Any account of Malcolm X has to see him as a transitional figure on at least two counts. Firstly, he was the man, above all others, who ended the dominance of the civil rights movement by the Randolph, Rustin and Wilkins type and prepared the ground for the new, militant leadership of Rap Brown, Carmichael and [illegible]. Secondly, Malcolm was a man whose own ideas were in transition, and whose most fruitful period was ended by the assassin's bullet.
Malcolm learned the facts of life about the role of a black man in racist, white America very early. His father, a member of Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association, was threatened several times by the Ku Klux Klan and was finally murdered by a racist group, called dissension amongst the "good niggers"... His mother was not equal to the task of keeping the large family together during the worst days of the depression. She went mad, and Malcolm drifted first to Boston and then to New York, where he gradually fell into the Harlem underworld. He reached the bottom: became a cocaine addict and a petty gangster, and finally was sent to prison for ten years.
It was in prison that Malcolm became a member of the Black Muslims. A young thug had gone into prison, but the Malcolm that came out was a non-smoking teetotaller who had read deeply into the history of his people and was a dedicated fighter against racialism. The new Malcolm rose quickly to prominence in the Black Muslims. He was a forceful speaker, but also a man with ideas. The old civil rights leaders were integrationists. They represented the black middle-class who wanted to get into the expensive hotels and golf clubs. They saw their political role as a pressure group in the Democratic Party. Malcolm's base, however, was firmly in the ghetto where the problems were more acute and the remedies had to be more radical. The black ghetto had to organise itself outside the framework of the white capitalist institutions. Malcolm argued for independent black action, separate from the deadening grip of the white liberals. He refused to subscribe to pacifist illusions. If the blacks were attacked, they should defend themselves, and if they needed guns to do this, then guns they ought to get.
It is not surprising that, with these views, he should become the number one hate target of the white capitalist class, and even of the respectable black leadership. Eventually, things became so hot that the Black Muslim leadership moved against Malcolm, using the pretext of his "chickens coming home to roost" comment on the Kennedy assassination. In this final period his ideas developed apace, largely as a result of his tour of Africa. His thinking became more global as he interpreted the struggle of the Afro-American in the light of the Third World Revolution. He also began to examine the possibility of a future alliance between the Black Power Movement and white revolutionaries. Then the assassin struck.
Death did not destroy his influence. It is Malcolm that dominates the Black Power Movement even now. This book is part of his legacy. It has to be read in conjunction with his more overtly political works, such as "Malcolm X Speaks", but it has to be read.
Autobiography of Malcolm X, Penguin Books, 6/-