THE AFTERLIFE OF MALCOLM X

On the continuing legacy of a canonical figure of the Civil Rights era.

As historian and journalist Whitaker notes at the outset, Malcolm X was so central to Black young people just four years after his death that “they demanded time off from school to honor him”—and got it, complete with a live reenactment of Ossie Davis’ famed eulogy. His influence has only grown, nationally and internationally: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, coauthored by Alex Haley, is a standard text in high school and college curricula, and his presence endures in pop culture thanks to Spike Lee’s biopic and many samplings of Malcolm X’s voice on the part of rap and hip-hop artists. Oddly, Whitaker adds, Malcolm X is embraced by both left and right, with Black conservatives embracing his call for “self-improvement and economic self-reliance.” One aspect of his life after death, Whitaker writes, is the question of who assassinated him, a question that a large portion of this text adumbrates, with several valuable clues uncovered only recently by documentary filmmakers. A search of declassified FBI files also indicated that the agency was well aware of the imminent threat to Malcolm X but did not pursue its leads, while members of the Black Muslim community kept their silence in the belief that “Malcolm had been foolish and disloyal” to split with leader Elijah Muhammad. Apart from providing a fascinating detective story, Whitaker documents the sometimes surprising ways in which Malcolm X remains a model of Black resistance—as, for example, an opera that “became a vehicle for making Malcolm newly relevant to the ‘Black Panther’ generation,” as well as the renewed interest in him with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

A complex, thoughtfully written book that ably lives up to its title.