The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Published posthumously, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) was written with the assistance of Alex Haley, and, in all published editions, is accompanied by a long epilogue of Haley's that offers his perspective on Malcolm X and the making of the work. Extremely well received by both whites and African Americans, the work helped give voice to the emerging Black Power movement, offered a spectacular example of dedication and accomplishment, and presented an indictment of racism in the United States. The Autobiography covers Malcolm's life from his childhood in East Lansing, Michigan, through his time as a street hustler, prison inmate, Nation of Islam minister, and, finally, his last year as an independent Muslim minister and black nationalist.

As is common with the genre, especially for African Americans, the Autobiography is at once a sociological document and an assertion of individuality. Malcolm X vacillates between presenting his life as representative and as exemplary. His account of his criminal past, in which he sold drugs and prostituted women, displays the degrading effects of racism upon African Americans. His account of his transformation in prison, in which he read extensively and adopted the Nation of Islam's strict moral code, presents a story of remarkable dedication and will.

Like much of the literature of the turbulent 1960s, the text also contains the rhetoric of protest. By utilizing personal experience to argue for a major restructuring of American society, the work echoes a mode of African American literature descended from the slave narratives. The later chapters blend accounts of Malcolm's years as a minister with excerpts from his speeches condemning white America. As the text concentrates less on the incidents of Malcolm's life, the drama focuses on the development of Malcolm's philosophy from the strict “all whites are devils” beliefs of the Nation of Islam to a less rigid, more humanist approach to race.

Because Malcolm's life changed rapidly as he composed the Autobiography, and because he was assassinated before he read and revised the final draft that Haley had sent him, the book, like the life, seems incomplete. The Autobiography captures a mind in flux. Opinions contradict each other in the text, especially those on the Nation, the organization that he credits with saving his life, but that he split from rancorously while he was fashioning his life story. Such contradictions generally enhance the text, for they present an attractive protean self, one willing to learn and change when confronted with new knowledge. The extraordinary blend of so many autobiographical modes, and so many “Malcolms,” deeply enriches both the text and its subject.

Through its immediate and enduring popularity, the Autobiography is primarily responsible for what biographer Peter Goldman calls the “beatification” of Malcolm X, making him an icon for black pride, achievement, and protest. Without his life story, Malcolm X might have been forgotten. The Autobiography guarantees his permanence on the American cultural landscape and arguably stands as the most stunning accomplishment of a remarkable life.

Bibliography

• Peter Goldman, The Death and Life of Malcolm X, 2d ed., 1979.
• David Gallen, Malcolm X as They Knew Him, 1992

J. D. Scrimgeour

The Autobiography is an American literary classic. On the one hand it resembles Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick, stories of innocent youths who found success by adapting to the scheming lifestyles of the American city. On the other hand it provides the most important framework for African American political discourse in the twentieth century. It shows the life then, and in some ways now, of a Negro in America. Its movement from individual alienation to spiritual and ultimately social transformation grounds it in the tradition of St. Augustine's Confessions and Frederick Douglass's Autobiography.

Malcolm X created the Autobiography by telling his compelling though undocumented story to Alex Haley, a journalist, via some fifty interviews that began in the spring of 1963. Many of these were recorded covertly by the FBI, which considered Malcolm X a security threat. In an epilogue to the book, Haley described how he gained Malcolm X's confidence to share his story.

Published in November 1965, the Autobiography gained praise by the New York Times as "an eloquent statement." It allowed its author's charismatic leadership example to transcend his assassination on February 21 of that year. Its impact was to make available to millions of African American street youths, inmates, and activists Malcolm X's model of self-emancipation. There were four stages in his transformation. The first was the exploited, a depression era boy who lost his father to the Ku Klux Klan. Second was the exploiter, a street hustler and criminal. Third was the self-emancipator, the devotee of the Black Muslims and preacher of black nationalism. Finally came the social liberator, the founder of the short-lived Organization of Afro-American Unity, a group committed to interracial and pan-African efforts toward human rights. Through his record of these stages, Malcolm X became a role model of how one could transform oneself and others in the struggle for collective liberation.

Bibliography

Dyson, Michael Eric. Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Gallen, David. Malcolm X as They Knew Him. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1992.

Wood, Joe, ed. Malcolm X: In Our Own Image. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.

—Timothy M. Roberts

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1st edition (Grove Press)

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (ISBN 0-345-35068-5) was written by Alex Haley between 1964 and 1965, as told to him through conversations with Malcolm conducted shortly before Malcolm X's death (and with an epilogue after it), and published in 1965. The book was named by Time magazine as one of the ten most important nonfiction books of the 20th century.

The screenplay for the 1992 Spike Lee film Malcolm X was adapted from The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

The book describes Malcolm X's upbringing in Michigan, his maturation to adulthood in Boston and New York, his time in prison, his conversion to Islam, his ministry, his travels to Africa and to Mecca, and his subsequent career and eventual assassination at the Audubon Ballroom near 166th Street and Broadway in New York City. The book contains a substantial amount of thought concerning African-American existence.

Haley stated in the documentary Eyes on the Prize that it was difficult to write the autobiography because Malcolm X was quite averse to talking about himself and preferred instead to talk about the Nation of Islam.

There are exaggerations and inaccuracies in the book, some of which were acknowledged by Haley. For example, Malcolm X describes an incident in which he pointed a revolver with a single bullet to his head in front of his criminal cohorts and repeatedly pulled the trigger in order to show them he was not afraid to die. In the epilogue, Haley writes that when Malcolm was proof-reading the manuscript he told Haley that he had palmed the bullet and staged the act in order to scare the others into obedience.

In 2005 historian Manning Marable, talking about his forthcoming book Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, claimed that Haley worked with the FBI while writing the book with Malcolm X. He also talked about the existence of three unpublished chapters of the book.^[1]

See also

• African American literature
• Malcolm X: Prince of Islam
• Malcolm X: Make It Plain

References

1. ^ Democracy Now: Interview with Manning Marable

External links

• Teacher's guide at Random House
• An Excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X

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