Chapter 5 - Summary, The Autobiography Of Malcolm X | The Autobiography of Malcolm X -Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

Harlemite

• Forget about that bus boy job. Ella gets Malcolm a new job on a railroad in order to get him away from Sophia. Malcolm agrees because he's always wanted to go to New York and travel.
• Of course, Ella doesn't think that Malcolm will keep seeing Sophia even while he travels. But in between sightseeing in Washington and working on the train, Malcolm and Sophia sneak in some time together.
• Then Malcolm goes to visit Harlem. Harlem. Is. Amazing. As soon as he sees how cool all the people are in the bars downtown, Malcolm makes up his mind that he is definitely moving. The next page is a list of all the famous black people who are chilling in Harlem at the time. Clearly, it was the place to be.
• Every time that Malcolm gets a railroad job that stopped in Harlem, he goes sightseeing. And everything that Malcolm sees makes him even more curious about New York—even its gritty, dirty, violent slums.
• After a while, Malcolm makes friends with all of the big musicians. [Insert name-dropping here.] He's also great at his job, so even though the regular sandwich man returns to work he still doesn't replace Malcolm. Unfortunately, Malcolm's picking up too much of the profane and vulgar elements of life in New York, so soon customers at the shop start complaining and he is fired.
• But this doesn't worry Malcolm. He decides to take a trip to visit his siblings in Michigan. No one can believe that this guy talking jive in his crazy zoot suit and slicked back conk is the same Malcolm that they used to know. He looks so crazy that he almost causes a car accident.
• Back in New York, Malcolm is broke. After a few false starts, he manages to get a job at a bar. While he's there Malcolm starts to learn everything about Harlem, like how it used to be a Dutch settlement. He tells us the whole history of the area, and how it changed from being full of European immigrants to being a black community. Until the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Harlem was the center of American culture and entertainment, and the bar that Malcolm works at was in the middle of all of it.