Book Review
Thesis
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the result of collaboration between Malcolm X and journalist Alex Haley. Over a period of several years, Malcolm X told Haley his life story in a series of lengthy interviews. Haley wrote down and arranged the material in the first person, and Malcolm X edited and approved every chapter. Thus, though Haley actually did the writing, it is reasonable to consider the work an autobiography. The work is one of the most important nonfiction books of the twentieth century, as it offers valuable insight into the mind of a key figure on a core issue of twentieth-century America. In 1965, a New York reviewer wrote of Malcolm X, “No man has better expressed his people’s trapped anguish.” The autobiography continues to be relevant to efforts to combat racism.
Descriptive Chapter Overview
Chapter One: Nightmare
When Malcolm Little’s mother is pregnant with Malcolm, hooded Ku Klux Klan members break the windows of his family’s house in Omaha, Nebraska. The white supremacists’ target is Malcolm’s father, Earl Little, a tall, black Baptist preacher from Georgia, because he works for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which supports the return of American blacks to Africa. Malcolm is Earl’s seventh and lightest-skinned child and he was the only son who escaped Earl’s beatings and is allowed to follow his father to UNIA meetings. Malcolm’s mother, Louise Little, is a fair-skinned, educated woman from the island of Grenada. She was conceived when her father, a white man she never knew, raped her mother. Though Louise is able to get domestic work in town by passing as white, she stays at home to cook and clean for her family. When the family moves to Lansing, Michigan, in1929, another white supremacist group burns down their house. Malcolm says that watching his house burn taught him one of many early lessons about being black in America. He sees that success for blacks in Lansing means
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the result of collaboration between Malcolm X and journalist Alex Haley. Over a period of several years, Malcolm X told Haley his life story in a series of lengthy interviews. Haley wrote down and arranged the material in the first person, and Malcolm X edited and approved every chapter. Thus, though Haley actually did the writing, it is reasonable to consider the work an autobiography. The work is one of the most important nonfiction books of the twentieth century, as it offers valuable insight into the mind of a key figure on a core issue of twentieth-century America. In 1965, a New York reviewer wrote of Malcolm X, “No man has better expressed his people’s trapped anguish.” The autobiography continues to be relevant to efforts to combat racism.
Descriptive Chapter Overview
Chapter One: Nightmare
When Malcolm Little’s mother is pregnant with Malcolm, hooded Ku Klux Klan members break the windows of his family’s house in Omaha, Nebraska. The white supremacists’ target is Malcolm’s father, Earl Little, a tall, black Baptist preacher from Georgia, because he works for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which supports the return of American blacks to Africa. Malcolm is Earl’s seventh and lightest-skinned child and he was the only son who escaped Earl’s beatings and is allowed to follow his father to UNIA meetings. Malcolm’s mother, Louise Little, is a fair-skinned, educated woman from the island of Grenada. She was conceived when her father, a white man she never knew, raped her mother. Though Louise is able to get domestic work in town by passing as white, she stays at home to cook and clean for her family. When the family moves to Lansing, Michigan, in1929, another white supremacist group burns down their house. Malcolm says that watching his house burn taught him one of many early lessons about being black in America. He sees that success for blacks in Lansing means