This biography, though it covers his early life and adulthood, focusses most prominently on Malcolm X's final years, which were largely dominated by his departure from the Nation of Islam and his conflict with Elijah Muhammad. Throughout, the author addresses a number of lingering issues, including the role of fellow prisoner John Elton Bembry in Malcolm's prison conversion; whether Malcolm decided to leave the Nation of Islam before he was suspended by Elijah Muhammad; whether he was seeking martyrdom; and the extent of the role that government agencies played in Malcolm X's assassination in 1965.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.
"From Civil Rights to Black Liberation is one of the few books that offers historical research about the OAAU, a revolutionary organization founded by Malcolm X and rooted in traditions of Black nationalism, self-determination, and human rights. The author establishes the relevance of Malcolm's political legacy for the task of rebuilding the movement for Black liberation almost thirty years after his assassination." -- Publisher.
This dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King upends longstanding preconceptions to transform our understanding of the twentieth century's most iconic African American leaders. To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent contrasting ideals: self-defense vs. nonviolence, black power vs. civil rights, the sword vs. the shield. The struggle for black freedom is wrought with the same contrasts. While nonviolent direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American democracy, the movement's militancy is either vilified or erased outright. In The Sword and the Shield, Peniel E. Joseph upends these misconceptions and reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who, despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each other throughout their adult lives. This is a strikingly revisionist biography, not only of Malcolm and Martin, but also of the movement and era they came to define.
In the year 2015 we remembered the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination in Harlem, New York. Spurred by the commitment to continue the critical work that Malcolm X began, the scholars represented in the book have analysed the enduring significance of Malcolm X’s life, work and religious philosophy. Edited by Dustin J. Byrd and Seyed Javad Miri, Malcolm X: From Political Eschatology to Religious Revolutionary, represents an important investigation into the religious and political philosophy of one of the most important African-American and Muslim thinkers of the 20th century. Thirteen different scholars from six different countries and various academic disciplines have contributed to our understanding of why Malcolm X is still important fifty years after his death. Contributors are: Syed Farid Alatas, Dustin J. Byrd, Bethany Beyyette, Louis A. DeCaro, Stephen C. Ferguson, William David Hart, John H. McClendon, Seyed Javad Miri, John Andrew Morrow, Emin Poljarevic, Rudolf J. Siebert, Nuri Tinaz and Yolanda Van Tilborgh.
The classic collection of major speeches, now bundled with an audio download of Malcolm X delivering two of them. Malcolm X remains a touchstone figure for black America and in American culture at large. He gave African Americans not only their consciousness but their history, dignity, and a new pride. No single individual can claim more important responsibility for a social and historical leap forward such as the one sparked in America in the sixties. When, in 1965, Malcolm X was gunned down on the stage of a Harlem theater, America lost one of its most dynamic political thinkers. Yet, as Michael Eric Dyson has observed, “he remains relevant because he spoke presciently to the issues that matter today: black identity, the politics of black rage, the expression of black dissent, the politics of black power, and the importance of consolidating varieties of expressions within black communities—different ideologies and politics—and bringing them together under a banner of functional solidarity.” The End of White World Supremacy contains four major speeches by Malcolm X, including: “Black Man's History,” “The Black Revolution,” “The Old Negro and the New Negro,” and the famous “The Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost” speech ("God's Judgment of White America"), delivered after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Several of the speeches include a discussion with the moderator, among whom Adam Clayton Powell, or a question-and-answer with the audience. This new edition bundles with the book an audio download of Malcolm's stirring delivery of “Black Man's History” in Harlem's Temple No.7 and “The Black Revolution” in the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
This unique psychobiographical study integrates a wide and subtle view of the history of white racism and the black liberation movement with a deep and sensitive understanding of the inner world of Malcolm X. Eugene Victor Wolfenstein is a critical social theorist and a practicing psychoanalyst who argues that racism must be analyzed within a personal as well as a political context. Drawing from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm's published speeches, and a variety of historical materials, Wolfenstein interweaves Marxist and psychoanalytic concepts to examine the evolution of Malcolm's consciousness--from his youth through his successive incarnations as hustler, prisoner, black Muslim minister, and African-American revolutionary. Exploring the complex interplay of politics, economics, and the human psyche, this powerful work of critical social theory interprets the life history of Malcolm X and provides a cogent historical analysis of the black liberation movement in the United States.
