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Timothy Williams
Professor Mohamad
English 226
13 may 2014
The Change
Have you been to jail? I have. I am in the population of black men that served time. Black
women also serve time to. Is it because we are black. Even if you are just protecting yourself like I was
doing the white police man does not care. What they care about is another black in the jail population.
A white woman once told me that she never been pulled over. She said you properly have because
youre black. She's right. I been pulled over lots of times and I did not know why. Is skin color still an
issue in are society. Do they want to lock all the African American up men and women? Searching for
any reason to put blacks away. But us as African American we must fight. Fight for equality and a fair
life like the whites are getting. But those who do make mistakes keep your head up. By mistake I mean
those who do jail time. But make one promise to yourself that you will learn from your mistake. By
learning from it change for the better. In the autobiographies of Malcolm X and Angela Davis they both
went to prison and illustrated messages and shows a direction tors change.
First I want to start off with the back ground of both black movement activist. Malcolm was
effected by ignorance when he was young. His father got killed when he was six. He says, it was
morning when we children at home got the word that he was dead. I was six. (10) After that things whet
downhill for his family. His dad was the bread winner. So Malcolm mother had to get on welfare to
feed him and four other children. It was not long before the welfare worker started visiting and declared
Malcolm mom as crazy. Soon they took her to a state mental hospital at Kalamazoo. So his family was
broke apart and a judge of Lansing had power over him his brothers and sisters. Malcolm when to live
with a white women named Mrs. Swerlin. Soon after living there he started living with his sister Ella in

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Boston. He met new people. Even started hanging with a white woman by the name of Sophia. After
finding a railroad job he moved to Harlem. This is where he started being in the streets.
Angela grew up in Birmingham. Where she lived there were a lot of all white places. When she
went to New York things were different. Angela says, when we drove by the amusement park at the
Birmingham fairgrounds, where only white children were allowed, I thought about the fun we had at
Coney Island in new York.(83) there was also deaf in her younger days. She says, around the time I
was twelve years old, my grandmother died. (81) Her grandmother taught her what slavery was like,
because her parent was slaves. Her mother was a primary school teacher and taught Angela knowledge.
Her dad was also a teacher. She had one brother and one sister. Around the time Angela was in high
school the civil rights movement was beginning. Both of her parents were NAACP members. Angela
moved to New York after New York she travel around the world completing her education. While
completing her education the black movement was still going on and she wanted to take part in it.
One of the messages that I got from both books was the racism of the white man. Malcolm
experience racism early. From when they put his mother in a mental home. He says, she talked to
herself nearly all of the time now, and there was a crowd of new white people entering the picture
always asking questions. (21). Instead of putting her in mental home and spreading the kids apart the
white people could help the mother with the help she needed and let older kids maintain the home. So
the can grow up together. The children even could of help the mom get well. But the white didnt want
a black family to stay together. When Malcolm live with the Swerlins and to a school with mostly
white racism showed. They called him nigger and thought it was ok. He didnt think anything of it to he
visited his sister Ella. His teacher Mr. Ostrowski even stole his dream of being a lawyer because he was
black even though he was a good student. This was a change not being with your family to being
around racism all the time. He notice a difference between white and blacks. He says, I notice again
how white people smelled different from us, and how their food tasted different, not seasoned like

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Negro cooking. (27) I think being around whites so much is the reason why he started dating one
named Sophia. He says, I paraded her. The Negro men loved her. And she just seemed to love all
Negroes. (71) Malcolm thought wrong because Sophia would be one of the reasons he go to prison. He
had the white devil against him and she was one. Reginald said to Malcolm, the white man is the devil.
(162)
In Angela Davis the white man was also racist. As I introduced Angela Davis I talk about the
difference from Birmingham and New York the segregation. But when she move to LA after going to
school around the world there was still racism. When Angela moved to LA she joined black movement
groups. The police didnt like these groups. They taught the community about blacks and protested
when they thought racism was being used against blacks. One of their protest was when a black man
got killed by a white cop. She says, LAPD Cop for the murder of Brother Gregory Clark. (173) this is
why the black group came about because the white police was always killing black men for no reason.
The black movement groups had a lot of stand offs with the police over blacks. She say, Over a
hundred cops, all trying to look tough, and managing only to look racist (229). She says, the police had
crept into the community in the early hours of the morning and launch a murderous attack on the
Panthers. (231) even though Malcolm and Angela experience racism differently they both went through
it. The message says that whites were blacks main enemies during the time they were growing up.
Malcolm and Angela both spent time in prison. For Malcolm this was his direction of change.
The message that is giving is to never give up on yourself. After moving to Harlem Malcolm change.
He carried a gun smoked reefers and robbed people. So when he move back with Ella he was different
from when he left. When he moved back to town he got back up with some of his old friends. He had
an idea to rob people homes with old friends and some new friends.

. Malcolm said, I disliked the

idea of having too many people involved, all at the same time. But with Shorty and Sophias sister so
close now, and Sophia and me as though we had been together for fifty years and Rudy as eager and

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cool as he was, nobody would be apt to spill, everybody would be under the same risk :( 144-145).
But at the end they got caught. They all went to jail except Rudy. Malcolm says, I got ten years. (154)
in prison they called Malcolm Satan. But a respected man in prison with him named Bimbi lead
Malcolm in the right direction. Malcolm says, he told me I should take advantage of the prison
correspondence courses and the library. (157) he started the courses and was turned to a positive
direction. Now he had an interests in learning. The book says, it was clear that Malcolms interest in
further education was already a part of his life, even before he converted to Mohammad Islam. (Decaro
81)
Angel Davis was wanted for something she didnt do. She say, today, Angela Davis, wanted on
charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in connection with the Marin county Courthouse
shootout (11). Angela was on the run before getting caught. In prison the inmate were on her side. Also
blacks protested for her freedom. In prison Angela lived under bad conditions. She fought for better
condition for her and the other inmates. After trail she was found not guilty and was released. Malcolm
and Angela both went to prison but for different things. They both grew from their prison experiences.
And changed in some way.
Both Malcolm and Angela had special things about them. With Malcolm it was the direction he
went in after exploring his education. His brother Reginald and the rest of his family encouraged an
new religion on him. This is where Malcolm really changed. Reginald told Malcolm, Dont eat any
more pork, and dont smoke anymore cigarettes. (158) this was the first step to Malcolm
transformation. Then his sister Hilda told Malcolm about Mr. Elijah Mohammads teachings and Yacub
history. This is when he started writing Mr. Mohammad and converted to Islam. This was Malcolms
direction of change because when he got out of prison he lived Islamic with his family. These was the
steps he took before being an African American human rights activist. Now he fight for blacks. The
book says, as a Black Muslim, Malcolm was seized with an urgent desire to help black people break

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free of racist oppression by white people. ( Pinkney 164)
What was special about Angela Davis was her political views. When she was across seas
communism sparked her attention. So when she came back to the U.S. it was still one of her interest.
But the black movement groups she was in didnt agree with communism. She said, SNCC simply
could not afford to be associated with communist. (185) But this didnt stop her she still became a
communist despite people negative views. She said, In July 1968, I turned over my fifty-cent---the
initial membership duesto the chairman of the che-lumumba club, and became a full-fledged member
of the communist party U.S.A. (189). With her degrees behind her she got a job at UCLA. But the job
prohibited the hiring of communist. Angela and others protested for her job. But the state didnt like
communist so that was another fight that she had the racism of communist. But even though people
didnt like her political views she still stuck with it. The book says, Davis ran for vice president of the
United States on the communist party ticket in 1980 and 1984. (Clark 340) this is how some viewed
communist. The book says, we felt both amused and flattered that communist were called upon to help
integrate prison houses. (Davis 166). But the message is to do what you are interested in.
Malcolm and Angela went through a lot. The messages of racism and what they learned in
prison. But they are both special and fought for what we have now. Without them the country we live in
will still face the issues that they went through. So I just want to say thanks to both of them from
showing me a message and direction of change.

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Clark, Darlene. Black Women in America: Oxford, New York: Oxford university Press,2005. Print
Davis, Angela. An autobiography: New York: Random House, 2008. Print
Davis, Angela. Women Race, and Class
Decaro, Louis. On the Side of my People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X. New York Decaro, 1996.
Print
Haley, Alex. The autobiography of Malcolm x: New York, 1999. Print.
Pinkney, Andrea. Hand in Hand : New York: Disney,2012. Print