The Autobiography of Malcolm X

by Malcolm X and Alex Haley

My name is Malcolm Kazimil and I was very anxious to read about Malcolm X because we share the same name. My mind was electricized with knowledge after finishing this book. The autobiography of Malcolm X written with the assistance of Alex Haley is a very mind-opening book that is filled with different points of view on the human race and leadership. It was published in 1965 and is still Very famous to thousands of people worldwide.This book has strengthened my philosophy on leadership by seeing the way he saw leadership and Human rights. He was a very strong and influential person who was very committed to fighting for rights for the Black Americans in the USA. He kept on insisting on the importance of education and the Embracement of our African Culture. Many people saw him as ignorant and as a bad person that is why he got assassinated in the first place. He was very smart in class but then he dropped out and joined the streets at a very young age but he was able to Change himself in Jail after he thought about himself and started to do something good for the people and that was to fight for the rights of his people as he lived their hard life and knows what they all have to go through for daily living. I learned a lot of Valuable lessons from how he lived his life. The following are among the three Major take-aways from his autobiography. A good leader should always lead by example and empathize with his people, this means that you should not try to be different and put yourself on a different level from them (He used to live in the slums and was a drug addict and a thug too, he was able to understand the hustle that the black Americans were going through unlike the black diplomats who were more of puppets and trying to guide them on fake hope to the people in the ghetto, Malcolm X was able to introduce a rehab system that was very effective for the negroes). “I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against”- X .Being humble and treating them equally is the best thing to do and very powerful too. A good leader always has a strong stand on decision making just like how Malcolm decided to leave the religion of Islamic and search for the truth. The final and most important lesson is the importance of education, we should always be open to learning new material and knowledge. Even leaders can learn something new that is why I am always open-minded and ready to learn from my peers. Malcolm X insisted on African cultural embracement and that is why he persuaded me to get dreads as it is African and full of freedom. It does not hold any immorality unlike how it is being portrayed by the western world. I shall be leading by example through keeping and maintaining a smart appearance together with the African style that I shall try to have. I will be looking forward to reading about mother Theresa or Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. “A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.”-Malcolm X.

Malcom Kazimil

Rating: 5 Recommend