Ander to Remorse in the Excerpt, Learning to Read by Malcolm X

Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass were two very important men in America’s history. As educated black men, they defied the idea of uneducated blacks. Their prowess with language allowed them to communicate their movements’ message to the masses easily and effectively, letting them have an active role in society. Douglass wrote his autobiography, which was a bestseller, and exposed to antebellum America the true harshness of slavery. Malcolm X became an important figure in the fight for civil rights one hundred years later, giving speeches across the country. For both men, education became a process of enlightenment. It made them eager to learn more and more. However, this process had some differences. The most glaring difference is the way they learned; Malcolm X taught himself to read and write while Douglass’s mistress taught him first, and later by smaller children in the area. Besides that, the end result was vastly different for Malcolm X compared to Douglass, as he read much more diverse content than Douglass did. Thus, Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X shared both similarities and differences in learning to read and write.

After reading these passages written by Malcolm X, I learned some very interesting facts about him. First, I had no idea he was an ex-thug or ganster type. I was also unaware that he was in the prison system and often wrote letters to other people from pimps to politicians.

Malcolm’s Stance in this piece is very passionate, yet also extremely grateful that he had the chance to be able to experience the things he did in prison. He feels as if reading has changed him and opened his eyes to new ways of thinking and comprehensions. He stated that he feels no one has gained as much as he has from his experiences through reading in prison. However, he Stance took a slight detour when he started talking about African American men or “black race” in America. He still was passionate, but he started to sound annoyed with how the African American man was going about trying to obtain his civil rights. Malcolm felt as if African Americans were fighting a lost cause because they didn’t even have their human

In learning to read by Malcolm x and in learning to Read and Write by Frederick Douglass we can see both the men self-educated themselves. Both of them faced challenges to achieve their education and both of them had attained a sense of freedom by the growth of their knowledge. We will see in this essay how they learned the challenges they faced while trying to learn and what impact learning had on them. {Thesis- becoming literate gave both Frederick Douglas and Malcolm x freedom of mind.

In “Learning to Read,” Malcolm X began by expressing his frustration over not being able to communicate in written word clearly due to his lack of education, but after finally gaining self-motivation to learn how to read and write in prison he discovered an entirely different world. According to Malcolm anybody who has already entered this “new world” knows why it is a separate one. With the ability to read a person acquires the ability to understand. This tool is an essential to survival in a world that heavily relies on communication as its main source. Without it, you can become lost just like Malcolm X did when he began a letter with “Look daddy, let me pull your coat about a cat.”(p.245) Obtaining the skill of literacy is a transformation into someone who can now be understood by others through written word without the help of gestures and expressions aiding your verbal conversations signifigance. You also gain access to freely enjoy a world of new texts with deeper meanings and concepts not previously

Malcolm X was a self-educated man who was imprisoned for ten years. He converted to the Islam religion and preached separatist philosophy before he switched his ideas to the Civil Rights Movement. The major purpose of Malcolm X’s piece was to notify people across the country of all the struggles African Americans were put through if they wanted an education. He encouraged African Americans to fight for the rights they deserved. Malcolm X changed his tone several times throughout the piece and used very rigorous language to appeal to his audience. The major tones of this piece were anger and passion. These were the

In the Battle or the Bullet, Malcom X directs the speech towards white media and people about the mistreatmeant and segregation towards African Americans. Malcom X addresses the white public in a very serious tone and mannerism. He states that he doesn’t want religion to stand in the way of fighting for economic or social justice. X states that if you put away all your differences then you are able to join as one. Malcolm wants the blacks to stop supporting white politicians and direct their support towards black politician leaders. He proclaims it’s time to “stop singing and start swinging.” Singing won’t get you any freedom or respect but putting up a fight will. Malcolm X uses many examples of logos, ethos, and pathos to trigger people’s

In the influential and provoking essay “Learning to Read” (1965), Malcolm X, a civil right activist and powerful black leader, narrates his story on how books transformed his life forever into the realm of human rights. Incorporating sequential narrative and social analysis, he explains his methodology in attaining literacy and how this process influences him to espouse black separatism and resent white people, while providing historical fact and jarring criticism in his arguments. Using first-person narrative, Malcom advances through the story by pointing each progression in detail, while using provocative diction in order to evoke emotional response without forsaking essential argumentation in his writing. Malcolm conveys his writing to an ostensibly general audience, although he purposely focuses more on white people in order to unleash his anger and criticism.

Even at a young age, Malcolm was aware of the racism that his father was subjected two. He recalls, shortly after a group of white men burn down his house, that his father was “questioned about a permit for the pistol with which he had shot at the white men who set the fire.” This passage felt important to me because it reminds me of debates that we are having even now. The victim, in this case, Malcolm’s father, is punished more for defending themself than the actual culprit. Conversations like this have come up nowadays as well when we talk about violence between white police officers and black men. In chapter one, with the death of Malcom's father it showed just how women struggled to "hold their own" - in this case that being Malcomm's

Malcolm X gave a speech at a rally in Detroit, Michigan called ¨Message to the grassroots¨. In this speech, which is one of the last speeches he gave while a member of the Nation of Islam, he explained how he feels about civil rights in America. He explains, ¨Not only does America have a very serious problem, but our people have a very serious problem. America's problem is us. We're her problem.¨ He is addressing a common problem all colored people during this time faced.

Malcolm X, born in 1925, didn’t have the easiest life. His family was not the wealthiest family and they went through the ups and downs of life more than anyone could ever imagine. After his father passed away a lot of things became harder to deal with. It was he, his mother, and his brothers and sisters. Life became harder to go through. Malcolm and some of his siblings were taken away from their mother and put into other homes while they sent his mom to a psychiatric hospital. Things were going pretty well for Malcolm but he got into some trouble and was sent to a reform school. While at the reform school, things were going well for Malcolm. “Then in the second semester of the seventh grade, I was elected class president” (Haley 32). “I was then one of the three highest in the class” (Haley 34). It seemed that the white people he was surrounded by were accepting him. But it was his conversation with his English teacher Mr. Ostrowski when his views of white people began to change.

In his short-lived life, Malcolm X was both a civil rights activist and a Muslim minister. After being sentenced to ten years in prison, X began dedicating his free time to reading books from the prison’s library. In doing so, he educated himself by broadening his vocabulary, allowing him to communicate his thoughts and opinions in a better fashion. In Malcolm X’s “A Homemade Education” he demonstrates how he gained knowledge in order to educate others of the impending oppressive events that occur throughout the world, demonstrating his credibility by his self-motivation and his sources. Teaching himself vigorously in order to educate others in his community of many instances where “whites” oppressed people of color around the world (11).

Even though Malcolm X was speaking violence into the minds of many fellow African Americans, he persuaded them to use violence against people but only if it seemed necessary. Many people went against what he believed in because of this. They did not agree it was the right way to handle this situation especially since there was already violence present from the racist. This went against Martin Luther King Jr's Non-violent movement but Malcolm X did not agree with that he thought it was sometimes necessary to return what whites threw at them . He believed that “only blacks could free themselves” from such harsh treatment. He encouraged African Americans to do what it took to protect themselves against these crucial acts of racism.

We all remember the time when the blacks were second-class citizens. First, they were slaves. Then they were freed, but still oppressed. Unable to vote, unable to own land, unable to be comfortable in their own skin. Fast-forward to the 1960s, a time where they now had separate seats on the buses, they had their own drinking fountains, and even their own churches because they were so hated. Martin Luther King Jr. was a household name, fighting for human rights for his fellow African-Americans. But there was someone out there doing the same, someone a little less conventional: Malcolm X. Malcolm X was an advocate for bonding all the groups of black people into one, he was for violent approaches when he considered it necessary. All of these points are highlighted in what was considered his most political speech at the time: Message to the Grass Roots. Malcolm X does a good job digging at his audience from all sides and angles, asking them to push aside their morals on individual ideas to stick together for each other. He uses logic and emotion to grab at you, to make you see

Malcolm X is known as one of the most influential leaders in the Civil Rights movement. His ideas about black nationalism helped unite coalitions within the black community. This was critical, because a divided rebellion lacks the power to inflict significant change in a society. Black nationalism touted economic self sufficiency, black pride, and and even black separatism. These goals appealed to many, because of the political climate at the time. The African American population had faced injustice for hundreds of years, so any action, including radical action, became widely popular. However, the ethicality of these more radical actions must be questioned. While X was known to be a remarkable activist, speaker, and writer, his rational for violence is still controversial today. In my chosen section of Ballet or the Bullet, X explains why African Americans have the right to fight violence with violence. He reasons,