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In the early 1950s, Malcolm X transformed his life while incarcerated at Norfolk Prison in Massachusetts. But he became the leader we know today not because of the prison itself – but because of the education he gained through reading.
That’s why something HUGE is happening with his legacy now – right in the jail cell he reportedly once occupied.
Poet and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts is now working to turn Malcolm’s former Norfolk cell into what’s called a “freedom library.”
Betts, who spent nine years in prison reading and writing himself, also plans to set up 1,000 more across the country!
Meanwhile, prisons nationwide are banning books – including Malcolm’s own autobiography. They know that once we have books in our hands, it doesn’t take long for dreams of freedom to be implanted in our minds. But Betts hopes his libraries will inspire exactly that.
“...[R]eading had changed forever the course of my life,” Malcolm wrote decades ago. “As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”
Malcolm X taught many of us the power of education as a crucial pillar of Black liberation – and even self-defense against white supremacy! Like Betts, we can honor ancestors like him by going back and bringing those same values they’ve instilled in us into our future.