ONE OF TIME’S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
With its first great victory in the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education in
1954, the civil rights movement gained the powerful momentum it needed
to sweep forward into its crucial decade, the 1960s. As voices of
protest and change rose above the din of history and false promises, one
voice sounded more urgently, more passionately, than the rest. Malcolm
X—once called the most dangerous man in America—challenged the world to
listen and learn the truth as he experienced it. And his enduring
message is as relevant today as when he first delivered it.
In
the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published
in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and
anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the
growth of the Black Muslim movement to veteran writer and journalist
Alex Haley . In a unique collaboration, Haley worked with Malcolm X for
nearly two years, interviewing, listening to, and understanding the most
controversial leader of his time.
Raised
in Lansing, Michigan, Malcolm Little journeyed on a road to fame as
astonishing as it was unpredictable. Drifting from childhood poverty to
petty crime, Malcolm found himself in jail. It was there that he came
into contact with the teachings of a little-known Black Muslim leader
renamed Elijah Muhammad. The newly renamed Malcolm X devoted himself
body and soul to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and the world of
Islam, becoming the Nation’s foremost spokesman. When his conscience
forced him to break with Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm founded the
Organization of Afro-American Unity to reach African Americans across
the country with an inspiring message of pride, power, and
self-determination.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X defines
American culture and the African American struggle for social and
economic equality that has now become a battle for survival. Malcolm’s
fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American
Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite
citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the
most urgent issues of our own time.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands
as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was
never completed but whose message is timeless. It is essential reading
for anyone who wants to understand America.
Praise for The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“Malcolm
X’s autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated
acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt poetry of his words, his
unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising
order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will.”—Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father
“Extraordinary . . . a brilliant, painful, important book.”—The New York Times
“A
great book . . . Its dead level honesty, its passion, its exalted
purpose, will make it stand as a monument to the most painful truth.”—The Nation
“The
most important book I’ll ever read, it changed the way I thought, it
changed the way I acted. It has given me courage I didn’t know I had
inside me. I’m one of hundreds of thousands whose lives were changed for
the better.”—Spike Lee
“This book will have a permanent place in the literature of the Afro-American struggle.”—I. F. Stone