The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Ossie Davis (Afterword), Alex Haley (As Told to)
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(Mass Market Paperback - Reissue)
- Pub. Date: October 1987
- 496pp
- Sales Rank: 2,492
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Product Details
- Series: Black History Titles Series
- ISBN-13: 9780345350688
- ISBN: 0345350685
- Edition Description: Reissue
Synopsis
"Extraordinary. A brilliant, painful, and important book."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
If there was any one man who articulated the anger, the struggle, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, that man was Malcolm X. His AUTOBIOGRAPHY is the result of a unique collaboration between Alex Haley and Malcolm X, whose voice and philosophy resonate from every page, just as his experience and his intelligence continue to speak to millions.
Annotation
This audio program tells of the man very few people really knew--and of his plans to move into the mainstream of the Civil Rights movement before an assassin ended his life. 3 cassettes.
Sacred Fire
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the story of one of the remarkable lives of the twentieth century. Malcolm X, as presented in this as-told-to autobiography, is a figure of almost mythic proportions; a man who sunk to the greatest depths of depravity and rose to become a man whose life's mission was to lead his people to freedom and strength. It provides a searing depiction of the deeply rooted issues of race and class in America and remains relevant and inspiring today. Malcolm X's story would inspire Alex Haley to write Roots, a novel that would, in turn, define the saga of a people.
Malcolm Little was born in Nebraska in 1925, the seventh child of Reverend Earl Little, a Baptist minister, and Louise Little, a mulatto born in Grenada to a black mother and a white father. Malcolm X quickly grew to hate the society he'd grown up in. After his father was killed, his mother was unfairly denied insurance coverage and his family fell apart. Young Malcolm went from a foster home to a reformatory, to shining shoes in the speakeasies and dance halls of Boston. After getting work as a Pullman porter, he went to New York and fell in love with Harlem. His stint as a drug dealer and petty crook landed him in jail, where he became a devout student of the Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad. That was when he figured out that "he could beat the white man better with his mind than he ever could with a club." Malcolm X's subsequent quest for knowledge and equality for blacks led to his unreserved commitment to the liberation of blacks in American society.
What makes this book extraordinary is the honesty with which Malcolm presents his life: Even as he regrets the mistakes he made as a young man, he brings his zoot-suited, swing-dancing, conk- haired Harlem youth to vivid life; even though he later turns away from the Nation of Islam, the strong faith he at one time in that sect's beliefs, a faith that redeemed him from prison and a life of crime, comes through. What made the man so extraordinary was his courageous insistence on finding the true path to his personal salvation and to the salvation of the people he loved, even when to stay on that path meant danger, alienation, and death.
More Reviews and RecommendationsCustomer Reviews
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A Modern Classic- Great literature and an inspirational storyby Shevshevory
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June 06, 2009: I read Malcolm X a while ago, but I wanted to use some passages from the text while teaching Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison. It was great to use to explore the multiple identities Malcolm experiences throughout his journey. It was interesting too to compare Ellison's narrator's journey of learning to Malcolm's experiences with racist America, militant American Islam and eventually a new and more holistic view of race and culture. I highly recommend the book if you want to read an inspirational story, if you want to read a great book about race and identity, or if you want to understand more about one of the most controversial, complex and important figures in 20th century American history.
the best biography i've ever readby Anonymous
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April 22, 2009: "Beautifully written, Alex Haley's interviews perfectly capture what it must have been like to sit down and talk with one of the most important civil rights activist in American history.  A must read for anyone tired of the dry descriptions of the civil rights movement in America we all learn about in textbooks."
       The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the gripping story of one of America's most important figures in African American history.  His story shows not only the atrocities committed against people of color in the early 20th century, it shows that even the most hardened of people can still overcome old prejudices.  For the majority of Malcolm's all to short life, he hated white people.  It wasn't just blind hatred, he had reason to hate white people. After all, white people murdered his father. White people pressured his widowed mother so much, she went insane and was thrown into an asylum. White people taught him he was inferior and gave him a religion that reinforced that feeling.  This book expertly chronicles his many travels and the affects that the places he lived in and visited had on him. In Omaha, Nebraska he quickly learned of racism and the price you could pay for speaking out against it. In Boston, he was educated in worldly ways and the easy money of criminal activity. In the concrete jungle of Harlem he learned to thieve, hustle, deal drugs, and avoid the law. Unfortunately for him, running the streets of Harlem caught up with him when he cheated a man out of his money and nearly got himself murdered. After being hunted and almost put six feet under he returned to Boston. There, after years of preparation in Harlem, he set up a major robbery ring. But you can't run from fate your whole life and after years of breaking the law he was arrested and convicted of masterminding a house-robbing ring. He was sentenced to 8-10 years. This book has Malcolm X reflecting on the bleak outlook of his life if he had not gone to prison. He even goes so far as to declare that if he hadn't gone to jail he would have ended up as just another dead black kid on the side of the street. I loved how he really went in depth and described his transformation while incarcerated. When he first arrived in prison he earned the nickname Satan from his fellow inmates for his temper and actions. Then one day, his little brother came to visit him and told him of an organization called the nation of Islam. Soon after, other relatives start to visit and tell him about the same organization. He becomes very interested and starts to read up on religion and the new American version of Islam. He became so interested he began to correspond with the leader of The Nation of Islam. While in prison he takes a life-changing step and commits his life to Islam. Malcolm X emerges from prison a completely changed man. The book expertly details his transformation from hardened criminal to motivated and dedicated Muslim. Reading about him turning his life around is like watching a flower blossom. You know he's been searching for this his whole life and now he finally has found a meaning in life. However, this is far from the end of his story. In my opinion the most important point in this book happens after Malcolm's release from prison. Unfortunately, he has a falling out with The Nation of Islam leader and converts...
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