The Death And Life Of Malcolm X

Drawing from interviews with Malcolm X and the recollections of his friends and associates, the author illuminates the struggles of the Black leader during his last years and the events surrounding his assassination.

The Death and Life of Malcolm X provides a dramatic portrait of one of the most important black leaders of the twentieth century. Focusing on Malcolm X's rise to prominence and the final year of his life, the book details his rift with the Nation of Islam and its leader, Elijah Muhammad, leading to death threats and eventually assassination at the hands of a death squad. In a new preface for this edition, Peter Goldman reflects on the forty years since the book's first publication and considers new information based on FBI surveillance that has since come to light.

An epic, award-winning biography of Malcolm X that draws on hundreds of hours of personal interviews and rewrites much of the known narrative. Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to create an unprecedented portrait of Malcolm X, one that would separate fact from fiction. The result is this historic, National Book Award–winning biography, which interweaves previously unknown details of Malcolm X’s life—from harrowing Depression-era vignettes to a moment-by-moment retelling of the 1965 assassination—into an extraordinary account that contextualizes Malcolm X’s life against the wider currents of American history. Bookended by essays from Tamara Payne, Payne’s daughter and primary researcher, who heroically completed the biography after her father’s death in 2018, The Dead Are Arising affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle.

Malcolm X's blazing, legendary autobiography, completed shortly before his assassination in 1965, depicts a remarkable life: a child born into rage and despair, who turned to street-hustling and cocaine in the Harlem ghetto, followed by prison, where he converted to the Black Muslims and honed the energy and brilliance that made him one of the most important political figures of his time - and an icon in ours. It also charts the spiritual journey that took him beyond militancy, and led to his murder, a powerful story of transformation, redemption and betrayal. Vilified by his critics as an anti-white demagogue, Malcolm X gave a voice to unheard African-Americans, bringing them pride, hope and fearlessness, and remains an inspirational and controversial figure today.

February 21, 1965. Controversial civil rights leader Malcolm X is gunned down during a speech in Manhattan. Few were shocked by the news of Malcolm X's death. Since 1952 the former member of the Nation of Islam had supported the Nation's philosophy of violence as the method to achieve justice for blacks in the United States. But in March 1964, after a major shift in his philosophy, Malcolm changed his message. He no longer agreed with the Nation of Islam and feuded with its leaders. He knew that someone would try to kill him. Nearly one year later, that time finally came. The 39-year-old was shot in public at point-blank range. The news devastated Malcolm's followers. But other people reacted with relief. Malcolm X had always been a lightning rod. Some had felt he did the civil rights movement more harm than good. Still others—including leaders of the Nation of Islam—reacted with joy. Malcolm X had become an inconvenience to them and now he was out of the way. Three men were found guilty of the murder. But rumors of conspiracy and cover-up still swirl. Who gave the order for Malcolm X's murder? Why did two of the convicted killers insist upon their innocence—even after being released from prison in the 1980s? In this chronicle of an assassination, find out the answers to these questions and learn more about the impact of Malcolm X's life, and his death, on civil rights in the United States.