The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Have just reread The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and it is as timely as it was in the 1960's. The life as a child with the murder of his father and the institutionalizing of his mother, leaving him and his siblings at the mercy of the state. One insurance company - his father had two policies, one small - saying his father had committed suicide. The larger policy would have kept the family off welfare.

The life hustling on the streets, the burglary that put him in prison -- longer sentence because he was involved with a white woman. And then the conversion to The Nation of Islam, led by Elijah Muhammed. The work in the fields gathering converts to The Nation of Islam, the eventual betrayal by Elijah Muhammed, the trip to Mecca, another trip to the Mideast, and then the assassination. Leaving his wife, Betty Shabazz, four daughters, and a fifth daughter on the way. I'm not sure how his widow supported the family, other than from proceeds from the book. Decades later, Betty died from burns in a fire set in her apartment by a grandson.

He met Maya Angelou in Ghana. She then planned to come back to the U.S. and work with Malcolm X, but he was assassinated before she could work for him. The same with Dr. Martin Luther King a few years later.

I always preferred Malcolm X to Dr. King, even though both were needed in the Civil Rights movement, because Malcolm X was so blunt and direct.