The Autobiography of Malcolm X: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

One day, Malcolm is playing blackjack with the other black railroad men in a locker room at Grand Central Station, when one of the others tries to cheat. Malcolm pulls his gun on him as a threat. The next time he goes back, Malcolm gets confronted by the police and is told to never come to the station again unless he has a ticket to go somewhere. And so his trips on the railroad come to an end.

Back in Harlem, the narcotics squad knows Malcolm too well for him to keep selling reefers. With no other skills, he has to find a new hustle. He likens the hustler’s life to that of an animal who must constantly move and prey on others to survive. He starts to do small robberies and stickups in nearby cities for the next six months. His use of narcotics keeps him from getting too nervous both on the jobs and in between, but he still changes rooms often.

Once, Malcolm and Sammy are nearly caught. As they are running away, they hear sirens behind them. The police car approaches, and they move into the street, pretending to ask for directions. The cops fall for the trick, curse them, and drive on to find the robbers.

Malcolm disciplines himself to not perform more “jobs” than necessary; he only goes when he is running low on cash. Meanwhile, he plays the numbers every day, waiting to one day have a big payout—but he never gets a big hit.

Reginald comes back on his ship one day, and this time, he decides to stay. He has fallen in love with Malcolm’s musician friends and their world. Malcolm introduces him to everyone, such as Billie Holiday, who then treat Reginald as their own baby brother.

Wanting to provide Reginald with a stable home, Malcolm starts to rent an apartment for $100 a month. At nighttime, Malcolm “schools” Reginald on what’s happening around them, and then introduces him to his friends at the late-night speakeasies. Those speakeasies, as always, are packed with white people, who have come to take in black “soul.” Often at the most popular places, like Jimmy’s Chicken Shack, there are big-name celebrities, both white and black.

Malcolm gets Reginald a hustle that will make him money but be risk-free—he gets him a license to sell petty goods, and then takes him to buy cheap goods from a manufacturer’s outlet. Reginald will then present the goods as if they’re stolen and high-value, and thereby get more money for them.

Malcolm assumes that Reginald, like most black men at the time, will be interested in white women, but that is not the case. Instead, Reginald starts dating a black woman in her thirties who provides everything for him. His choice in partner gains Reginald even more respect from Malcolm.

Racial tensions throughout the war simmer just below boiling point. Then, in 1943, a white officer shoots a black soldier, and a riot ensues. Many stores are smashed and lots of goods are stolen, which leads to even worse economic conditions after the riot ends. After this, very few white people keep coming to Harlem for the night life.

Nowadays (in the early 1960s), Malcolm says, Harlem’s night life scene is gone, including the scene for black people. Black people that have money instead choose to go downtown and spend it in fancy white-owned hotels and restaurants, something Malcolm sees as simply another way of putting on airs and of undercutting black businesses.

The poor economic situation (in 1943) has hurt all parts of the Harlem underground, and the hustlers and prostitutes are all getting day jobs. Malcolm and Sammy start to pull more dangerous robberies together. One day they are caught mid-act, and Sammy’s arm is grazed by a bullet from a security guard. They split up, and then meet back at Sammy’s apartment early the next morning. Sammy’s girlfriend is crying very loudly and blaming Malcolm. Malcolm hits her “to shut her up,” and Sammy reaches for his gun. Malcolm is able to get away, and he and Sammy later make up, but things are never the same between them after that.

Malcolm enters the numbers business on his reputation as a good hustler. His new boss and his wife have been granted control of a section of the city’s numbers racket for six months by the mob. Malcolm’s job is simply to pass on a bag of numbers slips to another man at a bus stop every day. Sometimes, he will have conversations with the boss’s wife about how the criminal world is actually inseparable from politics and the legal world.

Now that he’s in the racket, Malcolm decides to start placing his bets with West Indian Archie, who works for the same boss. Archie has a photographic memory, which makes him very valuable as a numbers runner, as he never carries evidence of gambling. Placing bets with him is a status symbol, since he only takes large betters. He also often pays off the hits from his own money, and then collects from his banker later.

Malcolm meets a Brothel Madam who recruits Malcolm to help her outsource certain sexual requests that her workers won’t do. His job is to stand on the corner of 45th and Broadway with a white flower in his lapel, and then to accompany the customers to special locations in Harlem where their desires will be met. This steering gets him very heavy tips from the middle-aged and senior men, who are often big politicians and leaders in society. One of the people Malcolm directs his clients to is a big, strong black woman who whips her customers as they beg for mercy—and sometimes they pay Malcolm to watch.

Another of Malcolm’s acquaintances is a white lesbian woman who runs a “stable” of black men for white women. Having heard of black men’s prowess, these often bored, married womenpay heavily, and almost always with a color preference for the darkest men. Malcolm sees this color preference as ironic, because these customers nevertheless do not respect the people they use, men and women alike. Malcolm also believes that black men, like himself, who sleep with white women (in his case, Sophia) are also just using them.

One morning, a bar in Harlem gets held up by a light-skinned black man, and Malcolm is considered a suspect. After he gets interrogated by some thugs looking for the robber, he calls Sammy and the Brothel Madam, who then help him to leave town and go see Philbert in Michigan. About a week later, Sammy telegrams him that the coast is clear: someone else confessed.

Malcolm then starts working for Hymie, a specialist in renovating bars and restaurants and then selling for profit. Malcolm’s main job is to transport bootleg liquor to some of the bars in Harlem, where it is substituted for brand-name liquor, unbeknownst to the customers. Malcolm and Hymie get along well, and he’s making good money. But after a scandal involving corruption at the State Liquor Authority, Hymie is murdered at sea.

In the Bronx, a tall, light skinned black man holds up an Italian mobsters’ craps game, once again bringing suspicion on Malcolm. Unarmed, he is confronted by two Italians, when all of a sudden a cop walks in, thereby saving him.

Meanwhile, Malcolm has just hit his number on a small bet and is going to meet his friend Jean Parks for a night out. He heads to Sammy’s place, where he tells him what just happened, and Sammy says that West Indian Archie just came looking for Malcolm. While they wait for the evening to proceed, they do some cocaine.