Malcolm Before X

This first-rate biography looks at Malcolm Little before and as he became Malcolm X. Much of it focuses on his six-and-a-half years of incarceration (1946–52), during which he converted to Islam, changing the trajectory of his life. This is one of the great conversion stories of modern history: a young man mired in crime raises himself up and, through self-discipline, becomes an explosive spokesperson for Black Americans. Drawing on little examined prison records, Parr (writing, Lakeland Univ.; The Seminarian) asks slightly new questions but doesn’t, of course, displace Malcolm’s posthumously published Autobiography; rather, he adds to the history, refining Malcolm’s after-the-fact recollections of his earlier life with substantiated evidence. By the end of Parr’s account, readers understand how Malcolm Little becomes Malcolm X, ready to fight for Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam. He only had 13 years left to live, but what years they were.