The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the African American Quest for Freedom and Literacy

Abstract

Malcolm X is known primarily as a black leader who gave passionate and sometimes incendiary speeches about the “so-called Negro” and the “white devil” in the 1950s and early 1960s. His talent for captivating black audiences, first in Detroit and then in New York City, earned him a high-ranking position within the Nation of Islam (NOI), an American organization headed by Elijah Muhammad and dedicated to the religious and personal uplift of black people within all-black communities. Those who belonged to this organization were called Black Muslims, although their religious beliefs and social practices should not be viewed as representative of the estimated 1.6 billion people today who identify as Muslim.¹ The most recent scholarship supports the widely held belief that this same American organization—profiled in a famous 1959 documentary by CBS news reporter Mike Wallace called “The Hate That Hate Produced”—orchestrated Malcolm X’s assassination at New York City’s Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965.² Less than a year before his death, Malcolm X had broken his ties with Elijah Muhammad and the NOI, embarked on a spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca, and started his own Muslim mosque as well as an internationally focused political group, the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). In interviews following his return to the United States in 1964, Malcolm X vowed to work with anyone of any race or nationality to advance the cause of human rights.