The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Those are two that jump out just as far as my political education.

Then, you know, the autobiography of Malcolm X.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Last one is the autobiography of Malcolm X. It's a coming of age first.

You know, he has a troubled childhood, troubled teenage years.

He becomes a criminal, goes to jail.

I think that's the first coming of age in Malcolm X's life.

But at the end, he has this kind of second coming of age.

Like, I think when I read an autobiography of Malcolm X as a young man, I was interested in Malcolm X finding himself as a young man and rebuilding his life, becoming, you know, going from Malcolm Little to Malcolm X.

But as I've gotten older, I'm much more interested in his second coming of age, towards the end of his life.

When I was a student at Annapolis Senior High School in 1969, four years after the assassination of Malcolm X and the assassination of Dr.

King, I read the autobiography of Malcolm X.

How'd you get the book?

I was required to read it.

I was a student at Annapolis High School.

We were required to read the autobiography of Malcolm X as part of the assignment.

And quite honestly, I was going to fake it.

I was going to kind of flip through it because I had to give an oral report the next day.

That's crazy.

We might have to do a whole episode just on the autobiography of Malcolm X.

I mean, seriously, like for real.

But that was like one of the first books that I read.

David, I am reading a book.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It's fascinating.

I'm just so engaged with who this person is, and I'm learning more and more as I go through the book.

It's a really cool book.

And some of the books banned by Black authors include The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Native Son and Black Boy by Richard Wright, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Floridian Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The 1619 Project, Michelle Alexander's New Jim Crow.

And so people need to understand that even in Miami-Dade and in other parts of Florida, this is something that is concerning.

And what's the website about your documentary?

Yeah.

And then I think when I was in, I read the autobiography of Malcolm X when I was in 10th grade.

Did you really? And that lit me up.

Yeah, my mom was an English teacher.

And we didn't have unlimited, like we didn't want a lot to watch unlimited TV.

The autobiography of Malcolm X, I think, had a lot to do with my formative hashgafas and Yiddishkeit, nationalism, identity.

From there, it was a very, it was like just one step to like, you know, Ramir Kahana, Lahavdil, and The Revolt, and White Nights from Menachem Begin.

You