The AUtobiography of Malcolm X p 319 -- 421

The final section of The Autobiograohy of Malcolm X centers around his trip to Mecca, Africa, and other places across the Holy Land to learn more about true Islam. When Malcom arrives in the Middle East to make the Haj, the spiritual pilgramage to Mecca that Islam asks all able-bodied Muslims to attempt at least once in their lifetime, he feels like an outsider since he does not know many of the traditions and he does not speak Arabic.

Since only true Muslims are permitted inside the walls of Mecca, Malcolm, being an American was not immediately allowed inside the city. He had to stay in a dormitory at the airpoit awaiting a trial of sorts to prove he was a true Muslim. While staying in the dormitory with many other people, Malcolms suspicion of people with pale skin begins to drop when he his treated very hospitably by Middle Easterners with very pale skin. Malcolm explains that these people would have passed for white people in the United States, but here, people were all treated as brothers in Islam, no matter what they look like. This is where Malcom's attitudes begin to turn. He is still angry about the situation in the United States that has kept his people constantly oppressed, but readers can immediately see him begin to re-evaluate some of the beliefs Elijah Muhammad taught Malcolm.

When Malcolm returns to the United States, he continues building his new ministry and making speaking arrangements about what he had learned in the Middle East. He speaks of uniting the balck people across the globe to pressure the United States through the United Nations to give black people the human rights they have been denied since Europeans stepped foot in North America. Malcolm also makes many references to the fact that Elijah Muhhamad, though he never speaks ill of him, has people in his following dedicated to killing Malcolm in the name of the Black Muslim movement. Though the event is not printed in the book, Malcolm X is aware that he is unlikely to live to see the publication of this autobiography.

I firmly believe The Autobiography of Malcolm X should be required reading in American schools. It is extremely arrogant for anyone to deny that black people have been systematically degraded and denied access to the resourses of our country to this day. In schools, we are taught mostly about people like Martin Luther King Jr. because people (white) feel he is safe and peaceful, but it is impossible to understand the entire story without looking at the other side of the coin at a man who was angry and not afraid to show it, and not afraid to speak his mind to white people. I am not saying I understand the entire story of the struggle for equality that black people still fight, but now I feel I am a bit closer.