The Civil Rights Movement in the American South gave rise to a number of amazingly intelligent African-American activists and speakers. One of those speakers was Malcolm X. Malcolm X was born into a family that was touched by racial violence, and as a result, he became one of the leaders at the forefront of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and onwards (X and Haley). Unlike some of the other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X was unabashedly fierce on certain topics-- notably, Malcolm X frequently advocated the separation of the races, and occasionally even advocated the idea of black supremacy (X and Haley). However misguided his ideals, Malcolm X was undeniably a driving force forward for the Civil Rights Movement.
During the years leading up to the height of the Civil Rights movement, it was very difficult for African-Americans, particularly African-Americans in the American South to obtain a good education. When a bevy of well-spoken African-American speakers and thinkers appeared seemingly out of the ether during the Civil Rights Movement, many people began to wonder how these men and women achieved their education. Some were formally educated in mainly African-American schools, but others, like Malcolm X were self-educated (X and Haley). These self-educated individuals tended to have a fierce recognition of all the good an education does a person; it is for this reason that thinkers like Malcolm X so heavily stress the importance of a good education.
Malcolm X himself did not begin to become an educated and literate individual until he went to prison. This may seem inconsequential, but his imprisonment brought about a change in him that would follow him throughout his life. “I became increasingly frustrated,” Malcolm X writes in “Learning to Read,” “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 1 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 those who read something I’ve said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. This impression is due entirely to my prison studies” (X and Haley). The reason this is important, X goes on to say, is because he was not educated beyond the eighth grade, and he was still able to craft an education for himself.
At first, X’s interest in education and being well-educated seems merely cursory; he wishes to sound educated in his correspondence with others, and perhaps when he is speaking to others in a more formal setting (X and Haley). However, as the discussion of learning to read progresses, Malcolm X begins to display some very real understanding of why and how learning to read changed-- and will continue to change-- his life. Malcolm X’s sheer joy at discovering new words and ideas in the world is somewhat in contrast to his fierce and
aggressive public persona; however, it is easy to see the drive and intellect behind the words he writes.
It is this love for words, and this newfound love for education, that continues to shape Malcolm X over the years (X and Haley). X writes, “I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of books with a wedge months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life” (X and Haley). This is, perhaps, one of the most profound statements on the nature of freedom. Malcolm X would go on to advocate for education for African-Americans, in part because of the elation that he himself felt at obtaining intellectual freedom.
Malcolm X seems to have reveled in his newfound intellectual freedom, using every waking minute to absorb new information. “No university,” X writes of his early days of intellectual discovery, “would ask any student to devour literature as I did when this new world opened to me, of being able to read and understand” (X and Haley). Perhaps it is the latter half of this idea that set Malcolm X apart from his peers: he had the ability and the drive to absorb this information, whereas the average person may be afflicted with mind-numbing
apathy in the face of imprisonment.
Once Malcolm X had obtained the ability to read and write at a high level, he claims that his point of view-- his entire worldview-- shifted ever-so-slightly (X and Haley). He saw that he could now direct conversations and command attention; however, perhaps more importantly, he could also find and absorb new ideas through the books he was reading. It was during this time that Malcolm X’s philosophy grew into something concrete and tangible; it was only able to do so because of his ability to read other people’s ideas and interchange ideas with intellectuals on paper (X and Haley).
There is certainly an intellectual ferocity in Malcolm X that is not seen in some of the other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement of the day. While many of the leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Jr were very highly intelligent and well-spoken people, the intellectual fire that Malcolm X demonstrates in his work is staggering. When Malcolm X is corresponding with the leader of the Nation of Islam, one of the thinkers that would greatly inform his decisions and politics throughout his life, he begins to use his newfound skill of literacy to exchange ideas that may have been inaccessible to him prior to his literary awakening (X and Haley).
Learning to read also seems to have awoken Malcolm X’s fury at the injustices of the past. X writes: “Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the world’s black, brown, red, and yellow peoples every variety of the sufferings of exploitation I read,
I saw, how the white man never has gone among the non-white peoples bearing the Cross in the true manner and spirit of Christ’s teachings—meek, humble, and Christlike” (X and Haley). Although this text is carefully penned, the pain and anger of a man who was wronged many times in his young life shine clearly from the page. It is here, in this prison cell, that Malcolm X begins to formulate his ideas on the separationist movement, clearly seeing that the wrong done to his people and all non-white people could not be undone by any mechanism he knew of.
Malcolm X may have had a stunning intellect from birth, but his intellect is not what turned him into the figurehead that he would come to be in the Civil Rights Movement. Instead, his attitude-- his drive for knowledge and his unquenchable thirst for more information is what allowed him to hone his innate skills and become the great leader he would be.
Although Malcolm X often advocated extreme policies, he was an incredibly influential thinker. His ideas on education and the role that education-- or the lack of education-- plays in oppressing the masses are relevant to this day. Instilling a good education in a child or a group of children is fundamentally important when it comes to securing the future of those children.
Works cited
X, Malcolm and Alex Haley. The autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 1973. Print.
X, Malcolm. Malcolm X talks to young people. New York: Pathfinder, 2002. Print.
