While in Norfolk Prison he checked out a dictionary, tablets and pencils from the Norfolk Prison Colony School. After months of crash course memorizations of the dictionary, books start to reveal stories, meanings, and to teach history. As his new found knowledge increased from reading every book he could get his hands on, so did his disgust for the whitened world in which he lived. His education started with the teachings of Mr. Muhammad who stressed “how history had been whitened” meaning when the history books were written by white men, the black man was simply left out. This bothered Malcolm and because of this he hunted down any book in that library that had any information at all about black history. Books like The Wonders of the World and Negro History taught him about black empires before black slavery and the early Negro’s struggle for freedom. He also came across some bound pamphlets of the Abolitionism…
Malcolm X spent time in the Charlestown prison during the Civil Rights movement. While confined, a fellow prison mate named Bimbi displayed a certain presence that Malcolm tried to imitate. Bimbi showed dominance when talking to others that Malcolm often grudged. As a result, Malcolm obtained a dictionary so that he can learn a few words.…
Malcom little, known as Malcom X was human rights activist and Muslim minister, Malcom x, autobiography tittle “Learning to Read,” recounts his self-education and his endeavors to learn how to read and write while he was prison in Charlestown prison for a robbery he committed in 1946. Malcolm X’s purpose was to illustrate the struggle to educate his mind and his people from the pervasive racist ideology of the 1960’s. He experience and emotions of African Americans engaged in struggle of the civil rights. Malcom X begins his excerpt by acknowledging the frustration he felt trying to convey his own thoughts and feelings in letters to friends while in prison. He was not only physically imprisoned but a prisoner of his own mind as well. Malcom…
Unfortunately, I am finding it surprisingly difficult to respond to Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” excerpt. This, however, is not because I am an inarticulate writer, nor is it due to a lack of provocation from the piece. In truth, I believe that I am experiencing complications with my response because I find myself torn between two separate topics brought up by Malcolm X. On one hand, he discusses the massive importance of literacy and his own journey to self-obtain said literacy; however, on the other hand, it is mentioned that he advocated for implementation of black separation, and his harsh criticism of the white race is rather prominent. Malcolm X’s dedication to becoming an educated man despite enduring a multitude of oppressing struggles…
In Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read,” he talks about his time in prison and how he decided to teach himself about things he never learned in school. While Malcolm X was in jail he decided to improve his vocabulary by reading the dictionary and copying all of the definitions. This helped him become more eloquent of a writer and paved the way for him to be able to read more difficult books. When Malcolm X began to read seriously he discovered a violent past that most people tended to avoid mentioning; the history of the white man. He read about how white people conquered lands, enslaved countless numbers of people, and tricked trusting people.…
In "A Homemade Education", Malcolm X admits his frustration about his inability to express himself the way he'd like to. It can be said that Malcolm X was discouraged as he mentioned that he "wasn’t even functional" (Malcolm X 134) and though he did feel this way he turned the negative feelings into something to strive for. In the Charlestown prison Malcolm X was in there was another inmate named Bimbi who he envied because of his ability to use words and his knowledge. Malcolm X's envy of Bimbi drove and inspired him to seek and ultimately further his own education in a sense in deciding to read and copy out of the dictionary. Malcolm X gained a hunger for the knowledge he was obtaining as exemplified in the following quotation: " I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying... in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk... In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life." (Malcolm X 135). Malcolm X used his time as way to learn everything he possibly could so that he wouldn’t have to be envious of the knowledge someone else possessed. In Maya Angelou's "Graduation", Angelou also showed her discouragement by the words of Edward Donleavy at her graduation who told the congregation of how many more opportunities whites had over blacks. Angelou's graduation was an occasion that had so many excited because they had worked so hard to accomplish the feat of gaining an education and they were also excited for what their future had in store for them; however, many of them including Angelou felt in the moment that those hopes and…
Jimmy Santiago Baca at 20 was convicted of drug charges and sentenced to prison. He was completely illiterate when he went to Prison. But when he got out five years later, he was becoming one of America's favorite poets. Baca started to write about oppression, love and migration. Malcolm X was a street hustler that was convicted of robbery. He spent seven years in prison, where he educated himself. Him learning how to read helped himself become one of the most well known African American, and a disciple of Elijah Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam. In both Malcolm X and Bacas Books they tell us about the process of how they taught themselves how to read. These are both incredible stories because they defied the odds and were able to develop into great people and incredible writers.…
In “Coming to an Awareness of Language,” Malcolm X writes about the time when he learns to read and write by himself. Malcolm X was…
3. During his six years of incarceration in Massachusetts Norfolk Prison Colony he took advantage of the extensive library and became an ardent reader of books and dictionaries; became self-educated and a jailhouse scholar. As well, Malcolm acquired his forensic skill by joining the debating classes, which made him articulate public orator and exceptional arguer. In 8th grade, Malcolm told his teacher that he want to be lawyer, but his said he should become a carpenter instead.…
But now, trying to write simple English, I not only wasn’t articulate, I wasn’t even functional.” He first realized that he wanted to increase his knowledge of the English language when he met a fellow prisoner that commanded everyone’s attention. In Malcom X’s words, “Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversations he was in, and I had tried to emulate him.” This is where Malcolm first describes how he was as a reader at the beginning of his time in prison. Malcolm X grabbed a dictionary and started reading and memorizing what was on the pages. He says, “I began copying. In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks. I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, I read my own handwriting.” Malcolm simply believed everything he read. He wasn’t absorbing the true meaning of the words or how to use them in context. He simply memorized and learned. He was reading like a child. He read to learn how to read not how to understand or increase his understanding. Malcolm X did not think critically. Its like when I child reads about Spiderman and doesn’t stop for a second to think how that would never happen. The child just happily accepts…
Where does the desire to not just live, but strive come from? To not just succeed but exceed? To not just be great but be the only thing acceptable in one’s heart, the best. In “You Should Have Been a Boy,” Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s determination to make her father proud, drove her to do what most women of her time never did: earn a higher education or speak out against injustice. In the essay, “Superman and Me,” Sherman Alexie’s unrelenting passion for reading allowed him to turn a blind eye to the ridicule that his peers endowed upon him and helped him push pass the limitations that had been placed on his people. Malcolm X describes in “Learning to Read,” how his illiteracy prevented him from expressing his beliefs but his…
His education inspired an urge to read, which was satiated in the prison library. However, all of the knowledge that was gained by Malcolm X during his incarceration was colored by the Black Nationalist teachings of Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation.…
He was so fascinated with there being so many words that he completed the dictionary writing about a million words in his days in prison. After his self-education, Malcom could finally pick up a book and understand the meaning behind it. He emphasized on the fact that with being able to read he was truly a free man and could interpret life from an open mind forming his own beliefs. Malcolm X says, “In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life” (Malcolm…
Malcolm X began to fight what would be a lifelong battle of personal ambition versus the general racist perception (Religious Leaders of America, 1999). After the split from his family he moved to his aunt Ella’s house in Lansing, Michigan to find work, and explore opportunities, those opportunities led him to major trouble (Gale, 1999). Once Malcolm X found a job as a shoe shiner, he looked for new ways of making money. Those new ways were gambling, and burglary, after many accounts of burglary he was sentenced to ten years in jail (Gale, 1999). In jail, he was introduced to the ideas of Elijah Muhammad (God’s prophet), and to the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X read every book, magazine, and newspaper he got his hands on in the prison library (Gale, 1999). He gained more knowledge by reading history books with the newly-learned testaments by Elijah Muhammad (Gale, 1999). Thru Malcolm X’s reading he developed a mindset that the white history process had left out great things that black men had done for the United States, or the great “black men that gotten whitened (American Decades,1998)." He improved his leadership by copying the dictionary word for word to further his definitions, and participating in debates over justice, the law, and America in jail. He also preached independently to the prisoners about the Nation of…
In today’s society, when one recalls how they learned to read and write, one’s memory isn’t momentous as it once was. Although activists Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X are two different men with two different stories written more than a century apart, they share a common perspective about the importance of basic reading and writing skills that so many take for granted. These simple tools lead to immeasurable and eternal, personal and social changes. In fact, Frederick Douglass’ “Learning to Read and Write” and Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read”, collectively conceptualize learning to read and write as the method for personal and social deliverance. Both Analects divulge important connections between the concept of freedom and the process of…