Malcolm X Summary

I remember one of the first few days we discussed Malcolm X, we were asked which part of the book drew our attention.  I picked out a quote from page 15.  It was of Ms. Adcock, an old white tenant he lived with as a young boy.  She said, "there's one thing I like about you.  you're no good, but you don't try to hide it.  You are not a hypocrite".
This quote struck me because as I progressed through the book, I began to seriously question this statement.  Is Malcolm X a hypocrite?  Many of his greatest critics would clamor to agree that he most certainly is.  How can a great civil rights activist and religious leader have started his days on the streets and not be a hypocrite?  He was a drug dealer, hustler, draft-dodger.  He put lye in his hair to get the white conk, he went out with white girls, and he bent to the will of the white man.
But, he left that life behind when he was caught.  His day of redemption came behind bars.  He meets a man who introduces him to Islam and he follows the path of Allah.  Soon he himself is preaching the word of Black nationalism and Elijah Muhammad.  He teaches himself to read and write, and begins publicly debating.  So much changes in those years and the years to follow.   Looking back he is aware of all this.  Hindsight is 20/20.  He was no longer young and foolish.  He had now found his true path.
My initial response to a majority of the points he brings up is immediate rejection.  This man lived his whole life "deaf, dumb and blind" and then suddenly he decides white people are devil because some crackpot religious zealot began spreading the word of a supposed prophet.  The hypocrite alarm was blaring.  But I have to reassess my views.
Though his lifestyle before prison was unorthodox, he doesn't deny it.  Though I disagree with his viewpoints on civil activism and the need for racial separation, he doesn't go back on his arguments and he doesn't hide what he has done.