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I came out of this reading experience feeling like I had a better understanding of history and race relations. The book was intense. I'm really glad I got to learn about Malcolm X in his own words. Laurence Fishburne does an excellent job narrating.

I‘m spending a few hours with the Spike Lee film this morning. It‘s interesting to note what details from the book have become focal points of the film. This is from the scene when the Fruit of Islam representatives demand medical care for a victim of police brutality. This moment seems to be portrayed as having greater importance than in the book. I‘d love to read something that puts these moments into context with their impact on the movement.

This is without a doubt one of the highlights of my reading year (at the very least). I picked this up without any specific expectations, and I am setting it down with an expanded view of the world. As much as I have read about systemic racism, the life of Malcolm X as it is written here deepened my understanding of the ways it affects people. I am in awe, also, of Malcolm‘s capacity for and willingness to change.⬇️

I‘m reading this for a banned book month program my local library is doing. I didn‘t know what to expect when I started it, but it is one of the most engaging books I‘ve read in quite some time. This is probably going to be a top favorite for the year. I‘m so thankful that my library has programs that inspire me to engage with books in such a meaningful way.

I have so many thoughts and feelings about this. The language is interesting, a time capsule of how people spoke in the 1960s, the book feels intimate, like Malcolm is sitting you down and walking you through his life. I am so impressed with his ability to look over the different eras in his life and look at his actions, emotions, and thoughts in a balanced and reflective way. You can see his growth, and he can too. Normally I do not think 👇

Language is interesting to me, there are some words that I am sure we do not use the same, and some words I thought were very new ideas so it is a bit jarring to see ideas of "reverse-racism" and people throwing "red flags" in X's writing.

"When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later , a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home in Omaha, Nebraska."

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

It is Black History Month in the US. I have 3 books I want to focus on this year

Ward - I have read 2 of her books and I am excited to read this one that is supposed to have a bit of magical realism in it.

Saying It Loud - I have known for a long while that the Black Panthers were doing amazing good works I want to get into this and learn more

Malcolm - having read many biographies on him I need to get to his own words.

📖✍️ The Autobiography of Malcolm X
📺 X-Files
🎤 🤷🏼‍♀️
🎶 XXX 88 (MØ ft. Diplo)

#LetterX so difficult it became #ManicMonday on a Wednesday! 🤣 @CBee

I expected this to be quite dry and hard to get through at 500+ pgs, & while I did find that to be true of the last 10% (the epilogue written in the voice of the reporter who was Malcom‘s ghost writer) on the whole I couldn‘t have been more pleasantly surprised. The writing itself for the bulk of the book was extremely engaging. I actually powered through this in 2 days. Really glad I decided it was time to pick up this piece of American history.

Similar to many, I don‘t seem to have read a book title that begins with “x.” So instead, I‘ll recommend this autobiography by Malcolm X and Alex Haley. I absolutely devoured this book and learned a ton! Im left wondering what sort of influence Malcolm X would have had if his life hadn‘t been cut tragically short. Especially as he had been going through a sort of metamorphosis or evolution in his life and beliefs at the time of his death.

The Autobiography was very insightful; at times infuriating and at others deeply moving. I left this book with a better appreciation of Malcolm X. I wish this man had lived. I would have loved to see how his trip to Mecca continued to change him and how that would have impacted his work in the civil rights movement.

I‘m having a lot of issues with this book. As a Womanist I have a hard time with the misogyny of Malcolm X. I don‘t regret reading this at all but some of it makes me rethink all that I knew and loved about this man. #history #books

Completely worn, barely being held together but this book changed the way I saw life and saw myself. So for my first entry I wanted to start with a book that I love.

Finally reading this!

This was an absolutely fantastic book! I knew about Malcolm X‘s views and it was interesting to learn about his personal life and what influenced him. His life was tragically cut short at a time when his views on the world and race were starting to evolve.

The audio version does not include Haley‘s epilogue. If you listen to the audio version, I heavily recommend reading the epilogue (which you can find at the author‘s site). 5/5

I now see how my understanding of who Malcolm X was was shaped by pop culture and mainstream media. What an interesting life! I did not know that he was born in 1925. His life was shaped by violence and manipulation manifested by white supremacy. His story is an illustrates how we can't freeze people and evaluate people based on the ugliest point in their lives.

My goal in the last year: I want to bring people toward being antiracist instead of pushing them away by explaining how they are racist. One of the great things about readers is that we get to experience multiple points of view. My fellow whites, we can't get tired of this. #antiracism

This wonderful, AB-B, NF, LC-BC, autobiography of passion and struggle, tells his life story. Malcolm X became one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Biography & Autobiography/Cultural Heritage/Political/Political Science/Civil Rights. Audie Award for Audiobiography/Memoir 2021-Malcolm X & Lawrence Fishburne. Audie Award for Best Male Narrator 2021-Malcom X & Lawrence Fishburne. https://goodreads.com>show.

#Thoughtfulthursday @MoonWitch94
1. I'm conflicted. Wouldn't it ruin the stories if Aslan or Gandalf didn't die? They were the characters that made me feel safe, everything will be just fine because they'd get there just in time.
2. Paul Galdone's Billy Goats Gruff, "Trip trap trout..."
3. The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Thanks for the tag @Tattooedteacher
Happy Thursday! @JaneyWaneyB @Prairiegirl_reading @DarkMina

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1. Read the tagged book in middle school and it's stayed with me ever since.
2. "Literary fiction" doesn't really work as a genre for this purpose, so let's go with Humor and Wodehouse
3. Michael Lewis

I have wanted to read this since the movie came out. How many years ago was that? Finally getting started. I'm fascinated by the story of his childhood. I didn't realize that he was older than my dad. It's shifting my historical perspective.

Read in 2020. A compelling book.

Racking up the challenges points on this one! I don't know why this intimidated me. I guess it was subconscious residual prejudice absorbed from my very conservative neighbors growing up. Provocative, yes, but so much of what Malcolm X wrote in 1965 feels so current and applicable to today. Not crazy about his anti-woman/anti-Semitic asides, though.

I finally finished it!!!!

It was interesting to read about this man that I grew up hearing about but that his name seemed to be associated with committing violence instead of peaceful protest. I also never knew about the Muslim movement for the African Americans in that time. All in all interesting and I will be looking for more information about that time

Day 5 #12Booksof2020 @Andrew65

I anticipated an educational read, but this was also one of the most vivid, engaging books I‘ve read all year. Traveling from nightclubs in Harlem to the US prison system to the ancient city of Mecca, Malcolm X and co-writer Alex Haley deliver a riveting account of a life & times marked by both tragedy and transformation. Malcolm‘s arc has a mythic, larger-than-life quality, even as his recollections are open, frank, and often painfully human.

What a great read, so much history in this autobiography, and such a powerful story arc that it reads like a fictional narrative, but is based in our turbulent past. I don‘t think I can find all the words I need to describe this, and 451 characters surely won‘t do, but it‘s history we need, and the tragedy of his life being cut short (at 39!) just when he‘d found his place in the struggle is heartbreaking. His voice will be missed, forever. #XRead

I'm so glad that I spent time reading and learning about this enigmatic person. He was not afraid to speak his opinion, he acknowledged his wrongdoings, and he wanted a future for men like him - impoverished, addicts, downtrodden. That is his legacy. By reading his brutally honest account, he became one of my heroes. I don't think I can ever emulate his wit and shock value, but I can tell my opinion without backing down.

The final, not included in this audiobook (pictured above), but in most print versions. Alex Haley‘s notes and thoughts from during his interviews with Malcolm, and the aftermath after his untimely death. If you have access to it, I recommend it, and feel free to just stop back to this post whenever you get a chance to finish it.

@Maria514626 @Butterfinger @TheBookStacker @AnneFindsJoy @tenar

#XRead

I had to share this quote so close to our Election Day.

"Is white America really sorry for her crimes against the black people? Does white America have the capacity to repent-and to atone? Does the capacity to repent, to atone, exist in a majority, in one-half, in even one-third of American white society?"

I acknowledge the crimes of the past and of today. I don't accept the white washing of our history. We need to do and be better.

The last few chapters contained quite a change. I honestly felt so sad and hurt for him when he learned his faith was put in the wrong person, and even as he tried to help with a crisis his efforts were turned against him. I also felt equally happy for him on his pilgrimage, to both see things outside the US perspective, but through a larger religious lens.

@Maria514626 @Butterfinger @TheBookStacker @AnneFindsJoy @tenar

#XRead

This was a bit of a tougher section for me, but very informative to understanding both the pull and influence of The Nation of Islam in the US at that time, and Malcolm‘s personal transformation into a national figure (whether he wanted it or not). Some of his views on the Civil Rights Movement in the south, and the internment camps during the war will stick with me.

@Maria514626 @Butterfinger @TheBookStacker @AnneFindsJoy @tenar

#XRead

I am loving this narration, if he decides to stop acting, he has my vote for more narrating! As far as the autobiography, so enthralling! His young life, all before 21, was a wild ride of neglect, crime, Jazz, & in this section we get his conversion. He lays it all out there so well you can see how easy it was to believe, to promote, and how easily both religions and cults can gain traction when we disenfranchise whole sections of the people.

This is the specific quote I mentioned on our group discussion. I‘m still struck by the fact that his father was 1 of seven brothers....only 1 died in bed of natural causes, the other 6 by violence. And out of the six that died by violence, 5 of those were killed by white men. If that isn‘t a statistic to set up the times before a movement, I‘m not sure what is!

#XRead

You grow up and learn about historical figures, maybe just the name, if you‘re lucky only that relatively short period they are on the visible social stage. So far this hasn‘t even touched that, but I honestly had a hard time stopping myself after our section for this week.

@Maria514626 @Butterfinger @TheBookStacker @AnneFindsJoy @tenar and anyone else that wants to join us.

#XRead

Just reposting the schedule for the #XRead, our first discussion will be this Saturday, so if you haven‘t started it yet, it might be time to think about it.

@Maria514626 @Butterfinger @TheBookStacker @AnneFindsJoy @tenar and anyone else that wants to join us... just let me know if you want added to or removed from the tagging group.😉

Here‘s the schedule for the #XRead, if you are listening to the new audiobook edition it‘s about 4 hours a week, if you are reading it depends on your reading speed (of course). The chapters line up in either version though, whichever way you choose to go.

@Maria514626 @Butterfinger @TheBookStacker @AnneFindsJoy @tenar and anyone else that wants to join us.

Announcing the #XRead for October. If you‘ve been meaning to read Malcolm X‘s Autobiography but just never got around to it, or if you are interesting in rereading it at this time in history or in this brand new narration by Laurence Fishburne, or just looking for an X author for a challenge, or all of thee above...please let me know and I‘ll tag you with for this read along going forward.

I carried this book with me everywhere for the few weeks while I was reading it, and I wish to take it with me everywhere now that I‘ve finished it. An absolute must-read.

📚 Autobiography of Malcolm X (still TBR)
✒️ AleXander Solzhenitsyn/Ibram X Kendi
📽 Midnight EXpress/The EXorcist/EXcalibur
📺 The X-Files
🎸 Jimi HendriX/XTC/INXS
🎧 FoXy Lady - Jimi HendriX/SeX on Fire - Kings of Leon
#ManicMonday #LetterX

Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.

We were in that world of Negroes who are both servants and psychologists, aware that white people are so obsessed with their own importance that they will pay liberally, even dearly, for the impression of being catered to and entertained.

Just like on Facebook today.

It was a surprising thing that I had never thought of it that way before, but I realized that whatever I wasn't, I was smarter than nearly all of those white kids. But apparently I was still not intelligent enough, in their eyes, to become whatever I wanted to be.

I despise his teacher for being so discouraging.

#XSUMMER2020 @TheBookHippie

And knowing that my mother in there was a statistic that didn't have to be, that existed because of a society's failure, hypocrisy, greed, and lack of mercy and compassion. Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.

Powerful!!

#XSUMMER2020 @TheBookHippie