..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,