Manning Marable (1950–2011)

Having never read "The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley," I was hopeful that Marable’s biography would be a more thorough, scholarly, and perhaps accurate telling of Malcolm’s story; hence my choice. Like many Americans, I’m fairly well informed about the Civil Rights Movement (as a whole) and MLK (as an iconic American figure)… however, I always felt rather ignorant about the character and pedigree of various black nationalist movements. Malcolm X (like Che Guevara) show more can seem more like a symbol than an actual human being to contemporary (i.e. young) Americans today. Marable’s biography breaks this down and does what biographers often set out to do: rescue their subjects from history.

It is impossible to draw a definitive political or cultural portrait of Malcolm X from this biography, as the text makes it abundantly clear that Malcolm underwent a series of shifts in his thinking, religion, and politics; all of which were somewhat contradictory and incapable of being cleanly separated from their ideological predecessors. Nevertheless, this book provides the historical background and cultural context without which any discussion of Malcolm X would be incomplete. show less

I can see why some Nation of Islam (NOI) members and Malcolm X partisans might find fault with this book. But it is no fault of the research or the author. They just don't like the stories, narrative, or conclusions. I myself find no problems, though I might not buy everything Marable concludes one hundred percent.

By-and-large, this is the finest biography of Malcolm X available, explaining his life, his times, his motivations, his thoughts, his thought, and his milieu like no other show more biography up till now. It will probably stand as the standard biography of Malcolm X for decades to come.

Manning Marable's overall thrust is encapsulated in his subtitle: "A Life of Reinvention." Malcolm X changed and rolled with the punches every step of his life. An intelligent and passionate man who stepped into every role he undertook with gusto and aplomb.

The story of Malcolm X is widely known in its particulars, so I need not rehash it. What does Marable bring to the table that may be different or significant. Malcolm Little's early childhood is detailed well, even to the point of debunking some of Malcolm's stories about his youth. His life of petty crime as "Detroit Red" is discussed. Here Marable points out some of the incorrect details Malcolm pumped into his biography to make his crimes seem more grandiose (and thus his subsequent conversion to the NOI and morality all the more miraculous). It seems he truly had genuine affection for his white girlfriend (Spike Lee's movie, following X's autobiography, makes her appear to be a demonic succubus). He may have maintained a homoerotic relationship with a rich white man for the money. His stories as the prison "Satan" may be embellished, but it is in prison he learns of the NOI and its "God" W. Fard Muhammad and "prophet" Elijah Muhammad. His subsequent conversion and work in the NOI is then detailed. His relationship with Elijah Muhammad and his circle, his relationship with Louis X (originally surnamed Wolcott, later to be Farrakhan), his seemingly ambivalent relationship with his wife and children. On the last of these, Malcolm X seems committed to his work and ideas more than his family: aiding the Blackman and Blackwoman in the wilderness of white America through the hybridized Islam of the Nation. For the first time we have a detailed and balanced account of his eventual break from Elijah Muhammad and the NOI, and the tensions that lead to it. His embrace of orthodox Sunni Islam and his evolution from a "all means necessary" and maybe violent racial liberation to a hopefully non-violent civil rights reconciliation. Marable does fine job here, likening Malcolm's later ideas on racial and civil rights for black Americans to the post-colonial liberation movements of Africa. Like the struggle of Africans to free themselves from colonial rule and strictures, restoring their culture, vitality, and rights, Malcolm viewed the struggle of African Americans as one of liberation from racial rule and strictures, restoring their culture, vitality, and rights. Marable's account of Malcolm X's assassination, a murky historical area still, is serviceable. There are still questions, "what ifs," and unknown details in the story, but likely these are issues that will never be resolved.

(And by gosh, the damnable NOI. They foster this talent, drive this talent away, and now that Malcolm X is in the pantheon of American and African American greats/heroes, they embrace him again. Shocking. Elijah Muhammad, his entourage, and Louis Farrakhan, the whole ilk, do not shine when the light of facts and truth are shined upon them.)

Grounded in excellent primary and secondary research, extensively noted (not footnotes, not endnotes, but that stupid and insufferable system of page numbers-snippets-sources), this biography is the place to start, even before reading the famed autobiography he dictated to Alex Haley. Decent images, but more and better ones could have been added (Malcolm as a kid, Malcolm on the football team, the famous pic of Malcolm X and the rifle? where are these?).

In the end, what to think of Malcolm X? I find his story one of lost potential. A man of his intelligence and ability, so blinded by the indignities and injustices of racist white America, alongside the soul-crushing effects of poverty, that he would latch onto a theologically spurious cult, attach himself to an unscientific anti-white counter-racism, and then adopt the destructive tenets of Marxist-inspired post-colonial despots.

But I understand WHY, thanks to Marable's prose. Early in the book young Malcolm Little, straight A student, athlete, popular with boys and girls black and white, tells his English teacher he wants to be a lawyer (p. 38):

"But now Malcolm was keenly aware of the social distance between himself and others. An English teacher, Richard Kaminska, sharply discouraged him from becoming a lawyer. 'You've got to be realistic about being a nigger,' Kaminska advised him. 'A lawyer—that's no realistic goal for a nigger.... Why don't you plan on carpentry?' Malcolm's grades plummeted and his truculence increased. Within several months, he found himself expelled."

Imagine a world in which young Malcolm Little became a lawyer and you never heard of him. Or he ran for office. Or he won an important civil rights case. Different world.

What to think of Malcolm X? His story is one of success and failure. A lesson on what to do and what not to do. A story of both how the deck can be stacked against you and a story on how perseverance and grit can win the day. It is a human story, and a distinctly American story. It is one you can learn from and appreciate, whether you buy into it all or not. And Marable's engaging storytelling is a good place to get that story. Capital. show less

This is an absorbing and meticulously detailed biography of Malcolm X. It isn't definitive, as Marable readily admits, largely because how much FBI documentation on Malcolm's life remains classified. It's still an impressively thorough biography; while I haven't read the Autobiography, it's clear that Marable is attempting to write a counterpoint to that work which strips away much of the hagiographical mystique that has come to surround Malcolm in the years since his murder. Marable follows show more Malcolm through his life's numerous "reinventions": from the young Malcolm Little of Omaha, Nebraska, to zoot-suited petty criminal to divisive, conservative black nationalist to orthodox Muslim campaigner for human rights. The man Marable writes about is a profoundly flawed individual who was nonetheless brilliant and committed to his work, a polished rhetorician, who was clearly killed just at the moment when he was about to reinvent himself again. Definitely recommended. show less

This book is a very updated look at the life so many know from The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Indeed, it rather disputes or amends the material that came out in that book published after Malcolm X's death and co-authored by "liberal Republican" Alex Haley. For my part, I see this life as having an arc reaching back to Marcus Garvey and a terrorizing Klan through his parents to some parallels I see with Thomas Paine. See, Paine was a revolutionary intellectual eventually shunned by his own show more fellow rebels and went international while moving from championing the right of his group to demanding human rights and finding himself shunned. For Malcolm X that shunning led to a public execution with the apparent complicity of at least local police. This tragic ending feels foreshadowed by violence from the 1962 Los Angeles Police shooting of seven members of the Nation of Islam (one in the back while his hands were up) to eventual firebombing, beatings, etc. from NOI actors as Malcolm X broke away and stood up his own organization. His own success -- better than that of the NOI -- of building ties to traditional Islam and connecting to the a post-colonial Pan-African movement surely led to loathing from the envious. show less