credible amount of history and literature through his reading alone, reflecting on his education as“ It had really begun back in the Charlestown Prison”( 258). Without an external figure, like a teacher, giving him ideas of what to think when he read, and without the limitations of what a public school is able to teach, Malcolm X could see the prejudice existing in the world even through the lenses of the discriminators attempting to silence those trying to share their stories( 260, 261).
The idea of sponsors wedges into conversation when I compare my experience with literacy to Malcolm X’ s. Why was it that I grew up reading books from a young age and going to school five days a week for years, yet I had a smaller worldview than a prisoner who had to teach himself to read? It comes down to who or what invoked that literacy into us. Malcolm X was in an environment where, despite the obvious displeasure of being a prisoner, there was an excess of time for him to spend thinking, reading, and writing with very little interruption or variety of activities to do. Malcolm X describes that even after the guards yelled,“ Lights out!” he continued to read through the soft glow of a corridor light as long as he could stay awake( 260). The prison library was
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