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I lived in a brown shingled house on Channing Way in Berkeley with 3 other roommates back in the early 70s. Next door to us, on the second story of an apartment building, lived a young black man. One day when I came home two of my male roommates said that they had something to show me in the kitchen. Spit. The black man next door had purposely spit out his window onto ours. I didn't know if either of the guys in our house had irritated him or if he just didn't like looking at us. In any case, the guys got a big kick out of it; I didn't. Knowing that they wouldn't go out and wash the window, I went outside and washed it.

The following day my roommates told me to look out the window again. This young man had hung a banner out his window, the one facing our kitchen, and on this banner was a picture of Malcolm X with the words Malcolm X written on it. The guys laughed at this also, but to me it was disquieting. Since then I have always thought of this young angry black man whenever Malcolm X's name has been brought up. and I had always thought of Malcolm X as very angry racist, a person to fear.

Here it is years later, and I have decided to learn the real story about Malcolm X. This book put me though a lot of changes. Mostly anger towards his racist views, even if I understood why. Up to a point, the news had been right about him.

The first few chapters of this book tells of his growing up without his dad, and soon his mother was in a mental institution. So, his sister allowed him to move to Harlem with her.

Now, I have always wondered what Harlem was like back then, the jazz scene and how people lived, but I wasn't ready for his kind of life. He had low paying jobs in the beginning, and then began smoking and selling reefers. Next, he went on to cocaine. He partied with the jazz musicians, even sold them dope. Next, he became a pimp, and then did some robberies. Not an interesting life to me, nor even a good read.

He even wore a zoot suit in Harlem, a suit I had seen in a library book in the 60s that was about fashion throughout the centuries. It was the zoot suit that interested me back then:



Next, he was putting down women, especially married women whose men came to Harlem to visit the prostitutes because their women were domineering, etc. It is always the woman's fault, and as I found with Malcolm, it was the white man's fault for everything too. Then, according to him, women didn't want to be treated nice; they wanted to be treated mean, because, he reasoned,if you don't treat them badly they will leave you. I thought, maybe when you treat them badly, they are afraid to leave. Ever think of that? Or maybe it is because they grew up being mistreated and don't know any better. Ever thought to treat them better? And what woman would leave Malcolm X for threating them good? After all, he was famous.

So by now I was getting sick of this book, but I wanted to educate myself about him since I only knew what I had heard on the news in the 60s, so I read on.

In the next phase of his life, he was imprisoned for committing robberies. The best thing he did in prison was read for they had a lot of good books, according to him. It was also in prison where he became a convert of the Nation of Islam--a black Muslim group that had its beginnings in America.

The Nation of Islam had taught him that the white man was the "blue-eyed devil," and then he kept repeating, throughout the book, all of the sins of the white people had committed; he painted with a large brush. Much of it was true, but I thought of the book "Mein Kampf" and its ugliness. I thought of Donald Trump. I thought of quitting this book.

Then he began talking about how brainwashed the black men are due to the white man's teachings, yet he doesn't seem to realize thatthis form of the Muslim religion was also brainwashing him, giving him half truths.

The last three chapters took a turn for the better. Malcolm X went to Mecca, and when he returned he was a changed man for he had been told that the Nation of Islam didn't teach the true Muslim faith, for the true Muslim faith loved all races.

When he was in Makkah, he wrote a letter to his loyal assistants in Harlem:

"Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white.

America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white - but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color.

You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept on the same rug - while praying to the same God - with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the deeds of the white Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana."
"We were truly all the same (brothers) - because their belief in one God had removed the white from their minds, the white from their behavior, and the white from their attitude.

I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man - and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their 'differences' in color.

With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called 'Christian' white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster - the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.

Each hour here in the Holy Land enables me to have greater spiritual insights into what is happening in America between black and white. The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities - he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the American whites. But as racism leads America up the suicide path, I do believe, from the experiences that I have had with them, that the whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and universities, will see the handwriting on the walls and many of them will turn to the spiritual path of truth - the only way left to America to ward off the disaster that racism inevitably must lead to.

Never have I been so highly honored. Never have I been made to feel more humble and unworthy. Who would believe the blessings that have been heaped upon an American Negro? A few nights ago, a man who would be called in America a white man, a United Nations diplomat, an ambassador, a companion of kings, gave me his hotel suite, his bed. Never would I have even thought of dreaming that I would ever be a recipient of such honors - honors that in America would be bestowed upon a King - not a Negro.

All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the Worlds.
Sincerely,
Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)"



He was murdered shortly after announcing his new way of thinking, the love he felt for all. It is thought that the Nation of Islam had him killed, that it was ordered by Farrakhan. That is a sad turn of events. I would have loved to have known how things would have changed for him. What would his speeches have been like?

As for myself, I would like there a hate speech law passed in the U.S. because, to me, free speech doesn't really include hate speech. I say this because of how this election year is going, because of Donald Trump's hate speech, but I thought it even before then. Canada has a hate speech law. They are ahead of us there.

Note: For those who have complained that their book didn't have an epilogue, this kindle book does.