[Discussion 1/6] Quarterly Non-Fiction || The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Malcolm X || Start - Ch. 4

Welcome to our first discussion of The Autobiography of Malcolm X  by Dee Brown.  The Marginalia post is here. You can find the Schedule here. This week, we will discuss the beginning through Chapter IV.  Below are some chapter summary notes with links (note the possibility of spoilers in some of the links).  Questions for discussion are in the comments, and you can also add your own thoughts or questions if interested. 

A note to promote respectful discussion:  

• The book often incorporates outdated and derogatory terms for Black people.  Please do not type out the racist terms completely. You can refer to these terms when needed by typing “N-word” or “n***er”.  
• For other terms, you can quote or paraphrase Malcolm's own terms such as Negro where applicable.  If you are connecting the text to today's world, the current terms in use in the US are Black or African-American (both capitalized).  
• Please think over your comments with an eye on ensuring that all participants feel respected and included in the conversation.  If you don't know or understand something about US racial history or current events, ask questions instead of making assumptions.  Thank you for your efforts to make this a productive conversation and learning experience! 

As you discuss, please use spoiler tags if you bring up anything outside of the sections we've read so far.  While this is a nonfiction book, we still want to be respectful of those who are learning the details for the first time, as well as being mindful of any spoilers from other media you might refer to as you share.  You can use the format > ! Spoiler text here ! < (without any spaces between the characters themselves or between the characters and the first and last words). 

××××××Chapter Summaries××××××

FOREWORD/INTRODUCTION: Depending on what version you're reading, you may have a foreword and/or introduction to the book. Both contain basic spoilers about the life of Malcolm X.  The foreword is by Attallah Shabazz, Malcolm's daughter.  She reflects on >!childhood family memories and her father's legacy as he is honored with a U.S. Postal Service commemorative stamp and commodified through the publicity surrounding the movie based on his life.!<  The introduction is by M. S. Handler, a white New York Times journalist who covered Malcolm X extensively and gained his trust.
Handler >!sets the stage for understanding the public and private personas of Malcolm X and his evolution over the course of his short life including his break with Elijah Muhammad. !<

CHAPTER 1 - Nightmare:  Malcolm was one of eight children born to Earl Little, a Black preacher from Georgia, and Louise Little, a woman from the British West Indies who could pass as white.  His parents were involved in the Marcus Garvey movement (the Universal Negro Improvement Association). The family moved many times during his early childhood, often to escape danger from the local white population and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan or the Black Legion. His earliest memory was of a narrow escape from their burning home. The family eventually settled in a home on the outskirts of Lansing, Michigan.  Malcolm recalls tension between his parents and abusive behavior from his father towards everyone but him.  He believes his father favored him because he had the lightest skin color of all his siblings, and his father had internalized the white lesson that lighter is superior. (He believes his mother was harder on him than his siblings for the same reason.) When Malcolm was six, his father left the house after a fight with his mother and never returned. The story was that the Black Legion had attacked him and left him on the streetcar tracks, but the insurance company didn't want to pay out the life insurance claim because they “suspected” suicide.  

With little money left as a newly-single mother of eight, Louise tried getting jobs working for white families in Lansing, but was always fired when they discovered she was Black.  Soon they were going hungry and struggling to make ends meet, leading Malcolm to start stealing.  The state Welfare agency began visiting their home, which provided food aid but also opened the door to questions over his mother's fitness as a parent. Louise's mental health began to deteriorate.  Malcolm was the first of the children to be removed from the home: he was sent to live with the Gohannases, a church family who he often ate dinner with during the peak of his family's struggles.  They treated him well and he was amply provided for, but deeply missed his family despite frequent visits.  Louise eventually had a full emotional breakdown and was institutionalized in the State Mental Hospital of Kalamazoo, far from Lansing.  The other children were sent to live with various families in the Lansing area, allowing the siblings to maintain contact. Louise was released from the hospital after 26 years and settled with Philbert, one of her sons.  Malcolm harbors deep resentment over the dissolution of his family, who never wanted to be separated even in the hardest of times, and serious anger at the treatment of his mother. He considers the state at fault for destroying his family.  

CHAPTER 2 - MASCOT:  Boxing was all the rage in 1937 after Joe Lewis became heavyweight champion of the world.  Philbert got pretty good in the amateur circuits, but Malcolm did not last long after two amateur matches. He didn't last long in school either, due to his poor deportment record. In seventh grade, 13-year-old Malcolm was sent to a detention home as the first stop on the road to reform school. 

The detention home was run by well-intentioned white people who treated Malcolm well but assumed he wasn't capable of understanding much. They would talk freely about adult topics in front of him, use the N-word constantly, and parade him before visitors like a mascot. Malcolm was polite and helpful with chores around the house. He won over the white adults and became a kind of pet of Mrs. Swerlin, who ran the detention home, so that he was never sent on to reform school. Instead, Mrs. Swerlin enrolled him in the local middle school which was almost entirely white, where he was treated much the same.  Malcolm was subjected to white behavior ranging from clueless but well-intentioned to outright racist and demeaning.  Yet Malcolm had learned that the best way to get along was to smile and cooperate, and to always stay on his side of the imaginary social wall maintained by the white population.  Malcolm was very popular and often invited to join extracurricular groups.  He was elected class president due to his excellent grades, but also due to his race making him an exotic curiosity.  Although most of his peers assumed that as a Black teenager Malcolm was very knowledgeable about sex, in reality Malcolm mostly avoided girls (especially white ones) at this point.  He mostly tried to be as white as he could, an experience that has influenced his message to contemporary Black men about the futility of integration. 

His half-sister Ella, his father's oldest daughter from his first marriage, visited from Boston around this time. She took all the Little children to visit their mother in the hospital, reminded Malcolm of what it meant to be part of a family, and heaped encouragement and praise on him. She also invited him to visit her in Boston in the summer of 1940.  This visit changed Malcolm forever. It exposed him to the rich urban Black life and culture that was available to him outside Lansing. He saw successful Black professionals, heard Black music, and experienced a vibrant Black church.  Back home, he started eighth grade unable to happily go along with being othered and called the N-word. To make matters worse one of his best teachers, Mr Ostrowski, discouraged Malcolm from a law career due to his race while encouraging the less gifted white students in their goals.  Everyone noticed Malcolm's shift in mood, which led Mrs. Swerlin to transfer him to the Lyons’ home, the only other Black family in the community.  Malcolm couldn't even express his discouragement to them, but he did ask Ella if he could move to Boston. Somehow she arranged for the state to transfer his custody to Massachusetts, and he credits this move as integral in avoiding life as one of those “brainwashed black Christians” content with menial work and striving for integration.  

CHAPTER 3 - “HOMEBOY”:  Living with Ella in Boston taught Malcolm about both the rich “Hill Negroes" and those who lived down the hill in the ghetto areas.  The people living on the Hill put on airs and tried to live like white people because they were wealthier and considered themselves superior to the Black people of the lower classes. Malcolm felt more comfortable around the “ghetto Negroes” because they acted authentically as themselves.  He made friends with a man called Shorty who worked as a ball racker in a pool hall and took Malcolm under his wing. Shorty helped Malcolm get his first job in Boston, a shoeshine job that he took over from a man named Freddie at the Roseland State Ballroom.  While working there, he got to see famous bands and performers such as Duke Ellington and Peggy Lee.  He also discovered that shoeshining was just one aspect of the job:  he made more in tips by providing the customers with condoms, bathroom hand towels, illicit substances, and covert connections with prostitutes.  Malcolm loved watching the bands perform and he marveled at the free, enthusiastic dancing of the Black crowds compared to the regimented steps performed at white dances.  He often wrote to his siblings with stories of seeing mixed race couples, famous bands, Boston’s history, and his daily life as a “hip cat” in the city who everyone called “Red” due to his reddish hair.  

Shorty introduced Malcolm to drugs and alcohol, gambling and credit, and his first zoot suit.  Shorty also helped Malcolm with his first conk, a painful process where natural hair is straightened to look more white. Malcolm looks back on this style with shame and disgust that he, like so many Black people then and after, would do such damage to their bodies to become more like white people - proof of the internalized attitude that being white is superior.  

CHAPTER 4 - LAURA:  Malcolm fell in love with dancing while working at the Roseland. In fact, he was so determined to spend more time on perfecting the lindy hop that he quit his job as a shoeshine there and joined the throngs at the Negro dances regularly.  His zoot suit payments were so consistent that the tailor was happy to sell him a second suit - a flashy grey shark-skin - and all the accessories on credit.  Ella was happy that Malcolm could now get a respectable job, and she encouraged him to work as a soda jerk at the local drugstore on the Hill.  These wealthier Black customers annoyed him greatly with their fake white accents and uppity manners, but one customer caught his eye.  At sixteen, Laura was a year older than Malcolm, although no one suspected his young age.  Laura was being raised by her strict, religious grandmother and was always reading school books at the ice cream counter.  Her life had little in common with Malcolm's after-work partying, but they both liked to lindy hop, so he invited Laura to a Negro dance at the Rosewood when Count Basie would be playing. Laura lied to her grandmother and Malcolm made sure she got home early to keep up appearances. Laura was a superb, balletic dancer.  A few weeks later, she asked Malcolm to take her to the next dance when Duke Ellington was playing.  This time, she told her grandmother the truth and threatened to drop out of school if she wasn't allowed to socialize, leading to a huge fight.  She and Malcolm participated in the “showtime” competition at the end of the dance that night, where a half-dozen of the most talented couples would have a dance-off.  They were a hit, and even Duke Ellington acknowledged them at the end! The crowd surrounded Laura to congratulate her, but Malcolm was pulled aside by a white woman who caught his eye.  

It was unusual for non-prostitute white women to attend these Negro dances, and the Black men craved their attention. Malcolm eagerly dropped Laura at home and went right back to spend the night with “Sophia”, the classy white woman from the dance.  They began seeing each other regularly. Sophia gave Malcolm's social status a boost and she also bankrolled him for their evenings out while driving them around in her Cadillac. (Since Shorty had “schooled” Malcolm, he also benefitted from an enhanced reputation.) Laura stopped coming to the drugstore after this, and the next time Malcolm saw her, she had ruined her life with rebellious and reckless behavior which Malcolm felt responsible for starting with her.  Ella, who had adored Laura, was livid to discover that Malcolm was seeing Sophia.  Malcolm also quit his job at the ice cream counter and became a busboy at the Parker House (famous for their rolls), which is where he was when he found out about the attack on Pearl Harbor.