Malcolm X: Learning to Read

The education Malcolm X received truly helped to liberate him, not only in the sense that it gave him a distraction from his prison life, but also allowed him to become more in tune with the world around him. He was soon able to write more fluently, but more importantly he learned how the history of those in the minority is covered up, as shown by the idea that the “Black” history was only about a paragraph long, while the “White” history took up an entire book. This allowed him to see and come to terms with the racism he found to be so rampant and he soon began working hard to overcome this racism. The effect books had for Richard, however, was far different. Whereas Malcolm X used the books as a mean to get in touch with the world around him, Richard used the stories books conveyed to escape from his life whenever it got really hard. Eventually Wright begins to use the books to understand the real world and come to terms with it, but in the beginning he merely uses them to escape his current life.