Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

So I've finally read Manning Marable's Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention and I cannot help but comment on it. It was immediately controversial and hated by fans of the mythic Malcolm X and black nationalists for suggesting (assuming in the eyes of black nationalists) that Malcolm X engaged in homosexual activity with an older white man while living in Boston (his petty crime days before going to prison and joining the Nation of Islam due to pressure from his brothers and a series of letters from Elijah Muhammad), could not satisfy his wife, Betty, that Malcolm and Betty had a troubled marriage with cheating on both sides, and Malcolm exaggerated his criminal activity prior to joining the Nation of Islam to follow the hustler/trickster tradition in African-American folklore as well as demonstrating to Alex Haley (the writer of the Autobiography) how far he had come thanks to the Nation of Islam's rehabilitation of ex-convicts. He also suggests that 1 of Malcolm's assassins is still out there, and that due to the FBI and NYPD's refusals to share their decades-long illegal wiretapping and records on Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, the government could have also had a role in the assassination, especially due to the police's mishandling of the murder case.

One thing Marable succeeds well in the book is explaining the historical, cultural and political contexts of Malcolm's reinventions. Thus, Marable takes us into the world of Harlem in the 1940s-1960s, the Nation of Islam, the long history of black nationalism dating back to Edward Wilmot Blyden and Marcus Garvey, the Pan-Africanist movement, Nasserite socialism, decolonization, Cuban Revolution, Civil Rights Movement, and Cold War bipolar structure of international relations that defined this period. He also explains why Harlem developed in Black America's urban capital, due to the large black churches selling their property in lower Manhattan and moving to what was then cheaper property uptown in Harlem. Blacks came to Harlem because black churches brought large congregations uptown with them, including some of the leading churches in Harlem, such as the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Marable also shows how Harlem was always a hotbed of black political activity and agency through the black vote in support of leaders like Adam Clayton Powell, black protests and mobilization against unemployment, lack of housing, and police brutality (Malcolm X organized 2 anti-police brutality demonstrations that drew thousands of Harlemites) and blacks resistance to evictions during the hard times brought by the Great Depression and Harlem becoming one of the leading examples of urban blight. Malcolm X could not help becoming drawn into political activities, despite the Nation of Islam's apolitical, conservative stance on civil rights and dealing with the issues facing Black America. Thus, as Marable traces in his book, Malcolm X's split with Elijah Muhammad and the NOI was inevitable since he had been leaning toward political mobilization and revolution for the majority of blacks beginning in 1950s Harlem, while the NOI was urging blacks to not vote, fight segregation, and establish black capitalist enterprises instead. Of course Malcolm would also split with the corrupt NOI for its obvious lack of orthodox Islamic theology and practice as well, since Malcolm's trips abroad forced him to open his eyes to orthodox Islam, which does not define whites as devils, nor does it proclaim Elijah Muhammad as a prophet since Muslims believe Muhammad of Arabia was the final prophet.

Marable also gives the reader the long context of Islam and black nationalism throughout African-American political thought dating back to the 19th century. Since Muslims came over with other enslaved Africans to the Americas, Islam has always been part of the African-American experience. Furthermore, black nationalist groups like the Moorish Science Temple, established in the early 20th century, identified Black Americans as "Moors" whose real religion is Islam, something adopted by the NOI which claimed blacks were "Asiatic" of the tribe of Shabazz. Clearly, Black America's fascination with Islam has been around for a long time, and black Muslim groups have been significant in black urban areas throughout the 20th century. Indeed, the Ahmadiyya Muslim movement also made thousands of converts from Black Americans, including the famous jazz musician Art Blakey. The other black nationalist mass movement that had a large influence on African-Americans, including Malcolm X's family and the Nation of Islam, was Garvey's UNIA, or Universal Negro Improvement Association. According to Marable, the UNIA had nearly a million members at its zenith in the 1920s, and both Malcolm's parents were involved Garveyites. His mother, a light-skinned woman from Grenada who had lived in Montreal before meeting Earl Little, Malcolm's father, traveled to different cities to establish UNIA groups with Little, who had abandoned his wife and children in Georgia due to white threats and a failing marriage. Raised by black nationalist Garveyites urging black self-sufficiency, pride, and politics inevitably shaped Malcolm's own developing ideology, as well as influencing the Nation of Islam.

Interestingly, Marable argues that there is no evidence of Malcolm's father being murdered by whites when living in Michigan. Their house was burned for purchasing a home in a white area (Michigan, like many Northern states, had racial covenants on housing), but Malcolm's father's was killed as a result of being hit by a streetcar at night. He could've been pushed, but too little is known. Marable also provides evidence of Malcolm's parents' abusive, violent relationship. Earl Little and his wife quarreled all the time, and he definitely hit her and the couple's fighting impacted their children. Malcolm himself (influenced by the NOI's patriarchal, sexist notions of proper black female comportment) had a troubled marriage with Betty, trying to control her strong, independent-minded actions and demonizing women in his private conversations and sermons. His marriage with Betty is covered well by Marable, but since he relies on gossip and hearsay for prove of their infidelity and Malcolm's inability to please her sexually, one must remain skeptical. I believe Malcolm was patriarchal (though by the end of his life he had placed educated women at high positions in the Organization of Afro-American Unity, much to the chagrin of his loyalists who left the NOI with him), and his relationship with his wife suffered from that because she was a fiercely independent woman who had to raise their children alone because Malcolm put his work for the NOI and later, his MMI and OAAU, ahead of his family. Part of the reason I say Marable's suggestions for the couple's marital woes is problematic is due to the lack confirming evidence beyond a few writings, statements from Betty and others, and problematic interviews with people like Louis Farrakhan, who believes that Malcolm X still harbored feelings for Evelyn Williams, a woman he had met in Boston who he proposed to before proposing to Betty. Anything Malcolm's rivals from the NOI say about him and his love life must be questioned since people like Farrakhan saw Malcolm's prominence in the NOI and prominence after leaving the NOI as a threat to the group. Furthermore, one must also question the possibilities of Malcolm X ever having engaged in any homosexual activity with Lennon, the white man in Boston who employed Malcolm during this period of petty crime (he was involved in a series of home burglaries with a black friend and 2 white women, who betrayed him at the trial and got off easy because of their whiteness). It's possible Malcolm did do some non-physical thing with Lennon that helped him get off (pouring talcum powder on his body, I believe), but there's no irrefutable evidence Malcolm did besides the deconstruction of the Autobiography that reveals Malcolm made up another person who did do that.

The deconstruction of Alex Haley's Autobiography is important and one of Marable's strengths. Recognizing that Haley was  a liberal Republican, and Malcolm X was fabricating and exaggerating aspects of his past, mainly the "Detroit Red" criminal/hustler, makes it clear that Haley's book overlooked factual details of Malcolm X's youth. The book also fails to highlight Malcolm's developing political ideology and religious beliefs (orthodox Islam) so we are deprived of the ever-changing, humanity of Malcolm X and his family relations. So the Autobiography lacks Malcolm's newer developments in the last 2 years of his life (1964-65) in addition to not providing a 'factual' account of his youth and criminal past as a burglar, drug dealer, and pimp. Unfortunately, Marable's reliance on unverifiable data from questionable sources weakens his book, and his own lack of objective lens becomes palpable. His disagreement with the NOI and its theology becomes very obvious, though it is understandable given the absurdity of aspects of NOI's theology, Elijah Muhammad's adultery and bastard children, in addition to the Fruit of Islam (the paramilitary wing of the NOI) acting thuggish and committing murders and physical violence. Moreover, Marable points out some of the inconsistencies and contradictions of Malcolm X's speeches, actions, and beliefs on the mainstream civil rights movement: Marable correctly insists Malcolm recognized the importance of voting and the power of the black vote in elections, but also urged blacks to defend themselves with arms, which distanced him from the mainstream civil rights movement and its "Uncle Tom" leaders like Rustin, MLK, etc. Malcolm X also continued to support black economic nationalism while critiquing capitalism and speaking with leftist/socialist organizations, which Marable finds contradictory. Malcolm publicly attacked capitalism and praised the socialistic systems adopted by many Asian and African nations after decolonization, but his belief in black economic well-being and independence is capitalism. Marable also loses his objective lens when attacking Malcolm X's inaccurate portrayal of African-American culture as completely destroyed by slavery, something he picked up in the NOI that saw blacks as the Original People who lost their religion and culture through slavery. Some of Marable's criticism is obviously valid and should be discussed to illumine the shortcomings of Malcolm X's beliefs and black nationalism more generally, but Marable, a black socialist progressive, ovesteps the boundaries of an objective biography by going into such precise detail the contradictions and weaknesses of Malcolm X's Pan-Africanism, black nationalism, etc. Because of his own political affiliations, it becomes clear to me that he would have wanted Malcolm to continue shifting more and more to the socialist left, as well as creating procedures for democratic decision making in the MMI and OAAU so that the organizations could operate without Malcolm. Marable criticizes Malcolm X for 'anti-Semitism' as well.

Overall, Marable's biography is a acceptable book. One could argue that is does not really offer anything new besides suggestions from questionable sources, but it does successfully dismantle the image of a 'heroic' Malcolm who symbolizes an ideal black masculinity. Malcolm was human, and like all humans, full of contradictions and flaws that none of us can escape. Malcolm's troubling relationship with his wife, his abandonment of his brother Reginald who was kicked out of the NOI, and his meeting with white supremacist groups under Elijah Muhammad's orders demonstrate this reality, which is overlooked by idealizing historical figures. Marable also does a good job elucidating changes his Malcolm's beliefs and problems with the NOI that forced him to leave, since Malcolm had already strayed with the NOI during his speeches and mobilizations against police brutality in Harlem, LA, and scathing criticisms of Kennedy, Johnson, and the American political system that is incapable of changing itself. Of course by endorsing voting and calling for voter drives and education training like SNCC and other civil rights groups, Malcolm was leaning toward the mainstream civil rights movement and contradicted his belief that the American two-party system is incapable of reform. This book is important for white people though, taught to see Malcolm as anti-white, racist, and violent, when Malcolm was about self-defense, humanity of black folks, internationalizing civil rights as human rights to connect it with Pan-Africanist goals and Third World liberation. White readers will come away from this book with a more nuanced understanding of Malcolm, who was not developing into an MLK by the end of his life, as some whites and blacks saw him, but remaining a black nationalist urging guerrilla warfare as a necessary tactic for decolonization/anti-imperialism in the Third World, black political organizations in the US and Africa collaborating to bring human rights violations against Black Americans to the United Nations, and, as Marable himself states, a fundamental restructuring of power and wealth in the United States with recognition of the importance of voting in speeches like "The Ballot or the Bullet." Malcolm remained wholly unique, and a great speaker whose rhetorical genius, influenced by his jazz-based riffing and ghetto background, made him the speaker for poor and working black Negroes. His legacy lives on in the Black Power Movement, hip-hop, the hustler/trickster traditions present in gangsta rap, and black nationalist organizations. There also exists a photograph of him and Billie Holiday, which was given to Alex Haley for the  Autobiography project Malcolm and Haley were working on. The confusing decisions made by Malcolm and his bodyguards at his last speech at the Audubon Ballroom, in addition to the police and FBI's lack of proper attention and care of the assassination, will forever complicate who was the guilty party in the murder. Finally, Malcolm's travels abroad in Africa and the Middle East introduced him to the ummah, African political elites, and African-American expatriates in Accra, Ghana, such as Shirley Du Bois and Maya Angelou. Surprisingly, Marable is not as critical of Malcolm's naivete on racism and color prejudice in the Muslim world, and the main reason Malcolm was treated so well in the Middle East and Egypt is because of his reputation as a black Muslim leader in the US. If he had known about the Muslim government of Sudan's civil war with the South, surely his understanding of Islam and its color-blind theology is contradicted in practice.