The Autobiography of Malcolm X changed my life. After I read it, I had to know everything I could about brother Malcolm. I researched for hours and for the last two years, studying things he did, or his mentors did has been a regular preoccupation of mine.

I have decided to take this study to the next level and I invite anyone who interested to join me. I have decided to research Malcolm X's ideas back to their root. This is what I mean; Malcolm X studied under Elijah Muhammad; Elijah Muhammad studied under W. F. Muhammad; W.F. Muhammad was influenced by Noble Drew Ali; Noble Drew Ali was inspired to offer the Moorish Science teachings to people as a religious counterpart to the teachings of Marcus Garvey. Marcus Garvey's philosophy was inspired by Booker T. Washington. I'm going to study each person on this chain of ideas in detail, starting with Booker T. Washington and ending with a revisit to Malcolm X's ideas. As I go along, I'll post whatever I'm studying by one of the people in this group. I'll be studying with anyone who goes on; I'm posting it before I finish reading it.

I'll start with Booker T. Washington. Booker T. Washington is widely considered to be the first Civil Rights leader after the end of slavery. Pessimistic about the ability of white society to accept blacks in his generation, he advocated that black people try to make themselves appear "respectible" in hopes that future generations of whites could accept them. He was widely criticized as what would today be called an "Uncle Tom" by many critics, most notably NAACP founder WEB DuBouis, who began to push for integration. (It should be noted however that he did secretly give money to pro-integration groups.) His vision of self-sufficiency for blacks however would influence black nationalism and ultimately black power. Marcus Garvey reportedly left Jamaica for America immediately after finishing Up From Slavery in hopes of meeting Washington but he died before Garvey arrived.

Here are his books:

Up From Slavery (his autobiography)
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/washington/menu.html
My Larger Education
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/washeducation/menu.html

A short bio:

http://www.gale.com/free_resources/b...shington_b.htm

"Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Hale's Ford, Virginia, reportedly on April 5, 1856. After emancipation, his family was so poverty stricken that he worked in salt furnaces and coal mines beginning at age nine. Always an intelligent and curious child, he yearned for an education and was frustrated when he could not receive good schooling locally. When he was 16 his parents allowed him to quit work to go to school. They had no money to help him, so he walked 200 miles to attend the Hampton Institute in Virginia and paid his tuition and board there by working as the janitor.

Dedicating himself to the idea that education would raise his people to equality in this country, Washington became a teacher. He first taught in his home town, then at the Hampton Institute, and then in 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. As head of the Institute, he traveled the country unceasingly to raise funds from blacks and whites both; soon he became a well-known speaker.

In 1895, Washington was asked to speak at the opening of the Cotton States Exposition, an unprecedented honor for an African American. His Atlanta Compromise speech explained his major thesis, that blacks could secure their constitutional rights through their own economic and moral advancement rather than through legal and political changes. Although his conciliatory stand angered some blacks who feared it would encourage the foes of equal rights, whites approved of his views. Thus his major achievement was to win over diverse elements among southern whites, without whose support the programs he envisioned and brought into being would have been impossible.

In addition to Tuskegee Institute, which still educates many today, Washington instituted a variety of programs for rural extension work, and helped to establish the National Negro Business League. Shortly after the election of President William McKinley in 1896, a movement was set in motion that Washington be named to a cabinet post, but he withdrew his name from consideration, preferring to work outside the political arena. He died on November 14, 1915."