I am teaching the work of Malcolm X for the first time – and I’m intrigued. The real man is quite different from the image I’ve had. For some reason, it seems that Martin Luther King has always been presented as the good guy and Malcolm X as the bad guy, (did you have that idea, too?) even though X was the one who was faithful to his wife and religion, didn’t drink, modeled a positive lifestyle, and really tried to do the right thing. (After he got out of prison, of course.) His thinking also evolved a lot during his years as an activist, and many of his positions changed as he traveled and learned.
What do we, commonly called Generation X, have in common with him?
Malcolm was born Malcolm Little, but abandoned his last name when he learned that most slaves had their master’s last names. I bring him up because our generation shares a name with him – a somewhat random, but still interesting, connection….
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