New Book Challenges The “Reinvention” of Malcolm X

By Albert Phillips

Malcolm X. What does the average person think of when Malcolm X comes to mind? Separation, Black Nationalism, the Nation of Islam, and probably his world renowned, classic book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. However, Manning Marable, a social critic and prestigious scholar of African American history, offered the world another version of the Malcolm X we once admired or resented, dependent upon your ideology.

In 2011, Marable and Viking Press released the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize winning, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, a biography of Malcolm X that has gained international praise, but also overwhelming scorn from notable black scholars and activists. The book is the result of over 10 years of work and extracts information on Malcolm’s life from interviews, letters, diaries, and surveillance conducted by the New York Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As a response to the fallacies and inconsistencies they feel are present in Marable’s book, Todd Burroughs and Jared Ball, two professors at Morgan State University, assembled commentaries from numerous black writers to create a definitive reaction. The writers range from various segments of the black community, both young  and aged; the most notable being author, activist, and political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal.

During the interview below, co-editor Jared Ball discusses some of what it took to formulate A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X.

Albert Philips: A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X, why did you pick that title?

Jared Ball: We picked that title because we’re arguing what Marable and by association Columbia University, and Penguin Press, with its subsidiary, Viking Press, have done in claiming this title of their own reinvention is in fact a lie. We are arguing that it is a lie and a conscious, political decision on their part to re-frame Malcolm X as more of a liberal democrat than the Black Nationalist, anti-imperialist, freedom fight that he was.  We’re clear on why we chose that title and we’re being intentionally provocative but at the same time we’re being sincere; we do think it is a lie. It is an intentional reshaping.

Albert Phillips: What are a few of the main points that you want your book to hit on that Manning Marable may have been off on?

Jared Ball: Our primary focus is to challenge the world view or ideology behind Marable’s work. If you look carefully at what he’s done, he has offered consistent critiques of Black Nationalism of the Garveyite tradition, Marxism-Leninism, and offers a democratic, socialized, liberalized view of Malcolm X. A lot of our contributors, in different ways, argue that Marable wasn’t ideologically, situated in a way that can interpret, accurately who Malcolm was. We wanted to specifically talk about this Marable book, not necessarily his entire career or his entire body of work.

Albert Phillips: What do you say to the people who say, “You’re trying to get paid off the legacy of Manning Marable?”

Jared Ball: If you want to get paid, you do what Marable did. Those are the scholars who get paid. They’re the ones who get the Columbia University positions, the grants and the funding, the research team, and the decades of time to do this work. They are the ones who get top six publisher support and Pulitzer Prizes. When you get praise like that, that’s when you get paid. Publishing on Black Classic Press, which is a legend in its own right, is certainly no guarantee of money. Publishing a critique on an establishment academic and an establishment press, and an establishment book is not how you get paid.

A Lie of Reinvention: Correcting Manning Marable’s Malcolm X was published by Black Classic Press and is available at www.blackclassicbooks.com.