The Autobiography of Malcolm X

An autobiography written in collaboration with the journalist Alex Haley from interviews held between 1963 and 1965, and published after Malcolm X's assassination in February 1965. It follows his childhood in Nebraska and Michigan, his father's violent death and his mother's committal to a mental hospital; his years as a hustler in Boston and Harlem; and his imprisonment, where he educated himself by copying a dictionary and reading in the prison library, and joined the Nation of Islam. The middle chapters describe his rise as a minister under Elijah Muhammad, preaching Black self-reliance and condemning white America. The book then recounts his break with the Nation and his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, where meeting Muslims of every colour led him to reject the view that all white people are evil. Haley's epilogue describes their work together. Historians, notably Manning Marable, have noted that Haley's editing and the book's form left parts of the story incomplete.

It is a vivid account of self-education and conversion, and of a mind that kept changing; it remains central to understanding Black nationalism and the American civil rights era.