How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #1
I would sit goggle-eyed at my father jumping and shouting as he preached, with the congregation jumping and shouting behind him, their souls and bodies devoted to singing and praying. Even at that young age, I just couldn't believe in the Christian concept of Jesus as someone divine. And no religious person, until I was a man in my twenties—and then in prison—could tell me anything. I had very little respect for most people who represented religion. (1.13)
Malcolm X's own father was a minister, so it's actually kind of strange that he has this reaction to Christianity.
Quote #2
I preferred the solitary that this behavior brought me. I would pace for hours like a caged leopard, viciously cursing aloud to myself. And my favorite targets were the Bible and God. But there was a legal limit to how much time one could be kept in solitary. Eventually, the men in the cellblock had a name for me: "Satan." Because of my antireligious attitude. (10.23)
Why do you think Malcolm X focuses so much of his anger on religion? Are there any other moments where he expresses a hatred for Christianity?
Quote #3
One day in 1948, after I had been transferred to Concord Prison, my brother Philbert, who was forever joining something, wrote me this time that he had discovered the "natural religion for the black man." He belonged now, he said, to something called "the Nation of Islam." He said I should "pray to Allah for deliverance." I wrote Philbert a letter which, although in improved English, was worse than my earlier reply to his news that I was being prayed for by his "holiness" church. (10.34)
Malcolm X is the complete opposite of his older brother Philbert. From the beginning, Philbert was always interested in religion and Christianity, while Malcolm just didn't get it. It doesn't look like anything's changed.