Malcolm X - One of the Best Autobiographies Ever!
Uploaded by GirlsRule101 on Jun 20, 2005
I vaguely remember when I was a teenager (1990, maybe) watching an episode of Charles S. Dutton's short-lived television show Roc in which his nephew had read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and wanted to become a Muslim. I recall the moral of this episode was something like: never allow another's passion for their religion to influence your choice to become a follower of that religion, as you should always join up for the right reasons, and that should always be borne out of your own self-awareness. Recently, when thinking about the point in my life when I first heard the name "Malcolm X," I thought about this episode.
But, no, wait. Surely I heard about Malcolm X back in Mrs. Buckner's fourth grade social studies class, during that week we studied the famous figures in black history. Was his image there, sandwiched in between the large, laminated flash cards of Sojourner Truth and George Washington Carver? Yes, I believe he was, now that I think about it. I still to this day take a lot from that week, associating Carver with peanut butter and Harriet Tubman with the Underground Railroad. The only thing I remember thinking about Malcolm X was where in the world a man would get a single letter as a last name.
So, I was exposed to Malcolm X for the first time back in fourth grade. Being arguably the most volatile and interesting personality that we studied during that week, why do I not remember anything more about him? Perhaps in 1984, public schools in Kentucky did not know how to handle Malcolm X. How do you explain to a group of young students (mostly white and overwhelmingly Christian) what Minister Malcolm stood for? Here was a man who was not a Christian, damned the government at every opportunity, and was betrayed and murdered in cold blood by his own race (albeit, with government assistance) in a bitter power-struggle. That is a can of worms that Mrs. Buckner, though courageous enough, knew she could not open back then.
But now is the time, I think, for Minister Malcolm to be exposed.
As a father and future teacher, I think Minister Malcolm's legacy is exactly what we should be teaching children, whether they be black, white, brown, yellow, or red, to borrow a familiar refrain from his speeches. Malcolm X has left something for everyone if...