“Learning to Read” Malcom X (Response) Linneth M

Reading “Learning to Read” from Malcom X touched my heart in ways that no other reading has. The fact that he used his time to grow as a person in an environment full of toxicity, violence and delinquency is inspiring. Going through this essay made me interested in the life of this character and his trajectory as a writer and as an activist, making me burst into tears plenty of times when reading about his life, struggles and especially his discoverings in black history. Malcom X went through so much and never stopped working on himself and inspiring others to do so, his grid and capacity to self-teach himself how to read and the path he took to achieve this is something that makes me admire him in a way I can’t even describe. This reading is an autobiography full of history and interesting facts about the black community and their struggles, and about the efforts he made to understand literature and discover what he was truly passionate about,making it easy for us “young writers” to understand, relate and appreciate literature a little more, making us inspired to follow his steps and just study the dictionary a little bit more often. The authors we have studied as a class have the same passion for what they do and  they all had to struggle to get to the place they are (or were) coming from segregated and judged communities, and setting aside their own prejudices and just wrote for anyone who wanted to read and inspired anyone that related to them.