Nation Of Islam Malcolm X example essay topic

"The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Haley " We're not Americans. We " re Africans who happen to be in America. We were kidnapped and brought here against our will from Africa. We didn't land on Plymouth Rock -- that rock landed on us". (Lord, Thornton, and Bodipo-Memba, 1992) Words like those above would engrave Malcolm X into the minds of Americans from all racial backgrounds and socio-economic classes.

Malcolm X was certainly not one to mince words. America would come to remember him as "The Hate That Hate Produced", the title of a 1959 CBS documentary narrated by Mike Wallace which focused on Malcolm's involvement in what was perceived as the "rise of black racism" (Lord, Thornton, and Bodipo-Memba, 1992). In "The Autobiography of Malcolm X", Alex Haley presents a different version of Malcolm X than what we are so used to seeing. We meet Malcolm, Malcolm Little, in his teenage years. Instead of his characteristic suit and tie of later years he is decked out in the Afro and clothes of the hipsters. He speaks the slang that was frequently heard on the street and hesitates little before engaging in petty theft or other illicit activities.

While Malcolm would have us believe that the young Malcolm Little was a separate being from the man we would come to know as Malcolm X, in reality the younger Malcolm was just a shadow of the older Malcolm. In many ways the younger Malcolm was more resistant to the dominant white status quo than the older Malcolm would be. We learn in this book that Malcolm was the son of a Baptist minister. Although he was schooled in religion under the careful teachings of his father, he rejected religion while still quite young. His reasoning?

The injustices dealt him by white Christians. Leaving the pews of the church he entered the world of the street hoodlum where he would exist until his arrest and prosecution for armed robbery at age twenty (Allah, 1995). He recalls the 1946 crime in "The Autobiography of Malcolm X": 'I had put a stolen watch into a jewelry shop to replace a broken crystal,' he said. 'Two days later things fell apart when I went to pick it up. ' (Allah, 1995, PG). Malcolm recalls that he was armed when he went into the shop and that an undercover policeman was waiting in quiet for him.

Rather than drawing his gun, Malcolm surrendered it without incident to the officer. He didn't try to flee or to fight back as he was arrested. He pleaded guilty to numerous burglaries in the area and was eventually sentenced, along with an accomplice, to six to eight years in New York's maximum- security prison in Boston's Charlestown district (Allah, 1995). It would be while he was in prison for this crime that he would join the Nation of Islam.

With the nation of Islam Malcolm X would find a new, or perhaps an old, focus in life: the white man. The next twelve years of his life would be devoted to righting the wrongs that the whites had dealt to the blacks throughout the history of the United States. Malcolm X was paroled in 1952 and it was at that time when he became most active in the Civil rights movement. He was a man of contrast. He would refer to himself as "The angriest Negro in America" but yet he would become a minister of the Nation of Islam. 'I am spending many hours because the full story is the best way that I know to have it seen, and understood, that I had sunk to the very bottom of the American white man's society when... in prison - I found Allah and the religion of Islam and it completely transformed my life" (Allah, 1995).

While it is his time with the Muslims for which we remember Malcolm X, it can be contended that the young Malcolm in his pre-Muslim days had many of the same characteristics, which would eventually be exhibited by the older Malcolm during his memorable civil rights involvements. Malcolm had an intolerance of mainstream white America and the injustices which he perceived them as serving the black community practically since birth. He was in a constant state of rebellion against what must have appeared to him as a great white front. Indeed it was not easy to be black in the time of Malcolm X. "The Supreme Court had outlawed school segregation, but nearly every Southern classroom remained either all-white or all-black until late in the decade. Hotels, eating places, theaters, libraries, buses, ballparks, zoos -- all were segregated. The typical Southern service station provided three restrooms: 'Ladies', 'Gentlemen' and 'Colored'".

Interestingly our perception of Malcolm X has changed over time. Just as the boy Malcolm Little changed into the man Malcolm X our memories of him have changed as well. He has turned from the black racist villain to the man with a vision. His words "By any means" have changed from the concentration of weapons and confrontation as a means of attaining social change to one of books and devotion to study as being the means to attain this same change (Lord, Thornton, and Bodipo-Memba, 1992).

Bibliography

Haley, Alex. (1992).
The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Ballantine Books. -- Lord, Lewis; Jeanne Thornton, and Alejandro Bodipo-Memba. (1992, Nov 23).
The legacy of Malcolm X, U.S. News & World Report. -- Allah, Shame ek A. (1995, Aug 16).