Sandra K. Friday
Life
magazine also wanted Gordon Parks to cover Malcolm X, a lightning rod in the Black Muslim Movement in the '60's. Like his coverage of the Black Panthers, this was a place he could never have gone had it not been for his race and his commitment to photo journalism and frankly to his commitment to the subjects he composed through the lens. It was necessary for him to meet twice with Elijah Mohammed, the head of the Nation of Islam in this country, before he was given the go-ahead. Parks relates that even Malcolm X questioned his employment for the "white devils" that owned and ran
Life
magazine. Once Parks met with the approval of Elijah Mohammed, he traveled with Malcolm X almost exclusively and his access to the Nation of Islam was extensive.
The composition of the photo, "Malcolm X Addressing Black Muslim Rally in Chicago,"
1963
, (
HPA
, p. 241), reveals Malcolm X in a dark suit, white dress shirt, and tie, in the spotlight. The background is black, setting off his figure. The only visible prop is the microphone in front of him and a folded handkerchief he holds in his raised left hand, perhaps a gesture to quiet the crowd. He is wearing the same glasses he was given in prison, where he did seven years for burglary, prior to his conversion to Islam.
Excerpts from
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
would add a rich and engaging backdrop to flesh out this photograph for the students. Three chapters in particular, "Caught," "Satan," and "Saved," cover his life as a hustler and his capture, his outrageous behavior in prison that relegated him to long stints in solitary confinement, and his recovery and metamorphosis through Islam. Malcolm X says, in his autobiography, that he had a vocabulary of about two hundred words as a hustler. In prison he read and copied the entire dictionary, and became an eloquent, compelling debater and speaker.
Students will learn a great deal by studying this background as they complete their graphic organizer, write a caption, a monologue, and write Malcolm X's story. By the time they study this photograph or the following one of Red Jackson, either of these might serve as an assessment of the skills they have learned in this unit.