Malcolm X and the Freedom Struggle

The Autobiography of Malcom X provides an insightful new view of the African American freedom struggle. He shows us how the Black Freedom Struggle was different in the North and the South, and why the movement did not just stop in 1964, as many people believe today. Additionally, his life explains why African Americans were not willing to simply take integration, especially in the North. Lastly, he shows why many African Americans were willing to take up arms to defend themselves- to them, the white man was literally the devil, and resistance was not simply revolutionary, but also understandable.  

Difference Between the Urban North and Rural South

            One of the most important aspects of Malcom’s autobiography is the distinction that it draws between African Americans in the urban North and the rural South. African Americans in the rural South faced explicit racism that was codified and systematic; totally different to the struggle of those in the urban North, who had to survive through economic exploitation and cultural bleaching, or whitening.

            The cultural bleaching was facilitated by the mental structure that whites enforced on African Americans in the north which viewed all things white as superior and more desirable than African culture. In an example from Malcom’s life, he could not help “marveling” whenever he saw a African American with straight hair like white people in contrast to typical African hair.[1] Malcom was even “proud” to be able to conk his hair (which could even be viewed as being proud to be rid of one’s own culture), and even went through excruciating pain, which felt like his “head caught fire,” to be able to make his hair look more like white people’s hair.[2] Malcolm would later comment how “stupid” he was for loving his first conk.[3] According to him, this conk was only part of the “self-defacing” that African Americans went through in the North, allowing their cultural identity to be swept away in pursuit of whiteness. In addition to the things that he faced in his early life, Malcom also had this trend enforced by his revelation that the black man had an important role in history that the white man has intentionally “whitened.”[4]

            Besides what we might now call cultural assimilation, Northern African Americans also faced intense economic exploitation. African Americans lived in poverty-stricken ghettos, with little to no financial stability, the richest among them being those who either, by luck, won the numbers or worked a lowly job in the white world. The number gambling game was perhaps the clearest example of exploitation of the African American poor. In this game, “white racketeers” would help the white bankers become rich off the profit derived from the gambling. Despite the fact that some African American middlemen and winners of the game got rich, they were all victims of the white man’s social system, which forced blacks into poor areas and worse jobs. This all facilitated the white man “cesspool [of] morals” which let Malcolm derive a living from guiding them to the sick things that they wanted.  As such, Malcom saw that whites not only forced African Americans to live in ghettos and other poor areas, but also benefited, either financially or otherwise, from their segregation into a lower class of citizenship.

Violent Aspect of the Civil Rights Movement

            Another critical aspect of the black freedom struggle that Malcom X’s biography shows us is how it evolved from non-violent protests to a movement where separation between whites and blacks was necessary, to one where whites were viewed as devils, finally settling on the violence that would define the later movement.

            Malcom believed in physical separation between whites and African Americans, arguing that regardless of what the white man says, he will always look out for members of his own race first. He even argued that integration was a farce, which makes more sense when one looks at the results of integration that Malcom saw in his life. For example, when the military began to allow black men to fight during World War 2, he saw those African Americans, and all others who worked in the white world, convincing the white man how much different they were from other African Americans, and thus more worthy for the crumbs off the white table. However, by convincing the white man how different they were, the African Americans were inadvertently reinforcing racism and discrimination against African Americans. Thus, even in the examples of even partial integration, the majority of African Americans were still kept as hand servants of the white man.

            Malcom believed that African Americans should be able to defend themselves physically from the whites. In prison, he read extensively, learning “how the white man had brought upon the world’s black, brown, red, and yellow peoples” intolerable suffering. [5] In his words, in “virtually every contact [the white man] had with the world’s collective non-white man,” he acted like a “devil.”[6] His next transition, to the nation of Islam, was doubtless eased by his growing hatred of whites. When Elijah Muhammad said that “the white man is the devil,” Malcom agreed. To protect against these devils, it was necessary for African Americans to violently resist any violence done to them. In this way, Malcom’s activism seems more understandable, not as a violent revolutionary, but as a man who wishes to defend himself from white violence.

This is not to say that Malcom did not hate white people. He thought of all white people as devils, even stating that there is nothing whites could do to help African Americans.[7] As said in the introduction to the autobiography, “the white man hates us, so we should hate the white man back.”[8]

Notably, Malcom’s later ideology, after he came back from Mecca, no longer supported the level of separatism and violence that the black panthers would reach, and Malcom was killed before the panthers even began. However, the ideology of his early life was instrumental in putting the violent struggle in the black freedom struggle.

Conclusion

Malcom X through his autobiography illustrates how the freedom struggle was different in the North and in the South, and why the freedom struggle still needed to continue, even after landmark legal changes: In the North, although less present in laws, racism was more malignant and ingrained into white people. Additionally, Malcom’s life shows how the movement turned violent, showing the foundations of his, and the larger movements, hostility to integration and increasing calls for African Americans to defend themselves against white people.

[1] Malcom X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Ishi Press International, 1965), 39.

[2] Ibid., 45.

[3] Ibid., 46.

[4] Ibid., 119.

[5] Ibid., 115-116.

[6] Ibid., 117.

[7] Ibid., 182.

[8] Ibid., 6.