Satan
- Malcolm and Shorty are charged with 14 counts of crime, each one 8 to 10 years to be served concurrently. Shorty doesn't know what concurrently means, so he thinks he's going to be in jail forever. Not quite, just 10 years.
- Malcolm remembers how dehumanized he felt by the bars keeping him in his prison cell. He was angry, and he didn't even have his drugs to calm him down. He cursed at everyone.
- Ella is Malcolm's first visitor, but they don't even have anything to say to one another since everything is so awkward.
- If you thought that being in prison was going to stop Malcolm's drug habit, you were wrong. He gets so desperate that he resorts to getting high on nutmeg. Congratulations, now you know that you can get high off of nutmeg. We don't recommend it though.
- This whole time, Malcolm is behaving so badly that he often gets sent to solitary confinement. He curses all the time and denounces religion so much that everyone else calls him Satan.
- But then something happens; he meets a man named Bimbi. Bimbi has been in prison for a long time, but he isn't like the other inmates. People gather around to listen to him as he talks about science, human behavior, history, and atheism. He has never needed to threaten anyone, and he never even curses. This blows Malcolm's mind.
- One day Bimbi comes up to Malcolm and tells him that he would be smart if he ever tried to use his brains. So after that, Malcolm heads over to the prison library and starts to check out some books.
- Of course, this isn't the only thing that Malcolm learns from Bimbi. He's back to his old swindles, gambling on fights and baseball games.
- In 1948 Malcolm's brother Philbert writes to him that he has discovered the natural religion for the black man a.k.a. the Nation of Islam. Malcolm writes back a scathing reply in his newly improved language.
- But there's more than one way to skin a cat, so next his brother Reginald sends him a letter. It doesn't say anything about religion. It just says that Malcolm shouldn't eat any more pork or smoke any more cigarettes until he gets out of prison. Malcolm thinks this is some kind of scheme to get him out, but it's just a different way of getting him to convert to the Nation of Islam.
- When the rest of the inmates find out that Malcolm doesn't eat pork, they get a little freaked out. Malcolm likes it that way.
- Ella manages to get Malcolm transferred to the Norfolk Massachusetts prison colony, which is about as plush as prison's gonna get. At the new prison, there are guest lecturers, educational programs, lenient visiting rules, and even a library that Malcolm can peruse at his leisure. Slowly, Malcolm educates himself.
- After a while Reginald comes to visit. Malcolm is so excited because he wants to hear what the whole no-pork, no-cigarettes scheme is about. But Reginald doesn't say anything, and just talks about his family for a while even though that's not what Michael wants to hear. Finally, he starts talking about God and Allah. Malcolm is totally confused. But at least he's listening.
- Reginald says that God is a black man named Elijah and that white people are the devil. Malcolm doesn't believe it at first. Every single white person that he's ever met flashes before his eyes.
- Reginald comes back a few days later and talks with Malcolm for a couple of hours about how black people have been brainwashed by white people. He says that black people created great civilizations, but that most African Americans didn't know anything about their history, culture, language, or lineage.
- He talks about the slave trade, and how black women were raped by their slave masters. He also tells Malcolm that Christianity teaches black people to hate themselves because the image of Christ is a blond haired, blue-eyed, white man.
- It's all a little bit much for Malcolm to take in at once. For the next couple of weeks, he just sits in his jail cell and stares at the walls. He doesn't even eat. He’s just trying to understand everything that his brothers and sisters have told him.
- Later, Malcolm's sister Hilda comes to visit him. She encourages Malcolm to write to Elijah Muhammad and tells him the story of Yacub's history. You can go check it out if you like, since it's pretty complicated. Long story short, according to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, white people are the result of an evil scientific experiment meant to destroy black people and rule the earth for 6,000 years. By the time that Hilda is done, Malcolm is so flabbergasted that he can't even say goodbye.
- In case you were wondering, Malcolm lets us know that this Nation of Islam teaching is entirely different from the teachings of mainstream Islam.