Gaining additional information from historical or cultural texts, either primary or secondary sources, can greatly shape the way another text of a different time is viewed. With the knowledge gained from outside sources, a person's views of Malcom X's Message to the Grassroots and Malcom X, himself, can be completely changed. Prior to reading message to the grassroots, Malcom X was viewed simply as a radical, civil rights leader who was part of the nation of Islam. After reading Message to the Grassroots, the reader can develop a certain image of the man and who he was as a person and what his civil rights views were. By reading over more sources about Malcom X and his speech that was delivered in Detroit, November of 1963, an original interpretation has developed into a greater understanding, rather than finding new interpretation with new text.  With help from outside sources, the readers interpretation was altered in a greater way by gaining additional information on Malcom X's "common enemy" theme, his extreme views to gain his people freedom, and the reasons to why he held so much hatred against white people. 

Malcom X begins his speech, Message to the Grassroots almost immediately by stating his stance that, "We have a common enemy. We have this in common: We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter, and a common discriminator ... . What we have foremost in common is that enemy- the white man" (Malcom X). With that coming at the beginning of his speech, the reader acquires the interpretation that Malcom X obviously isn't in favor of the white man or what they are doing to the less superior of the time. By researching other resources about the same subject the reader is able to gain more knowledge on how much he despised the white race and why they should be the common enemy among the "colored" people. He was a part of the Nation of Islam, whose goal was to basically separate their people from the rest of society to gain freedom from oppression and an equal chance at life. With that being said, Malcom X attempted to join everyone together, more so African- Americans, but any race except for the whites. That was his way of isolating them as the common enemy of everyone, not simply the African- Americans enemy. Even though his statements in his speech are viewed as extreme, the more that was read into his beliefs of the white man as the enemy, the was more knowledge to be gained on his hatred of the white man. Malcom X was concerned with finding something to unite his people together with. In MLK vs. Malcom X (similarities/differences) the author Brielle Edwards, notes that, "He (Malcom X) felt that American blacks should be more concerned with helping each other." She also stated that Malcom X felt as though the blacks should start by respecting each-other. In his speech, he stated that if they wanted something like that to happen successfully, they would have to agree to stop fighting amongst themselves, and if it did happen, then, "Don't let the enemy know you've got a disagreement." Those statements go to show that even though he may have this great vision in mind, they were still at the basic steps of even getting the African-American race to join in unity at the time. The main cause of that was because of the differences between Malcom X's civil rights views and those of Martin Luther King Jr, which were drastically different. Their opposing views caused the black community and other supporters to split between the two activist and not unite as one against a common enemy.

Malcom X also had very extreme ideas on how to gain freedom from the white oppressors. Throughout his speech he preached unity among all the black people and for them to come together to be one against the whites. He also continually talked about other revolutions compared to the so called "Black Revolution" or "Negro Revolution." In his speech, Malcom X states that his people, "are using the word revolution loosely," and that the likes of other revolutions came with the recurring themes of fighting for land, independence, and bloodshed occurring, which none of which was happening from their side of the civil rights movement. Malcom X believed his followers were too afraid to do something like that because his people thought that by, "frightening and antagonizing Caucasians, he frightened and threatened the white and black power elites." Brielle Edwards states in her article that his famous line was, "by any means necessary." He believed in fighting back physically. Whatever had to be done to get freedom he was all for it whether it be violence or nonviolence (Brielle Edwards). Even though he stressed it throughout his speech additional information such as that makes him seem more radical than the speech does alone. He preached violence as the answer and the extra reading proved that even more whether that was the right answer or not.

Malcom X spoke about white people in a demeaning manner through a majority of his speech. He preached them as the common enemy among his followers, talked up the negatives that white people have done up to that time, and mentioned the negatives of them as a whole, such as enslaving people. While he was chatting up all the negatives about white people, the reader has to wonder why he has those certain views towards them. It was during the 60's when turmoil between races was at its highest, so that was the obvious reason, but it was unsure to what the specifics were. After reading the additional sources a few important facts that may have led to his hatred being so high and his ideas to be so extreme were picked up on. To start, Malcom X grew up in an underprivileged and hostile area where schooling was scarce (Brielle Edwards). Brielle Edwards also stated that during his come up, he experienced and witnessed many incidents of racism and oppression from whites. Malcom X was exposed to enough of it to where he felt as though separating themselves from the white, common enemy, would benefit everyone.

Message to the Grass Roots was an influential and debatable speech made by Malcom X that expressed his extremist views and his thoughts on other civil rights activists' views. After initially reading over the speech, I had a certain idea of who Malcom X was and what his goals were, and with further reading my idea was pushed to another extreme. The outside sources helped to explain further his idea of the white man as the common enemy, his extreme views on how to gain true freedom, and why he had so much hatred towards the white people of his time.

