Why Your Alma Mater Will Never Beat Malcolm X’s
After living with his half-sister in Boston in his early teens, Malcolm Little had finally found his groove in Harlem working a variety of lucrative trades like drug dealing, robbery, gambling, racketeering, and pimping.
Malcolm led his crew ruthlessly, knowing, “The hustlers every waking hour is lived with both the practical and the subconscious knowledge that if he ever relaxes, if he ever slows down, the other hungry, restless foxes, ferrets, wolves, and vultures out there with him won’t hesitate to make him their prey.”
When Malcolm returned to Boston in 1945, he began burglarizing homes of rich white people. His run came to an end when he was arrested for fencing an expensive watch he’d stolen. At 20 years old, Malcolm Little was sentenced to 8–10 years in prison for larceny and breaking and entering.
Given his upbringing, one would assume Malcolm’s chances of living the straight life were slim after a long stint in prison. In the US today, about two-thirds of freed prisoners are rearrested after 3 years, about three-fourths after 5 years.
Malcolm’s father was killed when he was six. His mother was placed in a mental hospital after a nervous breakdown when he was 13, whereafter Malcolm and his siblings were separated to live in a series of foster homes.
His prison stint did not start auspiciously, quickly earning the nickname, “Satan,” because of his angry hostility to anything religious. But an older convict, John Bembry, recognized some promise in Malcolm, an intelligence lurking beneath all the anger. Malcolm would later say Bembry was, “The first man I had ever seen command total respect… with words.”
Malcolm was a good student growing up, but that ended after a teacher told him his idea of becoming a lawyer was not a “realistic goal for a nigger.”
With Bembry’s encouragement, he became a student again, with so much dedication that Malcolm copied the dictionary word for word with a pencil. He devoured every book he could get his hands on, and also improved his speaking skills by participating in prison debates. It was during his time in prison that he converted to the Nation of Islam, changing his name to Malcolm X.
In 1952, Malcolm X was released from Charlestown State Prison a self-educated man, with a new name and a new identity. He would go on to become the second most influential leader in Nation of Islam(NOI), fighting for Black rights worldwide, even persuading Cassius Clay to join the NOI.
After a contentious break with the NOI’s leader, Elijah Muhammad — who felt Malcolm X’s popularity was becoming a threat to his leadership — Malcolm formed his own organization, which only intensified his conflict with the NOI. On March 8th, 1964, less than a year after announcing his departure from the NOI, Malcolm X was assassinated by NOI members while speaking in Manhattan. 30,000 people attended the public viewing of his body in Harlem.
If you’re able to read this email right now, you are definitely not in prison. But think about all the false prisons we create to feel sorry for ourselves or make excuses for things not done.
No one would have blamed Malcolm Little for sinking into a deep depression and becoming hopeless — or lashing out in anger. Instead, he didn’t just “learn from his experience” in prison, he learned how to educate himself so he would leave prison transformed. He was so focused on his life’s task there were long stretches of time when the thought of living in a cage never crossed his mind.
Malcolm would say until his time in prison, he “had never been so truly free.” Imagine spending your twenties in the clink and being able to say that without any animosity. Yet we use every disadvantage and failure as a means of keeping ourselves exactly as we are.
When we fuck up or get fucked over, we shouldn’t linger on, “how did this happen?” Instead, we have to consider how we’ll resolve the circumstances we find ourselves in. So instead of spending your day raging inside at your horrible boss, you use your lunch break for meetings to find a new gig. Another gatekeeper rejected your art? Where else can you pitch it? What will it take to DIY?
As long as we use our misfortune as a special form of superiority (“you just wouldn’t understand”), we’ll always need that misfortune to rationalize our place in the world. As Malcolm said, “Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.
Recommended Reading:
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X
Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence by Bryan Burrough
Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
The 50th Law by 50 Cent & Robert Greene
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