In the following essay, Benson offers an analysis of Malcolm X's Autobiography based on the principles of rhetoric, and contends that The Autobiography of Malcolm X "achieves a unique synthesis of selfhood and rhetorical instrumentality."

In the following essay, Goodheart examines the identity of Malcolm X—as set forth in The Autobiography of Malcolm X—using the theoretical framework of Erik Erikson.

In the following essay, Groppe employs the developmental stage theory of Erik Erikson to demonstrate Malcolm X's "growth into trust" as it is related in The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

In the following review, Rustin offers a favorable assessment of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, summarizing the content and providing an analysis of some of Malcolm X's political and social beliefs and strategies.

In the following essay, Locke discusses director Spike Lee's film adaptation of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

[No one can listen to the voice transcribed in The Autobiography of Malcolm X] or the printed versions of his public speeches, without forming the sense of an extraordinary human being: fiercely intelligent, shrewdly and humanely responsive to the life around him despite every reason in the world to have gone blind with suspicion and hate, a rarely gifted leader and inspirer of other men. The form of autobiographical narration adds something further; he comes through to us as the forceful agent of a life-hi...

In the following essay, Gates relates his persona! experience of reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X as a young man.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X testifies to the black experience in America. More precisely, it testifies to the personal cost of the black experience in America. The first chapter records the death of Malcolm's father, the victim apparently of whites who resented his propagandizing for Marcus Garvey's back-to-Africa movement; in the "Epilogue," Alex Haley describes the assassination of Malcolm X…. The lives of father and son alike were fundamentally shaped to their violen...

[Malcolm X was a latter-day example of] the man who "makes it," the man who, from humble origins and with meager education, converts, by will, intelligence, and sterling character, his liabilities into assets. (p. 161) Malcolm X fulfills, it would seem, all the requirements—success against odds, the role of prophet, and martyrdom—for inclusion in the American pantheon. (p. 162)

The modest hero of [The Autobiography of Malcom X] is really Alex Haley, who provides, in his introduction, a frank and just appreciation of Malcolm X, and whose task it was, at snatched moments over two hectic years, first to win Malcolm's confidence and then persuade him to tell his story fully. The result is beyond praise, for one must instantly feel that though this is, technically, a 'ghosted' book, it is Malcolm's thought and voice we are hearing all the time…. Malco...

Clearly [Malcolm X] had charisma, but powering that charisma was his capacity to understand and articulate his own American experience and so link it with that of other blacks that he was indeed a spokesman…. The nature of his own experience and its series of "conversions" … is distilled with candor and cutting clarity in [The Autobiography of Malcom X] (with writer Alex Haley serving as an admirably unobtrusive and astute organizer of the material)…. The autobiography is ...

[The] distinctive feature of the Autobiography is its naturalistic use of time, the willingness to let the past stand as it was, in its own season, even when later developments, of intellect or intuition or event, give it a different quality…. The atmosphere in which the Autobiography operates is remarkably practical and quick-moving; its genius springs from being so and at the same time remarkably responsive to crystallizations of meaning…. (pp. 274-75) Michael G. Cooke, in Roman...