Malcolm X once wrote, “My life has always been one of changes” (Haley 404). In his autobiography, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, it is very evident that through his life, he went through a series of drastic changes that went from one extreme to another. He went from being at “the bottom of the American white man’s society,” to become one of the most influential advocates of Black pride (150). Throughout the novel the most evident changes are when Malcolm X moves to Boston, goes to prison, and going on Hajj.After living in Michigan, Malcolm X moves in with his half-sister, Ella, in Boston. Malcolm X described the move as “pivotal or profound in its repercussions” (38). When he gets to Boston, he sets out to explore the city and to “get the feel of Boston” (40). When he looks around the area he is living in he finds it full of nothing but “Hill Negroes” (40). He notices that all these black people are simply breaking their “backs trying to imitate white people” (40). He immediately rejects their way of thinking and finds himself in the middle of the town’s “ghetto section” (42). Soon through his friendship with “Shorty”, Malcolm X is exposed to a new kind of living. He spends his first month in Roxbury with his “mouth hanging open” (48). He saw small black children “shooting craps, playing cards, fighting… [throwing] around swear words and slang expressions” (43). Eventually, all this exposure to black people “being their natural selves” took a great toll on him (43). After hanging out with Shorty and his friends, inevitably, he took his first reefers, first cigarettes, and the first liquor he drank. He ultimately went from being “country” to a “cool cat.” When he was exposed to all these “jungle streets,” he beca...
