The Autobiography of Malcolm X

by Malcolm X

informal gatherings after I had spoken, perhaps a dozen generally white-complexioned people would come up to me, identifying themselves as Arabian, Middle Eastern or North African Muslims

“true Islam,” I would “understand it, and embrace

The brother Muslim and I both were struck by the cordial hospitality of the people in Frankfurt.

Egypt’s rising industrialization was one of the reasons why the Western powers were so anti-Egypt,

I began to get nervous, knowing that from there in, it was going to be watching others who knew what they were doing, and trying to do what they did.

You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once

and someone had been put off because they didn’t want to disappoint an American Muslim.

an utter humility and gratefulness that I had been paid such an honor and respect.

Imagine, being a Muslim minister, a leader in Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam, and not knowing the prayer ritual.

that’s how it began to get around that I was Cassius Clay, world heavyweight champion.

Lol

President Nasser eliminated all “Lord” and “Noble” titles.

That white man—at least he would have been considered “white” in America—related to Arabia’s ruler,

In fact, he had more to lose than gain.

I first began to reappraise the “white man.”

He also pointed out how color, the complexities of color, and the problems of color which exist in the Muslim world, exist only where, and to the extent that, that area of the Muslim world has been influenced by the West.

He asked me some questions, having to do with my sincerity. I answered him as truly as I could. He not only recognized me as a true Muslim,

“I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man—and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their ‘differences’ in color.

“El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz “(Malcolm X)”

if it had been, I believe he would have banned it.

Malcolm wasn’t a believer of loops holes and bending the rules; He stuck by what he whole heartedly knew what was right

This was entirely voluntary; there being no other reason for it. But Africans were with Africans. Pakistanis were with Pakistanis. And so on.

where true brotherhood existed among all colors, where no one felt segregated, where there was no “superiority” complex, no “inferiority” complex—then voluntarily, naturally, people of the same kind felt drawn together by that which they had in common.

But it’s not forced… I wonder what Malcolm’s thoughts would’ve been at the end of his life…

that I preferred not to elaborate upon our differences, in the interests of preserving the American black man’s unity.

think the single worst mistake of the American black organizations, and their leaders, is that they have failed to establish direct brotherhood lines of communication between the independent nations of Africa and the American black people.

so that there was no excuse for ignorance, and no reason for sincere people to allow themselves to be misled.

showed me how any country’s moral strength, or its moral weakness, is quickly measurable by the street attire and attitude of its women—especially its young women.

discussing Africa’s untapped wealth as though the African waiters had no ears.

I was told that this was the first time such an honor was accorded to a foreigner since Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois had come to Ghana.

could be so silent about what happened in America was that they had been misinformed by the American government’s propaganda agencies.

Mandela,

chance. I decided to avoid Cassius so as not to put him on the spot.

and of her destined role in the world.

subjective, scapegoat-seeking questions of the white man.

On the African continent, even, the white man has maneuvered to divide the black African from the brown Arab, to divide the so-called ‘Christian African’ from the Muslim African. Can

“Do you mind shaking hands with a white man?” Imagine that! Just as the traffic light turned green, I told him, “I don’t mind shaking hands with human beings. Are you one?”

“I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda,” I had written to these friends. “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

Well, I believe it’s a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself.

He has so much conviction that he is right, that’s it’s infectious. He even made me question my naturally pacifist leaning ideals. But the reason I believe in pacifism (to a certain extent) is because we will not stop violence in the world if we fight with it too. Live by the sword if you want to die by the sword.

don’t go for non-violence if it also means a delayed solution.

To me a delayed solution is a non-solution.

“Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race.

Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence

I do remember seeing films about a cowboy or a Calvary unit killing the “hysterical indians”

“What you are telling me is that it isn’t the American white man who is a racist, but it’s the American political, economic, and social atmosphere that automatically nourishes a racist psychology in the white man.”

I knew that the Jew played these roles for a very careful strategic reason:

Saying this, I know I’ll hear “anti-Semitic” from every direction again. Oh, yes! But truth is truth.

whose ultimate objective was to help create a society in which there could exist honest white-black brotherhood—was that my earlier public image, my old so-called “Black Muslim” image, kept blocking me.

I was trying to gradually reshape that image.

white people, I said, had to combat, actively and directly, the racism in other white people.

black people had to build within themselves much greater awareness that along with equal rights there had to be the bearing of equal responsibilities.

I don’t trust the kind of whites who love having Negroes always hanging around them.

before you know it a black may be up front with a title, but the whites, because of their money, are the real controllers.

“Work in conjunction with us—each of us working among our own kind.”