The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“One of ten other biographies I recommend.”
Why it is worth your time
The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written with the journalist Alex Haley from interviews conducted between 1963 and 1965 and published in late 1965, months after Malcolm X was assassinated in New York. It covers his childhood in Nebraska and Michigan, his years as a hustler in Boston and Harlem, his prison conversion to the Nation of Islam, his rise as its chief spokesman, his break with Elijah Muhammad, and the pilgrimage to Mecca that changed his views on race. Jason listed it on his January 2019 post of 10 biographies, where he argued that outsiders should read how people got from the margin to the center. Few books on the list fit that argument better. It suits any reader. The caveat is that Haley shaped the narrative and wrote the epilogue after the 1965 assassination, and later biographers, notably Manning Marable in 2011, have questioned parts of the account.
