Two Paths to Power

Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery and Maclom X’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X both describe reading as a turning point in their lives. However, both of them pick it up at different points in their life with different political views. In Up from Slavery, Washington says, “My life had its beginning in the midst of the most miserable, desolate, and discouraging surroundings.” He remembers the limits of slavery: living in a cramped cabin with no education. Malcolm X, born later, grew up in a very different environment. In his autobiography, it says, “Malcom’s father was murdered by resentful whites, and his family came to depend entirely on the widow, Louise.” Here we can see a similarity between Washington and Malcon X, both of them grew up with their mother, but Malcom was able to attend school. Malcolm writes, “Malcom, after a successful middle-school career, headed for Boston.” Here we can see that Malcom had access to education but decided to give it up to become a hustler. Washington had to wait to be freed after the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, which is when he started to seek an education.

Washington connects reading to hard work and discipline. It is first shown when he says, “I determined, when quite a small child, that, if I accomplished nothing else in life, I would in some way get enough education to enable me to read common books and newspapers.” This quote shows the grit he displayed from a young age to pick up reading as a mode of education. Later, he goes on to talk about his mom getting him a Webster’s alphabet book, and through countless hours, he was able to teach himself how to read. This displays that through discipline, he was able to obtain what he was not able to as a slave, something he saw every day when he went to schoolhouses with his master’s kids: education. On the contrary, Malcom X, in his early life, did not have a drive for education. From the beginning of the Autobiography, the readers are clued into his success in middle school, but later informed that he moved to Boston. There was no mention of further education; in fact, the story articulates his activity within crime and hustling. It mentions that he gets convicted of burglary and is sent to prison for six years. There are picks up reading for political awareness. Similar to Washington using the Webster book to learn how to read, Malcolm copied every word in a dictionary to broaden his vocabulary. He writes, “It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me pick up handwriting speed. Between what I wrote in my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I wrote a million words. I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what it was saying.” This quote shows the similarities between Washington's and Malcom X’s journeys to learning to read, but it also exemplifies that, although Malcolm had access to education, it was not the best.

The different times they picked up reading shaped their perspective on reading, education, and racial progress differently. Booker T Washington argues for gradual uplift, emphasizing phased improvement in the education of black people; in turn, black people would get the skills needed to be successful and a better standard of living. For him, literacy is tied to economic skill and moral discipline. Malcolm X uses reading as an outlet to learn to write to help push his message of black pride and resistance. Malcom says, “In my own case, once I heard of the ‘glorious history of the black man,’ I took special pains to hunt in the library for books that would inform me on details about black history.” This quote stems from his experience of being discriminated against his whole life and only learning about the white man’s success. His whole life, it has been white man first and everyone else after. Malcom uses this to shape his view that knowledge should fuel self-determination and challenge the structure of white supremacy; however, Washington believes that advancement exists within a system.

Despite these differences, both men show how reading can transform a life. Washington says education can “lift up the whole race,” while Malcom says education “gave me a feeling of a person’s worth.” Although they have different stances on reading and education, both use it as a means of liberation. Together, Up from Slavery and The Autobiography of Malcom X reveal how reading can be used for personal and political change.