Book blog post #5
January 28, 2025: The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” (Malcolm X–“1965”)
Note 1: This book blog post (and any blog post previous to this) should not be considered a comprehensive review of the book. Our short talk at the book club and this resultant post only touch on a few aspects of Malcolm X’ s extraordinary life. I hope you may be inspired to pick up his book and read it for yourself, if you haven’t already done so.
Note 2: You will find that the parts of Malcolm X’ s life discussed here are not in chronological order.
Note 3: Yes, the autobiography is “told to Alex Haley”, who wrote it, but Malcolm X read and revised the manuscript. Additionally, Alex Haley wrote an epilogue for the book so that he could include his own observations on Malcolm X, and he got Malcolm’s permission to do this.
Note 4: The quotes in the blog are all Malcolm X’s. The parenthetical citations show the name of the chapter each quote comes from as different editions of his autobiography have different page numbers.
Note 5: In the last year or so, I learned of the “lyrical essay.” The end of this blog has a bit of that feel to it. It also uses some basic facts clearly not included in the Autobiography of Malcolm X. These are facts I had learned of previously, in reading other sources. They were fact checked with simple Internet searches.
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On Monday January 27 of 2025, some of our regular members were absent, but we had two new attendees: one of them showed us he had been drawn to the club by a news article from Itemlive. He shared the clipping with us.
Beyond the excitement of welcoming the new people in our midst, we were also stimulated by the fact both newcomers had some connection to Malcolm X: one attended a speech of Malcolm’s in NYC, which he described as “fiery”, and the other worked in that city and knew the woman who had cradled Malcolm X in her arms the day he was assassinated by gunmen while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. We were told this woman was not Black but Japanese American, and that we might remember her from a famous photo that came out in Life Magazine.
After our book club meeting, I looked the woman up and found her name was Yuri Kochiyama. I also found the photo of her holding Malcolm X’s head in her hands. According to our guest at the book club, Kochiyama was an activist for reparations for Japanese-Americans who were taken away from their homes and placed in internment camps during WWII. I can add that this was due to Executive Order 9066, which was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942, at a time of rampant discrimination and prejudice against people of Japanese heritage. It is clear how Kochiyama could feel so greatly aligned to Malcolm X’s cause, particularly to his outcry against unjust treatment, and to his declaration that what was happening to Black people in the US went beyond violations of civil rights: he wished for Black Americans to approach the United Nations about the violation of their human rights.
We took turns talking about what was of interest to us in the reading.
One of us talked about one of the lowest points in Malcolm’s life, when he was living in Harlem. This chapter of the book captures his role of the time with the title “Hustler.” I had asked people to also come up with a discussion question since not all of us had read the book, or had not read it for many years. I believe the question this speaker asked was how it came to be that Malcolm X’s wife Betty was so devoted to him.
I think the implication of this question was that not only was Malcolm involved in a lot of bad business as a young adult, but he also didn’t always treat women well, most notably when he was working as a hustler while still a teenager. (None of us thought to bring up the fact of his age.) On top of this, he was carrying on with a woman he did not respect. But he loved his mother and claimed he would be capable of violence against anyone who criticized her, even in a guarded way. Also, his admiration for his half-sister Ella was great. In fact, Ella was one of the most interesting, important, and influential people in Malcolm’s life. I regret we did not talk about her more.
The first time Malcolm met Ella, she traveled out from Boston to meet him and his siblings at a time when they were suffering greatly. After the murder of Malcolm’s father, things obviously got harder for Malcolm’s family: his mother was badgered and humiliated by white welfare workers, and although she had a brief year of happiness when a new man came into her life, after he left again, (probably not wanting to be responsible for eight mouths to feed, as Malcolm conjectured later), her mental breakdown was precipitated, and she was finally institutionalized. Malcolm blamed the antipathy and callousness of white society, as well as the fact his family was swindled out of his father’s life insurance money.
The fact that Ella appeared in their lives at such a turbulent time says a lot about her character. In fact, Ella deserves her own paragraph: Ella was one of three children born to Malcolm’s father and his first wife. (Malcolm’s mother Louise was his father’s second wife.) About his older half-sister, Malcolm said “...she was the first really proud black woman I had ever seen in my life.” (“Mascot”) And later, when talking about Ella’s reaction to his wrong way of living, he said “Ella somehow admired my rebellion against the world, because she, who had so much more drive and guts than most men, often felt stymied by having been born a female.” (“Caught”) While Ella was a brave and independent woman who suffered no fools, she was also a steady person who made a respectable living. This allowed her to be a support for Malcolm when he needed her most. It was also thanks to her financial help that he was able to travel to Mecca, which changed his life. Finally, Ella was the last to convert to Islam because she was a person who thought for herself and was not easily influenced. Malcolm respected her for that. If anyone deserves her own book, it would be Ella. I would read a book about her. (Malcolm’s mother has been written about in a few books: The Life of Louise Norton Little: An extraordinary woman: Mother of Malcolm X and his 7 siblings, by Jessica Russell, and The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation, by Anna Malaika Tubbs.)
The same participant who broached the topic of Malcolm and his relationship with his wife brought up the epilogue, in which writer Alex Haley described how he bought dolls for Malcolm X’s daughters. The book club member pointed out that Malcolm himself did not take the time to buy gifts for his children. To counter this, I commented that one of Malcolm X’s daughters, when interviewed about Spike Lee’s movie “Malcolm X”, told the world her father was fun, and she believed that side of him was not portrayed in Lee’s movie. (It is not seen in his autobiography either, where perhaps Malcolm X wanted to protect his daughters and wife from the outside world.) After the book club, I looked up the moment that Alex Haley bought dolls for Atallah and Qubilah; Christmas was approaching. Haley wrote that he demonstrated how the dolls could walk, and he described Malcolm’s reaction:
Amazement, then a wide grin spread over his face.
“Well, what do you know about that? Well, how about that!” He bent to examine the dolls. His expression showed how touched he was.
“You know,” he said after a while, “this isn’t something I’m proud to say,
but I don’t think I’ve ever bought one gift for my children.
Everything they play with, either Betty got it for them,
or somebody gave it to them, never me.
That’s not good, I know it. I’ve always been too busy. (Epilogue)
We also talked about how Malcolm X learned so much by voraciously reading books when he was in prison, (aged 20-30). He took notes while there, and his initial move of copying an entire dictionary into some notebooks is well known.
Another book clubber talked about how Islam as practiced by Elijah Muhammad was different from the traditional religion of Islam. It was noted that the sexes are mixed at Mecca. There was also a question of how Malcolm X managed to say all of the prayers in Arabic. (In fact, in the book you can see that he does use some Arabic expressions.)
Someone brought up a question of how Elijah Muhammad, a black separatist leader who led the Nation of Islam for Black Muslims, (and was later proven to be a corrupt and hypocritical adulterer), could exert such influence over Malcolm X. I pointed out that EM had sent a $5 bill to Malcolm when the latter was in prison. He did the same with many. EM supported and uplifted Black people so they could live a better life, existing in their own community where they could interact with dignity, apart from the “white devil”. At the same time, Elijah Muhammad was ruthless in expelling Muslims from his organization if they violated the moral codes. This happened to Malcolm’s own brother Reginald, whom Malcolm regretfully turned away from out of loyalty to Elijah Muhammad. Later, when it turned out EM himself was guilty of the sins he preached against, it was too late for Malcolm X to reconcile with his brother Reginald, who drifted off, discarded and forsaken; he apparently walked the entire distance from Detroit to Boston. He suffered mental collapse and was institutionalized.
After discussing the corruption of Elijah Muhammad, one of us pointed out that while people can be fallible, it doesn’t necessarily mean the thing they created was without merit. Indeed, the way of life attained by the disciples of Elijah Muhammad (and their shared community) was good for many.
I shared that one thing that had struck me powerfully about Malcolm X’s story was his criticism of MLK Jr. and the March on Washington. I had never thought to question such a legendary and inspiring part of our nation’s history, but reading Malcolm X’s take on the march brought to my attention a view I had never considered. According to Malcolm X, some angry black men meant to walk to Washington in protest, but white leaders found out about the growing unrest and decided to organize and take control of the walk so that it would not get out of hand. This is part of how Malcolm puts it in his chapter “Icarus”:
Yes, I was there. I observed that circus. Who ever heard of angry revolutionists all harmonizing “We Shall Overcome. . . Suum Day. . . “ while tripping and swaying along arm in arm with the very people they were supposed to be angrily revolting against? Who ever heard of angry revolutionists swinging their bare feet together with their lily-pad park pools, with gospels and guitars and “I Have a Dream” speeches?
And the black masses were–and still are–having a nightmare. [...]
“What that March on Washington did do was lull Negroes for a while.
But inevitably, the black masses started realizing they’d been hoaxed again by the white man.” (“Icarus”)
And Malcolm X famously disagreed with Martin Luther King Jr. about “turning the other cheek”.
I believe it is a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept the brutality without doing something to defend himself. If that’s how “Christian” philosophy is interpreted, if that’s what Gandhian philosophy teaches, well, then, I will call them criminal philosophies. (“1965”)
One of our new attendees talked about how you could not have Martin Luther King Jr. without Malcolm X, and vice versa. They represent two parts of one story. MLK was raised in a nurturing environment, but Malcolm X grew up with violence. I’d like to write here not about physical violence though, but about a less obvious kind of violence: that done to the psyche. Although Malcolm was well liked in the practically all-white schools he attended in Michigan, he joined every conceivable school club, he was even elected class president, and he ignored white people’s use of the “n” word because he saw that it was not spoken maliciously, all of his efforts to fit in collapsed after a defining moment: when a history teacher who frequently made jokes about “n—---s” told him he could not be a lawyer because it was not a realistic choice for a black boy. The teacher assured Malcolm X that he was well liked by all, but that he had better become a carpenter. It didn’t seem to matter that Malcolm had the best grades and probably some of the best brains in the class. After this, Malcolm changed. Now when people used the “n” word to him he gave them long looks. “When ‘n—--’ had slipped off my back before, whenever I heard it now, I stopped and looked at whoever said it. And they looked surprised that I did.I quit hearing ‘n—---’ so much and “What’s wrong?”, which was the way I wanted it.” (“Mascot”) Mrs. Swerlin, the woman who was in charge of the detention home where Malcolm lived at this time, perhaps provides the most striking example of the blindness white people had to their own deeply ingrained racism. Because she liked Malcolm so much, she kept him at the home much longer than she kept most of her charges. But she noticed that he did not seem as happy there as he had been, and she couldn’t understand it. She asked him over and over what was wrong, only to get no response. Finally it was time for Malcolm to leave the place: “At the living room I saw her wiping her eyes. I felt very bad.” (“Mascot”) Looking back, Malcolm X saw that despite their kindness to him and the fact they genuinely liked him, the white people in his life saw him only as a mascot. When Mrs. Swerlin talked to her husband about Malcolm, she acted as if he (Malcolm) were not even there and could not hear what was being said. Malcolm put it this way: “What I am trying to say is that it just never dawned on them that I could understand, that I wasn’t a pet, but a human being.” (“Mascot”) For me, this is one of the most thought-provoking, wrenching passages in the book. The blindness of the white people to their own sense of superiority is juxtaposed against their sense of being upstanding citizens with good intentions. I am reminded of Ojibwe writer David Treuer’s American Indian history book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, when Treuer shows that the Indian boarding schools that would inflict so much harm on native peoples (with the legacy of harm still continuing today), were created partly out of good intentions, but also out of the white person’s blind sense of superiority. (Read the chapter “Purgatory: 1891-1934”.)
I pointed out that it was so deeply wrong that Malcolm X had to leave the country to finally feel the possibility of true brotherhood between people of all skin colors. His travels abroad also led him to articulate what it really meant to be “white”: “Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered “white”, but the “white” attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam.” (“Mecca”) In the same vein, Malcolm expressed the following: “In America, “white man” meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been.” (“Mecca”)
Thanks to his experience among the Muslim pilgrims and the generous hospitality of world leaders abroad, Malcolm X was transformed with hope and a vision of possibility for sincere cooperation between people of different races and colors back home in the US. This is the way he expressed the change he underwent after being treated with such sincere respect and love: “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.” (“Mecca”)
In fact, it is what I loved most about the riveting, colorful, heartbreaking, and at times even funny story of Malcolm X : his ability not only to live life to the fullest, boldly, seemingly without fear, but to change at every stage of life, and to acknowledge and accept this change. Sadly, we can only imagine what further transformations he might have experienced, and what wisdom he might have imparted to the world if the world had permitted him to age. Malcolm X himself never expected to live very long, and only weeks after returning from his life-changing journey, he was shot over twenty times at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, by three gunmen, before the very eyes of his four small daughters and beloved wife Betty, who was pregnant with twins. Malcolm X was just 39 years old.
The legacy of violence, the legacy of racism
Betty became very close to Coretta Scott King and Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widows of civil rights activists Martin Luther King Jr, assassinated in 1968, and Medgar Evers, assassinated in 1963.
Martin Luther King Jr’s. mother was shot to death in 1974. MLK’s brother A.D. King, also a civil right’s activist, had his home severely damaged by a bomb attack. His wife Naomi and their five children Alfred Daniel Jr., Alveda, Vernon, Derek, and Darlene were present. Likewise, Malcolm X’s home in Queens, New York was firebombed with his family present. Medgar Evers’s assassination left behind his wife Myrlie and their children Darrell, Reena, and James.
Malcolm X’s father, Earl Little, was murdered for being his own person, for being a supporter of Marcus Garvey, who preached that Black people should return to Africa. Four of Earl’s six brothers also met violent deaths, “...three of them killed by white men, including one by lynching.” (“Nightmare”)
Coretta Scott King writes in her autobiography My Life, My Love, My Legacy that her daughter Bernice, who apparently was the incarnation of her father when she took to the pulpit to deliver sermons, at one point was close to suicide.
Malcolm X’s second daughter Qubilah was arrested for the attempted murder of Louis Farrakhan, who she believed was responsible for the death of her father.
Qubilah’s son, Malcolm Shabazz, was sent to live with his grandmother when he was twelve years old. Wishing to return home, he started a fire that led to the death of his grandmother, Betty Shabazz, who could not recover from extensive burns. Malcolm S. was beaten to death when he was 29 years old, in Mexico City.
Next month, February 21, 2025, will mark 60 years since the death of Malcolm X.
But …to not let death and destruction have the last word…
Just days ago (on January 26, 2025), Malcolm X’s third daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, gave the commemorative speech “Honoring a legacy” at Dartmouth College, where her father had spoken just twenty-six days before he was killed.
Below, I have copied some quotes that I selected from an article Emily Kardjian wrote about the event for The Dartmouth newspaper, published January 28, 2025.
“When [Malcolm X] spoke of human rights, he spoke of a universal dignity that traces our humanity back to the cradle of civilization,” Shabazz said. “He understood what scientists, anthropologists and archeologists have now proven — that Africa is not just a part of our story. It is our story.”
“When we understand the truths in our human story … we look at ourselves differently,” Shabazz said. “We look at others as a reflection of ourselves.”
“Let us replace division with unity, apathy with action and fear with hope,” Shabazz said. “Together, we have the power to build a world that reflects the ethical principles of liberty and justice for all.”
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