In the first half of the book we see Malcolm X go through a huge transformation. In prison he is uneducated. He is angry, but his anger needs direction. Then, something happens. He starts reading. He reads! He starts with copying words out of the dictionary, and then moves on to the history books. In reading this history, he learns more about his people and the great injustices that have occurred against them. This is what gives his anger direction and gives him the ability to become a completely different man.
Later, speaking of this experiences, Malcolm describes it as more valuable than any college education. I think that for him this is true. In prison he had far less distractions than he would have in college. Also, he could focus in on what was important to him. Any college he would have been attending would not have held lectures on the crimes of white people against other races, or the true history of the american slave, or any of the other things Malcolm X was most interested in finding out about. He would have been most likely taught a curriculum that was set out for him by a white man. He says that his "alma mater was books". Books are a really viable form of education that can teach you valuable things that you wouldn't be learning about otherwise.
Not that everybody should chose the education of a prison library over college, but in some instances self-education through a medium such as books with little distractions like those present on a college campus can be the best method.
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