The Afterlife of Malcolm X

Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm Xs influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights. Malcolm X has become as much of an American icon as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, or Martin Luther King. But when he was murdered in 1965, he was still seen as a dangerous outsider. White America found him alienating, mainstream African Americans found him divisive, and even his admirers found him bravely radical. Although Ossie Davis famously eulogized Malcolm X as our own Black shining prince, he never received the mainstream acceptance toward which he seemed to be striving in his final year. It is more in death than his life that Malcolms influence has blossomed and come to leave a deep imprint on the cultural landscape of America. With impeccable research and original reporting, Mark Whitaker tells the story of Malcolm Xs far-reaching posthumous legacy. It stretches from founders of the Black Power Movement such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey Newton to hip-hop pioneers such as Public Enemy and Tupac Shakur. Leaders of the Black Arts and Free Jazz movements from Amiri Baraka to Maya Angelou, August Wilson, and John Coltrane credited their political awakening to Malcolm, as did some of the most influential athletes of our time, from Muhammad Ali to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and beyond. Spikes movie biopic and the Black Lives Matter movement reintroduced Malcolm to subsequent generations. Across the political spectrum, he has been cited as a formative influence by both Barack Obamawho venerated Malcolms unadorned insistence on respectand Clarence Thomas, who was drawn to Malcolms messages of self-improvement and economic self-help. In compelling new detail, Whitaker also retraces the long road to exoneration for two men wrongfully convicted of Malcolms murder, making The Afterlife of Malcolm X essential reading for anyone interested in true crime, American politics, culture, and history.