Malcolm X was incarcerated for seven years, he was a street hustler convicted of robbery in 1964. During that time it was that Malcolm X became a disciple of Mr. Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm also began to educate himself because of his increasing frustration of not being able to express himself in the letters that he wrote to Mr. Muhammad. Malcolm X believed that it was up to the individual to want to learn and educate themselves. Malcolm x effectively uses personal experience to persuade his general audience about the importance of taking personal responsibility for self education so that they may know the true history of a black mans role in the world not just the version of the white men. Malcolm wanted to influence his African American people through his actions and his literature to educate themselves so they may see and understand the world as it truly is and not how the whites want them to see it. As Malcolm said “this new world opened to me, as I began to read and understand.” Malcolm red endlessly and was fascinated with history books more so with the books having to do with black peoples history. He wanted to uncover the history of the black man because the only history he ever knew about his people was covered in one paragraph during a class when Malcolm was in the 7th grade. Malcolm had said “history has been whitened,when white men had written history books, the black man simply had been left out.” This is also why Malcolm was relentless in educating him self. He wanted to fined out the history of black people for himself because he was tired of being fed the “whitened” history by white men, and so that he may reach out to his people and empower them to go and educate themselves as he did. Malcolm X believed that no man in America knew the truth from the history books. He stated “you can hardly show me a black adult in America – or a white one, for that matter who knows from the history books anything like the truth about a black man's role.” Malcolm X spent seven years in prison educating himself. Malcolm knew that through education would come freedom. He confirmed “in those seven years of being in prison I never had been so truly free in my life”. Even though Malcolm was still imprisoned, he felt as though he was free because he was finally free of his ignorance which blinded him from seeing the truth in the world. As he confirmed “with every additional book I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America.” Malcolm felt that for the most part black people in America were ignorant, there for could not see or properly act on what was going on around them. Malcolm wanted to share what he learned from