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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
File:AutobiographyOfMalcolmX.JPG
First edition
AuthorMalcolm X with Alex Haley
GenreAutobiography
PublisherGrove Press
Publication date
1965
Publication placeUnited States
OCLC219493184

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is a 1965 book about the life of human rights activist Malcolm X (1925–1965). The book was the result of a collaboration between Malcolm X and journalist Alex Haley, who wrote the Autobiography based on a series of in-depth interviews he conducted with Malcolm X between 1963 and 1965. After Malcolm X's death Haley authored the book's epilogue, in which he describes their collaboration, and summarizes the end of Malcolm X's life.

While Malcolm X and contemporary scholars may have regarded Haley as the book's ghostwriter, modern scholarship tends to regard him as an essential collaborator who intentionally subsumed his authorial voice in order to allow the reader of the narrative to feel as though Malcolm X were speaking directly to them. Haley influenced some of Malcolm X's choices; for instance, when Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam, Haley persuaded him to favor a style of "suspense and drama" rather than changing earlier chapters of the book into a polemic against the Nation. Further, Haley's active censorship of the manuscript's antisemitic material significantly influenced the ideological tone of the Autobiography, increasing its commercial success and popularity while creating a somewhat distorted view of Malcolm X's public figure.

Eliot Fremont-Smith, reviewing The Autobiography of Malcolm X for The New York Times in 1965, described it as "extraordinary" and said it was a "brilliant, painful, important book". Two years later, historian John William Ward wrote that the book "will surely become one of the classics in American autobiography". In 1998, Time named The Autobiography of Malcolm X one of the ten most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century. A screenplay adaptation of the Autobiography by William Baldwin and Arnold Perl provided the source material for Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X.

Summary of material

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an account of the life of human rights activist Malcolm X (1925–1965). It begins with an incident during Malcolm X's mother's pregnancy and describes his childhood in Michigan, the death of his father under questionable circumstances, and his mother's deteriorating mental health, which resulted in her commitment to a psychiatric hospital.[1] Malcolm X's young adulthood in Boston and New York City is covered, as is his involvement in organized crime leading to his arrest and subsequent eight- to ten-year prison sentence, of which he served six and a half years (1946–1952).[2] The book addresses his ministry with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam (1952–1963), and his emergence as the organization's national spokesman. It furthermore documents his subsequent disillusionment with and departure from the Nation of Islam in March 1964, his conversion to orthodox Sunni Islam, his pilgrimage to Mecca, and his travels in Africa.[3] After Malcolm X was assassinated in New York's Audubon Ballroom in February 1965, Haley authored the Autobiography's 74-page epilogue, which summarizes the last days of Malcolm X's life.[4]

The Autobiography is a spiritual conversion narrative[5] which outlines Malcolm X's philosophy of black pride, black nationalism, and pan-Africanism. Still, scholars see more in the Autobiography than a simple narrative. According to Robin Kelley, professor of history, American studies, and ethnicity at the University of Southern California, the Autobiography is also a didactic essay, with much of the content illustrating Malcolm X's views of integrationism and black nationalism.[6] According to author John Paul Eakin, the Autobiography is an "imaginative recreation" of Malcolm X's conversion narrative which exploits the "autobiographical fiction of the completed self",[7] or in the words of writer Alex Gillespie, "the illusion of the finished and unified personality".[8] According to Arnold Rampersad,[9] and affirmed by Michael Eric Dyson, the narrative of the Autobiography resembles the Augustinian approach to confessional narrative, as both relate the early hedonistic lives of their subjects in the form of a confession, document deep philosophical change for spiritual reasons, and the later disillusionment with religious groups their subjects had once revered.[10] Both Haley[11] and autobiographical scholar Albert E. Stone[12] draw a comparison with the Icarus myth, suggesting that Malcolm X like Icarus before him, came too close to the truth, thus initiating his own downfall.

Construction

Malcolm X waiting for a press conference to begin on March 26, 1964

Alex Haley coauthored The Autobiography of Malcolm X, but also performed the basic functions of a ghostwriter and biographical amanuensis,[13] writing, compiling, and editing[14] the Autobiography based on more than 50 in-depth interviews he conducted with Malcolm X between 1963 and the activist's assassination.[15] The two first met in 1959, when Haley wrote an article about the Nation of Islam for Reader's Digest, and again when Haley interviewed Malcolm X for Playboy Magazine in 1962.[16] When work on the Autobiography began in early 1963, Haley grew frustrated with Malcolm X's tendency to speak only about Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. Haley reminded him that the book was supposed to be about Malcolm X, not Muhammad or the Nation of Islam, which angered the activist. Haley eventually shifted the focus of the interviews when he asked Malcolm X about his mother:[17]

I said, "Mr. Malcolm, could you tell me something about your mother?" And I will never, ever forget how he stopped almost as if he was suspended like a marionette. And he said, "I remember the kind of dresses she used to wear. They were old and faded and gray." And then he walked some more. And he said, "I remember how she was always bent over the stove, trying to stretch what little we had." And that was the beginning, that night, of his walk. And he walked that floor until just about daybreak.[18]

Haley's contribution to the work is unique, and several sources discuss how it should be characterized. E. Victor Wolfenstein writes,[19] affirmed by Dyson,[20] Stone[21] and others, that Haley performed the duties of a quasi-psychoanalytic Freudian[22] psychiatrist and spiritual confessor, and the Autobiography takes the form of a conversion narrative,[23] documenting the spiritual conversion experiences of Malcolm X.[24] Alex Gillespie suggests, affirmed by Wolfenstein,[25] that the act of self-narration was itself a transformative process that spurred significant introspection and personal change in the life of its subject.[26] Though he is nominally a ghostwriter on the Autobiography, modern sources[27] tend to treat Haley as an essential and core collaborator who took pains to act as an invisible figure in the composition of the work.[28] He expended energy to minimize his own voice, signed a contract to limit his authorial discretion nominally in favor of producing what looked like verbatim copy, and was credited in much the same way ghostwriters are credited, when they are credited.[29] However, according to Michael Eric Dyson and Manning Marable,[30] this view of Haley as simply a ghostwriter is a deliberate narrative construction of contemporary black scholars who wanted to see the book as a singular creation of a dynamic leader and martyr.[31] According to Dyson and Marable,[32] it is not borne out of a critical analysis of the Autobiography, or the full relationship between Malcolm X and Alex Haley, which they describe as a collaboration.[33] Haley exercised discretion,[34] guided Malcolm X in critical stylistic and rhetorical choices,[35] and compiled the work.[36] In the epilogue to the Autobiography, Haley describes an agreement he made with his subject, Malcolm X demanding that: "Nothing can be in this book's manuscript that I didn't say and nothing can be left out that I want in it." As such, Haley wrote an addendum to the contract specifically referring to the book as an "as told to" account. In the agreement, Haley gained an "important concession", according to Haley, "I asked for—and he gave—his permission that at the end of the book I could write comments of my own about him which would not be subject to his review."[37] These comments became the 74-page epilogue to the Autobiography, which Haley wrote after the death of his subject.[38]

Narrative presentation

In Malcolm X: The Art of Autobiography, Brown University professor John Edgar Wideman examines in detail the narrative landscapes found in biography. Wideman suggests that as a writer, Haley was attempting to satisfy "multiple allegiances", to his subject, his publisher, to his "editor's agenda", and to himself.[39] According to Wideman, Haley was an important contributor to the Autobiography's popular appeal.[40] Wideman expounds upon the "inevitable compromise" of biographers,[39] and argues that neither Haley's nor Malcolm X's voice is as strong as it could be in order to allow readers to insert themselves into the broader socio-psychological narrative.[41]

You are serving many masters, and inevitably you are compromised. The man speaks and you listen but you do not take notes, the first compromise and perhaps betrayal. You may attempt through various stylistic conventions and devices to reconstitute for the reader your experience of hearing face to face the man's words. The sound of the man's narration may be represented by vocabulary, syntax, imagery, graphic devices of various sorts—quotation marks, punctuation, line breaks, visual patterning of white space and black space, markers that encode print analogs to speech—vernacular interjections, parentheses, ellispes, asterisks, footnotes, italics, dashes ...[39]

Wideman writes that in the body of the Autobiography, Haley's authorial agency is seemingly absent, "Haley does so much with so little fuss...an approach that appears so rudimentary in fact conceals sophisticated choices, quiet mastery of a medium".[38] According to Wideman, Haley wrote the body of the Autobiography in a manner of Malcolm X's choosing, but he chose to write the epilogue as an extension of the biography itself. Haley's voice in the body of the book is a tactic, Wideman writes, producing a text nominally written by Malcolm X but seemingly written by no author.[39] The subsumption of Haley's own voice in the narrative allows the reader to feel as though the voice of Malcolm X is speaking directly and continuously, a stylistic tactic that according to Wideman, was a matter of Haley's authorial choice:[42] "Haley grants Malcolm the tyrannical authority of an author, a disembodied speaker whose implied presence blends into the reader's imagining of the tale being told."[43] In Two Create One: The Act of Collaboration in Recent Black Autobiography: Ossie Guffy, Nate Shaw, and Malcolm X, autobiographical scholar and author Albert E. Stone argues that Haley played an "essential role" in "recovering the historical identity" of Malcolm X.[44] Stone also reminds the reader that collaboration is a cooperative endeavor, requiring more than the writer's prose alone can provide, "convincing and coherent" as is may be:[21]

Though a writer's skill and imagination have combined words and voice into a more or less convincing and coherent narrative, the actual writer has no large fund of memories to draw upon: the subject's memory and imagination are the original sources of the arranged story and have also come into play critically as the text takes final shape. Thus where material comes from, and what has been done to it are separable and of equal significance in collaborations.[45]

In Stone's estimation,[46] supported by Wideman,[47] the source of autobiographical material and the efforts made to shape them into a workable narrative are distinct, and of equal value in a critical assessment of the collaboration that produced the Autobiography. While Haley's skills as writer have significant influence on the narrative's shape according to Stone, they require a "subject possessed of a powerful memory and imagination" to produce a workable narrative.[21]

Malcolm X and Haley as collaborators

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X meeting before a press conference after the Senate debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was the only time the two men ever met and their meeting lasted only one minute.

In Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X, Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson criticizes contemporary historians and biographers for re-purposing the Autobiography as a transcendent narrative by a "mythological" Malcolm X without being critical enough of the underlying ideas.[48] Further, Dyson suggests that because much of the available biographical studies of Malcolm X have been written by white authors, their ability to "interpret black experience" is suspect.[49] According to Dyson, The Autobiography of Malcolm X reflects both Malcolm X's goal of narrating his life story for public consumption and Haley's political ideologies.[50] Dyson articulates the Autobiography's attempt to balance Malcolm X's desired public persona, his conflicting life narrative, and Haley's political and ideological biases.[51] Dyson writes, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X...has been criticized for avoiding or distorting certain facts. Indeed, the autobiography is as much a testament to Haley's ingenuity in shaping the manuscript as it is a record of Malcolm's attempt to tell his story."[52] Langston Hughes biographer Arnold Rampersad suggests that Haley understood autobiographies as "almost fiction".[53] In The Color of His Eyes: Bruce Perry's Malcolm, and Malcolm's Malcolm, Rampersad criticizes Perry's biography, Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America, and makes the general point that the writing of this autobiography itself is part of the myth-making process, part of the narrative of blackness in the 20th century,[54] and consequently should "not be held utterly beyond inquiry".[53] According to Rampersad, the Autobiography is about psychology, ideology, a conversion narrative, and the myth-making process.[55] "Malcolm inscribed in it the terms of his understanding of the form even as the unstable, even treacherous form concealed and distorted particular aspects of his quest. But there is no Malcolm untouched by doubt or fiction. Malcolm's Malcolm is in itself a fabrication; the 'truth' about him is impossible to know."[56] Rampersad's attempt to identify the inherent restrictions in autobiographical writing is generally supported by Eakin.[57] Rampersad suggests that since his 1965 assassination, Malcolm X has "become the desires of his admirers, who have reshaped memory, historical record and the autobiography according to their wishes, which is to say, according to their needs as they preceive them."[58] Further, according to Rampersad, many admirers of Malcolm X perceive "accomplished and admirable" figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and W.E.B. Du Bois inadequate to fully express black humanity as it struggles with oppression, "while Malcolm is seen as the apotheosis of black individual greatness...he is a perfect hero—his wisdom is surpassing, his courage definitive, his sacrifice messianic".[59] Rampersad suggests that devotees have helped shape the myth of Malcolm X, while Albert E. Stone suggests that Haley and Malcolm X themselves understood the fictive nature of autobiographical writing.[60] Stone writes that subsuming the voice of the collaborator and presenting only the voice of the book's subject is a common literary tactic employed by writers of collaborative autobiography. For that reason, according to Stone, the distinction between biography and autobiography is at times, "deliberately vague".[61] Stone's assessment of autobiographical writing is generally affirmed by Wideman and Rampersad.[62] Joe Wood writes:

"[T]he autobiography iconizes Malcolm twice, not once. Its second Malcolm—the El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz finale—is a mask with no distinct ideology, it is not particularly Islamic, not particularly nationalist, not particularly humanist. Like any well crafted icon or story, the mask is evidence of its subject's humanity, of Malcolm's strong human spirit. But both masks hide as much character as they show. The first mask served a nationalism Malcolm had rejected before the book was finished; the second is mostly empty and available."[63]

Malcolm X, 12 March 1964

To Wood, a significant portion of the Autobiography involves Haley and Malcolm X shaping the "fiction of the completed self".[64] According to Stone, Haley's description of the Autobiography's composition makes clear that the fiction of the completed self is "especially misleading in the case of Malcolm X"; both Haley and the Autobiography itself are "out of phase" with its subject's "life and identity".[65] Eakin supports the assertion of an ideologically shifting Malcolm X, remarking that Haley was not aware of the changes Malcolm X was undergoing near the end of his life.[65] According to Dyson, "[Louis] Lomax says that Malcolm became a 'lukewarm integrationist'. [Peter] Goldman suggests that Malcolm was 'improvising', that he embraced and discarded ideological options as he went along. [Albert] Cleage and [Oba] T'Shaka hold that he remained a revolutionary black nationalist. And [James Hal] Cone asserts that he became an internationalist with a humanist bent."[66] Marable writes that Malcolm X was a "committed internationalist" and "black nationalist" at the end of his life, not an "integrationist", noting, "what I find in my own research is greater continuity than discontinuity".[67]

The collaboration between Malcolm X and Haley took on many dimensions; editing, revising and composing the Autobiography was a power struggle between two men with sometimes competing ideas of the final shape for the book. According to Arnold Rampersad, Haley was a "master journalist" with a strong knowledge of autobiography when the two men first met in 1959.[53] Rampersad writes that Haley, "took pains to show how Malcolm dominated their relationship and tried to control the composition of the book".[53] Rampersad also writes that Haley was aware that memory is selective and that autobiographies are "almost by definition projects in fiction",[53] and that it was his responsibility as biographer, to select material based on his authorial discretion. Rampersad suggests that the narrative shape crafted by Haley and Malcolm X is the result of a life account "distorted and diminished" by the "process of selection", yet the narrative's shape may in actuality be more revealing then the narrative itself.[59] In the epilogue he describes the process used to edit the manuscript, giving specific examples of how Malcolm X controlled the language.[68] Malcolm X agreed to allow him to write an epilogue to the Autobiography that would be "outside Malcolm's right to review",[69] and in it Haley described the process used to edit the manuscript, giving specific examples of how Malcolm X controlled the language.[68]

'You can't bless Allah!' he exclaimed, changing 'bless' to 'praise', and, 'he scratched red through 'we kids.' 'Kids are goats!' he exclaimed sharply.

Haley quoting Malcolm X[68]

While Haley ultimately deferred to Malcolm X's specific choice of words when composing the manuscript,[68] according to Wideman, "The nature of writing biography or autobiography ... means that Haley's promise to Malcolm, his intent to be a 'dispassionate chronicler', is a matter of disguising, not removing, his authorial presence."[39] Haley played an important role in persuading Malcolm X to not re-edit the book as a polemic against Elijah Muhammed and the Nation of Islam[70] at a time when he already had most of the material needed to complete the book,[71] and asserted his authorial agency when the Autobiography's "fractured construction",[72] caused by Malcolm X's rift with Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, "overturned the design"[65] of the manuscript and created a narrative crisis.[73] In the Autobiography's epilogue, Haley describes the incident:

I sent Malcolm X some rough chapters to read. I was appalled when they were soon returned, red-inked in many places where he had told of his almost father-and-son relationship with Elijah Muhammad. Telephoning Malcolm X, I reminded him of his previous decisions, and I stressed that if those chapters contained such telegraphing to readers of what was to lie ahead, then the book would automatically be robbed of some of its building suspense and drama. Malcolm X said, gruffly, "Whose book is this?" I told him "yours, of course," and that I only made the objection in my position as a writer.[68] But late that night Malcolm X telephoned. "I'm sorry. You're right. I was upset about something. Forget what I wanted changed, let what you already had stand." I never again gave him chapters to review unless I was with him. Several times I would covertly watch him frown and wince as he read, but he never again asked for any change in what he had originally said.[68]

A young Haley in the United States Coast Guard

Haley's warning to avoid, "telegraphing to readers"[68] and his advice about, "building suspense and drama"[68] demonstrate his efforts to influence the narrative's content and assert his authorial agency while ultimately deferring final discretion to Malcolm X. In the above passage Haley asserts his authorial presence, reminding his subject that as a writer he has concerns about narrative direction and focus,[74] but presenting himself in such a way as to give no doubt that he deferred final approval to his subject. In the words of Eakin, "Because this complex vision of his existence is clearly not that of the early sections of the Autobiography, Alex Haley and Malcolm X were forced to confront the consequences of this discontinuity in perspective for the narrative, already a year old."[75] Malcolm X, having given it some thought, later accepted Haley's suggestion.[76]

Manning Marable, Professor and Founding Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University, and author of Rediscovering Malcolm's life: A Historians Adventures in Living History, critically analyzes the collaboration that produced the Autobiography. Marable argues autobiographical "memoirs" are "inherently biased", representing the subject as they would appear with certain facts privileged, others deliberately omitted. Autobiographical narratives self-censor, reorder event chronology, and alter names. According to Marable, "Nearly everyone writing about Malcolm X" has failed to critically and objectively analyze and research the subject properly.[77] Marable suggests that most historians have assumed that the Autobiography is veritable truth, devoid of any ideological influence or stylistic embellishment by Malcolm X or Haley. Further, Marable believes the "most talented revisionist of Malcolm X, was Malcolm X",[78] who actively fashioned and reinvented his public image and verbiage[79] so as to increase favor with diverse groups of people in variable situations.[57]

My life in particular never has stayed fixed in one position for very long. You have seen how throughout my life, I have often known unexpected drastic changes.

Malcolm X, from The Autobiography of Malcolm X[80]

Author Warner Berthoff describes Malcolm X's "extraordinary power to change" as the "distinctive rule of his life."[81] According to Haley, during the last months of Malcolm X's life "uncertainty and confusion" about his views were widespread in Harlem.[82] In an interview four days before his death Malcolm X said, "I'm man enough to tell you that I can't put my finger on exactly what my philosophy is now, but I'm flexible."[65] Malcolm X had not yet formulated a cohesive Black ideology at the time of his assassination,[83] and according to Dyson, was "experiencing a radical shift" in his core "personal and political understandings".[84] While Marable argues that Malcolm X was his own best revisionist, he also points out that Haley's collaborative role in shaping the Autobiography was notable. Haley influenced the narrative's direction and tone while remaining faithful to his subjects syntax and diction. According to Marable, Haley worked "hundreds of sentences into paragraphs", and organized them into "subject areas".[32] According to author William L. Andrews:

[T]he narrative evolved out of Haley's interviews with Malcolm, but Malcolm had read Haley's typescript, and had made interlineated notes and often stipulated substantive changes, at least in the earlier parts of the text. As the work progressed however, according to Haley, Malcolm yielded more and more to the authority of his ghostwriter, partly because Haley never let Malcolm read the manuscript unless he was there to defend it, partly because in his last months Malcolm had less and less opportunity to reflect on the text of his life because he was so busy living it,[85] and partly because Malcolm had eventually resigned himself to letting Haley's ideas about effective storytelling take precedence over his own desire to denounce straightaway those whom he had once revered.[86]

Andrews suggests that Haley's role expanded because the book's subject became less available to micro-manage the manuscript, and "Malcolm had eventually resigned himself"[86] to allowing "Haley's ideas about effective storytelling"[86] shape the narrative. Marable studied the Autobiography manuscript "raw materials" archived by Haley's biographer, Anne Romaine, and described a critical element of the collaboration, Haley's writing tactic to capture the voice of his subject accurately, a disjoint system of data mining that included notes on scrap paper, in-depth interviews, and long "free style" discussions. Marable writes, "Malcolm also had a habit of scribbling notes to himself as he spoke." Haley would secretly "pocket these sketchy notes" and reassemble them in an attempt to integrate Malcolm X's "subconscious reflections" into the "workable narrative".[32] Haley's "pocketing" of Malcolm X's discarded notes for sub rosa integration of his "subconscious reflections" into the workable narrative is an example of Haley asserting authorial agency during the writing of the Autobiography, indicating that their relationship was fraught with minor power struggles. Marable's description of the book's writing process is supported by Wideman and Rampersad.[36] According to Eakin, Haley intentionally "lured" the suppressed identity of his subject into the open by leaving "white paper napkins" near his coffee cup. During their interviews Malcolm X would often "scribble" notes to himself on these napkins as they talked, which Haley would later collect and learn to "take cues from".[87] According to Marable's analysis of manuscript documents, Malcolm X had final say in regards to the content of the Autobiography. However, Haley asserted enough authorial agency in his capacity as collaborator to significantly influence the narrative's direction and tone.[32] Haley himself concedes ultimate discretion to his subject, at least in appearance.[88]

The timing of the collaboration meant that Haley occupied a unique position to document the multiple conversion experiences of Malcolm X and his challenge was to form them, however incongruent, into a cohesive workable narrative. Malcolm X biographer Michael Eric Dyson, suggests that "profound personal, intellectual, and ideological changes...led him to order events of his life to support a mythology of metamorphosis and transformation".[52] Marable addresses the confounding factors of the publisher and Haley's authorial influence, passages that support the argument that while Malcolm X may have considered Haley a ghostwriter, he acted in actuality as a coauthor, at times without Malcolm X's direct knowledge or expressed consent:[89]

Although Malcolm X retained final approval of their hybrid text, he was not privy to the actual editorial processes superimposed from Haley’s side. The Library of Congress held the answers. This collection includes the papers of Doubleday’s then-executive editor, Kenneth McCormick, who had worked closely with Haley for several years as the Autobiography had been constructed. As in the Romaine papers, I found more evidence of Haley’s sometimes-weekly private commentary with McCormick about the laborious process of composing the book. They also revealed how several attorneys retained by Doubleday closely monitored and vetted entire sections of the controversial text in 1964, demanding numerous name changes, the reworking and deletion of blocks of paragraphs, and so forth. In late 1963, Haley was particularly worried about what he viewed as Malcolm X's anti-Semitism. He therefore rewrote material to eliminate a number of negative statements about Jews in the book manuscript, with the explicit covert goal of "getting them past Malcolm X," without his coauthor's knowledge or consent. Thus, the censorship of Malcolm X had begun well prior to his assassination.[89]

According to Marable, the resulting text was stylistically and ideologically distinct from what Marable believes Malcolm X would have written without Haley's influence, and it also differs from what may have actually been said in the interviews between Haley and Malcolm X.[89]

Publication, sales, and critical reception

The Autobiography of Malcolm X on a bookshelf in the Bush White House[90]

Doubleday had contracted to publish The Autobiography of Malcolm X and paid a $30,000 advance to Malcolm X and Haley in 1963, but in March 1965, three weeks after Malcolm X's assassination, Doubleday canceled its contract. Grove Press then published the book in 1965.[89] Since 1965, The Autobiography of Malcolm X has sold millions of copies,[91] Marable described Doubleday's choice as the "most disastrous decision in corporate publishing history".[67]

The Autobiography of Malcolm X has been a consistent best-seller since its 1965 publication.[92] According to The New York Times, the paperback edition sold 400,000 copies in 1967 and 800,000 copies the following year.[93] The Autobiography entered its 18th printing by 1970.[94] The New York Times reported that six million copies of the book had been sold by 1977.[91] The book experienced increased readership and returned to the best-seller list in the 1990s, helpled in part by the publicity surrounding Spike Lee's film Malcolm X.[95] Between 1989 and 1992, sales of the book climbed 300%.[96]

Eliot Fremont-Smith, reviewing The Autobiography of Malcolm X for The New York Times in 1965, describes it as "extraordinary" and says it is a "brilliant, painful, important book".[97] Two years later, historian John William Ward writes that the book "will surely become one of the classics in American autobiography".[98] In 1990, Charles Solomon writes in the Los Angeles Times, "Unlike many '60s icons, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, with its double message of anger and love, remains an inspiring document."[99] Variety calls it a "mesmerizing page-turner" in 1992.[100] In 1998, Time named The Autobiography of Malcolm X one of the ten most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.[101]

Screenplay adaptations

In 1968 film producer Marvin Worth commissioned a screenplay based on The Autobiography of Malcolm X from novelist James Baldwin, who was later joined by screenwriter Arnold Perl, who died in 1971 before the screenplay could be finished.[102][103] Baldwin developed his work on the screenplay into the book One Day, When I Was Lost: A Scenario Based on Alex Haley's The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1972.[104] Other authors who attempted to draft screenplays include playwright David Mamet, novelist David Bradley, author Charles Fuller, and screenwriter Calder Willingham.[103][105] Director Spike Lee revised the Baldwin-Perl script for his 1992 film Malcolm X.[103]

Missing chapters

In 1992 attorney Gregory Reed purchased the original manuscripts of The Autobiography of Malcolm X for a sum of $100,000, at the sale of the Haley Estate. The manuscripts included three "missing chapters", that were omitted from the original text. In a 1964 letter to his publisher, Haley had described these chapters as, "the most impact material of the book, some of it rather lava-like".[89] According to professor Manning Marable, the missing chapters were "dictated and written" during Malcolm X's final months in the Nation of Islam. In them, according to Marable, Malcolm X proposed the establishment of a union of African American civic and political organizations. Marable wonders whether this project might have led some within the Nation of Islam and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to try to silence Malcolm X.[106] According to Marable, Malcolm X was a "committed internationalist" and "black nationalist" at the end of his life, and not an "integrationist" as those close to orthodox Sunni Islam, and the "integrationist perspective of Alex Haley" have suggested.[67] In April 2010, the New York Post reported that the missing chapters would be published with a foreword by Malcolm X's daughter Ilyasah Shabazz.[107]

Citations

  1. ^ Dyson 1996, pp. 4–5
  2. ^ Carson 1995, p. 99
  3. ^ Dyson 1996, pp. 6–13
  4. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 91, 104–105
  5. ^ Stone 1982, pp. 250, 262–263
  6. ^ Wood 1992, p. 157
  7. ^ Andrews 1992, pp. 152–161
  8. ^ Terrill 2010, pp. 34, 37
  9. ^ Wood 1992, p. 122
  10. ^ Dyson 1996, p. 135
  11. ^ X & Haley 1965, p. 271
  12. ^ Stone 1982, p. 250
  13. ^ Stone 1982, pp. 24, 233, 247, 262–264
  14. ^ Gallen 1995, pp. 243–244
  15. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 103–110, 119, 127–128
  16. ^ X & Haley 1965, p. 391
  17. ^ X & Haley 1965, p. 392
  18. ^ "The Time Has Come (1964–1966)". Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Movement 1954–1985, American Experience. PBS. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
  19. ^ Wolfenstein 1981, pp. 37–39, 285, 289–294, 297, 369
  20. ^ Dyson 1996, pp. 52–55
  21. ^ a b c Stone 1982, p. 263
  22. ^ Andrews 1992, pp. 156–159
  23. ^ Holte 1992, pp. 131–137
  24. ^ Calhoun, Craig (1994). Social theory and the politics of identity. ISBN 9781557864734. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  25. ^ Wolfenstein 1981, pp. 289–294
  26. ^ Terrill 2010, pp. 34–37
  27. ^ Terrill 2010, pp. 52–55
  28. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 104–110, 119
  29. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 103–116
  30. ^ Marable & Aidi 2009, pp. 299–316
  31. ^ Dyson 1996
  32. ^ a b c d Marable & Aidi 2009, pp. 310–311
  33. ^ Terrill 2010, pp. 3–4, 26–36, 43, 52–55
  34. ^ Marable & Aidi 2009, pp. 305–312
  35. ^ Dyson 1996, pp. 23, 31
  36. ^ a b Wood 1992, pp. 103–105, 119
  37. ^ X & Haley 1965, p. 394
  38. ^ a b Wood 1992, p. 104
  39. ^ a b c d e Wood 1992, pp. 103–105
  40. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 104–105
  41. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 106–111
  42. ^ Wood 1992, p. 108
  43. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 103–105, 106–108
  44. ^ Stone 1982, p. 261
  45. ^ Stone 1982, p. 262
  46. ^ Stone 1982, pp. 262–263
  47. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 101–116
  48. ^ Dyson 1996, pp. 3, 23, 29–31, 33–36, 46–50, 152
  49. ^ Dyson 1996, pp. 59–61
  50. ^ Dyson 1996, p. 31
  51. ^ Dyson 1996, p. 23
  52. ^ a b Dyson 1996, p. 134
  53. ^ a b c d e Wood 1992, p. 119
  54. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 48–58
  55. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 117–133
  56. ^ Wood 1992, p. 120
  57. ^ a b Andrews 1992, pp. 151–161
  58. ^ Wood 1992, p. 118
  59. ^ a b Wood 1992, pp. 118–119
  60. ^ Stone 1982, p. 248
  61. ^ Stone 1982, p. 234
  62. ^ Wood 1992, pp. 110–116, 119
  63. ^ Wood 1992, p. 13
  64. ^ Andrews 1992, pp. 151–162
  65. ^ a b c d Andrews 1992, p. 152
  66. ^ Dyson 1996, p. 65
  67. ^ a b c Goodman, Amy (May 21, 2007). "Manning Marable on 'Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention'". Democracy Now!. Retrieved June 1, 2010.
  68. ^ a b c d e f g h X & Haley 1965, p. 414
  69. ^ Terrill 2010, p. 55
  70. ^ Andrews 1992, pp. 156–158
  71. ^ X & Haley 1965, p. 406
  72. ^ Wood 1992, p. 12
  73. ^ Terrill 2010, p. 3
  74. ^ Andrews 1992, pp. 157–158
  75. ^ Andrews 1992, p. 157
  76. ^ Terrill 2010, p. 96
  77. ^ Marable & Aidi 2009, pp. 305–310
  78. ^ Marable & Aidi 2009, p. 306
  79. ^ Stone 1982, p. 259
  80. ^ X & Haley 1965, p. 385
  81. ^ Andrews 1992, p. 151
  82. ^ X & Haley 1965, p. 428
  83. ^ Terrill 2010, p. 34
  84. ^ Dyson 1996, pp. 21–22, 65–72
  85. ^ X & Haley 1965, pp. 413, 422, 429, 430
  86. ^ a b c Greetham 1997, p. 45
  87. ^ Andrews 1992, pp. 158–159
  88. ^ X & Haley 1965, pp. 445, 467–468
  89. ^ a b c d e Marable & Aidi 2009, p. 312
  90. ^ Kellogg, Carolyn (February 19, 2010). "White House Library's 'Socialist' Books Were Jackie Kennedy's". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 11, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  91. ^ a b Pace, Eric (February 2, 1992). "Alex Haley, 70, Author of 'Roots,' Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved June 2, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  92. ^ Seymour, Gene (November 15, 1992). "What Took So Long?". Newsday. Retrieved June 2, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  93. ^ Watkins, Mel (February 16, 1969). "Black Is Marketable". The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  94. ^ Rickford, Russell J. (2003). Betty Shabazz: A Remarkable Story of Survival and Faith Before and After Malcolm X. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks. p. 335. ISBN 1-4022-0171-0.
  95. ^ Dyson 1996, p. 144
  96. ^ Lord, Lewis; Thornton, Jeannye; Bodipo-Memba, Alejandro (November 15, 1992). "The Legacy of Malcolm X". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved June 2, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  97. ^ Fremont-Smith, Eliot (November 5, 1965). "An Eloquent Testimony". The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  98. ^ Ward, John William (February 26, 1967). "Nine Expert Witnesses". The New York Times. Retrieved June 1, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  99. ^ Solomon, Charles (February 11, 1990). "Current Paperbacks". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 1, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  100. ^ McCarthy, Todd (November 10, 1992). "Malcolm X". Variety. Retrieved June 1, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  101. ^ Gray, Paul (June 8, 1998). "Required Reading: Nonfiction Books". Time. Retrieved April 25, 2010.
  102. ^ Rule, Sheila (November 15, 1992). "Malcolm X: The Facts, the Fictions, the Film". The New York Times. Retrieved May 31, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  103. ^ a b c Weintraub, Bernard (November 23, 1992). "A Movie Producer Remembers the Human Side of Malcolm X". The New York Times. Retrieved May 31, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  104. ^ Field, Douglas (2009). A Historical Guide to James Baldwin. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 52, 242. ISBN 0-19-536653-0. Retrieved 16 October 2010.
  105. ^ Ansen, David (August 26, 1991). "The Battle for Malcolm X". Newsweek. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
  106. ^ Marable & Aidi 2009, p. 313
  107. ^ "Malcolm X's Daughter to Add to Father's Autobiography". New York Post. April 12, 2010. Retrieved May 31, 2010. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

References

  • Andrews, William (editor) (1992). African-American Autobiography: A Collection of Critical Essays (Facsimile ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0130198457. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Breitman, George (1970). Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary. Pathfinder Press. ISBN 978-0873480048. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Carson, Clayborne (1995). Malcolm X: The FBI File (Mass Market Paperback ed.). Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0345400093. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Clarke, John Henrik (editor) (1969). Malcolm X: The Man and His Times (Paperback (1991) ed.). Africa World Press. ISBN 978-0865432017. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • DeCaro, Jr., Louis A. (1997). On the Side of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X (Paperback ed.). New York University Press. ISBN 978-0814718919. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Dyson, Michael Eric (1996). Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X (Paperback ed.). Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0195102857. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Gallen, David (editor) (1995). Malcolm X: As They Knew Him (Mass Market Paperback ed.). Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0345400529. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Greetham, David (1997). The Margins of the Text (Editorial Theory and Literary Criticism) (Hardcover ed.). University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0472106677. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Goldman, Peter (1979). The Death and Life of Malcolm X (2nd ed.). University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0252007743. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Holte, James (1992). The Conversion Experience in America: a Sourcebook on Religious Conversion Autobiography (Hardcover ed.). Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0313266805. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Lomax, Louis E. (1968). To Kill a Black Man: The Shocking Parallel in the Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr ((June 1, 1987) ed.). Holloway House. ISBN 978-0870679827. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Marable, Manning (editor); Aidi, Hishaam (editor) (2009). Black Routes to Islam (Hardcover ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1403984005. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Stone, Albert (1982). Autobiographical Occasions and Original Acts: Versions of American Identity from Henry Adams to Nate Shaw (Paperback ed.). University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812211276. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Terrill, Robert E. (editor) (2010). The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X (First Paperback ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521515900. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Wolfenstein, Eugene Victor (1981). The Victims of Democracy: Malcolm X and the Black Revolution (Paperback (1993) ed.). The Guilford Press. ISBN 978-0898621334. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Wood, Joe (editor) (1992). Malcolm X: In Our Own Image (1st ed.). St Martins Pr;. ISBN 978-0312066093. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  • X, Malcolm; Haley, Alex (1965). The Autobiography of Malcolm X / with the assistance of Alex Haley ; introduction by M.S. Handler ; epilogue by Alex Haley (1st ed.). Grove Press. ISBN 978-0345350688. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

  • Alkalimat, Abdul. Malcolm X for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers, 1990.
  • Asante, Molefi K. Malcolm X as Cultural Hero: and Other Afrocentric Essays. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1993.
  • Baldwin, James. One Day, When I Was Lost: A Scenario Based On Alex Haley's "The Autobiography Of Malcolm X". New York: Dell, 1992.
  • Breitman, George, Herman Porter, and Baxter Smith. The Assassination of Malcolm X. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1991.
  • Cleage, Albert B., and George Breitman. Myths About Malcolm X: Two Views. New York: Merit, 1968.
  • Conyers, Jr., James L., and Andrew P. Smallwood, eds. Malcolm X: A Historical Reader. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 2008.
  • Friedly, Michael. The Assassination of Malcolm X. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992.
  • Helfer, Andrew, and Randy DuBurke. Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006.
  • Jenkins, Robert L. The Malcolm X Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002.
  • Kly, Yussuf Naim, ed. The Black Book: The True Political Philosophy of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz). Atlanta: Clarity Press, 1986.
  • Leader, Edward Roland. Understanding Malcolm X: The Controversial Changes in His Political Philosophy. New York: Vantage Press, 1993.
  • Lee, Spike, with Ralph Wiley. By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of The Making Of Malcolm X. New York: Hyperion, 1992.
  • Marable, Manning. Malcolm X: A Life of A Life of Reinvention. New York: Viking, 2011. (Forthcoming)
  • Marable, Manning. On Malcolm X: His Message & Meaning. Westfield, N.J.: Open Media, 1992.
  • Shabazz, Ilyasah. Growing Up X. New York: One World, 2002.
  • Strickland, William, et al.. Malcolm X: Make It Plain. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
  • T'Shaka, Oba. The Political Legacy of Malcolm X. Richmond, Calif.: Pan Afrikan Publications, 1983.
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