“Malcom X” by Manning Marable

Malcom X: A Life of Reinvention

By Manning Marable

2011

608 pages / 22 hours and 4 minutes

Nonfiction

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If you had the choice, would you choose a biography or an autobiography? From which source are you more likely to get the truth of the matter? It is a deceptively difficult question. One would think that an individual would be the best expert on their own life, yet autobiographers may have reasons to lie or tell less than the whole truth. They also may not have enough distance from their own life to get it right.

Since 1965, The Autobiography of Malcolm X has been the authoritative source on this controversial life. Not anymore. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable is now the go-to source on Malcolm X. The book was published in 2012 and won the Pulitzer Prize. Sadly, Marable died in 2011 at the age of 60.

I highly recommend this book as an education on the part of the civil rights movement that many of us know little about. And Malcolm is an utterly fascinating study, both attracting people to him and repulsing others.

The outlines of his life are well-known, I suppose, though I started from a place of almost total ignorance. Early in his life he was a petty criminal, though he may have exaggerated his criminality to make the story more compelling. He was very influenced by Marcus Garvey and his principles of Black nationalism, Pan-Africanism, and self-reliance. Again, this is an area where many white readers know very little. I found it very educational.

While Malcolm clearly has Marable’s deep respect (he spent 10 years writing this book) it is no hagiography. The sexual dalliance is there along with a man who appears to have been a terrible husband and father.

Of course he famously wound up in the Nation of Islam and eventually had a major falling out with its leader Elijah Mohammed. Marable leaves little doubt that it was Nation of Islam figures who ordered and carried out Malcolm’s assassination. Marable names names, and some of those people are still around.

But near the end of his short life Malcolm was moving from the Nation of Islam toward the more traditional world religion of Islam. He made a pilgrimage and also a trip to Africa that transformed his thinking. Reinvention indeed, until the very end.

When someone becomes a legend like Malcolm has, it is easy to forget that they also had a real life. A great biography presents us with a real human being including all the greatness and littleness that goes with being human. This is a great biography. White Christians have always been more at ease with the Martin Luther King side of the civil rights movement (this legend also had a life, by the way), but readers of all ethnicities should find this a fascinating read. If all you know about Malcolm is the line by “any means necessary,” you don't know nearly enough.