SOURCE: "Malcolm X," in Cambridge Quarterly, Vol. IV, No. 1, Winter, 1969, pp. 84-94.

In the following essay, Caserio analyzes The Autobiography of Malcolm X, using the works of other modern African-American writers as a means of comparing and contrasting the views expressed by Malcolm X with those of his contemporaries.

In 1963 Malcolm X was asked by a free-lance writer named Alex Haley to tell the story of his life, so that it could be published as a full-scale autobiography. Malcolm X was at that time the chief of staff of an American religious sect called the Nation of Islam, whose members were identified as 'Black Muslims' by the national press. Its leader was and still is a Georgia-born black man named Elijah Muhammad, who claims he has been chosen by Allah to be the saviour of American negroes. The sect requires of its members an ascetic moral discipline, and...