Education and Enlightenment in Booker T. Washington and Malcolm X

Though both Booker T. Washington and Malcolm X depict their struggles and how that struggle spurred their growth through education, their audiences shape how they present the ideologies that came from their struggle, leading to vastly different perspectives on resistance and racism.

Washington describes the ways he sought education despite his difficult life circumstances, the importance of knowledge, and how it shaped how he viewed the world. Washington describes his desire to attend the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute: “Although I had no idea where it was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it; I remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go to Hampton” (Washington, 29). In order to reach this goal, he went to night-school lessons despite long hours in the coal mine and the trek from work to school. Washington’s drive shows how much he values education, and the work he willingly put into achieving it. His later success through not giving up in education was a formative experience for him, and suggests that struggle can lead to growth, and that merit is earned with enough hard work. These are foundational concepts in his racial ideology, and stem from his experiences in education.

Though Malcolm X’s education was less formal than Washington’s eventual college degree, he similarly made learning a pillar of his life during his prison time which spurred his involvement in the Black Power Movement. He self-learned by reading books, where “in every free moment [he] had, if [he] was not reading in the library, [he] was reading in the bunk” (Malcolm X, 1863). Like Washington, he eagerly sought out ways to study and demonstrated the importance of self-improvement through books. Though both had limited resources and time, through sheer dedication they opened doors for themselves in learning. For both of these men, learning acted like a gateway and opportunity for their future success, and they shared similar ambitions while persevering through struggle. Malcolm X’s passion for learning and discovering truths set him up for his later success as an influential figure in Black Power, and his books became tools for resistance.

While Washington and Malcolm X both emphasize the role education played in shaping their beliefs and lives, the authors address different audiences at different moments in time, which shapes their portrayal of history and the white man. Washington mostly writes to white southerners, so in order to make his story more palatable, he minimizes the traumas of slavery, describing his benevolent slavemasters and sense of community between slaves on his plantation and the owners even during the civil war, when slaves were “just as anxious to assist in the nursing as the family relatives” for their wounded young masters as repayment for their “kindly and generous nature” (Washington, 9). Washington generalizes this lack of resentment across the south, and avoids depicting white people as an adversary in order to get his message across to them. His descriptions of loyal slaves and kind masters aim to slowly unite the black and white community while appealing sympathetically to white people especially. After his education in trade, Washington pushes for an American society where black people build up their social status from the bottom and coexist with their white counterparts, and his avoidance of anger shows that he wishes to accomplish this gradually and peacefully.

However, Malcolm X writes as a black man to other black men, and therefore seeks to empower his community by telling histories often untold, such as ancient African civilization and an unfiltered reality of American slavery. By discussing Mr. Muhammad’s emphasis on “how history had been ‘whitened’” and his personal readings into global history like “about Egypt’s Pharoahs…about Ethiopia, the earth's oldest continuous black civilization…[and] about slavery’s total horror”, Malcolm X breaks down eurocentric narratives (Malcolm X, 1864–1865). In his story, the white man is the devil that oppresses and whitewashes history, not a neighbor or eventual friend like in Washington’s vision. Malcolm X’s refusal to center the world around Western values, civilizations, and religions show how he strongly resists current social and racial norms, and wishes to topple systematic racism and dependency on white people. He does not sugarcoat slavery like Washington, and instead focuses on empowering a black audience to take action and find pride in their identity.

Though Washington and Malcolm X share similar experiences with learning during struggle, their ideologies following their respective enlightenments differ greatly. Their views on the past, future aspirations, and present calls to action reflect their different beliefs and motivations. Despite similarly overcoming struggles with learning, Washington’s and Malcolm X’s respective audiences and time periods dictate the way they tell their story. Washington aims to ease the races together through collectively earned merit and integration. On the other hand, in an era of resistance and activism which values black artists speaking to black audiences, Malcolm X centers his autobiography around empowerment and defying systemic white supremacy. Their differences in opinion show the development of racial ideologies through the years, and bring to light the various ways education shaped their voices.