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Malcolm x homemade education
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Malcolm X's writes "Homemade Education," stating that the average street hustler and criminal were too uneducated to write a letter. But Malcolm X wasn't just an average street hustler. In fact, Malcolm X started his educational journey in Norfolk Prison Colony, where he read Elijah Muhammad and thus, became extremely interested in black history and slavery. Malcolm X reveals how he wrote letters to people in the "hustling world." Malcolm X was upset and frustrated because he couldn’t express himself in his letters, he didn't want to write using street slang. These letters were the jump start to Malcolm X's homemade education
Malcolm X showed his interest in a higher education in Prison, when he met a man named Bimbi who was far more educated than him, which eventually Malcolm X looked up to because of his critical thinking and his ability. Malcolm X wanted to be like him, but Malcolm X couldn’t even understand most of the words he came across when reading a book. Since Malcolm X couldn’t read or understand these words, in addition to his bad penmanship, during his stay in prison, Malcolm X decided to educate himself past the eighth grade level to the understanding of the Civil Rights of African Americans.
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Malcolm X started studying from the dictionary, He began studying the pages, looking over all of the words that he had never knew even existed. Then, he began copying the words down word by word, page a day, he would write it all down then read it. Without even trying, Malcolm X remembers most of the words he had written, and reviewed the once he didn't, he was interested in the dictionary that he continued to copying pages from the dictionary. Malcolm X was learning about so many people, and places. He called the dictionary an "miniature encyclopedia." In the end he finished coping the whole
The reading on Malcolm X had lots of points that hit everyday society in America for African Americans. Malcolm X was like any other man hustling on the streets to get by, like a lot you see in today society with the drug dealers and such. Starting off Malcolm X was not an intelligent man; he didn’t know how to write without a little slang to his words, he didn’t know how to articulate what he wanted to be said. Malcolm X was convicted of robbery and was sent to Charleston Prison, but was later sent off to the Norfolk Prison Colony School, this is where he gave himself the educated needed to be a well productive citizen. Malcolm X stated, “I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary-to study, to learn some new words (p.211). “I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionary’s pages.” “Finally, just to start some kind of action, I began copying.” Here Malcolm X is seeing his time being served in prisons to not only be a lessoned learned but to learn something that he knew he would never learn...
While many people in America learn through the standard schooling system there are some that come into an education on their own, in their own way. Here I am going to compare the similarities and differences between the ways that Mike Rose, an award winning writer and professor in the School of Education at UCLA and Malcolm X, an African American activist who was a renowned speaker and ideologist, were motivated to start taking their education seriously, and how they went about getting that education.
Richard Rodriguez in “The Achievement of Desire” by Richard Rodriguez, displayed his early thoughts on education, how he learned from them as he grew older and how he ultimately alienated his parents do-to the way he went about getting his education. Malcolm X’s path toward education is explained in “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X. His influences, his beliefs and the actual process of what it actually took for X to become educated is explained in great detail. Malcolm X’s reasoning for wanting to be educated was to be able to reach out to Elijah Muhammad, -leader of The Nation of Islam and present himself as an educated person so Muhammad would be able to take notice. Moreover, Richard Rodríguez wanted to become more educated was due to his parent’s lack of education. In addition, education was Rodriguez’s way of distancing himself from his parents and isolating himself into the world of books.
Unlike Dr. Martin King who made few white friends while attending Atlanta’s Black grade schools and Morehouse College . Malcolm X faced his early situation of racial segregation during his education at school. In his autobiography, Malcolm X narrates his experience with his teachers and how he felt towards the history class where he was told of how uncivilized his race was. These scenes of racial discrimination deeply affected his childhood during his early years of education. In the following example, Malcolm X explains the acts of segregation of blacks in schools and how it affected young African American
As Malcolm X began to write more letters to a wide variety of people he became frustrated with the fact that he could not communicate with them as he wanted to. "It was because of these letters that I happened to stumble upon starting to acquire some kind of homemade education." He hated it because he had been the most articulate hustler on the streets of Harlem, and could get anyone's attention with his words. He was admired for the eloquent words he spoke and was not used to being ignored. For now even the simplest English was hard for him to write.
This paper will discuss the different stages of thought processes the former Nation of Islam minister, Malcolm X went through during his lifetime in terms of how he viewed white people, but more specifically “the white man” in America. The reason the focus is on White Americans is because these were the people outside of the Nation of Islam that shaped his life good or bad and put him on the path where he eventually transformed from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X who was one of the most polarizing and controversial figures during his lifetime and even nearly 50 years after his death the name Malcolm X causes certain people to shudder. Malcolm X became a well-known figure during the 50’s and 60’s during the civil rights movement which involved figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. This was a pivotal era in American history because for the first time that there was major push towards full rights for African Americans. When Malcolm X came on the scene he put fear into White people because they weren’t used to hearing the truth about race relations in America and many of them felt that things were just fine because they themselves were living life high on the hog while at the same time exploiting Blacks. Because this type of talk from a black person was new to them they misinterpreted his views as “hate speech” and accused him of trying to incite violence when he was simply trying wake his people up to properly deal with what was happening to them.
Malcolm X had an interesting childhood that ended up shaping how he would end up as an adult. Malcolm had a very large family, he was one of eight children. His mothers’ name was Louise Norton Little. She was a stay at home mom and cared for her children. His father, Earl Little, was a very outspoken Baptist minister and an avid supporter of the Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. This is where his life started to get interesting. Earl's civil rights activism prompted death threats from the white supremacist organization Black Legion, forcing the family to relocate twice before Malcolm's fourth birthday. ( www.malcolmx.com p 1). Earl wanted nothing to do with violence and wanted to keep his family safe from harm. He tried to put as much distance between him and the Black Legion. Despite his efforts to elude the Legion, in 1929, their home in Lansing, Michigan, was burned to the ground. Two years later, Earl's body was found lying across the town's trolley tracks (www.malcolmx.com p 1). Police declared that both of these incidents were in fact accidents and not attacks on the family by the Black Legion. This violent end to Malcolm’s father’s life ...
How his time spent in prison made him strive for more knowledge. Also, how he taught himself how to be more articulate. Malcolm X had an agenda of why he wanted to convey himself in more literary manner. Malcolm x talks about his use of language, he uses words
Malcolm X's multiple points of view, organization, and diction in his powerful and passionate overview of his life give the reader a more diverse reading and learning experience that they can easily understand.
He wanted to be able to properly write his thoughts and opinions out to be understood. He wanted to leave an impression on people to give them a thought of him exceeding his education far beyond the eighth grade. That impression was credited to his “prison studies” (Malcolm X 1). He had a voice that needed to be heard all over to bring a change to society. He self educated himself day and night with the dictionary, teachings ,and books. Malcolm X considered that “three or four hours of sleep a night” was enough (Malcolm X 3). Malcolm X became interested in the “glorious history of the black man” (Malcolm X 3). “Book after book” showed him the “white man had brought upon the world’s black, brown,red,and yellow peoples every variety of the suffering of exploitation” (Malcolm X 4). Like Douglass, Malcolm found the “Faustian machinations” of the “white man” against the “non-white victims” (Malcolm X). Douglass states, “I feared they might be treacherous.” Unlike Douglass being social and receiving help from others around , Malcolm was to himself and seeked information on his own through books. Malcolm X had more pride in his education and wasn 't afraid to share his knowledge, “Mr. Muhammed, to whom I was writing daily, had no idea of what a new world had opened up to me through my efforts to document his teachings in books” (Malcolm X 6). Malcolm X had some basic education knowledge
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told by Alex Haley is about a man who changed the history of America. Malcolm (Little) X preached what he believed about racism, discrimination, and segregation. He went through many changes in his fight for equality. The three transformations that really changed the way Malcolm thought and preached where his transformation in prison, his transformation into the Islamic religion (following Elijah Muhammad), and the biggest transformation of all, his pilgrimage to Mecca. In all of Malcolm actions, teachings and transformations we learn different points of view and we get a good look at different aspects of events. The life of Malcolm (Little) X as told in his autobiography should be read by all.
In the tale of Malcolm X it states, “It really began back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge.” While he was in prison he began to realize that as his friend Bimbi began to talk he and take control of conversations that he wasn’t as educated as he believed himself to be. Also he’d begun to realize that being dumb and uneducated isn’t as cool as it seems when you begin to have a conversations with those who’re more educated than you are. In his tory he also states, “...nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese...I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of s dictionary-to study, to learn some words.” He felt the need to acquire the knowledge due to the fact that he wanted to understand his friend and have the knowledge to hold a conversation with Bimbi. Malcolm X wanted to expand his knowledge and his vocabulary.“Under Bembry's influence, Little developed a voracious appetite for reading.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X) His original goal for obtaining education as for the purpose of understanding hi friend Bimbi and due to that need to acquire more knowledge it lead to him discovering more about the complexities and ‘greyness’ along with the deafness and blindness that was affecting the people of America more specifically the black community in
In Learning to Read, by Malcolm X, he talks about his studies while in prison. Having only up to an eighth grade education, Malcolm X struggles with reading and writing. The main reason he decided to learn how to read was because of the letters he received while in prison, primarily from Elijah Muhammad. (X 354). He wasn’t able to write responses to them like he wanted to without using slang. Along with not being able to write letters, Malcolm X couldn’t read books without skipping over most of the words, thus motivating him to study an entire dictionary. With the use of said dictionary, he also improved his penmanship by writing down every word, definition, and punctuation he saw. (X 355). Once he memorized the whole dictionary, he was then able to read books. There wasn’t a moment where Malcolm wasn’t reading even at night when the lights were out, he still managed to use the little bit of light shining into his cell to read.
The autobiography of Malcolm X captures the personal growth and the journey of Malcolm Little, also known as Malcolm X. Throughout his life, Malcolm’s experiences shaped him into the human rights activist that we are all familiar with today. In his early age Malcolm believed every white person was malicious, he was a criminal, and he believed that Christianity prevented the progression of African Americans- later on in life, Malcolm became a controversial human rights activist, believed that white people were “well-meaning” people, and was a devout Muslim (pg. 383).
Having the knowledge to read and write may take someone into a completely different universe, it allows to see reality or escape from reality. It gives a better understanding of what goes on in the world, that being good or bad depending on how he wants to see it. Malcolm X wrote a short story " A Homemade Education," about how, his experience in prison allowed him to gain knowledge and to grow as an individual. Learning to read and write showed him, how to be mentally alive in a way that changed his life forever. He took it as an ability to grow, to make a change for himself and possibly make a difference in the world. Malcolm X explained how it 's never too late to get an education, there is always time for one to change in life. It is