Book notes: The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

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The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

Synopsis:

“Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was never completed but whose message is timeless. It is essential for anyone who wants to understand the African-American experience and America as a whole.” -Audible

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Opening thoughts:

this book is actually been on my to read list for half a year now maybe a bit longer. But I saw that this audiobook version read by Lawrence Fishburne was coming out later in the year so I was excited to wait for it. This book has been cited by a lot of respected people, most recently for me I believe Sean King or perhaps Ibram X candy referenced it.

Key notes:

Chapter 1: nightmare

He felt that his dad favored him because he was light skin, but his mom was hard on him for the exact same reason. She went out of her way to make sure he didn’t become afflicted with a sense of color superiority
He learned early in life that if you want some thing, you had better make some noise
At six years old, his father was lynched and killed, leaving his mom and her eight children to live off of welfare and charity
- This was especially hard during the Great Depression
Whites have always hidden or justified all the guilts they could by ridiculing or blaming Negroes
He learned his first lesson about gambling: if you see somebody winning all the time, he isn’t gambling. He’s cheating
The welfare people who kept coming into their home tried to plant the seeds of division and label their mother as crazy for various reasons
- For some reason they felt like part of their job function was to get kids into foster homes
Important lesson in life: anytime you find someone more successful than you are, especially when you’re both engaged in the same business, you know they’re doing something that you aren’t
Eventually after all the state people kept coming around, his mother had a mental breakdown and sent to a mental hospital
- Then a white state judge had authority over him and his siblings. They were state children, court wards
- A white man in charge of a black mans children. Nothing but legal, modern slavery
His last visit to his mother when he was 27 moved him deeply. She didn’t recognize him and was slowly losing her mind
He knew he wouldn’t be back to see his mother again because it could make him a very vicious and dangerous man, knowing how the government treated their family and essentially destroyed their family because of the governments greed, failure, and lack of mercy and compassion
He has no mercy or compassion for a society that will crush people and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight
- He rarely talks about his mother because he feels he is capable of killing a person without hesitation who happens to make the wrong kind of remark about her

Chapter 2: mascot

In the detention boarding house he lived in with the nice white couple
- They treated him like a mascot or a pet who didn’t have the intellect or understanding to comprehend what they were talking about, especially when they were talking about Black people in a derogatory or negative sense
- He knew they probably didn’t mean any harm or had ill tensions towards him, they were just expressing their racist views while he was around
Even though they opened the literal door to him, it was always still metaphorically closed as they didn’t really see him as a person
- Even the pro integration nice white people that some Black people refer to, he tries to clarify that they don’t see Black people the way they see themselves
  - He may stand with you through thin but not thick
He loved the experience visiting Boston and his half sister Ella, and experienced what it was like to be with his own people, instead of as a mascot for white people
His move from Lansing to Boston was one of the most pivotal physical move in his life
If he didn’t move to Boston, he would still be a brainwashed, Black Christian

Chapter 3: “homeboy”

Chapter 4: Laura

He discovered his African heritage and ability to dance while with his own people on the dance floor
- He found that dancing with simply letting your feet, hands, and body to spontaneously act out whatever impulses were stirred by the music

Chapter 5: Harlemite

He fell in love with Harlem after visiting and seeing the life and culture there
Working in Harlem, he soaked up all of the information he could from old timers and people around town

Chapter 6: Detroit Red

He lived in a building for prostitutes and learned a lot from talking with those women about women, marriage, and husband/wife dynamics
- He learned that many married men went to prostitutes to feel like men
- More wives could keep their husbands if they realized their greatest urge is to be men
The women felt like most men were too easy to push around
- Most men needed to know what the pimps knew: a woman should occasionally be babied enough to show her the man had affection, but beyond that she should be treated firmly
  - The tough women said it worked on them
- All women by their nature are fragile and weak. They are attracted to the male in whom they see strength
After getting caught trying to sell women to a police officer, he ended up getting into the weed selling business
- He primarily sold to a lot of musicians, at least half of whom smoked
He soon started to use his railway ID badge to travel all around the east coast with bands and selling weed
- From there, the narcotics police heard he had left town and the heat cooled down
When his brother Reginald came to visit, he told him he learned that in order to get something, you had to look as though you already had something
When he got called for an evaluation for the draft, he pretended to act crazy
- He succeeded and got a 4F card and never heard from the army again

Chapter 7: hustler

He explained that the hustler life was like a jungle
- You could never relax or else someone else would make you their prey

Reader’s note: It’s crazy how there are so many instances of him getting away with stuff with white people because they never suspected a black person would be smart enough to do any of those things

Any experienced hustler will tell you that getting greedy is the quickest road to prison
He’s still amazed he survived this time of his life
- He thinks God was watching over him, despite him being dead from the drugs and criminal activities

Chapter 8: trapped

He was really in a messed up spot with so many bad things closing in on him. He was lucky to have survived this long
- Luckily Sammy called Shorty to come down from Boston to pick him up. He packed up and left with Shorty

Chapter 9: Caught

Cocaine produces an illusion of supreme well-being and a soaring overconfidence in both physical and mental ability
- There is also that feeling of timelessness and intervals with the ability to recall and review things that had happened years back with an astonishing clarity
He started to build a reputation around town as a trigger-happy guy from Harlem and nobody suspected his real age which was younger than they thought
- He treated drugs like food and he wore guns like he wears neckties nowadays
Him, Shorty, and his friend Rudy started to plan out a hustle together to run burglaries on Rich, white people
He made himself the leader of the robbery group demonstrating his fearlessness to Rudy, Shorty, Sophia, and her sister by doing Russian roulette by himself 3 times
Every criminal knows they’ll get caught
- He used drugs to alleviate that anxiety on a daily basis
He got caught while getting a stolen watch fixed
- He says God saved him twice because he chose to not shot the cop, and Sophia’s husband had been waiting for him at the apartment ready to kill him
Although the average first time burglary offense prison time is around two years, they wouldn’t get the average because everyone was more upset and focused on the fact that they were with two upstanding white women
In prison, he found Allah and the religion of Islam which completely transformed his life

Chapter 10: Satan

He and Shorty both got 10 years, and the women got 1 to 5 years in reformatory prison
- He wasn’t even 21 yet and hadn’t started shaving
He’s not against prison, but he’s against putting people behind bars because of the psychological effects it has on people
- It doesn’t truly reform a man and he never forgets the details of those bars
He spent a total of seven years in prison
The prison guards had a nickname for him, Satan, because he was so anti-God
He met a guy named Bambi in prison who was so knowledgeable that he captivated nearly everyone around him with his insights
- What struck Malcolm the most about Bambi was he was the first man he had a ever seen command total respect with just his words

Chapter 11: saved

People thinking he was articulate beyond an eighth grade level is only due to his prison educational studies and his process of writing letters every day while in prison
He copied an entire dictionary and through the process learned more words and expanded his vocabulary
- His penmanship also increased due to practice
- Eventually, months passed by with him constantly reading and writing, and he was lost in that process
Due to his self-education and study of Muhammads teachings, he started to see white people as committing the most atrocious crimes against humanity by oppressing Black people and stripping away their identity and culture
He believes the problem with colleges is that there are too many social distractions
- In prison, he was able to attack his ignorance by studying sometimes 15 hours a day
He learned that when recruiting people to the teachings of Muhammad, you have to be very careful as they’ve been brainwashed
- They reject and become defensive when given the truth. You have to give it to them a little at a time and give it time to digest before giving them some more
Black people seem to latch onto Elijah Muhammad’s teachings because the concepts of the White Devils oppressing Black people is a perfect echo of that Black convict’s lifelong experience
He started to get into prison debates and was immediately hooked
- He decided to dedicate the rest of his life to telling the white man about himself
His brother Reginald was kicked out of the Nation of Islam by Elijah Muhammad and eventually went insane
- Malcolm believes it was because Elijah turned his family against him
He made a point during a prison lecture about Christianity, when he asked the lecturer what color Jesus and his disciples were
- White people don’t to admit that he was black, but he let them get away with saying he was brown. The facts are that he was Hebrew so he was definitely not white

Chapter 13: minister Malcolm X

He went to go see old West Indian Archie, the man who forced him to leave Harlem over a gambling dispute
- They were both glad to see each other and decided that the dispute wasn’t worth talking about anymore
- Malcolm said he was thankful that him leaving Harlem turned him eventually to Islam
He learned early on one important thing which was to always teach in terms that people could understand
One lesson Elijah imparted on him was that a true leader never burdens his followers with more than they can handle
- Another lesson from Elijah about leadership he learned was that a mule you can depend on was better than a racehorse you couldn’t depend on
While he was planting new seeds and opening chapters, he was explicit about not being interested or having a time for women
- He mentioned that he’s spent enough time around women in his past life that he did not fully trust them or feel like he could love them
He started to notice and be interested in Sister Betty X
- He then started to list out all the reasons why it would work between them from a rational and logical standpoint
  - She was the right age, height, at intellect, and very few relatives
He called Betty and directly asked if she wanted to get married
- She said yes and he looked for a place that would allow for a faster process because he didn’t want to spend too much time on it
The western concept of love is just lust. But real love transcends the physical
- Love is disposition, behavior, attitude, thoughts, likes, dislikes
- These things make a beautiful woman, a beautiful wife. This is the beauty that never fades

Chapter 14: black Muslims

He has been blessed that he just needs to watch something be done once and then he can generally do it himself
- Quick picking up was probably the number one survival rule when he was out there in the streets as a hustler
After a video documentary was produced called The Hate That Hate Produced, they got widespread national media attention
The white media kept asking him why he teaches black supremacy and hate
- He said that just like a criminal has no moral authority to ask why the victim hates them, white people have no grounds to ask why Black people hate them
The white press always twisted his words even though they couldn’t refute his arguments against white people
- But his bitterness was stronger towards the supposed Black leaders who kept attacking them
It was his past experience and skills debating in prisons and thinking quick on his feet from hustling help him to navigate radio show interviews and defend his points with the white media
Segregation is when your life and liberty are controlled, regulated by someone else
- Segregation is that which is enforced upon inferiors by superiors
Separation is that which is done voluntarily by two equals for the good of both
He says that due to Christianity it is a miracle that millions of black Americans have remained peaceful while suffering from centuries of oppression, being promised a heaven after they die while being exploited by the white man’s heaven on earth
Once he is motivated, no one can change more completely than a man who has been at the bottom
The Nation of Islam had a very effective drug rehabilitation program and methodology
Soon Elijah Muhammed’s health started to deteriorate and Malcolm started to get encouraged to fill-in and make decisions in the best interest of their people
- His warning to Malcolm was that he is going to get a lot of hate for being a public figure, which was one of the most prophetic things he told him

Chapter 15: Icarus

Malcolm clarified that when they referred to the white devil, they weren’t referring to an individual white man, but of the collective white man’s historical record
- The collective white man’s cruelty is and evils and greeds that have seen him act like a devil for the non-white man
- Any intelligent, honest, objective person cannot fail to realize that this white man’s slave trade and his subsequent devilish actions are directly responsible for not only the presence of this black man in America, but also for the conditions in which we find this black man here
When asked about the Civil Rights Movement, although he was attacked by the civil rights leaders, he was not against Black people as a whole and did not want to fall into the white man’s trap of being maneuvered against his own people
Regarding the northern liberal black freedom riders going into the south, Malcolm commented that they were better off dragging their efforts locally for all of the issues Black people face in the north
He felt that the northern liberals were hypocrites especially when they were exposed for the hypocrisy
Mr. Muhammad would give southern whites credit in that they were at least honest, bearing his teeth and telling the black man to his face that southern whites will never accept integration
- The advantage is that the southern black man has never been under any illusions about the opposition he’s dealing with
The only Black people who want integration are the minority of people who are white-minded and more anti-black than white people themselves
- What the Black masses really want is human rights and respect as human beings
Raw, naked truth exchanged between the black man and the white man is what a whole lot more of his needed in this country
- To clear the air of the racial mirages, clichés, and lies that this county’s very atmosphere has been filled with for 400 years
The American White-mans malignant superiority complex has done him more harm then and invading army
The March on Washington was taken over and controlled by white people
- It became a picnic that didn’t address the issues but rather served to lull the black people
- A poll showed that not a single congressperson changed their mind on the issue after the March
He really enjoyed his presentations and discussions at universities
- It was an intellectual battlefield for him that helped him to continuously improve his skills
Just like Icarus, he vowed to never forget that any wings he wore were put on him by the religion of Islam

Chapter 16: out

The accusations and lies against him saying he was trying to build his own empire, take credit, and making a lot of money only strengthened his resolve
For some reason, by jealousy or narrow-mindedness, the nation of Islam’s own publication blacklisted anything referencing Malcolm’s activities for the nation
- Despite the fact that he always gave credit to Allah and explicitly said he was simply a representative of the honorable Muhammad
The news of Muhammad’s scandal kept eating away at him
- Finally, he confronted the former secretaries who had his children. They told Malcolm that while Muhammad was praising him in public, he was bashing Malcolm behind his back and saying he was going to turn against him one day
He met and liked Cassius Clay
- There was a quality about him that Malcolms while family liked him
- Cassius was not only receptive to but solicited advice
- Malcolm impressed upon him to what a great extent public figures’ success depends on how alert and knowledgeable he is to the true natures and motives of all the people who flock around him
Elijah Muhammad used his comments about president Kennedy assassination as an excuse to isolate and eventually get rid of Malcolm
- And this point, only his wife knew his innermost thoughts and the truth, and he relied on her so much for her strength and depth of understanding
He started the psychological divorce from the nation of Islam when he heard from a trusted assistant of his about a death order against him within the organization
In any society, a true leader is one who earns and deserves the following he enjoys.
- True followers are bestowed by themselves out of their own volition and emotions
- Most so-called black leaders did not have rapport amongst the ghetto Black people because they spent most of their time integrating with whites
Because of his background and experience, he could talk to news outlets, universities, white people, middle-class Black people, and ghetto Black people
- Malcolm believes the most dangerous black man in America is the black hustler because he has the least amount of respect for the white power structure than any other person
  - He is internally restrained by nothing
The organization that he was creating in his mind was a big order
- It was one that would help to challenge the American black man’s to gain his human rights, and to cure his mental, spiritual, economic, and political sicknesses
This organization would differ from the Nation of Islam in that it would embrace all faiths of black men and it would carry into practice what the Nation of Islam had only preached
He started to hear from a lot of different groups that they have been waiting for him to organize on his own
- The strict moral code had repelled them from the nation of Islam, but a lot of people supported Malcolm and his causes
Even a lot of white people and white Christian ministers asked to join, to give financial support, or ask him for speaking engagements

Chapter 17: Mecca

Hey sister Ella was a strong black woman who was always in Malcolm’s corner and was the only woman who could ever point him in a direction
- She had been saving up for her own pilgrimage after Malcolm brought her into Islam, but then she was kind enough to say it was more important to finance him going
He was surprised to see that after he landed in Cairo, the feeling was warm and brotherly with everyone
- They didn’t really have a color problem there
- It felt as though he had just gotten out of prison
Word kept getting around that he was a Muslim from America
- He was helped out a lot and given a lot of courtesies and honor during his trip
- He was overwhelmed at how welcomed he was and how accepted he felt
Everything about the pilgrimage atmosphere accented the oneness of man under one God
He was overwhelmed by Muslim hospitality and generosity
He started to reevaluate his conception of the white man
- He perceived that the phrase more commonly described attitudes and actions primarily usually against black man and anyone else not white, with completion only secondary.
- However in the Muslim world, he found that white men were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been
He learned that the problems and complexities of color within the Muslim world exist only where into the extent that that area of the Muslim world has been influenced by the west
- Any degree of negative attitude towards color is directly related to the degree that area has been affected by western influence and attitudes
The first letter he wrote was to his wife. He has no doubt that his wife would come to his new way of thinking after his experiences during his pilgrimage
- His second letter was to his sister Ella which was essentially the same
- He mentions that his change of mind was not too difficult despite his firm convictions because he has always been a man who tries to face facts and to accept the reality of life and new experience as life unfolds it
- He has 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
From his experience, he could see that if white Americans could accept the oneness of God, then perhaps too they could accept in reality the oneness of man, and cease to measure and hinder and harm others in terms of their differences in color

Chapter 18: El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

Cassius Clay had captured the imagination and garnered the support of the entire dark world as a Muslim
He recommends all American black leaders to travel and especially interact with non-white leaders around the world
- This could help them come up with better solutions for the black American plight
He believes the single worst mistake of the American black organizations and their leaders is that they have failed to establish direct brotherhood lines of communication between the independent nations of Africa and the American Black people
In all of his speeches, never has he been so accepted as he had been when he was in Africa, not even with American black audiences
When asked about Elijah Muhammad, he would speak in respectful terms and say their split was due to political direction differences, and thinks the Nation had done a lot for Muslims in terms of moral and ethical codes
In Africa, he switched from saying Negro to Afro-American as he was advised it had greater meaning and dignity for Africans
Upon his return to the states in 1964, we was greeted as a villain by the American white press
- They cast him as a symbol, if not as the causative agent of the revolt and the violence of the American black man wherever it had sprung up
Facing the press, he knew that the American white man were always trying to find a scapegoat rather than address the root causes of the problems that resulted in violence
The white man had double standards when it came to white people who were violent and owned guns vs when black people were violent and owned guns
He professed to the American press that his perception of white men in general has been reformed
- The true Islam has shown him that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks
- He vowed to never make that mistake again because of the brotherhood he experienced and witnessed
Racism is so deeply entrenched in the white subconscious that many are unaware of their racism until they’re tested
He impressed upon the press the idea of how much power blacks people would wield if they united together instead of being divided and turned against each other by the white man

Chapter 19: 1965

Whenever he got behind a mic, he was always asked about stirring up Black people and inciting violence
- He would respond that it takes no one to stir up the sociological dynamite that stems from unemployment, bad housing, and inferior education already in the ghettos
- This explosively criminal condition has existed for so long that it needs no fuses, it fuses itself
  - It’s spontaneously combust from within itself
The media called him the angry black person in America
- He wouldn’t deny it because he believed in it. Even the Bible says there is a time for anger
- It was a lie when people called him a teacher or advocate of violence. He’s not for wanton violence, he’s for justice
- He feels that if the law fails to protect people from being attacked by others, they should defend themselves with arms
They were always trying to link him with violence
- He kept having to clarify that he is for violence if non-violence means they continue postponing a solution to the American black man’s problems just to avoid violence
- A delayed solution is a non-solution. If it takes violence for the black man to get his human rights in this country as did all of the other past groups (Irish, poles, or Jews), then he is for violence
The white man is always quick to call for peace and unity when they are under attack, but ignores that America was founded on violence and genocide against Native Americans and racism under the banner of white Christianity
It isn’t the American white man who is racist, but it is the American political, economic, and social atmosphere that automatically nurses a racist psychology in the white man
His discussion with an ambassador gave him a new insight which was that the white man was not inherently evil. But America’s racist society influences him to act evil
- The society has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings
He knew that he always got criticism for supposedly being anti-semitic, but he said he was just calling out truth for truth
- Although Jews may be some of the biggest financiers of the black American civil rights movement, they are also the community that are the most hypocritical and their treatment of black Americans and most prone to segregationist ideas
  - Their motives are to keep the focus off of them and on the American Black people
The true brotherhood he had seen in the holy world had influenced him to recognize that anger could blind human vision
It is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come. It’s only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come
He wishes he had more time and had the education to do the things he wanted like becoming a good lawyer or a talented linguist
His interests are a wide ranging and he has an open mind to discuss many topics with others
He respects a lot of the radio show hosts he’s talked with because they also keep an open mind when engaging with him
He knows that his life could end at any moment in various ways, so he speaks as if he is already dead
- He does not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form.
- He knows the white media will portray him as a symbol of hatred, though all he’s done is to hold up a mirror to show the unspeakable crimes that the white man has committed against black people
Since he has been some kind of leader for black people here in the racist society of America, he has been more reassured each time the white man resisted him or attacked him harder
- Because each time made him more certain that he was on the right track in the American black person’s best interest
He has cherished his demagogue role, though he knows societies have often killed the people who have helped to change those societies
- If he can die having brought any light and having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer in America, then all of the credit is due to Allah
- Only the mistakes are his

Closing thoughts:

Wow. I was totally blown away by how amazing this book was and at Malcolm’s extraordinary story. I can see now how and why we were taught in school that Malcolm was a violent, radical, black extremist when that’s completely false. The reason why they highlight Martin over Malcolm is because Martin’s “peaceful demonstrations” were more palatable for the white consciousness. They only nudged the status quo.

Malcolm’s rhetoric on the other hand held a mirror to the white powers in control and exposed the hundreds of years of injustice. This was expectedly met by violent opposition from those in power. So they tried their best to paint him in a negative light and discredit him as much as they could.

I also love his journey from a country kid turned hustler, and eventually becoming a felon who spent time in jail. From there, he found his faith in Islam and his life was completely turned around. He then accomplished so much for Black people in America, speaking truth where ever he could and acted as a servant to God every step of the way. The book even ends with him giving credit for all of his accomplishments to God.

You can’t help but respect a man like that. I think history books don’t give Malcolm the credit he’s due.

As the writing of this post, I’m publishing this on Malcolm X Day, February, 21, 2021. This was just a crazy coincidence because I read this book last month and wasn’t able to finish this until today. But I’m grateful to be able to commemorate Malcolm’s legacy with this book notes on his autobiography.

One Takeaway / Putting into practice:

There are so many good takeaways, as is the case with any good book. However, my one takeaway would be this:

Give credit where it’s due and own up to your mistakes

To me, what’s most inspiring about Malcolm is his ability to not only stick to his principles, but change such deep rooted beliefs when presented by new facts and experiences. It’s not easy to do but it shows great humility.

It’s also inspiring that he had such a drastic change from being a criminal to a devout follower of his faith. I think anyone of faith should aspire to be the servant leader he tried to be, giving credit to his creator and owning up to his mistakes. I believe this is what gives someone true and profound strength.

Nutshell:

The life and legacy of Malcolm X. He recounts his journey from street hustler to devout Muslim, and his mission to fight white oppression and empower black Americans.

Similar books:

Rating:

5/5

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Book notes: The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

Synopsis:

Opening thoughts: