The autobiography of Malcolm X

Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me from London, asking questions. One was, “What's your alma mater?” I told him, “Books.”

I read about the slave preacher Nat Turner, who put the fear of God into the white slavemaster. Nat Turner wasn't going around preaching pie-in-the-sky and “non-violent” freedom for the black man. There in Virginia one night in 1831, Nat and seven other slaves started out at his master's home and through the night they went from one plantation “big house” to the next, killing, until by the next morning57 white people were dead and Nat had about 70 slaves following him.

Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.

Under the pitiful misapprehension that it would make them “better,” these Hill Negroes were breaking their backs trying to imitate white people.

I was one of his top students, one of the school's top students-but all he could see for me was the kind of future “in your place” that almost all white people see for black people.

Mine was the same psychology that makes Negroes even today, though it bothers them down inside, keep letting the white man tell them how much “progress” they are making.

I could sense it almost as a physical barrier, that despite all the beaming and smiling, the mascot wasn't supposed to dance with any of the white girls.

Later, I remember, we came to the textbook section on Negro history. It was exactly one paragraph long. Mr. Williams laughed through it practically in a single breath, reading aloud how the Negroes had been slaves and then were freed, and how they were usually lazy and dumb and shiftless.

But it has historically been the case with white people, in their regard for black people, that even though we might be _with_ them, we weren't considered of them. Even though they appeared to have opened the door, it was still closed.

They didn't give me credit for having the same sensitivity, intellect, and understanding that they would have been ready and willing to recognize in a white boy in my position.