Thank you very much for this insightful show.

I was in college during the "Black Power" era (1968-1972). It appeared to me that the "Autobiography of Malcolm X" was the "Bible" of the movement. Some forty years later this book is still very relevant in my life. The greatest legacy that Malcolm X gave to me personally, is the quest for knowledge, the desire to think, grow and change on the journey to being a better human being. As deeply as he believed in the Nation of Islam he still had the courage to embrace change when his knowledge increased.

I am not concerned with the accusations of embellishment in the book or if every single word is fact. The life and death of Malcolm helped me to understand the "system" that entraps both black and white people in roles that neither have necessarily chosen for themselves. Malcolm' s life represents determination, re-education, self-definition and perseverance under the most trying of circumstances. He gave his life as a sacrifice for a truth that he would not back down from. We are truly blessed to have had Malcolm for the time that he was here.

Any music geeks know what the jazz track at 26:08 is? I know it well, but can't for the life remember who it is - it's driving me nuts...

Growing up in the '80s, I noticed a book in the guest room of my parent's house that had the words "Malcolm X" written on the cover. I never read the book even though it sat on the bookshelf for many years. It wasn't until I was in high school that I saw the movie by Spike Lee...and then, I read the book. It was moving...a story not so much about race as it was about the social condition of man. Now that I am older, I should re-read the book in context with current events. Sometimes history has a way of repeating itself, if only we have the clairvoyance to ferret out what's going on. Great story NPR!

The "Autobiography of Malcolm X" made such a positive impact on me when I attended a predominantly white high school in Kansas. I had such a hard time just existing in high school because students, administration, and my family couldn't relate to my frustration with attending school and accepting the white students and administration's nonacceptance of me. That book and others made me realize that I was a light-skinned black person because I had white blood (probable of an offspring of rape I decided because history was erased) running through my veins, that was evident by my skin color. I was teased by whites for not being white enough. And when I tried assimilation by talking like white people, I was teased by blacks for not being black enough. Autobiography of Malcolm X gave me the courage to speak out against overt racism that frequently occurred at my high school. While my parents didn't like that I couldn't "just go to school", I continued to fight until the Principal finally agreed to installing my program I founded after contacting the U.S. Department of Justice that aided in helping the administration relate to blacks and minorities. I thank GOD Malcolm X and Alex Haley displayed the courage to publish such a riveting book. More white people should read it so they can identify with what black people go through on a daily basis. I'd also like to suggest they read Barack Obama's "Dreams From My Father". Both discuss race in such a detailed manner that I believe armed with such books and education, they could help eradicate racism.

Malcolm toppled lies and distortions embedded and invisible in the minds of America and the world.He returned from Mecca and walked in the valley of death unbowed, called for building bridges of understanding between all good people because Malcolm knew our survival on this planet depends on healing and building. Death knells sounded but he marched onward knowing the beauty of Truth is etched in minds eternally...

Sorry, but the book is poorly written and obviously cobbled together by a guy that is trying to make a best seller. If it inspires or energizes, great - but the book and the author should not be confused as icons.
The Icon is Malcolm Little. As a black action hero, he has no peers, towering over the moral frailties and media grandstanding of MLK. Malcolm Little meant action. And since he was raised in a white environment, he knew better how to engage his enemy. He's an Icon because he did what most great men find impossible (such as MLK)... he continued to grow. He outgrew Malcolm X... and paid for that with his life.
One middle-aged white Republican's opinion: I'd rather have a dozen Malcolm Little Federal holidays a year rather than 1 for MLK. He was a great American - too many on the left and more on the right don't recognize that.

A great piece on an incredible book and a complex man. People who try to pigeon-hole Malcolm miss the point. One of Malcolm's many messages is that we are capable of free choice, of evolution, and of growth. If people think he is a poster child of violent hatred, read the last chapter of his book. Malcolm speaks to all of us who feel or have at one time felt outside of society, be it because of our race, our religion, our skin tone, or our individual differences. Malcolm held up a mirror to "Mad Men" America, revealing all of the racism, sexism, and hatred, but also all of its potential. In 2010, we continue to be capable of more potential. Thank you.

great show. great man. great actor, Dion Graham, giving voice to his words.

I think the thing I take away from this book is a criterion for judging greatness. If you're born being a completely noble, loving human bring, that's wonderful. But if you can go through the hatred, the injustice, and the complete cruelty that Malcolm and others have gone through and you can still keep changing and evolving, then my fiends, you are a truly great person.

After reading his autobiography. I tell the story to alot of my families & friends. I even read it that he once came to my country (Nigeria) in Ibadan city where they name him "Omowale" meaning, The child that returned home. Isn't that great?

A lot I knew. I thought the biography was all there was. Glad to find the autobiography to read. I should think it would be even more earnest as he was.

First of all, another fantastic story from Studio 360. I have never heard a program I don't enjoy here.
The interviews from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Charles Lilly are also fantastic. Thanks for the great work and research. I have read the book three times since I was in high school and learn something new every time I read it!
As for the comment about Anderson Cooper I just don't know what that has to do with any of this, take those comments to Anderson Cooper, but Studio 360 has nothing to do with that.
As for your false facts, prove it. Cite your sources

Mark, you are entitled to your opinions, as misguided as they seem but as much as you say is false in the book, how much do you really know as the truth? To insinuate that the autobiography provoked violence is as ignorant as saying that oppression and racism didn't happen. Malcolm X was not the cause of violence, oppression and frustration were. How long can you mistreat and belittle a man before he reacts?! Anyway, great article/information

Listening to this show made me realize how much I didn't know about Malcolm X and can't believe I have never even browsed through the autobiography BUT I will now. It was refreshing to hear Kurt host a much meatier show than I've heard in recent broadcasts. I especially loved Julie Poole and her journey w/ Malcolm. Thank you for all your research and hard work on this amazing show.

"Anderson Cooper's attempt to raise Malcolm X to the stature of an American icon is extremely misguided and shameful."

Mark, why would chastise "Anderson Cooper"? And you blame Malcolm X for inciting violence?
Quit your caterwauling and free your mind.

Anderson Cooper's attempt to raise Malcolm X to the stature of an American icon is extremely misguided and shameful. Most people do not realize, and Malcolm's adulators conceal, that it was Malcolm X's speeches/diatribes in Harlem which provoked the orgy of violence that has been griping America since the 1960s. His message then was basically identical with the Marxist-Leninist dictum "plunder what has been stolen [from you]" that led to the excesses of the Communist Revolution in its early years. I remember reading those speeches when I was a college student and hearing echoes of them coming through the mouth of neighborhood Black kids (my family continued to live for many years in my old neighborhood unlike Malcolm's liberal adulators who moved out almost immediately after African Americans started to move in). He made so many murderers feel morally justified about their heinous deeds. Malcolm X's personality would have made him another Mussolini, or Charles Taylo, or Idi Amin, or Mugabe, or Mobutu, given another environment.
Anderson's program is also misleading in that he fails to mention that there is a great deal in his autobiography that is inaccurate, simply false. First of all, his father died in an accident; he was not murdered by white racists. There is more of that but space constraints me from going further.
Cooper's sanitization and glorification of Malcolm X is simply mind-numbing! In my eyes Cooper has lost all credibility, since I see those who try to glorify inciters to violence as a fascist himself.

Read the Autobiography of Malcolm X while living in Harlem on a 135th St. and Malcolm X Blvd. around the age of 23. Knowing he was from Nebraska, were I have family, moved 2 Michigan, were I grew up and had family, and ended up in Harlem and Roxbury. It open my eyes and mind. It allowed me to learn how 2 appreciate being black and really know what our worth is to the World. Thank U Malcolm and Alex Haley.

I READ MAALCOM BOOKS WAS A GREAT SUPPORTER OF HIM FOR YEARS. I FIRST MET HIM IN 1957 IN NEWARK NJ,WHEN HE WAS SPEAKING THERE I WAS A TEENAGER AT THAT .TIME I WAS IN THE MILITARY IN GERMANY 1965 MY MOTHER SENT ME A LETTER , I HAD TEARS IN MYEYES WHEN I READ THE LETTER. HE IS STILL ONE MY GREAT LEADERS AS ALWAYS TODAY.

Eye opening. I have to admit, although I’ve heard of Malcolm X, I've never read the book. Seems like everyone who’s read it has had a powerful experience. I just ordered it on Amazon. I loved all the personal stories, especially enjoyed interviews with Malcolm X's daughter and that guy with the secret. As a white woman who grew-up in an almost all white town, I totally related to that college student. What she says is sad but true.

Eye opening. I have to admit, although I’ve heard of Malcolm X, I've never read the book. Seems like everyone who’s read it has had a powerful experience. I just ordered it on Amazon. I loved all the personal stories, especially enjoyed interviews with Malcolm X's daughter and that guy with the secret. As a white woman who grew-up in an almost all white town, I totally related to that college student. What she says is sad but true.

In the mid Twentieth Century I began living in N.Y. My stepfather was from Lexington, Mississippi. He would take me to Harlem and let me sit on his shoulder so I could see beyond all the adults standing before a speaker. The speaker was Malcolm X. Years later Dr.John D. Foner taught a course in Black Political History at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. It was another turning point for me. Decades later Malcolm X would be on a U.S. postal stamp. Like most icons Malcolm X will always be in our own images. Mizan Nunes

In my late 20's, I came to the US for my postgraduate studies in late 1970's.
I got to know about Malcolm X in an English course designed and selected for new non-English speaking students, in which in a chapter, he was compared with Martin L. King. Knowing nothing about either of these men at that time I was fascinated by Malcolm X's views and character. While at U of M as a graduate student, I found some of his lectures by chance at a linguistic PhD student friend's apartment. I read some of the lectures. To make my story short, in early 1980's while in severe pain for months from movements and passing of my kidney stones, by reading his autobiography I was able to forget all about my pain!, and eventually passed the large size stones without any surgery! I am a scientist who was borne in a poor family in a ghetto of a ghetto city in Iran. While I do not believe in any form of religion, his life journey and story gives me the feeling that he has been above and better than any saint, profit or hero that has existed on this earth.

I read this book just after I graduated High School, after his death. It was one of the most important books I've ever read. I read it again after I returned from Viet Nam and shared it with some of the white soldiers in my barracks and even they were impressed as we discussed the book among ourselves. One thing I gleaned from the work is that most American white people feel that their race's influence upon the world is positive and that they are the salt of the earth. When history is read from the point of view of the people that were sacrificed i.e. Indians, Africans, African Americans, Asians, Aboriginal people of Australia, etc., one can see the viciousness, cruelty, sadism and self righteousness, that helped bring about "civilization". It was quite easy to assume that the white man was the devil. Case in point: on 9/11, 3,000 Americans died in the towers. And what did we do? Attacked a country that did us no harm, over 100,000 Iraqi dead and millions displaced and this in an urbane and modern Islamic country. Have we gotten enough revenge yet or is our thirst for "justice" going to bleed us of our resources and our children? I won't even talk about Afghanistan or even Palestine. The book is relevant even today.

I, of course, read the Autobiography of Malcolm X while in college but I didn't really understand it's importance until many years later. Listening to your program, I'm reminded to take it down from my bookcase and take still another look at it. I agree with Chuck D, this is a book that should be re-read on a regular basis. I think 9/11 should have made this book mandatory reading in every school in this country.

What a fantastic show! I am so grateful to have heard it. My mother who never was a big reader gave this book to me to read when I was in high school....so I read it because I figured it had to be good and boy was it ever. This book changed my whole life and propelled me to read several other books about Malcolm X afterwards. Now I am a high school math teacher and have bought copies and given this book to many of my students to read, especially those who are perpetually in trouble and generally doing poorly in school in the hope that it might motivate them to take a different path. THANK YOU again for this broadcast!

I read this book in college. One of the most important and influential books in my life. A must read for anyone and everyone. There are so many lessons and truths and things that we simply aren't aware of in the book. A true eye opener. Thank you for your program

Read when I was about 40. One of the most important books I've read. Should be on everyone's Must Read list. He had the courage to follow his personal journey wherever it took him. A book full of surprises. I need to read it again. Thanks for the show.

Thank you for this show! This is one of my favorite books and I would encourage everyone to read it. As a white child, growing up in the south during the 50's and 60's who witnessed so much injustice, I view Malcolm X as a great human being and an American hero. He spoke the ugly truth about racisim in our country with a confrontational and direct voice. A man of great courage, intellect and love. His experience in Mecca was expressed beautifully as he evolved in his understanding of true Islam. When his life was cut short, we were denied the wisdom he would have shared.

I read this book as a teenager in the 70's in Jamaica- a Rastafarian involved with repatriation-I was totally enthralled by his journey and metamorphosis. You know how the story is going to end; but before I finished the book, I had a dream that Malcolm and I were in a barn, lying down together in a haystack. "Don't go! Please don't go! The people need you!" "I don't want to go either," he replied. We were both crying. I've never forgotten that dream. It was in colour and it was just so sad. It seemed to me that in America they always kill the good people, the ones that come to help. He was braver than 10,000 and faithful to the end and a true hero, my hero, always.

I can't thank you enough for this airing. Thank God I awoke to it!!! It nearly brought me to tears several time while listenting as I recalled reading this enlightening book nearly 25 years ago. Now at age 56 it reminded me that I MUST pull it off the shelf where I keep it visablily displayed and do a 2nd read.

In today's world I'd really like to gift this audio and a copy of the book to several young African-American men who are having life struggles. Do you sell audios of this particular radiocast?

Thank you so much for this piece. It not only adds to my appreciation for the book and the man, it also puts me back in touch with the feelings I had when I read the book. I love the book - and I guess, therefore, the man - for so many reasons: his various messages, his pushing, the strength of his convictions, his courage to speak up, his confident demeanor, his ability to change, to be open to change, to keep learning.

Truly enjoyed the podcast.

I clearly remember the period when black kids were wearing "X" gear and African medallions. I wanted to know a little about the man behind the inspiration so I read the autobiography. It's one of my favorite books ever! I saw the book as a journey of personal evolution. When I finished reading it I couldn't help but wonder how much greater his influence would have been had he lived.

I enjoyed the guest commentaries (I immediately recognized the names of the three academicians), and thought William Grant Still's "Symphony No. 1 (Afro-American)" added a really nice touch.

A+

Fantastic read. One of the most important books I've read. Having read it in high school, it helped shape my young adulthood and my view of Muslims as a tolerant religion -- that is, until 9/11.