Summary—Chapter Seventeen: Mecca
America needs to understand Islam, because
this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Malcolm explains that every Muslim must, if possible,
make a pilgrimage, or hajj, to the holy city of
Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Malcolm has no trouble receiving financial
backing from Ella, who has also withdrawn from the Nation of Islam.
When Malcolm applies for a hajj visa, he learns that his status
as a Muslim must be approved by Mahmoud Youssef Shawarbi, a Muslim
United Nations advisor.
Malcolm leaves the United States and goes to see sights
in Cairo. He then flies to Jedda, Saudi Arabia, where officials
confiscate his passport and tell him a high court must establish
whether or not he is a true Muslim. Officials send him to a crowded
airport dormitory, where he reflects on the various languages, colors,
and customs of the Muslims around him. Malcolm calls Omar Azzam,
a friend of Shawarbi’s, for help. Azzam vacates his father’s suite
at the Jedda Palace Hotel for Malcolm. This hospitality
impresses Malcolm, who enjoys fine food and conversation with Jedda’s
elite and is lent a car by Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal himself
to make the hajjto Mecca.
Malcolm describes his sense of wonder at Mecca. During
his visit, he admires the Islamic world’s lack of racial divisions.
At the end of the hajj, Malcolm writes letters home that express
his changed perspective on racial problems in the United States.
Having met white-skinned people who are untainted by racism, Malcolm now
locates America’s problems in the white attitude generated by four
hundred years of collective violence against blacks. He sees Islam
as a solution to America’s problems. Malcolm signs all of his letters
“El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz,” which becomes his official name, although
the world continues to refer to him as Malcolm X.
Summary—Chapter Eighteen: “El-Hajj Malik
El-Shabazz”
The American Negro has been entirely
brainwashed from ever seeing or thinking of himself, as he should,
as a part of the nonwhite peoples of the world.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
Malcolm learns that leaders and intellectuals of nonwhite
nations are interested in the plight of American blacks. Malcolm
flies to Lebanon, where he is warmly received. In Ghana, a high
commissioner gives Malcolm ceremonial robes. Malcolm then visits
Liberia, Senegal, and Morocco before returning home. In New York,
reporters besiege him with questions that imply a connection between
him and race riots erupting across the country. The press’s failure
to acknowledge Malcolm’s new outlook frustrates him.
Summary—Chapter Nineteen: “1965”
I’m for truth, no matter who tells it.
I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
In Harlem Malcolm holds meetings for a new organization,
the Organization for Afro-American Unity. He emphasizes its inclusiveness
of people of any faith, though it excludes whites from membership.
Malcolm believes that whites should change their own communities
in separate organizations and that black people must unify before
they band together with whites to fight racism. Malcolm returns
to Africa and the Middle East for another eighteen weeks, meeting
with many world leaders. He confesses to feeling stifled in his
new endeavors by his reputation. He predicts that he will die a
violent death, doubting that he will live to see the publication of
his autobiography.
Analysis—Chapters Seventeen, Eighteen & Nineteen
Malcolm’s articulation of a new vision for black Americans,
urging them to see themselves as one of a number of nonwhite minorities seeking
justice worldwide, shows how his openness to new experiences allows
him to develop philosophies that greatly contrast with those he
espoused previously. His visits to several African nations that
have recently won their independence from European colonial powers,
as well as to socialist Egypt and anti-imperialist India, inspire
his vision of a worldwide context for the civil rights movement.
Instead of resisting the differences between their version of Islam
and his own, he thoughtfully considers how their philosophy can
be applied to blacks in America. Malcolm’s intention to bring the
United States in front of a U.N. tribunal on the charges of mass human
rights violations demonstrates the extent of his commitment to a
new kind of Islam.
