Ray Shepard - CliffsNotes on Malcolm Xs The Autobiography of Malcolm X

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Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 19, 1925; he dropped the slave name Little and adopted the initial X (representing an unknown) when he became a member of the Nation of Islam. Malcolm was the seventh of his fathers nine childrenthree by a previous marriageand his mothers fourth child. His father. Reverend Earl Little, was a Baptist minister and an organizer for Marcus Garveys Universal Negro Improvement Association, a black separatist back-to-Africa group of the 1920s.

Most of Malcolms early life was spent in and about Lansing, Michigan, where the family lived on a farm. Although the Little family was poor, they were self-sufficient until Reverend Littles death in 1931. After this, family unity began to dissolve: first Malcolm, who had become a discipline problem, was sent to live with another family in 1937; and later that year, Mrs. Little suffered a severe nervous breakdown and was sent to the state mental hospital. The other children became wards of the state.

Malcolms defiant behavior toward authority remained a problem, and at thirteen, he was sent to the Michigan State Detention Home, bound for reform school. At the detention home, he received favored treatment (as a mascot of the white couple who operated the home), and rather than being sent on to reform school, he remained in the home through the eighth grade.

In junior high school, Malcolm became an outstanding student and was very popular with his schoolmates. But his world was upset in the eighth grade when his English teacher advised him not to try to become a lawyer because he was a nigger. He became despondent and his schoolwork suffered. Finally, he asked to be transferred to the custody of his half-sister Ella, who lived in Boston. The request was granted, and he arrived in Boston in the spring of 1941.

In Boston Malcolm found himself more attracted to the street life in the ghetto than to Ellas upper-class Roxbury society. A friend got him a job as a shoeshine boy at the Roseland Ballroom, which rapidly became the center of his social life. With straightened hair and wearing a zoot suit, the hustlers uniform, he began to spend most of his free time there, dancing and learning the trades of the con man the pimp, the dope pusher, and the thief. Ellas last hopes for saving him from ruin disappeared when he jilted Laura, the respectable Roxbury girl he had been dating, for a white woman, Sophia.

When America entered World War II, Malcolm was sixteen, too young for the army, but by lying about his age, he was able to get a job on the railroad, the war having caused a shortage of black porters, cooks, and waiters. This job took him for the first time to New York City, and when he was fired from the railroad for wild behavior, he went to Harlem to live.

He took a job as a waiter at Smalls Paradise, a famous Harlem club, where he became acquainted with the elite of Harlems underworld. When he was fired from Smalls for soliciting an Army spy for a prostitute, he moved naturally into the sorts of jobs he had been learning from Smalls customersselling marijuana, stickups, numbers running, and bootlegging. After running into trouble with another hustler, and a narrow scrape with the police, Malcolm fled back to Boston. There he formed a burglary ring, with Sophia, her sister, and his friend Shorty. Again, he got into trouble: first, with a friend of Sophias white husband; then, with the police. He was caught and sentenced to ten years in prison.

During his seven years in prison (194652), Malcolm underwent a great change. He was greatly influenced by a prisoner called Bimbi, a self-educated man who convinced Malcolm of the value of education. In the intervening years since leaving the eighth grade, Malcolm had forgotten how to read and write, but with Bimbis tutelage and encouragement, he began to read and study, even taking correspondence courses in English and Latin.

In 1948, Malcolms brother Reginald visited the prison and told Malcolm that he had a way to get him out of prison. He would not elaborate upon his scheme, but he did tell Malcolm not to eat any more pork. Purely on faith, Malcolm followed Reginalds advice. He later saw this as an instance of Allah, the God of Islam, working his will.

Reginalds plan was to enlist Malcolm as a member of the Nation of Islam, popularly known as the Black Muslims. This religion, founded by Elijah Muhammad in the 1930s, strongly urged the separation of the races and considered the white man as the devil incarnatea tenet which Malcolm was, by this time, quite willing to believe. The teachings of Elijah Muhammad stimulated Malcolms interest in history, particularly in the history of the black peoples of the world; he found after studying history that there was compelling evidence of the white mans evil nature. Thus Malcolm joined the Nation of Islam and adopted the name by which he was to become famousMalcolm X.

In 1952, Malcolm was paroled and went to Detroit to live with his brother Wilfred, also a member of the Black Muslims. Malcolm took a job in an automobile factory and began finding out all he could about the Nation of Islam. He even went to Chicago to meet Elijah Muhammad and eventually quit his job to study personally under this man, whom he considered his savior. Late in 1953, Malcolm returned to Boston to organize a Black Muslim temple there, and in 1954, he was sent to Philadelphia; as a reward for his speed and diligence in organizing the temple there, he was appointed minister of Temple Seven in Harlem.

In the years between 1953 and 1963, the Nation of Islam grew from a small number of storefront temples to a large, organized, vocal national movement dedicated to black separatism, and Malcolm became its best-known and most volatile spokesman.

During this time, he was minister of Temple Number Seven and was organizer of several other temples around the country. He became increasingly close to Elijah Muhammad, both as an adviser and a friend. Early in 1958, Malcolm was married to Betty X, a member of his congregation. During the next seven years, they had four daughters, Attilah, Qubilah, Ilyasah, and Amiliah.