There were 2 readings that really stuck out to me this week, the speech by Malcolm X called “A Black Man’s History” and the essay by Edward E. Curtis IV called “African American Islamization Reconsidered: Black History Narratives and the Muslim Identity”. In most history classes you take when you are younger, Islam in America is always looked at like it is a solely African American religion and not a more widespread and widely practiced religion that it is. We look at Islam like the Nation of Islam is the same thing when they have different objectives. The speech “A Black Man’s History” was given when Malcolm X was in the Nation of Islam and had not yet converted to Islam. He looks at the Nation of Islam of like it is one of freedom for only the blacks. He says “The white man doesn’t (separate race and religion). The white man never has separated Christianity from white, nor has he separated the white man from Christianity. When you hear the white man bragging, ‘I’m a Christian,’ he’s bragging about being a white man (Malcolm X),” He argues the point that African Americans never had their own religion like that and makes the point that the Nation of Islam should be that religion for them. Curtis is making the point that over time many nations have been “Islamicized” and that the Nation of Islam was an Islamicized religion. It did not follow the traditional Muslim values but still was kept under the same name and the “Religious values were of secondary importance (Curtis, 661).” Malcolm X later in his life converts to Islam and changed his practices and values but normally in history books the Malcolm X who practiced under the Nation of Islam is displayed,