'The Autobiography of Malcolm X' - Malcom X / Alex haley - Review

This is a very powerful, very controversial and potentially divisive volume.  Unsurprising given the nature of man who’s story it tells.  I chose to read this book in the Summer as my GCSE textbook included a mere paragraph for the Civil rights movement, and much of this was devoted to the familiar Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Ross Parks.  I had previously heard his name, and the manner of his beliefs, albeit in the context that he was Martin Luther King’s antithesis and his black power movement was the evil twin of integrationists.  I was immediately fascinated by this man and ordered this book.  I have held off of reviewing it as it is difficult to pass a judgement on the book without judging its subject and subsequently what he represents.  Therefore,  have abstained from rating it.    

The story of his family, and his tumultuous upbringing are heart wrenching.  The reader can almost share in his pain, suffering and humiliation.  As he moves to Boston, and then onto the notorious Harlem ghetto, one can feel his consciousness and outlook changing as he becomes aware of the reality of America’s social system.  A sense of injustice evolves as we meet the characters of the Harlem streets: ‘black victims of the white man’s social system’.  Despite these flickers of awakening, the reader can emphasise in Malcom’s lack of sight.  His eyes are open but he’s blind to the sight of these inequalities.  His mind is obscured by narcotics, carnal lust and all-important consumerism. 

His crimes and the extent of his drug use are evidently inflated to heighten the contrast with his life post-prison.  However, his conversion to Islam and subsequent transformation from a street-hustler to an icon of the struggle for civil rights still conveys the sense of a truly seminal moment.  His newfound desire to start studying in such a hopeless predicament is a magnificent, inspiring tale.  This refusal to give up, and not to let anyone, including the punitive prison system, to tell him who or what he was is a brilliant message for all audiences. 

The most controversial aspect of Malcolm X in my opinion, was not his avocation for black empowerment against those who victimised and marginalised Afro-American communities, or his prior life of crime, it was his religion.  Islam in the United States had extremely few adherents.  The extreme faction of Islam he joined had even fewer, and was alien to most American Muslims.  The Nation of Islam fused black empowerment with its deity, believing it to be ‘the natural religion of the black man’.  However, this union of overtly racist thought, such as the myth of Yacub and his creation of the ‘white race’, with Islam meant that it deviated from scripture and seemed more of a means to a political ends than the foundation of his movement. 

Despite the ignorance and prejudice prevalent in this organisation, the book is eye-opening to the plight of the diaspora peoples in America.  These people, seized from Africa, unwillingly laid the foundations of America’s greatness with their blood, toil and sweat, have been forgotten by the government.  As not enough is being done to compensate or acknowledge the centuries of injustice they’ve been subjected to, it is inevitable that divisive figures or organisations such as Malcolm X or the Black Panthers rise to prominence.