Malcolm X, and Literacy Sponsorship
For many young people, the expectation is that after they finish high school, college is a necessary next option. From my childhood, my parents always never questioned whether I would go to college or not, it was simply part of the plan. However, school isn’t necessarily for everyone. Today we’re going to be reviewing ‘Learning to Read’, an excerpt from ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’ by Malcolm X, highlighted in Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs’ ‘Writing about Writing’.
In case you aren’t familiar with Malcom X, let me fill you in. Malcolm X was one of the most prolific social activists of the twentieth century. While many people regard him as a hero of the civil rights movement and African American culture, some resented him for the beliefs of the Nation of Islam, a group which Malcolm X was associated with for much of his career. As a youth, Malcolm’s dream was to be a lawyer, but when he was in the eighth grade, a teacher discouraged Malcolm from pursuing that goal because of his race. After dropping out of school, Malcolm moved around the country for a bit, but in 1946, he was arrested in Boston, Massachusetts on charges of larceny and breaking and entering.
Malcolm X in Hartford, Connecticut in 1963. (Link)
In the following few years, Malcolm X would become a household name. A well-spoken, intelligent African American man with a lack of formal education and a somewhat large criminal background speaking against a white supremacist society, and advocating for ideas such as racial segregation, black supremacy, and the forthcoming death of white people was something that shocked 1950’s America. The most shocking part of all? His formal language and complex writing skills were learned in a prison library.
While serving his decade-long sentence at Charlestown State Prison, he met a fellow prisoner named Bimbi, who unbeknownst to him, would become a literacy sponsor to one of the most influential political activists in American history. Bimbi’s intelligence inspired Malcolm, who became a frequent visitor of the prison library, where he would spend many days over the next few years educating himself. Malcolm first tried to train himself with a dictionary. He would copy entire pages from his dictionary and force himself to memorize the words and their meanings. After the lights in the cell block would turn off at night, he would sit on the floor and read in a dim light cast by a light down the hallway from his cell. Malcolm was a stellar student when he attended school, but did not continue traditional education after his early teenage years. Regardless of the controversies surrounding the beliefs of Malcolm X and other members of the Nation of Islam, no one can argue that Malcolm X was a highly intelligent and incredibly literate man. But how could someone educate themselves to the point where they are influencing thousands of people with their writing if they never even finished middle school? The answer is literacy sponsors.
I used the term earlier to describe who Bimbi was to Malcolm X, but let me go into more detail. A literacy sponsor can be anything, as long as it inspires or simply changes a person’s motivation to learn a specific skill. In ‘Writing About Writing’, Deborah Brandt defines sponsors as “powerful figures who bankroll events or smooth the way for initiates” (p.73). When we think of a sponsor traditionally, you might think of a company who sponsors a sports team, or someone in an alcoholic’s anonymous group being sponsored by someone who has struggled with alcoholism before. While the situations differ, the concept remains the same. Think of a sponsored sports team. A company will donate money to the team, enabling them to succeed financially, in return for their name or logo being associated with the team.
Nascar driver Dale Earnhardt Jr’s car in 2011, adorned with sponsorships from 3M, Sprint, and Coors (Link)
In Malcolm X’s case, the skills were reading and writing, and his sponsors? Some notable sponsors in Malcolm’s life were Bimbi, who we’ve already talked about, and Elijah Muhammed, a member of the Nation of Islam who would be an idol in Malcolm’s life for some time, and the teacher who told Malcolm that he would never become a lawyer because of his race. These three people all impacted Malcolm’s literacy in some way, whether it be through inspiration, in the case of Elijah Muhammed and Bimbi, or spite, like the teacher. Literacy sponsors don’t have to be just people though. One could argue that Malcolm’s biggest sponsor was the library in Charlestown State Prison, where Malcolm gave himself his education.
This project has strayed a bit from my point of college being an expectation that I made in the first sentence. However, I chose to use the excerpt by Malcolm X because he is a great example of how people can learn in less than traditional methods. While schools, teachers, and parents all make great literacy sponsors, not having a traditional background as far as education does not mean there is no hope for learning in the future. Malcolm X dealt with the death of one parent and the institutionalization of the other as a child, dropped out of school before high school started, and went to prison before he was old enough to drink. None of that deterred him from becoming more literate, and using his passion for reading and writing to change the course of American history.