Malcolm X Research Paper

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Malcolm X, History, and the Drive for Knowledge Many natives of other countries or whose skin color is other than white encounter issues like racism. Although, slavery ended in 1865, it seems many African Americans are still being victims of the white dominance in America. While reading the book The Autobiography of Malcolm X, I was able to understand in more depth what African Americans are confronted with. Many natives adapt a new way of life, forgetting their origins, culture, and history in order to integrate into a society that is discriminatory towards them. Malcolm X, an African-American advocate, experienced trying to adapt in a white supremacist society and his search for knowledge and history led to the understanding of his true…show more content…
That introduction would lead him to join the Nation of Islam, an African American movement that combined elements of Islam with Black Nationalism. (Mamaiya) Before his conversion to Islam, he would be called “Satan” for how he cussed and his antireligious outlook. (Satan 160) From Reginald, Malcolm began to learn of the “devil” white man. As Reginald had told Malcolm on one occasion “Them,” he said. “The white man is the devil.” (Satan 162) It is frightening for someone to come up to you and tell you, you don’t even know who you are and you have lived a life walking blindfolded. As Reginald told Malcolm on a visit to…show more content…
He did not only learn how to read or write, but also learned about the origins of the black man. Malcolm X wanted to break the curse that the black prisoner carried over. “The black prisoner, he said, symbolized white society’s crime of keeping black men oppressed and deprived and ignorant, and unable to get decent jobs, turning them into criminals.”(Saved 172) For Malcom X, books were his exit out of a dark tunnel of ignorance. As he states on how books made him aware of “… a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America.”(Saved 182) After Malcolm was freed from prisoned, he went on to emphasize the importance of self- development among blacks. “We can do something for ourselves! We never have done what we could- because we have been brainwashed so well by the slavemaster white man…” (Black Muslims 260) In one of Malcolm’s speeches he states something that I found powerful: "Our history and our culture were completely destroyed when we were forcibly brought to America in chains. And now it is important for us to know that our history did not begin with slavery. We came from Africa, a great continent, wherein live a proud and varied people, a land which is the new world and was the cradle of civilization. Our culture and our history are as old as man himself and yet we know almost nothing about it." ( Malcolm X’s Speech at the Founding
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