Autobiography Of Malcom X – Malcom X With Alex Haley

Hilda, the next morning, gave me some money to put in my pocket. Before I left, I went out and bought three things I remember well. I bought a better-looking pair of eyeglasses than the pair the prison had issued to me; and I bought a suitcase and a wrist watch. I have thought, since, that without fully knowing it, I was preparing for what my life was about to become.

Because those are three things I’ve used more than anything else. My eyeglasses correct the astigmatism that I got from all the reading in prison. I travel so much now that my wife keeps alternate suitcases packed so that, when necessary, I can just grab one. And you won’t find anybody more time-conscious than I am.

I live by my watch, keeping appointments. Even when I’m using my car, I drive by my watch, not my speedometer. Time is more important to me than distance. I caught a bus to Detroit. The furniture store that my brother Wilfred managed was right in the black ghetto of Detroit; I’d better not name the store, if I’m going to tell the way they robbed Negroes. Wilfred introduced me to the Jews who owned the store. And, as agreed, I was put to work, as a salesman.

“Nothing Down” advertisements drew poor Negroes into that store like flypaper. It was a shame, the way they paid three and four times what the furniture had cost, because they could get credit from those Jews. It was the same kind of cheap, gaudy- looking junk that you can see in any of the black ghetto furniture stores today. Fabrics were stapled on the sofas. Imitation “leopard skin” bedspreads, “tiger skin” rugs, such stuff as that.

Autobiography of Malcom X Behold, America. Just when our country’s cultural evolution appears to have the man who was the author of the internationally acclaimed _Roots_ passed away suddenly in the middle of the night. Alex Haley and I had discussed the possibility of my writing his autobiography to acknowledge our literary circle, our family of writers-my father to him and him to me.

Six years have passed since I received this initial request to prepare a new foreword for my father’s life story. My godfather’s wish was that I commemorate my father’s life by writing about some of the significant events that have served as a postscript for his extraordinary life story, but to do this it is essential to begin with the legacy that my father himself was heir to from the beginning. In 1919, my paternal grandparents, Earl and Louisa Little, married and began their large family of eight children.

At the same time they both worked steadfastly as crusaders for Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, acting as chapter president and writer/translator for more than a decade. Their children were deeply involved and inspired by their parents’ mission to encourage self-reliance and uphold a sense of empowerment for people of the African Diaspora.

Given the turbulence, fear, and despair of the depression era, with its economic droughts and racial and social inequities, my grandparents could never have imagined that one of their own children would have his likeness on a United States postal stamp before the century’s end. Eighty years later, on January 20,1999, pride filled Harlem’s historic Apollo Theatre as six of Earl and Louisa Little’s granddaughters sat encircled by a body of fifteen hundred, as family, friends, esteemed guests, and well-wishers gathered to celebrate a momentous occasion-the unveiling of the United States Postal Service’s newest release in its Black Heritage Stamp Series.

The issuance of the stamp with the image of El-Hajj Malik El- Shabazz-known to the world as Malcolm X and fondly loved by myself and my five sisters as Daddy-will provide a source of eternal pride to his children.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: b81552fbcc48cc66
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,604,967 bytes (2.484 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 547
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 963.07 minutes
• Total Words: 192,614
• Total Characters: 1,084,781
• Average Words per Page: 352.13
• Average Characters per Page: 1983.15

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