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Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Manning Marable. New York: Viking, 2011. Pp. 592. $30.00 (cloth).
The monumental new biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention may be the most important book about Malcolm's controversial life since the Autobiography. Clearly a labor of love spanning many years, this final volume by the eminent African-American scholar Manning Marable (who passed away shortly before publication) chronicles Malcolm's astonishing evolution over the thirty-nine years from his birth in Omaha to his 1965 murder in Harlem at the hands of Nation of Islam gunmen. Influenced at first by the Garveyite views of his parents, Malcolm then cycled from high-school dropout to petty criminal-with the moniker "Detroit Red"-before a six year stay in prison saw him convert to the Nation of Islam, whose nationalism jibed with his early Garveyite upbringing. Devoting most of his career to the cause, he quickly became the most prominent public face of the movement led by Elijah Muhammad. Tensions between Malcolm and Elijah led to a break in 1964, with Malcolm founding the rival religious group Muslim Mosque Incorporated and the secular Organization of Afro-American Unity. Stimulated by two extended trips to both North and Sub-Saharan African, Malcolm moved partway from his earlier hatreds and towards a more inclusive vision, especially after his pilgrimage to Mecca.
Marable calls upon thorough research to deepen and correct the received picture from beginning to end, often by noting disparities between the autobiography (mostly written by collaborator Alex Haley) and actual events. For example, the "Detroit Red" criminal persona crafted by Malcolm and Haley wildly exaggerates a few petty teenage crimes in order to provide a stronger contrast with Malcolm's prison conversion to the Nation Of Islam. The self-serving cynicism of "Detroit Red" was set against Malcolm's prison embrace of a cause beyond himself. As relations with the Nation of Islam deteriorated towards the end...