{"id":246924,"date":"2025-05-19T07:54:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T07:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-may-19-2025-malcolm-xs-100th-the-autobiography\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T07:54:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T07:54:26","slug":"americanstudies-may-19-2025-malcolm-xs-100th-the-autobiography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246924","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: May 19, 2025: Malcolm X\u2019s 100th: The Autobiography"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[May 19th<\/sup><\/a> marks the
\n100th<\/sup> birthday of Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X<\/a>. So this
\nweek I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of cultural representations of Malcolm, leading
\nup to a special weekend post on what we can learn from Malcolm here in 2025!]<\/p>\n

On the inevitable
\nlimits of autobiography, and why this one is especially vital nonetheless.<\/span><\/p>\n

For
\nwhatever reason I haven\u2019t written a lot in this space about The
\nAutobiography of Malcolm X<\/a><\/i> (1965), but I have dedicated a number of
\nposts to the genre
\nof life writing<\/a> overall, and I hope every time I\u2019ve done so I\u2019ve made clear
\nhow much mythmaking<\/a>
\nis inevitably part of such texts. From St.
\nAugustine<\/a> to Richard
\nWright<\/a>, Ben
\nFranklin<\/a> to James
\nFrey<\/a>, and everywhere in between, any act of autobiographical writing\u2014while without
\nquestion engaged with identity in real and meaningful ways\u2014entails a good bit
\nof storytelling, of the crafting of a narrative that (like all narratives)
\nfeatures choices of what is included and what is excluded, what is emphasized and
\nwhat is minimized, and perhaps most of all what is intended for an audience and
\nfor what reasons. None of which is meant as a criticism necessarily, but I
\nwould be highly critical of anyone who argued or implied that in reading an autobiographical
\nwork we are definitively learning about the life or identity of the person in
\nquestion\u2014which doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t learn such things from them (and lots of
\nother things), just that we do so as we always do as readers of a text, through
\nanalysis and interpretation and critical engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n

All of which
\nis not only true of, but also in one important way exacerbated in, Malcolm
\nLittle\u2019s autobiographical book. Because despite its title the Autobiography<\/i>
\nisn\u2019t exactly a piece of autobiographical writing\u2014the young African
\nAmerican journalist<\/a> and future novelist Alex Haley served as its
\nghostwriter, authoring the book out of a series
\nof conversations<\/a> and collaborations with Malcolm over the last few years of
\nMalcolm\u2019s life. That Haley would go on to write his own very complicated piece
\nof autobiographically inspired fiction, Roots<\/a><\/i>
\n(1976), adds one further layer to the questions of the Autobiography<\/i>\u2019s
\ngenre. But even without that additional detail, the very nature of the Autobiography<\/i>\u2019s
\ndual and in at
\nleast some important ways dueling<\/a> authorships\u2014a subject that, to his
\ncredit, Haley did not shy away from addressing, especially in the
\nEpilogue<\/a> he appended to the book when it was published a few months after Malcolm\u2019s
\nassassination\u2014forces any reader to think critically about what is and is not
\npart of the book, about the motivations of each of these distinct authors and voices,
\nabout all the layers that are inevitably part of the genre but that, again, are
\ntaken to another level by this uniquely composed autobiographical work.<\/span><\/p>\n

So maybe
\nwe can\u2019t be sure that we\u2019re learning precise or at least simple truths about
\nMalcolm X when we read his Autobiography<\/i>\u2014but along with all the things
\nwe can still learn about the man and his perspective, identity, and story, there
\nare of course lots of other meaningful lessons to be drawn from this monumental
\nwork. I think it\u2019s quite telling, for example, that when Eric Holder was ending
\nhis tenure as the first African American U.S. Attorney General in early 2015, he
\nrecommended<\/a> that \u201cevery American\u201d read The Autobiography of Malcolm X<\/i>.
\nHolder makes that case through Malcolm\u2019s own evolutions, arguing, \u201cTo see the
\ntransition that that man went through\u2026from petty criminal, to a person who was severely
\nand negatively afflicted by race, to somebody who ultimately saw the humanity
\nin all of us.\u201d I would agree, but I would also complement that perspective with
\nan emphasis on the layers of American history that the book forces us to examine,
\nmany of them the worst of our prejudices and discriminations and white
\nsupremacist violences and their effects. Malcolm\u2019s own voice throughout his
\npublic activist life demanded that we look long and hard at the worst of us,
\nand I believe his complicated and crucial book does the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next
\nMalcolmStudying tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Representations or other sides of Malcolm X you\u2019d highlight? <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[May 19th marks the 100th birthday of Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X. 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