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Malcolm X
In what ways was Malcolm X's individuality denied him because of his race? One important expression of his individuality was his desire to become a lawyer when he was young. When his teacher asked him what he wanted to be, and he told the teacher he wanted to be a lawyer, the teacher told him he needed to be "practical." It wasn't practical for a black young man to try to become a lawyer. Blacks couldn't get into law school and usually couldn't afford law school anyway. Blacks weren't considered smart enough to be lawyers.
What personal experiences made him open to accepting the teaching that "the white man is the devil?" What reading in history? In what way did his hajj change his attitude? When Malcolm Little was a young child, white supremacists came one night and burned down his house. The didn't like what his father was preaching. His father tried to protect the family's home by shooting at the men who were setting it on fire. When the police came afterwards, they were not concerned with catching the perpetrators, but only with the fact that Michael's father had a gun. Michael also grew up at a time when lynchings were common occurrences. Two years after they burned his house down, Michael's father was murdered by white racists who wanted to stop him from preaching the philosophy of Marcus Garvey and stirring up "good" [read...
When Michael was converted to Nation of Islam, he read an alternative history which explained how white people came to exist on earth. The story was that black people were originally the only people. A black scientist long ago had experimented with genes and gradually developed people who had light skins. The trouble was they were aggressive and violent and eventually turned on the black people in Africa, enslaved them, and deprived them of all their rights. After Michael left the Nation of Islam, he was at loose ends. He decided to visit Mecca, the Holy City of Muslims. As he traveled there, he met white people who were also Muslims, and he discovered that they were not racist, that they accepted him with brotherly love and treated him with respect. He saw that not all white people are devils or innately evil.
4 What message did Malcolm have for African-Americans? For white Americans? Why did human rights become his central idea, and not just civil rights? What were his final spiritual teachings? Malcolm X felt that black people had to take some responsibility for their predicament. They had accepted the idea that everything white was good and to be emulated. They needed to develop pride in their own racial identity. He urged them to become self-sufficient, to separate from the white establishment, and form their…
..I never will forget how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery's total horror. It made such an impact upon me that it later became one of my favorite subjects when I became a minister of Mr. Muhammad's. The world's most monstrous crime, the sin and the blood on the white man's hands, are almost impossible to believe." (Malcolm X, p. 1) It was upon these revelations that Malcolm
Malcolm X, the most influential Black Muslim leader, was a man whose views and personality underwent so many changes that the final version of him bore little or no resemblance to the original one. In the book, 'Autobiography of Malcolm X', Alex Haley has highlighted all the changes that his political and social ideologies encountered and this helps us understand the complex multi-faceted personality of the man who had a
However, many other strands of thought have converged to create a collective black identity and historiography. For example, the syncretic slave religions that merged African practices with Christianity allowed slave families and communities to hold on to their ancestry and traditions in the face of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual oppression. Similarly, the creation of the African Episcopal Church (AME) in the early nineteenth century marked a distinctive and
Malcolm X: Director Spike Lee's Portrait Of An American Hero Malcolm X was not a man who could be easily characterized and the same is true for Spike Lee's 1992 film. Malcolm X was a labor of love for Lee, who was only thirty-five at the time of the film's release. Lee had been a young child when Malcolm X was assassinated, so his knowledge of the man was not based
Even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. noted that the Emancipation Proclamation promised more than it delivered. Both men knew that America had a long way to go before true freedom for African-Americans could be realized. Malcolm X dealt drugs and hung out with the underground African-American artists and musicians during the Harlem Renaissance, one of the greatest periods in African-American cultural history. This section of Malcolm X's Autobiography is one
..That's why black prisoners become Muslims so fast when Elijah Muhammed's teachings filter into their cages by way of other Muslim convicts. 'The white man is the devil' is a perfect echo of that black convict's lifelong experience." Prison solidified Malcolm X's -- and in his view, all African-Americans' -- position in society, and his faith clarified the predicament and gave an avenue both of understanding and of redress. Everyone's childhood, family,