Malcolm X By Manning Marable - Review
A Radical Rereading Of The Life Of Malcolm X
Few figures have received plaudits from both the former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the al-Qaida operative Ayman al-Zawahiri. Fewer still have found their likeness on the postage stamps of both the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Such is the fate of Malcolm X. In the aftermath of his assassination in Harlem's Audubon Ballroom on a cold February morning in 1965, the civil rights and Black Power icon has become an uncertain figure, lauded by most but little understood. The X of his surname, adopted to signify the obscure ancestry of the African American slave, now stands either as a cipher for the imprecise, befuddled meanings projected on to him – or, according to Manning Marable, as the emptying of meaning itself.
For Marable, who died just days before this biography was published, the myths and misinterpretations begin with the publication of Malcolm's The Autobiography. He argues that Malcolm's voice is smothered by his amaneuensis, Roots author Alex Haley, and describes Haley as a "liberal Republican" and an "integrationist Republican" who was repulsed by Malcolm's radical politics. Haley, Marable writes, wanted to defang Malcolm and massage him into something marketable. Marable seeks to "deconstruct" The Autobiography to find some semblance of the "true" Malcolm. He follows the transformations through which Malcolm Little, a lanky, light-skinned black boy from Omaha, Nebraska became a globally known black activist and spokesperson. Fastidiously researched, and with access to previously closed archives, Malcolm X documents how The Autobiography exaggerates some aspects of Malcolm's life – especially his early years as a hustler in New York and Boston – while omitting the details of others, such as those of Malcolm's engagement with the politics of pan-Africanism and pan-Islam in the final years of his life.
It is sex and death, however, not pan-Africanism and pan-Islam, that promise the most spectacular revelations in Marable's book. He revisits the question of Malcolm's alleged homosexuality while offering compelling new evidence concerning the still-unresolved assassination. Marable only briefly addresses Malcolm's homosexual encounters during his hustling Detroit Red years. He confirms that the encounters happened, but adds nothing new to our understanding of them beyond what was already revealed, in a much more graphic fashion, in Bruce Parry's Malcolm: The Life of the Man Who Changed Black America (1991). More suggestive are Marable's accounts of Malcolm's inadequacies as a husband and a father. Malcolm admitted to Elijah Muhammad, his then-mentor and head of the Nation of Islam, that he was unable sexually to satisfy his wife, Betty Shabazz. Marable also has Malcolm literally running away from Betty after the birth of each of their children. Political focus encouraged parental neglect.
Marable unearths new information from FBI and NYPD surveillance files regarding Malcolm's assassination. Three men were originally convicted; only two of them were present during the shooting. Marable's research points to a conspiracy organised by members of the Nation of Islam's Newark, New Jersey mosque; some of the conspirators remain alive and unindicted. The assassination was tacitly endorsed by the Nation's leadership, and indirectly abetted by both the NYPD and the FBI. However, "the chief beneficiary of Malcolm's assassination", Marable asserts, "was Louis Farrakhan" – his former disciple. With Malcolm dead, Farrakhan was able to assume Malcolm's exalted position within the Nation before taking over the leadership of the organisation after Elijah Muhammad's death.
Marable's reconstruction of Malcolm's engagement with Africa may be the most important and long-lasting aspect of this new biography. He shows how, from fairly early on in his political career, Malcolm looked to African American civil-rights veterans such as A Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr; he privately admired their non-militant political tactics even as he publicly derided them as Uncle Toms. His appreciation and understanding of their work grew over the course of three trips to Africa, during which he discussed the anti-colonial struggle and postcolonial leadership with Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Jomo Kenyatta and others. During his final trip to the continent, he tried to persuade the Organization of African Unity to endorse a memorandum claiming that racism in the United States and South Africa were the same, as part of his efforts to demonstrate that the African American struggle was one of human, not civil, rights. (The OAU refused for fear of being lumped with the Soviets and China.)
Malcolm's pilgrimage to Mecca is well known. But Marable demonstrates how Malcolm's experiences in Saudi Arabia slowly distanced him from the Nation of Islam's fantastical eschatology and its avowedly anti-white theology. While Malcolm's break from Elijah Muhammad was initially prompted by his recognition of the latter's earthly proclivities – in particular, his series of affairs with young women – it also came about because he realised the limited usefulness of Nation theology to the African American struggle.
One of the great shibboleths of American thought puts Martin Luther King and Malcolm X as reconciling opposites: Martin v Malcolm, the integrationist apostle of non-violence versus the separatist demagogue, coming to a dialectical synthesis near the end of their lives. Marable evokes this dualism while implicitly rejecting it. Malcolm X demonstrated that mere reconciliation would not suffice, especially within the insular political and spiritual worlds of the US. By showing how Malcolm X had to look abroad fully to apprehend the condition of blacks in the States, Marable suggests that American redemption may only come through the path that Malcolm took: through the political philosophy of pan-Africanism and the theological ambit of pan-Islam. It is, on Marable's part, a bold and radical move, but one of critical importance. "Malcolm X," Marable writes, "represented the most important bridge between the American people and more than one billion Muslims throughout the world."
Peter James Hudson teaches at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011
A Radical Rereading Of The Life Of Malcolm X
Few figures have received plaudits from both the former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the al-Qaida operative Ayman al-Zawahiri. Fewer still have found their likeness on the postage stamps of both the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Such is the fate of Malcolm X. In the aftermath of his assassination in Harlem's Audubon Ballroom on a cold February morning in 1965, the civil rights and Black Power icon has become an uncertain figure, lauded by most but little understood. The X of his surname, adopted to signify the obscure ancestry of the African American slave, now stands either as a cipher for the imprecise, befuddled meanings projected on to him – or, according to Manning Marable, as the emptying of meaning itself.
For Marable, who died just days before this biography was published, the myths and misinterpretations begin with the publication of Malcolm's The Autobiography. He argues that Malcolm's voice is smothered by his amaneuensis, Roots author Alex Haley, and describes Haley as a "liberal Republican" and an "integrationist Republican" who was repulsed by Malcolm's radical politics. Haley, Marable writes, wanted to defang Malcolm and massage him into something marketable. Marable seeks to "deconstruct" The Autobiography to find some semblance of the "true" Malcolm. He follows the transformations through which Malcolm Little, a lanky, light-skinned black boy from Omaha, Nebraska became a globally known black activist and spokesperson. Fastidiously researched, and with access to previously closed archives, Malcolm X documents how The Autobiography exaggerates some aspects of Malcolm's life – especially his early years as a hustler in New York and Boston – while omitting the details of others, such as those of Malcolm's engagement with the politics of pan-Africanism and pan-Islam in the final years of his life.
It is sex and death, however, not pan-Africanism and pan-Islam, that promise the most spectacular revelations in Marable's book. He revisits the question of Malcolm's alleged homosexuality while offering compelling new evidence concerning the still-unresolved assassination. Marable only briefly addresses Malcolm's homosexual encounters during his hustling Detroit Red years. He confirms that the encounters happened, but adds nothing new to our understanding of them beyond what was already revealed, in a much more graphic fashion, in Bruce Parry's Malcolm: The Life of the Man Who Changed Black America (1991). More suggestive are Marable's accounts of Malcolm's inadequacies as a husband and a father. Malcolm admitted to Elijah Muhammad, his then-mentor and head of the Nation of Islam, that he was unable sexually to satisfy his wife, Betty Shabazz. Marable also has Malcolm literally running away from Betty after the birth of each of their children. Political focus encouraged parental neglect.
Marable unearths new information from FBI and NYPD surveillance files regarding Malcolm's assassination. Three men were originally convicted; only two of them were present during the shooting. Marable's research points to a conspiracy organised by members of the Nation of Islam's Newark, New Jersey mosque; some of the conspirators remain alive and unindicted. The assassination was tacitly endorsed by the Nation's leadership, and indirectly abetted by both the NYPD and the FBI. However, "the chief beneficiary of Malcolm's assassination", Marable asserts, "was Louis Farrakhan" – his former disciple. With Malcolm dead, Farrakhan was able to assume Malcolm's exalted position within the Nation before taking over the leadership of the organisation after Elijah Muhammad's death.
Marable's reconstruction of Malcolm's engagement with Africa may be the most important and long-lasting aspect of this new biography. He shows how, from fairly early on in his political career, Malcolm looked to African American civil-rights veterans such as A Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr; he privately admired their non-militant political tactics even as he publicly derided them as Uncle Toms. His appreciation and understanding of their work grew over the course of three trips to Africa, during which he discussed the anti-colonial struggle and postcolonial leadership with Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Jomo Kenyatta and others. During his final trip to the continent, he tried to persuade the Organization of African Unity to endorse a memorandum claiming that racism in the United States and South Africa were the same, as part of his efforts to demonstrate that the African American struggle was one of human, not civil, rights. (The OAU refused for fear of being lumped with the Soviets and China.)
Malcolm's pilgrimage to Mecca is well known. But Marable demonstrates how Malcolm's experiences in Saudi Arabia slowly distanced him from the Nation of Islam's fantastical eschatology and its avowedly anti-white theology. While Malcolm's break from Elijah Muhammad was initially prompted by his recognition of the latter's earthly proclivities – in particular, his series of affairs with young women – it also came about because he realised the limited usefulness of Nation theology to the African American struggle.
One of the great shibboleths of American thought puts Martin Luther King and Malcolm X as reconciling opposites: Martin v Malcolm, the integrationist apostle of non-violence versus the separatist demagogue, coming to a dialectical synthesis near the end of their lives. Marable evokes this dualism while implicitly rejecting it. Malcolm X demonstrated that mere reconciliation would not suffice, especially within the insular political and spiritual worlds of the US. By showing how Malcolm X had to look abroad fully to apprehend the condition of blacks in the States, Marable suggests that American redemption may only come through the path that Malcolm took: through the political philosophy of pan-Africanism and the theological ambit of pan-Islam. It is, on Marable's part, a bold and radical move, but one of critical importance. "Malcolm X," Marable writes, "represented the most important bridge between the American people and more than one billion Muslims throughout the world."
Peter James Hudson teaches at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011
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Attn: Ronald Herd II
The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc.
P.O. Box 752062
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Create a Radio Show and Reach Millions. Free for 30 days. Start now.
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