The Autobiography of Malcolm X

by Malcolm X

I believe my own life mirrors this hypocrisy. I know nothing about the South. I am a creation of the Northern white man and of his hypocritical attitude toward the Negro. The white Southerner was always given his due by Mr. Muhammad. The white Southerner, you can say one thing—he is honest. He bares his teeth to the black man; he tells the black man, to his face, that Southern whites never will accept phony “integration.” The Southern white goes further, to tell the black man that he means to fight him every inch of the way—against even the so-called “tokenism.” The advantage of this is the Southern black man never has been under any illusions about the opposition he is dealing with.

From the time I entered prison until I married, about twelve years later, because of Mr. Muhammad’s influence upon me, I had never touched a woman.

I flew back to Miami feeling that it was Allah’s intent for me to help Cassius prove Islam’s superiority before the world—through proving that mind can win over brawn. I don’t have to remind you of how people everywhere scoffed at Cassius Clay’s chances of beating Liston.

It was not all as simple as it may sound. I went few places without constant awareness that any number of my former brothers felt they would make heroes of themselves in the Nation of Islam if they killed me. I knew how Elijah Muhammad’s followers thought; I had taught so many of them to think. I knew that no one would kill you quicker than a Muslim if he felt that’s what Allah wanted him to do.

“No man has believed perfectly until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”

That morning was when I first began to reappraise the “white man.” It was when I first began to perceive that “white man,” as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, “white man” meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about “white” men.

“The more we talked, the more his vast reservoir of knowledge and its variety seemed unlimited. He spoke of the racial lineage of the descendants of Muhammad the Prophet, and he showed how they were both black and white. 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 said that if one encountered any differences based on attitude toward color, this directly reflected the degree of Western influence.”

One of the several who spoke English asked; they translated my answers for the others. My answer to that question was not the one they expected, but it drove home my point. I said, “The brotherhood! The people of all races, colors, from all over the world coming together as one! It has proved to me the power of the One God.”

“In the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I never will be guilty of that again—as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black man. The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.

“Yes, I have been convinced that some American whites do want to help cure the rampant racism which is on the path to destroying this country!

“I have less patience with someone who doesn’t wear a watch than with anyone else, for this type is not time-conscious,” he had once told me. “In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.”

“This book I dedicate to The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who found me here in America in the muck and mire of the filthiest civilization and society on this earth, and pulled me out, cleaned me up, and stood me on my feet, and made me the man that I am today.”

“I’m the only black man they’ve ever been close to who they know speaks the truth to them,” Malcolm X once explained to me. “It’s their guilt that upsets them, not me.”

One call that I never will forget came at close to four A.M., waking me; he must have just gotten up in Los Angeles. His voice said, “Alex Haley?” I said, sleepily, “Yes? Oh, hey, Malcolm!” His voice said, “I trust you seventy percent”—and then he hung up. I lay a short time thinking about him and I went back to sleep feeling warmed by that call, as I still am warmed to remember it. Neither of us ever mentioned it.

He, moreover, was convinced that he could tell a lot about any person by listening. “There’s an art to listening well,” he told me. “I listen closely to the sound of a man’s voice when he’s speaking. I can hear sincerity.”

“If I’m alive when this book comes out, it will be a miracle,” he said by way of explanation. “I’m not saying it distressingly—” He leaned forward and touched the buff gold bedspread. “I’m saying it like I say that’s a bedspread.”

He said that his statement about President Kennedy’s assassination was not why he had been ousted from the Muslims. “It wasn’t the reason at all. Nobody said anything when I made stronger statements before.” The real reason, he said, was “jealousy in Chicago, and I had objected to the immorality of the man who professed to be more moral than anybody.”

Malcolm X said that he had increased the Nation of Islam membership from about 400 when he had joined to around 40,000. “I don’t think there were more than 400 in the country when I joined, I really don’t. They were mostly older people, and many of them couldn’t even pronounce Mr. Muhammad’s name, and he stayed mostly in the background.”

“Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so ‘safe,’ and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.”

“I’m a marked man,” he said one day, after such a call. “I’ve had highly placed people tell me to be very careful every move I make.” He thought about it. “Just as long as my family doesn’t get hurt, I’m not frightened for myself.”

“Do we correctly understand that you now do not think that all whites are evil?” “True, sir! My trip to Mecca has opened my eyes. I no longer subscribe to racism. I have adjusted my thinking to the point where I believe that whites are human beings”—a significant pause—“as long as this is borne out by their humane attitude toward Negroes.”

Could any whites join his OAAU? “If John Brown were alive, maybe him.”

“Brother,” he said to me, “do you realize that some of history’s greatest leaders never were recognized until they were safely in the ground!”

“I wouldn’t care for myself if they would not harm my family!” He declared flatly, “My house was bombed by the Muslims!” And he hinted at revenge. “There are hunters; there are also those who hunt the hunters!”

Parks asked Malcolm X if it was really true that killers were after him. “It’s as true as we are standing here,” Malcolm X said. “They’ve tried it twice in the last two weeks.” Parks asked him about police protection, and Malcolm X laughed, “Brother, nobody can protect you from a Muslim but a Muslim—or someone trained in Muslim tactics. I know. I invented many of those tactics.”