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A review by readordie68
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Alex Haley
5.0
"My whole life has been a chronology of - *changes*." So said El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, the man who was and had been Malcolm X, Detroit Red, Malcolm Little. This book, written in the crucible of perhaps the most all-consuming of those changes, is a potent chronicle of the terrifying nature of conversion, the unsettling reality that who I am now is not who I once was and may not correspond with who I will be. Is the name on the gravestone, the last name we claim, who we are? As the man known to the world as Malcolm and buried as Malik asked Alex Haley, his partner in this epic quest to encapsulate his being and experience with words: "How is it possible to write one's autobiography in a world so fast-changing as this?"
Malcolm X and Alex Haley had an agreement in this joint endeavor: Malcolm insisted that "nothing can be in this book's manuscript that I didn't say, and nothing can be left out that I want in it" and in turn Haley reserved the right "at the end of the book [to] write comments of my own about him which would not be subject to his review." The result of this arrangement is an intimate, tragic, and winsome portrait of a complex man whose electric energy, intelligence, and charisma leaps from the page, interwoven with a fascist regard for authoritarian leaders and austere martial discipline, an uneasy misogyny, and a pervasive anti-Semitism. It is a searing indictment of the racism imbricated within the warp and weft of US culture and identity.
It is an autobiography cut short - a man of changes locked in place and time by a violent death. That "cut-short" quality contributes to the literary power of Malcolm X's story. He died in the midst of changing (as, ultimately, we all do). Who was he? Who would he have become? What conversations was posterity denied by the bullets of the assassins? I am particularly fascinated by the prospect of a "what-if" conversation between Malcolm X and Lamin Sanneh. What would the American convert who saw in Islam a vision of brotherly unity and a proud pan-African identity say to the Gambian convert who saw in Christianity the means to preserve African languages and tribal identities in their multiplicity?
But while "what-if's" may add to his mystique, they do not define Malcolm X's significance. A man of changes, the fierce fire of his integrity and his relentless pursuit of freedom and justice laid the foundation of his legacy - a strident voice questioning too-easy platitudes and settlements that salve consciences but defer justice. A man of changes, yes, but as Ossie Davis noted: "Malcolm was a man."
Malcolm X and Alex Haley had an agreement in this joint endeavor: Malcolm insisted that "nothing can be in this book's manuscript that I didn't say, and nothing can be left out that I want in it" and in turn Haley reserved the right "at the end of the book [to] write comments of my own about him which would not be subject to his review." The result of this arrangement is an intimate, tragic, and winsome portrait of a complex man whose electric energy, intelligence, and charisma leaps from the page, interwoven with a fascist regard for authoritarian leaders and austere martial discipline, an uneasy misogyny, and a pervasive anti-Semitism. It is a searing indictment of the racism imbricated within the warp and weft of US culture and identity.
It is an autobiography cut short - a man of changes locked in place and time by a violent death. That "cut-short" quality contributes to the literary power of Malcolm X's story. He died in the midst of changing (as, ultimately, we all do). Who was he? Who would he have become? What conversations was posterity denied by the bullets of the assassins? I am particularly fascinated by the prospect of a "what-if" conversation between Malcolm X and Lamin Sanneh. What would the American convert who saw in Islam a vision of brotherly unity and a proud pan-African identity say to the Gambian convert who saw in Christianity the means to preserve African languages and tribal identities in their multiplicity?
But while "what-if's" may add to his mystique, they do not define Malcolm X's significance. A man of changes, the fierce fire of his integrity and his relentless pursuit of freedom and justice laid the foundation of his legacy - a strident voice questioning too-easy platitudes and settlements that salve consciences but defer justice. A man of changes, yes, but as Ossie Davis noted: "Malcolm was a man."