The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“And if I die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant to the body of America – then all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.”
Like many of the books in this series, I wish I would have read this book earlier. I remember being in 8th grade and choosing a book to read for my summer program. I looked at the Autobiography of Malcolm X, but thought it was too long for my summer reading project (I instead read Lord of the Flies). While I was correct that the books is very long, I would have gotten so much more out of reading about the life of one of the greatest Black leaders ever, than the fictional story of British children reverting to their most base roles. I learned a lot about a man that I thought I knew a lot about (also Alex Haley was WRITING).
What had happened was…
It is important to first know about the parentage of a young boy formerly known as Malcolm Little. Born to an outspoken African American man and a light skinned mother with Caribbean roots. Malcolm’s entire family was victimized because of their Blackness. First, the father was murdered because of his strong ideals of Black power (an outspoken preacher and Garveyite). Then his family was wrenched away from their mother who was then thrown into a psychiatry ward. Malcolm grew up extremely fast and while he was often praised for his intelligence, he was told that his race was a limiting factor. Malcolm moved to Boston with his sister where he was introduced to night life. Eventually becoming a pullman porter and moving to New York City. Malcolm was extremely curious about the world and found a way to introduce himself to it.
He moved to New York and quickly found a way to become a hustler, determining that the pullman porter did not afford him enough time in the Black Mecca that is Harlem. He was truly in too deep and afraid of nothing and as such returned to Boston where he continued his hustling ways. He lead a burglary ring which included 2 White women (1 of which was his long time girlfriend), which would prove to be his down fall. The ring was eventually busted and Malcolm and his friend Shorty were handed the book (more because of the involvement of White women than the theft itself). Malcolm was imprisoned, however, his brother lead him to the Nation of Islam which allowed his mind to be free. While still imprisoned Malcolm often kept correspondence with the Honorable Elijah Mohammed and started training his mind with the books available to him.
Eventually Malcolm was freed from prison and with the help of the honorable Elijah Mohammed began creating new mosques in the United States. Preaching an anti-integrationist, anti-white supremacy, and pro-physical protection message in the mid 1900’s lead Malcolm to be seen as a demagogue. In his own mind he was forwarding the message of the Nation of Islam, but he began to see hints of the organization turning against him. After an off-color remark regarding the assassination of Kennedy (chickens coming home to roost) and the confirmed affairs of the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, Malcolm was put on administrative leave. However, Malcolm believed this administrative leave to be a ruse to forcibly remove him from the Nation. Later confirmed by assassination attempts ordered on him from within the organization. In order to re-center himself Malcolm looked to Allah. During this time Malcolm would make Hajj where he discovered, that the Islam he had been taught and was teaching was very different than that taught in the Holy Land. Some of the biggest differences being the brotherhood amongst all in Islam regardless of race, which opened a new international view of his human rights leadership, rather than civil rights. It is here, that the book ends. With Malcolm attempting to forward his followers to Orthodox Islam and push America both nationally and internationally. On February 21, 1965 Malcolm X completed his mission on this plane.
Aiight so boom…
There is so much to wrestle with from the life of Malcom X, (Whiteness as a demonic force, his premonitions of his own death, his relationship to other Civil Rights leaders) but I was most intrigued by the religious aspect. Malcolm often discussed the failure of Christianity with its white blond hair blue eyed Jesus. However, the Christianity he rebuked so heavily did not resemble my own. My Jesus was a poor brown revolutionary who attained freedom for the downtrodden and lower caste of society. I distinctly remember in my 6th grade class when my white Catholic school teacher told me that Jesus wasn’t white and pointed to me to indicate more what he probably looked like. However, I do not take Malcolm’s critiques lightly with prosperity gospel and white evangelicals as huge detractors from American Christianity. Even in my own life I did not outlaw depictions of a white Jesus in my home until I was in my mid-twenties. However, this Americanized Christianity in some ways parallels the Americanized Islam that Malcolm was first introduced to. There is something in this land that distorts our vision of truth. Something that distorted Islam into something different, something inherently racial. Something that continues to distort Christianity today, allowing for capitalism to become its back bone rather than the teachings of a poor colonized Palestinian Jewish man. It is my hope to lift the veil made necessary by this country and see truth like Malcolm did. Maybe that is the truth and necessitation of pilgrimage. Maybe I should make my own Hajj.