In “A Homemade Education,” Malcolm X expresses that reading and increasing your knowledge is extremely important and that it has helped him understand black history and slavery. Malcolm X was very frustrated with himself because he could not convey what he wanted to say when it came to writing simple English. Many people, who have heard Malcolm X on television or read something he wrote, would have thought that he had obtained an education “beyond the eight grade” (1). Malcolm X claims that this impression of him is a result of him studying during his prison sentence. It began when he met a man named Bimbi in the Charlestown Prison, where he felt as if he was far less knowledgeable than him. Bimbi always took “charge of any conversation” he …show more content…
He thought that the best thing he could do to improve his comprehension would be to study and learn words from a dictionary. He spent two days reading a dictionary and became overwhelmed by all of the words that he did not know even existed. He began copying all of the words onto his tablets, one page every day, and he would read them aloud to himself. Eventually, he was able to remember almost all of the words he had studied. Ever since his “word-base broadened,” he was able to pick up a book and understand what he was reading (3). He began to read the teachings of Mr. Muhammad that emphasized how history had been “whitened,” meaning that white men had taken control of the history books and that the black man had been excluded. Malcolm X became very interested in black history and slavery. He read many books about black history such as Will Durant’s Story of Civilization, H.G. Wells’ Outline of History, and Souls Of Black Jack by W.E.B. Du Bois. The horror of slavery that he read in these books left a huge impact on Malcolm X, which eventually caused him to become a minister of Mr. Muhammad’s to battle for African-American civil …show more content…
For example, whenever he read a book, he would skip all the words that he did not know the definition of. He began to read and copy all of the words in the dictionary, which helped him understand the content in books. I can relate to this because I use to skip the words I did not understand as well and I didn’t comprehend what the text meant completely. Today, whenever I encounter a word that I do not understand, I look up the definition of the word on the Internet or in a dictionary, which helps me understand what I am reading immediately. I also agree with Malcolm X on how there are too many distractions in college. Too many distractions will cause students to perform poorly in college and it is one of the reasons why there are so many college dropouts. Although it is important to be involved in extracurricular activities for the health of the students, their education is still far more important as it will affect their