"A Bond That Altered Both Lives and Affected Those of Millions of Others"

"Looking back more than 40 years after the death of Malcolm X, Ali shared his regrets: 'I wish I'd been able to tell Malcolm I was sorry, that he was right about so many things. Malcolm X was a great thinker and an even greater friend.... If I could go back and do it over again, I would never have turned my back on him.' Ali's understanding of the enormity of the loss of Malcolm X is one that he doesn't bear alone."

Robert Anasi in the Los Angeles Times reviews Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith's Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.

Black Power Mixtapes

"But this does not lessen the responsibility of scholars to be exacting, especially when they self-consciously pursue their studies in order to advance social change, as the progressive revisionists of black power do. The art of social transformation is demanding. Those who portray the past for instruction and inspiration must not shrink before its imperatives, lest today’s activists learn the wrong lessons."


Randall L. Kennedy in the Boston Review criticizes recent books about Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and the Black Panthers.

Celebrity Internment Yankee Bunch

The New York Times reports obits for actress Ann B. Davis, columnist Marilyn Beck, activist Yuri Kochiyama, and baseball coach Don Zimmer.

"The Global Dimensions of His Public Career Remain Underexplored and Misunderstood"

"In particular, I highlighted the international context for Malcolm’s activism, the scope and significance of his plans abroad, the distinctions he made between civil rights and human rights, the separation he allowed between religion and politics, and the many ways that his afterlife has overshadowed his actual life."


In Humanity, Moshik Temkin introduces his 2012 essay about "the meanings of Malcolm X's life and death," which occurred forty-nine years ago this month.

Hush that Fuss

"She spent nearly two decades before the bus incident struggling, organizing and agitating for civil rights, mostly as the secretary of the Montgomery, Ala., branch of the N.A.A.C.P. But it wasn’t until Parks was in her 40s and attended an integrated workshop that she found 'for the first time in my adult life that this could be a unified society.' This didn’t mean that she was eager for integration, though. She was later quoted as saying that what people sought 'was not a matter of close physical contact with whites, but equal opportunity.'"

Charles M. Blow in The New York Times discusses a new biography of Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis.

American Swerve X

Columbia University announces the winners of the 2012 Pulitzer Prizes, including John Lewis Gaddis for biography, Manning Marable for history, and Stephen Greenblatt for general nonfiction.

"It Takes Malcolm off of the Pedestal"

"You know, people are always trying to figure out where’s the public and private boundaries in looking at these historic figures. And in this book, Professor Marable makes his own determination. But I think the overwhelming ideas of this book are not about personal reputation, but what comes through this is a deeply sympathetic, but critical, compelling image of Malcolm. And I want to say that Dr. Marable, you know, when we worked with him as his researchers, he would discuss and debate these issues with us. And he really grappled with how he should handle it. And so, I don’t think that he approached this task lightly at all."

At Democracy Now!, Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman interview Zaheer Ali about Manning Marable's last book, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.

Erased Errata

"My interest is not in people it’s just fun to dump on, but in people who have had a decisive impact on black lives and thought in general—and so no Dennis Rodman or Wesley Snipes. I am also thinking about true uniqueness, i.e. people whose essences and trajectories were idiosyncratic enough that if they hadn’t come along, chances are no equivalent person would have filled their shoes (so, no Dennis Rodman or Wesley Snipes!).
"I find that a list like this, if it’s really about impact on black people, cannot even be limited to black people."

John McWhorter in The New Republic laments the impact of ten men and women on black history.