Malcolm X’s Learning to Read is an autobiography about his education. He talks about his passion and joy for learning while at Norfolk Prison Colony School. Even though X did not know English, and was in prison, he did not give up on reading. With motivation from Bimbi, “a fellow inmate whose encyclopedic learning and verbal facility greatly impressed Malcolm X” (189), from his previous prison, X did not give up on learning. X thought, “…the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictionary-to study; to learn some words.” With just books, pencils, tablets, and a dictionary, X spent day and night, even when the lights were out, to copy down words from the dictionary and learn them. Although he mostly talks about his passion “to help the black
