Essay About Malcolm X And Eighth Grade

Malcolm X
Join now to read essay Malcolm X
Malcolms life is a Horatio Alger story with a twist. His is not a “rags to
riches” tale, but a powerful narrative of self-transformation from petty
hustler to internationally known political leader. Born in Omaha,
Nebraska, the son of Louise and Earl Little, who was a Baptist preacher
active in Marcus Garveys Universal Negro Improvement Association,
Malcolm, along with his siblings, experienced dramatic confrontations
with racism from childhood. Hooded Klansmen burned their home in
Lansing, Michigan; Earl Little was killed under mysterious
circumstances; welfare agencies split up the children and eventually
committed Louise Little to a state mental institution; and Malcolm was
forced to live in a detention home run by a racist white couple. By the
eighth grade he left school, moved to Boston, Massachussetts, to live
with his half-sister Ella, and discovered the underground world of
African American hipsters.
Malcolms entry into the masculine culture of the zoot suit, the
“conked” (straightened) hair, and the lindy hop coincided with the
outbreak of World War II, rising black militancy (symbolized in part by
A. Philip Randolphs threatened March on Washington for racial and
economic justice), and outbreaks of race riots in Detroit, Michigan, and
other cities (see Detroit Riot of 1943). Malcolm and his partners did
not seem very “political” at the time, but they dodged the draft so as
not to lose their lives over a “white mans war,” and they avoided
wage work whenever possible. His search for leisure and pleasure took
him to Harlem, New York, where his primary source of income derived
from petty hustling, drug dealing, pimping, gambling, and viciously
exploiting women. In 1946 his luck ran out; he was arrested for
burglary and sentenced