N's Reviews > The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley

“I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being--neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there's no question of integration or intermarriage. It's just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being.”

My 2017 Review:

Such a compelling and timeless read; a meditation on race, slavery, white power and privilege, of how anger is powerful- and can move. One of the greatest books I've ever read.

My 2023 Review:

In preparation of the possibility of having to teach this memoir, once again, I feel its a timeless and even more relevant treatise on making sure that Black Lives Matter, that all of humanity must do the work in order to make antiracist teaching happen.

Malcolm X writes a bildungsroman of a memoir. First writing about his fraught childhood, leading to Lansing, then to a colorful world of jazz and jukeboxes in Roxbury with his sister Ella and befriending Shorty; finding himself hooking up with a white woman he calls Sophia; then an arrest for robbery and drug charges.

It all seemed downhill for him until he discovered the Muslim religion and the teachings of Elijah Muhammad; his legendary trip to Mecca, his friendship with Cassius Clay, and meeting Betty X, the love of his life- and the mother of his four children.

His attacks on Martin Luther King and President Kennedy at first were misconstrued as angry tirades coming from arrogance and an apathy for those who seemed they weren't working as hard as he was for improving the black community- yet, I can empathize that Malcolm came from a place of anger and wanted radical change to happen immediately.

What I liked about this second reading is that Malcolm X writes candidly about his anger towards the white community.

As a black man who was discouraged from going into law school, and told education was not the route for him; having watched his father murdered, and mother's descent into mental instability, it's no wonder that Malcolm saw much of society's ills against the black community were systemic and perpetuated by the white racial construct:

“It has historically been the case with white people in their regard for black people, that even though we might be with them, we weren't considered one of them...these so called "good white people". I don't care how nice one is to you, the thing you must always remember is that almost never does he really see you as he sees himself as he sees his own kind" (28).

Sentences like this permeate this memoir with rage over and over again, and I can see how white readers and allies might find this off putting especially in our fraught post Trump political climate. I totally see that this rhetoric has led to this memoir being banned in various school districts and libraries alike all over America.

It seems that because of this book’s strong rhetoric, there are folks out there who do not want to make the effort in defending Malcolm X's evolution from white hating man, to a man who learns that all men must do the work to make sure the fight for equal rights is a simple human right.

I am not calling anyone racist, but an observation I’ve seen is that books are easily banned when only excerpts are discussed for political reasons, and not the entire book is actually discussed. Its central message completely ignored.

Malcolm's tenure in Mecca led to this shift in his mindset, and the change of rhetoric from the start of this book, up until the end- is powerful, and relevant for those who choose to fight racism in this country.

This quote sums up the evolution and teachings of Malcolm X to a tee: “Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.”

Alex Haley's afterword is also essential in illustrating the last days of Malcolm's life, leading up to his tragic assassination. It reads like a suspense novel in which it becomes a race against time.

As stated by NACCP member Roy Wilkins, "Malcolm X in death cast a spell more far flung and more disturbing than he cast any in life" (451).

Actor Ossie Davis finishes the memoir with a eulogy that provides a mysterious coda that continues to spark debate about Malcolm X's accomplishments. But still a hell of a read.