MALCOLM X

Learning to Read
Malcolm Little, born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925, was reborn Malcolm X in his twenties while imprisoned for burglary. (He considered "Little" a slave name and chose the "X" to signify his lost African tribal name.) His conversion to Islam under the Nation of Islam and his rigorous self-education led him to a life ofpolitical activism marked by hatred, violence, and hope. For a time, as the foremost spokesman of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm preached a separatist philosophy with racist rhetoric; on breaking with the Nation of Islam and converting to orthodox Islam after a pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm again changed his name (to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) and philosophy, moving closer to the integrationist goals of the mainstream civil rights movement. Not quite a year later, he was assassinated. "Learning to Read" is an excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), which was written by Alex Haley from interviews completed shortly before Malcolm's death. While ghostwritten, Malcolm's fierce intelligence and passion are evident; it is easier to miss the sometimes surprising moments of humor, but look for them because they give a fuller sense of the man.

It was because of my letters that I happened to stumble upon starting to acquire some kind of a homemade education. I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what I wanted to convey in letters that I wrote, especially those to Mr. Elijah Muhammad. In the street, I had been the most articulate hustler out there — I had commanded attention when I said something. But now, trying to write simple English, I not only wasn't articulate, I wasn't even functional. How would I sound writing in slang, the way I would say it, something such as "Look, daddy, let me pull your coat about a cat, Elijah Muhammad —" Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or