US History, The Autobiography of Malcom X by Malcolm X (1965)

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X : CHANGES IN MALCOLM X 'S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS (QUESTION ONE

As demonstrated in his autobiography , Malcolm X 's religious evolved in his life from an ill-defined Christianity to atheism to a fervent initially rigid (but later tolerant ) practice of Islam . Born the son of a part-time Baptist lay preacher , he abandoned his boyhood faith considering it a means of keeping blacks powerless , during his years as a criminal and prisoner . He discovered Islam in 1948 and used it to both redeem himself and condemn white society and Christianity alike

br until in 1964 his pilgrimage to Mecca moved him toward a more broadly tolerant practice of his faith . His outlooks shaped those of many African Americans , who grew impatient with Martin Luther King 's peaceful approach and looked to his separatism as a more viable example

Born Malcolm Little , he was originally influenced more by activism than religion , since his parents were followers of Marcus Garvey , whose criticisms of American society 's racism were well-rooted in African-American society well before the civil rights movement began Garvey 's teachings did not reject Christianity and sharply attacked the United States ' racist society , but Malcolm X believed his parents had been brainwashed by keeping the faith of a then-racist white America As he told his congregation in 1962 : My father was a black man and my mother was a black woman , but yet the songs that they sang in their church were designed to make fill their hearts with the desire to be white ' As a boy , he was , if not a devout Christian , at least a practicing one . His father was a Baptist lay preacher , but after his murder in 1929 , his mother raised her children with a sort of eclectic theism based partly on the teachings of the Seventh Day Adventists but independent of any established sect . He thus did not cling to a strict version of the faith or have a deep attachment to any doctrine before his conversion to Islam . Even after his family dissolved and he drifted into crime , he did not necessarily reject Christianity outright even as a petty criminal , he occasionally attended community forums at St Mark 's Congregational Church in Boston , where he moved in 1940

While in prison , he turned from a loose Christianity to an angry atheism , in which he rejected religion as having no relevance to his life and viewed white society as the cause for his descent into drug use and petty crime . As he later explained , This religion [Christianity] taught that the `Negro ' that black was a curse . It taught him that everything white was good , to be admired , respected , and loved ' This specific aspect of Christianity came to repel him , as he equated it with the white supremacy that held sway in the United States of his youth As he told Alex Haley , Shorty [his friend and partner in crime] had turned as atheist as I had been to start with ' He even gained a reputation...