Reading Response to Malcolm X – Saif

Part A –

Part B – “I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. I certainly wasn’t seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America” (pg2.5)

I found this block quotation significant because this is when Malcolm X realizes that his life won’t be the same after learning to love reading. He says how he realized in prison that reading has opened new life for him. Reading for him is a reason to be alive. He wasn’t reading for a degree but instead to self-educate himself. He believes his education and love for reading has made him become more aware of how important it is to be educated as a black man. Facing segregation Malcolm X feels that it is important for him and his people to be educated. Malcolm X says as a black person the more educated you are the more you are aware to the racism being committed.