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uite a lot to destroy_a man’s seifrecpectt yet Malcolm X's early DEO tves not seem unigue. In 1929 (his last name then was Little; he was 4 years old} he watched his parents’ home in Lansing, Mich. bum to the ground, set afire by hoodlums who didn’t like “uppity” Negroes. His father, a Baptist minister and a follower of Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement, died mysteriously shortly afterward. In grade school Malcolm was a popular and brilliant student, but when he said he wanted t6 be a lawyer, he was told he should set his sights on carpentry. Later he pimped, pushed narcotics, became an addict, took up bur~ glary and, at 20, was caught in Boston and sentenced to 10 years, a term that reflected not his legal crime, but the judge's dis- approval of his having a white mistress, It’s not an unusual story, except thatMal- colm was saved from its usual continuation; he was born anew. Through religious alle- giance to Elijah Muhammad he gained a purpose that his country, a larger prison and its prevailing morality, had denied him, As this extraordinary autobiography shows the source of Malcolm X's power was not alone in his intelligence, energy, electric personality or ability to grow and change, remarkable as these were. Its source was that he understood, perhaps more profoundly than any other Negro leader, the full, shock- heeawingts nevekeineinnt do ing extent of America's psychological di struction of its Negroes. “The Autobiography of Malcolm X" is a brilliant, painful, important book, Alex Haley has made very readable the many hours of taped interviews, and his own epi- logue, ahout working with Malcolm X, the assassination, his estimate of the man, is candid and perceptive. The book raises many difficult questions, and it is a testament parts of which many readers will not approve. But as a document for our time, its may be crucial; it}—reterynce aaeoat Le - ee f Real OF UOUDLE,