Rhetorical Analysis:

Malcolm X-
High School Dropout
to
Renowned Civil Rights Activist

ERH, Section 101

Date Due: 13 July 2014

Date Submitted:

Paper Number 2

Help Received: Peer Review,

Teacher Conference, Noodle Tools

Conner Murphy

Signature: Conner Murphy

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Conner Murphy

LTC Ticen

English 101

9 July 2014

Rhetorical Analysis: Malcolm X

Malcolm X’s, Learning to Read, published in 1965, is just a small portion of his

autobiography which he and journalist Alex Haley constructed over dozens of comprehensive

interviews. The interviews began with Doubleday Publishing Company’s request of Mr. Haley to

write a book on the life and personal experiences of Malcolm X. This particular piece of

Malcolm X’s autobiography that I am analyzing covers Malcolm X’s time in prison and how he

successfully taught himself how to read and write from essentially scratch. Malcolm X dropped

out of school during the eighth grade when “a teacher told him his race would prevent him from

being a lawyer,” (Malcolm 353) which was his life’s aspiration. At the time of the

autobiography’s publishing, Malcolm X was a renowned civil rights activist who, if you heard

him speak, sounded like an extremely well educated man with a college degree. Yet, Malcolm

X’s education had a surprising twist, his education was not even close to a college degree at all,

it was studying the dictionary and the nonstop reading of history books while serving his prison

sentence in the Norfolk Prison. The main reason that Malcolm X was motivated to increase his

reading and writing skills was so that he could send letters to Mr. Elijah Muhammad, the leader

of the Nation of Islam, of which Malcolm X had just joined. This and a few other reasons

motivated Malcolm X to become devoted to reading and writing. In Learning to Read, Malcolm

X discusses his life and personal experiences with the use of emotional appeal, logic, and ethics

to demonstrate to adolescents the necessity and importance of rhetorical skills in life.

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 Malcolm X’s motivation for writing the first part of Learning to Read was to demonstrate

to teenage students, especially of the African-American race, the significance of possessing the

ability to read and write. In trying to do so, Malcolm X states, “In the street, I had been the most

articulate hustler out there-I had commanded attention when I said something. But now, trying to

write simple English, I not only wasn’t eloquent, I wasn’t even functional” (Malcolm 354).

When Malcolm X dropped out of the eighth grade and got involved in organized crime, he was

one of the most persuasive and powerful hustlers, but could not even write in a straight line. He

also wanted to convey that no matter how weak your rhetoric skills are, you can always improve

and develop them. In the later part of this excerpt from Malcolm X’s autobiography, which is

directed more towards adults and society as a whole, Malcolm X argues for the advancement of

African-American human and civil rights in the United States and around the world. And

although Malcolm X was mainly concentrated on the history of black peoples throughout the

world, he also discusses the white man’s horrible oppression on nearly every race and ethnicity

in the world throughout the last few centuries. Malcolm X employs the use of ethos by revealing

Mr. Muhammad’s teachings that “stressed how history had been ‘whitened’-when white men had

written history books, the black man simply had been left out”(Malcolm 356).

In Learning to Read, Malcolm X effectively conveys his points and opinions on

education with the use of logos, pathos, and ethos. These three rhetorical strategies that Malcolm

X employs allow him to successfully present his argument and persuade his readers to support

his case. The point that Malcolm X is trying to present to his readers is that although formal

education is great, you do not need formal schooling to sound smart and educated. He believes

that the only thing teenagers have to do to educate themselves is read more. He notes that

rhetoric, the art of persuasive speaking, reading, and writing, is the absolute most necessary thing

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to advance your role in society and status in life. In order to learn how to read and write,

Malcolm X asked the prison library for a dictionary, pencil, and paper. He then began copying

down every single line of the dictionary and on the second day of owning the dictionary, he

realized that he had retained some of the information that he had copied down. Realizing this,

Malcolm did the same thing every single day until he had copied the entire dictionary. Malcolm

tells us that before receiving the dictionary, he could read books, but would have no clue what

ninety- five percent of the words even meant. Recalling the first time he copied down words,

Malcolm X said, “I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words-immensely proud to

realize that not only had I written so much at one time, but I’d written words that I never knew

were in the world. Moreover, with a little effort, I also could remember what many of these

words meant” (Malcolm 355). Malcolm uses the logos of his argument to explain his

improvement to his readers by saying, “I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base

broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what

the book was saying” (Malcolm 355). Malcolm X uses the pathos of his argument to reflect on

how reading benefited his life by saying, “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed

forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long

dormant craving to be mentally alive” (Malcolm 360). By saying that, Malcolm X created an

emotional connection with his audience. At the beginning of the section, he was an eighth grade

dropout, was involved in organized crime, and sentenced to eight to ten years in prison at the age

of twenty, and has now completely changed his life around with the help of motivation,

dedication, and the desire to learn and better himself. Malcolm X establishes credibility for his

argument by mentioning a time when an English journalist called him in London and asked him

a few questions on his personal experiences. The journalist asked Malcolm X what his alma

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mater was and Malcolm X responded by saying, “Books, a good library” (Malcolm 360). For

those who do not know, by asking Malcolm X what is alma mater was, the journalist was asking

which school or college did he graduate from. The significance of the interview was that an

English journalist had heard Malcolm X speak and wanted to know what college he had attended

because of how well he spoke. But in reality, Malcolm X did not attend college; his education

and rhetoric skills were acquired through his “prison studies,” as he would say.

In Learning to Read, Malcolm X has a second argument. He argues that the white man is

the world’s biggest hypocrite, Christians in particular. Malcolm X argues that Christians do not

act like how they are supposed to act. He states, “I read, I saw, how the white man never has

gone among the non-white peoples bearing the Cross in the true manner and spirit of Christ’s

teachings- meek, humble, and Christ-like,” but instead wages war and commits acts of violence

in greed(Malcolm 358). Malcolm X uses emotional appeal by saying, “Four hundred years of

black blood and sweat invested here in America, and the white man still has the black man

begging for what every immigrant fresh off the ship can take for granted the minute he walks

down the gangplank” (Malcolm 360). Malcolm X establishes his credibility by stating key points

of multiple different books and by doing so, offers his audience the chance to go read them their

selves. For example, he states, “I read H. G. Wells’ Outline of History: Souls of Black Folk by

W.E.B. Du Bois gave me a glimpse into the black people’s history before they came into this

country” (Malcolm 357). Once Malcolm could read, he started reading all the time and was

essentially obsessed with reading. Eventually, Malcolm X began extremely interested into the

history of Africans, slavery, oppression, civil rights, etc. Malcolm X said, “I never will forget

how shocked I was when I began reading about slavery’s total horror. It made such an impact

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upon me that it later became one of my favorite subjects when I became a minister of Mr.

Muhammad’s [in the Nation of Islam]” (Malcolm 357).

In Learning to Read, Malcolm X persuades his audience to support his ideas and beliefs

through the use of rhetorical strategies. He effectively presents his two main arguments through

logic, emotional appeal, and establishing credentials. Malcolm X argued that the studying that

he did in prison was more beneficial than any college degree that he could have gotten if he had

stayed in school. Malcolm X’s two arguments both join the educational, social, cultural, legal,

and economic conversations. The subject of civil rights angered Malcolm X so much that he

founded an organization for African American civil rights. He used the rhetoric skills that he

learned in his “prison studies” to become one of the most renowned civil rights activists in the

history of the world. Malcolm X used his autobiography and its rhetorical style as an opportunity

to express his thoughts and beliefs concerning education and civil rights to the world at the time

when social unrest over the civil rights movement was at its peak.

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 Works Cited

Haley, Alex. Writing About Writing. Comp. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs.

Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011. Print.

Www.alrasid.com, ed. "The Autobiography of Malcolm X." The Autobiography of

Malcolm X. www.alrasid.com, n.d. Web. 12 July 2014. <http://al-rasid.com/

shared_uploads/The.Autobiography.of.MalcolmX.pdf>.