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By Root 1747 0

X, Louis Farrakhan, and various law enforcement agencies. It would not be entirely surprising if an FBI transcript surfaced documenting a telephone call from Elijah Muhammad to a subordinate, authorizing Malcolm’s murder. At present, the evidence suggests that Farrakhan, for one, was not personally involved and had no prior knowledge of the plot; however, he surely understood the consequences of his fiery condemnation of Malcolm, as well as of the forces within the Nation of Islam that would rid Elijah Muhammad of the turbulent priest. He may have suspected that his order to speak at the Newark mosque that February 21, 1965, was not a wholly innocent pursuit. It was ambition, not direct involvement in the crime, that blinded Farrakhan to what was going on around him.

EPILOGUE

Reflections on a Revolutionary Vision

A biography maps the social architecture of an individual’s life. The biographer charts the evolution of a subject over time, and the various challenges and tests that the individual endures provide insights into the person’s character. But the biographer has an additional burden: to explain events and the perspectives and actions of others that the subject could not possibly know, that nevertheless had a direct bearing on the individual’s life.

Malcolm X today has iconic status, in the pantheon of multicultural American heroes. But at the time of his death he was widely reviled and dismissed as an irresponsible demagogue. Malcolm deliberately sought to stand at the margins, challenging the United States government and American institutions. There was a cost to all this. The state branded him as a subversive and a security risk. J. Edgar Hoover’s animus toward Malcolm X, for example, set into motion acts of illegal wiretapping, surveillance, and disruption by law enforcement officers that probably surpassed anything Malcolm could have imagined. Malcolm was not fully aware, until too late, of the deep hostilities he had provoked inside the Nation of Islam that led a coterie of officials around Muhammad to call for his murder. He placed his trust in a bodyguard who may have planned and helped to carry out his public execution. Leaders like Malcolm have enormous confidence in themselves and in their ability to persuade others. It was extremely difficult for him to anticipate betrayal, or even to acknowledge it.

Malcolm’s strength was his ability to reinvent himself, in order to function and even thrive in a wide variety of environments. He carefully crafted his physical presentation, the manner in which he approached others, drawing upon the past experiences from his own life as well as from African-American folklore and culture. He wove a narrative of suffering and resistance, of tragedy and triumph, that captured the imaginations of black people throughout the world. He lived the existence of an itinerant musician, traveling constantly from city to city, standing night after night on the stage, manipulating his melodic tenor voice as an instrument. He was consciously a performer, who presented himself as the vessel for conveying the anger and impatience the black masses felt. Impoverished African Americans could admire Dr. King, but Malcolm not only spoke their language, he had lived their experiences—in foster homes, in prisons, in unemployment lines. Malcolm was loved because he could present himself as one of them.

One great gift of such remarkable individuals is the ability to seize their time, to speak to their unique moment in history. Both Martin and Malcolm were such leaders, but they expressed their pragmatic visions in different ways. King embodied the historic struggles waged by generations of African Americans for full equality. He established predominantly black political organizations, such as the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1955 and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, but their emphasis was the achievement of desegregation and interracial cooperation. King never pitted blacks against whites, or used the atrocities committed by white extremists as a justification