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From the dead level: Malcolm X and me

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Hakim a. Jamal (1937-1973) was a cousin of Malcolm X. He joined the Nation of Islam when Malcolm was with it. He followed Malcolm out into The Organization of Afro-American Unity. Jamal shares many of his childhood experience of growing up in Boston with Malcolm. His experiences with Malcolm in the Nation and his brief encounter afterwords. I recommend this anyone who wants to learn more about Macolm X.

"From the Dead Level" is a sincere and valuable spiritual testimony to the power of religious experience, and of its ability to transform and uplift.

Hakim Jamal, one of Malcolm X's cousins and faithful disciples, describes his earlier life as having being 'on a dead level', before being purified by his new metaphysical Islamic consciousness. And indeed, his life before Islam was tragic -- he was a drug user as a young teenager, was sent to prison, and later, was abandoned in an insane asylum, so disturbed was his behaviour.

The teaching of Islam released him from his 'mental chains', and he went on to further explore his religious and cultural roots, joining and working for black awareness groups of his day, later planning to start a Montessori styled school for disadvantaged black people.

Unfortunately, later in his life, he was plagued by a re-emergance of his mental problems , and died violently, when gangsters burst into his Boston apartment.

"From the Dead Level" stands as a record of spiritual metamorphosis, and a valuable social document. It also stands as a worthy psychological, spiritual and sociological study of Malcolm X, whom Hakim respected deeply, venerating and valuing him as one that had,in his early adulthood, offered him some mental clarity and purpose, affording him some respite from a life of insanity, sadness and squalor.