Malcolm.

I made a new friend recently.

His name is Malcolm.

Before I saw 

Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X

on a shelf at the UVU library,

I really didn't know anything about him.

Ask me about him, and I would have said,

"He was a black civil rights leader

who got assassinated.

He was a little crazy.

And he wore those glasses.

You know--

Malcolm X glasses."

I'm pretty sure

that I thought he was a Black Panther.

Not true.

He was Muslim.

And he wasn't just an advocate for civil rights,

but for human rights--

which the American government was,

for hundreds of years,

unfit or unwilling to secure for its black citizens.

He believed that his people

needed education and self-respect,

and to do whatever was necessary

to secure better lives.

What he believed in,

he believed in strong and true

and without apology.

And he gave his life to it.

The person I met in that book

was so dear.

And I miss him,

now that it's over.