Books Transformed Malcolm X From Prison Inmate to Visionary Leader
“Books can be your best friend” said Malcolm X, the prominent civil rights activist who is an unlikely exemplar of the transformative power of reading. As a troubled young Detroit hustler headed toward crime and prison, Malcolm Little was “ignorant in everything.” Yet inside prison, his voracious reading fueled an awakening that changed his destiny.
Malcolm read feverishly to transform himself, checking out books by the score from the prison chapel library. “In every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk,” he later wrote. His reading encompassed history, philosophy, and theology as he worked to “re-educate” himself. Prison reading wore down his destructive old views and built up a new vision.
The impact was electric. As his cellmate marveled, “He used to get red hot when he talked about history and the conditions of the black man in America and Africa.” Reading gave him confidence, insight, and vision. “Months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned,” Malcolm wrote. “In fact, up until then…I had never been so truly free in my life.”
This new knowledge transformed petty criminal Malcolm Little into Malcolm X, the eloquent spokesman for black empowerment in America. The power of reading had elevated and empowered him. “I often reflected upon the new vistas that reading had opened for me,” he wrote after his release, “and I knew that the process of education was something that never ends.” Even after emerging as a leading voice, he continued self-education through books for the rest of his life.
Malcolm X’s story offers hope that a passion for books can redeem and redirect even the most troubled lives. The identity, purpose and vision books gave him saved Malcolm X from drowning in bitterness or crime. If America “wants to know about me through what I’ve read, and what I’ve studied then they’ll have a better understanding,” he wrote. His reading life sets an enduring example relevant to all.
