The Autobiography of Malcolm X: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

As the autobiography begins, Malcolm X describes how his mother (Louise), pregnant with Malcolm himself, confronts a gang of Ku Klux Klan members who are looking to kill Malcolm’s father, Earl Little. She bravely tells them he isn’t home, and in response the Klansmen break every window in the house and then ride off.

Earl Little, a travelling preacher and a tall, outspoken black man from Georgia, is a vocal supporter of Marcus Garvey and his ideas of Pan-Africanism, or the belief that people of African descent all around the world should join together against the oppression of whites. Earl always believed he would die by violence, and indeed, Earl and four of his five brothers will die from violence. Here Malcolm interrupts to say that he feels that he, too, will die by violence.

Malcolm is born on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska, the fourth of Louise Little’s children. His older siblings Wilfred, Hilda, and Philbert were born in Philadelphia, while his younger brother Reginald was born in Milwaukee. Earl had three children from a previous marriage as well: Ella, Earl, and Mary, all living in Boston. Malcolm’s mother Louise comes from Granada, and is a mixed-race woman who looks white; her white father, whom she never met, raped her mother.

After a brief stay in Milwaukee, the family moves to Lansing, Michigan, where Earl plans to open a store one day. However, his spreading of Marcus Garvey’s beliefs attracts the negative attention of the Black Legion, a splinter group of the Ku Klux Klan. One night in 1929, which Malcolm calls the “nightmare night,” the Black Legion sets their house on fire. Earl shoots his pistol at the arsonists and then directs the family out and to safety.

After this incident, Earl Little goes on to build the family a home outside of town with his own hands. This will be the house Malcolm remembers as his childhood home. The police and firefighters, meanwhile, do nothing about the attack, other than to question Earl about his pistol.

Earl Little was a violent man, Malcolm says, often beating his wife (probably because of Louise’s educated way of talking back) and the other children for breaking his rules. However, he never beat Malcolm, who attributes this to his lighter skin tone, which subconsciously gave him a more privileged status in his father’s eyes.

Malcolm has memories of his father preaching in various churches, full of emotion as he led the service. However, Malcolm always had trouble believing in the Christian God, even as a child.

The black people who attend his father’s services, Malcolm tells us, were and still are in “bad shape.” By this he means that they were too interested in status symbols. The “leaders” of the community worked in white businesses as waiters and shoe shiners. Meanwhile, the majority of people were on welfare or starved. Malcolm’s family lived better, however, thanks to their country home and garden.

The other image Malcolm has of his father Earl is of him leading meetings, spreading Marcus Garvey’s philosophy. At these meetings, they would pass along literature and photographs of Garvey and his massive rallies. Seeing his father as the leader of these intelligent, down-to-earth meetings with their serious politics always made Malcolm more proud than when he saw him as a preacher. His leadership role, in Malcolm’s eyes, confirmed that his father was a “tough man.”

Meanwhile, his mother Louise had the enormous task of caring for the home and its eight children, often while arguing with their father about her dietary restrictions (she refused to eat pork and rabbit). Unlike Earl, she frequently beat Malcolm, and he suspects this was precisely because of his lighter skin; she unconsciously despised him because he resembled his rapist grandfather’s skin tone. But Malcolm often escaped harsh punishment by crying loudly so as to alarm the neighbors and embarrass Louise.

At five, Malcolm began going to school with his other siblings. The schools were integrated, but nobody made a big deal about it. There weren’t enough African Americans in the area for it to really matter or for there to be an alternative. And while he did receive racial slurs, Malcolm writes that they were not said “as an insult.”

One afternoon in 1931, Earl and Louise are fighting over whether or not she will cook a rabbit for dinner. After killing the rabbit and throwing it at her feet, Earl storms out of the house and heads for town. Louise, suddenly struck with a premonition that Earl will be killed, runs outside, calling after him. But he merely waves and walks on.

Louise finishes cooking dinner, but is on edge after her vision of Earl’s death. When he doesn’t come home, the family heads to bed, the children all aware of the tension. Malcolm awakes to the sounds of Louise screaming; Earl has been run over by a streetcar. The black community, however, whispers that this was not an accident, but rather murder by the Black Legion; not only was he run over, but he had first been badly beaten.

Malcolm doesn’t remember much of the funeral, other than it happening outside of a church – a strange detail, considering that his father was a minister. Family friends come in and out of the house for a week, but then life begins to return to normal. However, the family has practically no income, after one of Earl’s life insurance policies is deemed void. The insurance company justifies this by claiming he committed suicide.

Wilfred, sensing the impending hardship, quits school and begins to work in town. Hilda takes care of the younger kids. Philbert and Malcolm, meanwhile, fight each other and anyone else they meet, with Reginald tagging along. Louise tries to find work as a housemaid, and she finds several positions thanks to her light skin. However, when each new employer finds out she is not white after all, she is let go.

Around this time, Welfare agents begin to come frequently around the house, asking lots of questions. The family does begin to receive Welfare assistance, but it comes at the cost of these degrading meetings. Louise tries hard to not only provide for the family, but to do so in a way that she can be proud of. Unfortunately, her pride and the family’s sustenance begin to unravel.

By 1934, the family is at its lowest point. The Depression is at its worst and no one in town has enough to eat. Meals for Louise’s family might consist of old bread, cornmeal, or sometimes just dandelion greens, to the amusement of some cruel schoolchildren. Malcolm and Philbert begin to hunt for rabbits and frogs, which they then sell to white neighbors, who support them out of pity.

The family, and especially Louise, begins to deteriorate psychologically. Malcolm, fed up with being labeled a Welfare recipient, starts to become criminally deviant and steal food. Alternatively, he will visit other families such as the Gohannases around dinner time, fishing for an invite to stay. His activities attract the attention of the town and the Welfare people, who begin trying to take him away from the rest of family.

Louise also begins to receive visits from Seventh-Day Adventists, a conservative but welcoming religious organization, and she takes the family to their meetings out in the country. Malcolm thinks they are extremely friendly, even if a little eccentric. The main attraction, however, is the plentiful food that accompanies each of their meetings. Malcolm observes that white people don’t season their food the way black people do.

The Welfare people continue to come, looking to separate the family and to take Malcolm away in particular. As the pressures from running the home and dealing with the state increase, implications that Louise is going crazy begin to circulate. Her religious dietary restrictions, spurred on by the Adventists, further these comments, as she refuses to cook pork for the family, even if it is free and they have nothing else.

In an effort to make the family more secure, Louise begins to see a “dark man from Lansing” in 1935. She works hard to get him to marry her, but it would be an enormous burden for him to take responsibility for feeding eight stepchildren. After about a year, he finally walks away, a decision Malcolm understands. But he also understands his mother’s attempts to save the family any way possible.

At this point, Louise really starts to lose control of her mental state, and the state agencies begins to seriously discuss sending Malcolm to live with the Gohannases, who have offered to take him in. He doesn’t want to leave his siblings, whom he loves very much. But, he is finally taken away.

Malcolm shares a room with Big Boy, and they get along well. The boys would go hunting with Mr. Gohannas, and they would flush out rabbits. Malcolm figured out a way to get them for himself before the other hunters would have a chance, and they never caught on. He takes it as a lesson in how to be successful: if there’s an established system, then it can be made to work in your favor.

Malcolm continues to visit home, where his mother is mentally deteriorating. Finally, Louise breaks down and is sent to the State Mental Hospital. The children, meanwhile, are now fully under the protection and the watch of the state. Malcolm equates this state custody to the total control of black lives under the regime of slavery a century earlier.

Louise will be in that hospital for 27 years, and visiting her will cause emotional pain for Malcolm for years to come. He tries to talk with her, but she often doesn’t recognize him, and he feels totally crushed by her lack of recognition. He avoids discussing her with anyone to avoid lashing out emotionally or violently, and eventually he stops going to see her altogether.

Wilfred and Hilda are allowed to stay on in their family’s home, as they are nearly adults anyways; the rest of the children are sent to live with various families in the area. However, they manage to stay in touch and see each other often in Lansing.