Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [316]
And finally, I am deeply grateful to the real Malcolm X, the man behind the myth, who courageously challenged and transformed himself, seeking to achieve a vision of a world without racism. Without erasing his mistakes and contradictions, Malcolm embodies a definitive yardstick by which all other Americans who aspire to a mantle of leadership should be measured.
Manning Marable September 25, 2010
NOTES
Key to Notes
MANY—Municipal Archives in the City of New York
RWL—Robert W. Woodruff Library Special Collections Department
MX FBI—Malcolm X FBI file
MXC-S—Malcolm X Collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
BOSS—Bureau of Special Services
UTLSC—University of Tennessee Library Special Collection
KMC—The Ken McCormick Collection of the Records of Doubleday and Company
Prologue: Life Beyond The Legend
1 larger Grand Ballroom, holding up to fifteen hundred. See Eric William Allison, “Audubon Theatre and Ballroom,” in Kenneth T. Jackson, ed., The Encyclopedia of New York City (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 66.
1 accompanied by the occasional violent confrontation. Letter to the editor, Shirley G. Quill, New York Times, April 1, 1990. Quill observed that “long before the gruesome assassination of Malcolm X, the Audubon Ballroom was known as the cradle of the T.W.U., the first union of municipal transit workers in modern labor history.”
1 Two people were badly wounded. “Girl and Man Shot in Dance Hall,” New York Times, September 22, 1929.
3 “The Negroes at the mass level are ready to act.” M. S. Handler, “Malcolm X Splits with Muhammad,” New York Times, March 9, 1964; and M. S. Handler, “Malcolm X Sees Rise in Violence,” New York Times, March 13, 1964.
3 “who are responsible to white authorities—Negro Uncle Toms.” Emanuel Perlmutter, “Murphy Says City Will Not Permit Rights Violence,” New York Times, March 16, 1964.
4 and only one, briefly, was stationed. Herman Ferguson interview, OAAU member and eyewitness to Malcolm X’s assassination, June 27, 2003.
4 at a considerable distance from the featured event. Peter Goldman, The Death and Life of Malcolm X, revised edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979), pp. 269, 274.
4 an easy escape to New Jersey. Ibid., pp. 416-19.
4 about as far as he could have been from the stage. William 64X George statement with New York County District Attorney’s office, March 18, 1965. The police interviews related to the Malcolm X murder investigation are available in Case File 871-65, Series I, New York Department of Records and Information Services, Municipal Archives in the City of New York (MANY). The district attorney’s case file on the assassination of Malcolm X is divided into three series, according to chronological periods corresponding with the murder case. Series I includes materials from the police investigation and indictment; Series II includes the 1966 murder trial; Series III encompasses the appeals of the convicted assailants, Norman Butler, Thomas Johnson, and Talmadge Hayer (aka Thomas Hagan). Of great significance is the availability of unredacted FBI internal documents and a copy of the full grand jury transcript of the Malcolm X murder trial, in Series I. The district attorney’s files were closed to the public until 1993, at which point they were transferred to the New York City Municipal Archives. For a comprehensive analysis of the case file, see Elizabeth Mazucci, “St. Malcolm’s Relics: A Study of the Artifacts Shaped by the Assassination of Malcolm X,” M.A. thesis, Columbia University, 2005.
5 Cathcart complied and returned to his seat. In his NYPD interview, Linwood X Cathcart was shown photographs of Norman Butler