alcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable. Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc., New York, 2011. Hardback. $30.00
If you are familiar with Malcolm X, the Muslim civil rights activist who was assassinated in February 1965, it is a safe bet that you know him through The Autobiography of Malcolm X published by Alex Haley or the Spike Lee film. The starting premise of a new biography by Columbia professor Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, is that those two famous sources are compelling works of narration rather than fact. His densely researched biography hopes to occupy the gap between myth and legend, using newly available archives to flesh out the charismatic figure who still manages to arrest generations beyond the grave.
Before reviewing the biography itself, it should be noted that the irony of life imitating art proves true for Marable’s own life. Devoting a book on a man who famously raced against time to develop into a leader with transcontinental appeal, Manning himself succumbed to his long-standing lung condition three days before the April 4, 2011 book launch. Marable is one of the most prominent academics of African American and race studies, having written and edited 24 books. His colleague, Princeton University’s Cornel West, calls Marable a “grand radical democratic intellectual.” Like the Autobiography itself, Marable’s decade-long project is now poised to take on a posthumous life after the author’s passing. A Life of Reinvention has received mostly positive reviews, and is making a significant intervention in Malcolm X’s reception in public and scholarly circles.
While Haley’s Autobiography is a compelling text on many levels, Marable stresses that it is a work of representation emerging in collaboration between two very different men. Firstly, Malcolm condenses events from his past for narrative coherence, changes names to protect confidentiality—and hides a few skeletons. Haley’s own slant on the story must also be considered. Marable takes issue with Alex Haley’s efforts to show Malcolm X as becoming more “integrationist” with the US system towards the end of his life, a reflection of the writer’s own liberal Republican beliefs.
Haley held no sympathy with Malcolm’s political conviction that the system must be challenged, but was fascinated with him as an African-American “demagogue.” The friendship between the two men indeed generated a “powerful book,” as Haley calls it, but it is a fact that Haley retained significant editorial control over the work. Case in point, Malcolm X wasn’t allowed to revise his earlier chapters on Elijah Muhammad after the split because Haley believed it would mar the book’s “dramatic impact”.
Marable’s research benefits from additional archives available to him: newly released FBI documents revealing the extent to which they infiltrated the Nation of Islam (NOI) and other black organizations, and the scale of their surveillance against Malcolm; interviews from top-level members of the Nation, including current minister Louis Farrakhan that reveal the dynamics between Malcolm and the NOI before and after the split. Also to note is that as a radical black scholar, Marable places strong emphasis on the growth and development of Malcolm’s politics, and the role played by Islam within his political evolution. These elements were downplayed in the Autobiography, perhaps because Haley was not really interested in either.
When narrating his beginnings to Haley as the NOI’s star minister, Malcolm tends to overemphasize the lowly condition from which he emerged, in order to emphasize the transformative power of the Nation. Marable capably describes the formative impact of his childhood, particularly the influence of his parents and their Garveyist beliefs. Louise and Earl Little were a politically aware couple drawn together by a common interest in social justice. Both were devoted followers of Marcus Garvey, the early 20th century Caribbean reformer who advocated that African Americans must uplift themselves through self-pride and the necessity for blacks to establish their own businesses and institutions. Malcolm’s desire to align himself with Asia and Africa during and after his tenure with the Nation of Islam, and his profound belief in black self-determination derived in great measure from Garvey’s belief that blacks should separate themselves from whites and return to their native lands where they could uplift themselves as “mighty race.”
The chapters on Malcolm’s childhood place strong emphasis on his relationship with his parents, and the repercussions they would have on his personal and political life. Malcolm would accompany his father to various Garveyite advocacy meetings, w
If you are familiar with Malcolm X, the Muslim civil rights activist who was assassinated in February 1965, it is a safe bet that you know him through The Autobiography of Malcolm X published by Alex Haley or the Spike Lee film. The starting premise of a new biography by Columbia professor Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, is that those two famous sources are compelling works of narration rather than fact. His densely researched biography hopes to occupy the gap between myth and legend, using newly available archives to flesh out the charismatic figure who still manages to arrest generations beyond the grave.
Before reviewing the biography itself, it should be noted that the irony of life imitating art proves true for Marable’s own life. Devoting a book on a man who famously raced against time to develop into a leader with transcontinental appeal, Manning himself succumbed to his long-standing lung condition three days before the April 4, 2011 book launch. Marable is one of the most prominent academics of African American and race studies, having written and edited 24 books. His colleague, Princeton University’s Cornel West, calls Marable a “grand radical democratic intellectual.” Like the Autobiography itself, Marable’s decade-long project is now poised to take on a posthumous life after the author’s passing. A Life of Reinvention has received mostly positive reviews, and is making a significant intervention in Malcolm X’s reception in public and scholarly circles.
While Haley’s Autobiography is a compelling text on many levels, Marable stresses that it is a work of representation emerging in collaboration between two very different men. Firstly, Malcolm condenses events from his past for narrative coherence, changes names to protect confidentiality—and hides a few skeletons. Haley’s own slant on the story must also be considered. Marable takes issue with Alex Haley’s efforts to show Malcolm X as becoming more “integrationist” with the US system towards the end of his life, a reflection of the writer’s own liberal Republican beliefs.
Haley held no sympathy with Malcolm’s political conviction that the system must be challenged, but was fascinated with him as an African-American “demagogue.” The friendship between the two men indeed generated a “powerful book,” as Haley calls it, but it is a fact that Haley retained significant editorial control over the work. Case in point, Malcolm X wasn’t allowed to revise his earlier chapters on Elijah Muhammad after the split because Haley believed it would mar the book’s “dramatic impact”.
Marable’s research benefits from additional archives available to him: newly released FBI documents revealing the extent to which they infiltrated the Nation of Islam (NOI) and other black organizations, and the scale of their surveillance against Malcolm; interviews from top-level members of the Nation, including current minister Louis Farrakhan that reveal the dynamics between Malcolm and the NOI before and after the split. Also to note is that as a radical black scholar, Marable places strong emphasis on the growth and development of Malcolm’s politics, and the role played by Islam within his political evolution. These elements were downplayed in the Autobiography, perhaps because Haley was not really interested in either.
When narrating his beginnings to Haley as the NOI’s star minister, Malcolm tends to overemphasize the lowly condition from which he emerged, in order to emphasize the transformative power of the Nation. Marable capably describes the formative impact of his childhood, particularly the influence of his parents and their Garveyist beliefs. Louise and Earl Little were a politically aware couple drawn together by a common interest in social justice. Both were devoted followers of Marcus Garvey, the early 20th century Caribbean reformer who advocated that African Americans must uplift themselves through self-pride and the necessity for blacks to establish their own businesses and institutions. Malcolm’s desire to align himself with Asia and Africa during and after his tenure with the Nation of Islam, and his profound belief in black self-determination derived in great measure from Garvey’s belief that blacks should separate themselves from whites and return to their native lands where they could uplift themselves as “mighty race.”
The chapters on Malcolm’s childhood place strong emphasis on his relationship with his parents, and the repercussions they would have on his personal and political life. Malcolm would accompany his father to various Garveyite advocacy meetings, w
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