Read Online The autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X; Alex Haley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Malcolm X; Alex Haley
Tags: Historical, Biography & Autobiography, Political, Biography, USA, Religious, Cultural Heritage, Autobiography, Afro-Americans, African Americans, Political & Military, Black Muslims - Biography, Autobiography: Historical, Islam - General, People of Color, Black & Asian studies, Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General, Biography: political, X, Political Freedom & Security - Civil Rights, Malcolm, Black Muslims, Afro-Americans - Biography, Black studies
Ads: Link
say-so over us. A white man in charge of a black man's children! Nothing but legal, modern slavery-however kindly intentioned.
***
My mother remained in the same hospital at Kalamazoo for about twenty-sixyears. Later, when I was still growing up in Michigan, I would go to visit her every so often. Nothing that I can imagine could have moved me as deeply as seeing her pitiful state. In 1963, we got my mother out of the hospital, and she now lives there in Lansing with Philbert and his family.
It was so much worse than if it had been a physical sickness, for which a cause might be known, medicine given, a cure effected. Every time I visited her, when finally they led her-a case, a number-back inside from where we had been sitting together, I felt worse.
My last visit, when I knew I would never come to see her again-there-was in 1952. I was twenty- seven. My brother Philbert had told me that on his last visit, she had recognized him somewhat. “In spots,” he said.
But she didn't recognize me at all.
She stared at me. She didn't know who I was.
Her mind, when I tried to talk, to reach her, was somewhere else. I asked, “Mama, do you know what day it is?”
She said, staring, “All the people have gone.”
I can't describe how I felt. The woman who had brought me into the world, and nursed me, and advised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn't know me. It was as if I was trying to walk up the side of a hill of feathers. I looked at her. I listened to her “talk.” But there was nothing I could do.
I truly believe that if ever a state social agency destroyed a family, it destroyed ours. We wanted and tried to stay together. Our home didn't have to be destroyed. But the Welfare, the courts, and their doctor, gave us theone-two-three punch. And ours was not the only case of this kind.
I knew I wouldn't be back to see my mother again because it could make me a very vicious and dangerous person-knowing how they had looked at us as numbers and as a case in their book, not as human beings. And knowing that my mother in there was a statistic that didn't have to be, that existed because of a society's failure, hypocrisy, greed, and lack of mercy and compassion. Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.
I have rarely talked to anyone about my mother, for I believe that I am capable of killing a person, without hesitation, who happened to make the wrong kind of remark about my mother. So I purposely don't make any opening for some fool to step into.
Back then when our family was destroyed, in 1937, Wilfred and Hilda were old enough so that the state let them stay on their own in the big four-room house that my father had built. Philbert was placed with another family in Lansing, a Mrs. Hackett, while Reginald and Wesley went to live with a family called Williams, who were friends of my mother's. And Yvonne and Robert went to live with a West Indian family named McGuire.
Separated though we were, all of us maintained fairly close touch around Lansing-in school and out-whenever we could get together. Despite the artificially created separation and distance between us, we still remained very close in our feelings toward each other.
CHAPTER TWO MASCOT
On June twenty-seventh of that year, nineteen thirty-seven, Joe Louis knocked out James J. Braddock to become the heavyweight champion of the world. And all the Negroes in Lansing, like Negroes everywhere, went wildly happy with the greatest celebration of race pride our generation had ever known. Every Negro boy old enough to walk wanted to be the next Brown Bomber. My brother Philbert, who had already become a pretty good boxer in school, was no exception. (I was trying to play basketball. I was gangling and tall, but I wasn't very good at it-too awkward.) In the fall of that year, Philbert entered the amateur bouts that were held in Lansing's Prudden Auditorium.
He did well,
***
My mother remained in the same hospital at Kalamazoo for about twenty-sixyears. Later, when I was still growing up in Michigan, I would go to visit her every so often. Nothing that I can imagine could have moved me as deeply as seeing her pitiful state. In 1963, we got my mother out of the hospital, and she now lives there in Lansing with Philbert and his family.
It was so much worse than if it had been a physical sickness, for which a cause might be known, medicine given, a cure effected. Every time I visited her, when finally they led her-a case, a number-back inside from where we had been sitting together, I felt worse.
My last visit, when I knew I would never come to see her again-there-was in 1952. I was twenty- seven. My brother Philbert had told me that on his last visit, she had recognized him somewhat. “In spots,” he said.
But she didn't recognize me at all.
She stared at me. She didn't know who I was.
Her mind, when I tried to talk, to reach her, was somewhere else. I asked, “Mama, do you know what day it is?”
She said, staring, “All the people have gone.”
I can't describe how I felt. The woman who had brought me into the world, and nursed me, and advised me, and chastised me, and loved me, didn't know me. It was as if I was trying to walk up the side of a hill of feathers. I looked at her. I listened to her “talk.” But there was nothing I could do.
I truly believe that if ever a state social agency destroyed a family, it destroyed ours. We wanted and tried to stay together. Our home didn't have to be destroyed. But the Welfare, the courts, and their doctor, gave us theone-two-three punch. And ours was not the only case of this kind.
I knew I wouldn't be back to see my mother again because it could make me a very vicious and dangerous person-knowing how they had looked at us as numbers and as a case in their book, not as human beings. And knowing that my mother in there was a statistic that didn't have to be, that existed because of a society's failure, hypocrisy, greed, and lack of mercy and compassion. Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.
I have rarely talked to anyone about my mother, for I believe that I am capable of killing a person, without hesitation, who happened to make the wrong kind of remark about my mother. So I purposely don't make any opening for some fool to step into.
Back then when our family was destroyed, in 1937, Wilfred and Hilda were old enough so that the state let them stay on their own in the big four-room house that my father had built. Philbert was placed with another family in Lansing, a Mrs. Hackett, while Reginald and Wesley went to live with a family called Williams, who were friends of my mother's. And Yvonne and Robert went to live with a West Indian family named McGuire.
Separated though we were, all of us maintained fairly close touch around Lansing-in school and out-whenever we could get together. Despite the artificially created separation and distance between us, we still remained very close in our feelings toward each other.
CHAPTER TWO MASCOT
On June twenty-seventh of that year, nineteen thirty-seven, Joe Louis knocked out James J. Braddock to become the heavyweight champion of the world. And all the Negroes in Lansing, like Negroes everywhere, went wildly happy with the greatest celebration of race pride our generation had ever known. Every Negro boy old enough to walk wanted to be the next Brown Bomber. My brother Philbert, who had already become a pretty good boxer in school, was no exception. (I was trying to play basketball. I was gangling and tall, but I wasn't very good at it-too awkward.) In the fall of that year, Philbert entered the amateur bouts that were held in Lansing's Prudden Auditorium.
He did well,
Similar Books
