Ted’s Reviews > The Autobiography of Malcolm X > Status Update

His pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964 caused X to reevaluate his attitude toward "whites". He discovered there people of all colors, from all over the world, interacting as one people, and realized that his description of all whites in America as evil devils because of the racism inherent in American society needed changes.

"The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is the first black leader among us with the courage to tell us - out here in public - something which when you begin to think of it back in your homes, you will realize we black people have been living with, we have been seeing, we have been suffering, all of our lives!"
"Our enemy is the white man!"

- his introduction to the HEM at a great meeting.

Everything was building up, closing in on me. I was trapped in so many cross turns. West Indian Archie gunning for me. The Italians who thought I'd stuck up their crap game after me. The scared kid hustler I'd hit. The cops.

For four years, up to that point, I'd been lucky enough, or slick enough, to escape jail, or even getting arrested. Or any serious trouble. But I knew that any minute now something had to give.

Having spent so much time in Mason's (Mich.) white environment, I had always believed and feared that dancing involved a certain order or pattern of specific steps - as dancing is done by whites. But here among my own less inhibited people, I discovered it was simply letting your feet, hands and body spontaneously act out whatever impulses were stirred by the music.

1940-41, Boston. Malcolm "Red" is 15

She didn't recognize me at all... I can't describe how I felt. The woman who brought me into the world, and nursed me, and advised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn't know me... I truly believe that if ever a state agency destroyed a family, it destroyed ours. We wanted and tried to stay together. Our home didn't have to be destroyed...I have no mercy or compassion for a society that will crush people.