Shorty showed Malcolm how to conk his hair — a painful process of using hot lye to straighten the curls.

In just one night he fell in love with the city, especially the huge Savoy nightclub, twice the size of the Roseland. Malcolm discovered who to trust, who to avoid, and the ins and outs of all kinds of criminal activities, including robbery, pimping and gambling. From his time at the Roseland and Savoy, Malcolm had many musician friends who were reliable customers. And when the police began to suspect Malcolm of dealing in Harlem, he took his business on the road, traveling on tour with the musicians and keeping them in supply.

But by , things were getting tougher. The police temporarily closed down the Savoy and rumors that a black soldier had been shot by a white cop almost resulted in a riot. This effectively stopped what little money white people were bringing into Harlem and increased the police presence. Clearly, Malcolm was on the wrong path, and that path was about to come to an end. By , year-old Malcolm was falling into the same trap as many hustlers: he was taking more dangerous chances to make money and increasing his drug intake in order to boost his confidence.

Things began to get truly bad when a gambling dispute forced him out of Harlem. As a result, Malcolm spiraled into a paranoid drug haze of opium, cocaine and Benzedrine. He left Harlem and returned to Boston, hoping things would cool off. But Malcolm kept hustling. In Boston he teamed up with Shorty and two white girlfriends to rob rich households.

Their crime spree came to an end when he was arrested trying to pawn a stolen watch. But the judge was particularly upset about Malcolm conspiring with two white girls. So, in February , Malcolm was sentenced to ten years in prison. It was in prison that Malcolm had a spiritual awakening. Malcolm was impressed by an old convict named Bimbi, who showed him that you could command respect by being well spoken.

Bimbi encouraged him to use the prison library and Malcolm quickly became obsessed with reading. He read everything from English and Latin dictionaries to philosophy and world history. Malcolm would spend entire nights reading, and as a result of the bad light, developed astigmatism that required corrective lenses. While in prison, Malcolm passionately took to the message of the Nation of Islam, praying for the first time and reading more and more about the tragic history of African-Americans.

Prison proved to be a good training ground for Malcolm to find his public speaking voice. While there, he took part in staged debates in which two people would argue opposing sides of an issue.

In these debates, Malcolm found many opportunities to spread the message of the Nation of Islam and what he was learning in history books. He would condemn the atrocities that the white man had committed on the non-white people of the world in the name of Christianity and profit.

Malcolm was eager to devote his life to the Nation of Islam. During the meal, Malcolm freely offered his services to the Nation of Islam.

Malcolm immediately began a recruitment drive in Detroit, slowly gaining more followers. His success was noted by other ministers in the Nation who asked him to stop by and speak during services. Malcolm proved adept at passionately spreading the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and the founder of the Nation of Islam, W. Malcolm was proving himself to be a natural activist and speaker. Malcolm was quickly made an official minister of the Nation of Islam. Like other ministers, he was given the last name of X, which stood for the true ancestral family name that had been forever lost.

Malcolm X soon began establishing new Nation of Islam temples around the country. He opened them in places like Boston, Philadelphia and Atlanta. He ended up thanking Archie for forcing him to leave New York City, likely saving his life. By the end of the s, the Nation of Islam was making headlines.