¶ … Malcolm X's ideas about education in America and its function in society. Malcolm X was self-educated, and he gained that education while he was serving time for robbery in prison. He believes this education helped turn his life around and give him the opportunity to change his life and create a passion for black rights and individual rights. Education changed Malcolm X as a person, and he believes that anyone can change his or her life through education.
This essay illustrates that education does not have to come from an institution of higher learning, as long as it is serious and taken seriously. It also shows how a good education can make a real difference in a person's life. Malcolm X learned to really read and comprehend what he was reading, while he was in prison and it changed the course of his life. He says, "I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life" (Malcolm X 217). It changed the course of his life because he began to read history, and he began to realize how unfairly most history books treated blacks and other minorities.
Malcolm X sees the primary function of education in society as one that primarily serves the white residents of the nation, while essentially ignoring the blacks, and he set out to illustrate this and change it. He writes, "My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America" (Malcolm X 217). He does not believe that should be the primary function of education, but that is what he discovers as he continues to read. The function of education should be to educate every child fully, and use correct historical texts in the process, but that is not how education functions, as Malcolm X discovers.
He conveys his message graphically, especially when he describes his readings in history -- regarding slavery and its horrors. Probably the strongest statement he makes about the white view of black history is also one of the best of his statements about the past. He writes, "Because who in the world's history ever has played a worse "skin…
..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
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
Another angle into Malcolm's view of white America is presented in an article in the journal Phylon, in which the authors assert that after visiting Mecca in 1964 (according to Charles E. Wilson), "...He became less and less doctrinairely antagonistic toward whites..." Malcolm is reported to have said, that morning in Mecca "...was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about 'white men'." Meanwhile, the Reverend Albert
MLK, Malcolm X, and Civil RightsThe Civil Rights Movement of mid-20th century in America saw two poles: on the one end was Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK), and on the other was Malcolm X. MLK adopted the concept of civil disobedience into his Christian ethics to protest a racist structure in America. Malcolm X adopted the concept of militancy and showing the power structure that one is willing to fight
Of course, it is also extremely important culturally that Malcolm's father was a minister who spoke out for Black rights, just as he became a minister and did the same thing. LEGAGY It would seem that a man as charismatic and determined would leave behind a legacy of children willing to follow his lead, but that is not really the case. Malcolm X fathered six daughters before his death. His wife
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