Despite his short existence," he was murdered before turning forty, "Malcolm X suffered numerous and profound changes during his life. He lived his childhood in the midst of depression, spent his adolescence in the Roxbury (Massachusetts) ghetto, and his Moving to Harlem meant that he became part of the underworld. There he became an apartment robber, robber, drug dealer and pimp. The next step was prison, where he spent seven years, during which he reflected on racial problems, devoured as many books fell into his hands and began his contacts with Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam.

He was released from prison as a man willing to dedicate his entire life to the fight for equality between blacks and whites in North America, always through his religious beliefs and unconditional fidelity to Elijah Muhammad. However, he would end up distancing himself from it following the assassination of President Kennedy. From there, Malcolm X would become the most charismatic leader of African-Americans, wielding a philosophy and a way of looking at racial problems that contrasted with his radicalism with the approach of Martin Luther King. Before being assassinated, he had time to express his ideas in this autobiography, for which he had the invaluable collaboration of the African-American writer Alex Haley.