Malcolm X_ A Life of Reinvention - Manning Marable [9]
There also remain many unresolved questions about Malcolm’s death, and what parties were responsible for the order to kill him. History is not a cold-case investigation; I have had to weigh forensic probabilities, not certainties. Although in 1966 three NOI members were convicted of the murder, extensive evidence suggests that two of those men were completely innocent of the crime, that both the FBI and the NYPD had advance knowledge of it, and that the New York County District Attorney’s office may have cared more about protecting the identities of undercover police officers and informants than arresting the real killers. That the case has remained unsolved after more than forty years helps place it in a special category in the annals of African-American and U.S. history. Unlike the murders of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr., gunned down by lone white supremacists, or the killing of George Jackson, carried out by California prison guards, Malcolm was killed before a large audience in the heart of urban black America. In the rush to judgment, his death was attributed solely to the Nation of Islam. The media-constructed image of Malcolm X as a dangerous demagogue made it impossible to conduct a thorough investigation of his death, and it was only within black American communities that he was seen as a political martyr. It would take most of white America almost three decades to alter its perceptions.
The great temptation for the biographer of an iconic figure is to portray him or her as a virtual saint, without the normal contradictions and blemishes that all human beings have. I have devoted so many years in the effort to understand the interior personality and mind of Malcolm that this temptation disappeared long ago. He was a truly historical figure in the sense that, more than any of his contemporaries, he embodied the spirit, vitality, and political mood of an entire population—black urban mid-twentieth-century America. He spoke with clarity, humor, and urgency, and black audiences both in the United States and throughout Africa responded enthusiastically. Even when he made controversial statements with which the majority of African Americans strongly disagreed, few questioned his sincerity and commitment. On the other hand, any comprehensive review of his public record reveals major mistakes of judgment, including negotiations with the Ku Klux Klan. But unlike many other leaders, Malcolm had the courage to admit his mistakes, and to seek out and apologize to those he had offended. Even when I have disagreed with him, I deeply admire the strength and integrity of his character, and the love he obviously felt toward the African-American people and their culture.
To appreciate how Malcolm’s resurrection occurred, first among African Americans and later throughout America, we need to reconstruct the full contours of his remarkable life—a story that begins in a small black community on the north side of Omaha, Nebraska.
CHAPTER 1
“Up, You Mighty Race!”
1925-1941
Malcolm X’s father, Earl Little, Sr., was born in Reynolds, Georgia, on July 29, 1890. A farmerʹs son who was frequently called Early, he had barely three years of formal schooling, although as a teenager he learned carpentry, which provided him with a livelihood. In 1909, he married a local African-American woman, Daisy Mason, and in quick succession had three children: Ella, Mary, and Earl, Jr.
Reynolds, a small town in Georgia’s southwest corner, had a population of only twelve hundred people