New Views on Malcolm X
From a 1941 letter to friend Zelma Holman in Michigan, written from Boston by 16-year-old Malcolm —
Dearest Zel,
Sorry I haven’t gotten around to writing you sooner but I have been very busy. You know how we traveling men are. How is everything in Jackson. Boston’s fine. The place is really jumpin’ ….
Listen, will you send me a picture of you. I want to show the fella’s [sic] out here that we have some fine girls in Michigan too and I want pictures of only the finest, no jive.’
I’m leaving for Florida after Xmas and when I leave there I’m going to try and spend the rest of the summer in California. I’ve already been in 23 different states. I’ll be in Georgia for about a month. …
I’ll stop boring you with this bad writing and poor spelling now and close. I do hope you will answer sooner than I wrote.
Always,
Malcolm
From a letter to half-sister Ella Collins, written from prison in 1948, the year after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier —
