Chapter 19 - Summary, The Autobiography Of Malcolm X | The Autobiography of Malcolm X -Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

1965

• Despite all the excitement over Malcolm X's Pan-African message, nothing much happens. Sure, he keeps speaking about it, but no one wants to act. Not only that, but the press is continually depicting him as an advocate of violence. No one wants to talk about his new focus on human rights and Pan-Africanism. We guess that doesn't sell papers.
• After a while Malcolm goes back to Africa and the Middle East. He meets with all of the prominent world leaders and has two very interesting conversations. The first is with an ambassador who tells Malcolm that he never notices race in most countries, but when he goes to America race becomes the most important difference. He says that there is something about the United States that promotes racism.
• The second conversation is with a man who seems to be spying on Malcolm X. According to him, Malcolm is anti-American, un-American, seditious, subversive, and probably communist. Whew! That's quite a list of labels.
• It's election season now, and the American press starts asking Malcolm X whom he prefers for president. Malcolm replies that both candidates are bad options for black people, but at least Goldwater is honest. Of course, we all know that Johnson ends up winning, and doing so with the support of many black voters.
• This whole time, Malcolm's been trying to build his black nationalist organization. But he's having some trouble. One of the biggest problems he has is creating an all-black organization with the goal of eventual brotherhood between all races. Since it's a very different message from the one he preached as a member of the Nation of Islam, people don't get it. It's complicated further by the fact that he says that if white people really want to help, they should form their own organizations and work in their own communities.
• Malcolm X tells us he dreams that history will one day remember what he worked to achieve. He also says that he's working urgently because he believes he could die any day now.
• In the last few pages of the book, Malcolm X tells us why he dictated this to Alex Haley. He wants readers to understand how he came to be the man he is, including all of the drug selling and immorality of his youth. He wants readers to know that he has worked as hard as he can to advance the cause of black people.
• His only regret is that he wasn't able to get more formal education. The only thing he wishes he could have done more of is studying.
• He lives his life now as if he will die at any moment, and he knows that his death will be used as a symbol of what happens to "violent" black men. But Malcolm X ends the story saying he is happy to be attacked because he knows that it means he's doing something correct. He is happy to die if it means that he has done anything to destroy racism.