Upon his release in 1952, he became a high-profile minister and spokesman for the Nation of Islam for the next twelve years. While in prison, he began to study history and converted to the Nation of Islam through the influence of his siblings. After making ends meet through a variety of jobs and criminal activities, Malcolm went to prison for burglary in 1946. Malcolm moved to Boston and then New York as a teenager in 1929, where he fell in love with the culture and lifestyle of the urban ghettoes. This led to racial violence that eventually resulted in Earl’s death and the scattering of the Little family. His father, Earl Little, had strong views on race relations that drew the ire of conservative whites. If you enjoyed The Autobiography of Malcolm X, you might like Nelson Mandela's No Easy Walk to Freedom, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.Malcolm X was born to a rural family in Omaha, Nebraska. Paroled in 1952, he became an outspoken defender of Muslim doctrines, formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity in 1963, and had received considerable publicity by the time of his assassination in 1965. It was in prison that Malcolm X converted to Islam. Leaving school early, he soon became part of Harlem's underworld, and in 1946 he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. Malcolm X (1925-65), born Malcolm Little in Omaha, and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, lost both his parents at a young age. Vilified by his critics as an anti-white demagogue, Malcolm X gave a voice to unheard African-Americans, bringing them pride, hope and fearlessness, and remains an inspirational and controversial figure. This autobiography (written with Alex Haley) reveals his quick-witted integrity, usually obscured by batteries of frenzied headlines, and the fierce idealism which led him to reject both liberal hypocrisies and black racialism.

As their spokesman he became identified in the white press as a terrifying teacher of race hatred but to his direct audience, the oppressed American blacks, he brought hope and self-respect.

From hustling, drug addiction and armed violence in America's black ghettos Malcolm X turned, in a dramatic prison conversion, to the puritanical fervour of the Black Muslims. Malcolm X's The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written in collaboration with Alex Haley, author of Roots, and includes an introduction by Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic, in Penguin Modern Classics.

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