3. Strain, Christopher Barry. “Civil Rights and ... - Freedom Archives

The best descriptor of Malcolm X was, not surprisingly, Malcolm X . None who
followed has captured his essence better than the man himself.~~ Perhaps the combined
strengths of his autobiography (written in collaboration with Alex Haley, author of$~)
and his collected speeches have hampered the creation of a definitive work about him . He
was a pragmatic orator; that is, he said what worked at a given time for a given audience.
Like many great extemporaneous speakers, he contradicted himself and, under close scrutiny,
his speeches do exhibit a number of incongruencies . Nonetheless, considering the number of
~~Published works concerning Malcolm X constitute a mixed bag of elegy, recollection,
sensationalism, and scholarship . The definitive work by and about Malcolm X remains his
autobiography; see Malcolm X with Alex Haley, The Autobiog~hv of Malcolm X (New
York: Grove Press, 1964) . An essential work of American autobiography, it has been
reprinted numerous times . Other works about Malcolm X include Louis Lomax, To Kill a
81ack~ (Los Angeles: Holloway House, 1968) ; John Henrik Clarke, ed., Malcolm X : The
Man and His Times (New York: Collier Books, 1969) ; George Breitman, et . al .,~
Assassination of Malcolm X (New York : Pathfinder, 1976) ; Peter Goldman, The Death and
Life of Malcolm X 2d. ed. (Urbane : University of Ulinois Press, 1979) ; James H . Cone,
Martin & Malcolm & America : A Dream or a Niger (Maryknoll, N.Y. : Orbis Hooks,
1991) ; Bnrce Perry, Malcolm : The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America (Barrytown,
N.Y . : Station Hill Press, 1991) ; David Gallen, Malcolm X : As They Knew Him (Carroll &
Graf, 1992); Jae Wood, ed., Malcolm X : In Our Own Image (New York : St . Martin's Press,
1992) ; Michael Eric Dyson, Making Malcolm : The Myth & Meaning of Malcolm X (New
York : Oxford University Press, 1995); and Theresa Peny, Teaching Malcolm X (New York:
Routledge, 1996). Of these, Goldman's Death and Life of Malcolm X , Gallon's Malcolm X :
A~ Knew Him , and Clarke's Mal olm X : The Man and His Times arc the most helpful .
Goldman's book is the single best work about Malcolm . Well-written and incisive, it nicely
complements the Autobioaraohv ; however, the author cannot resist dipping, in the second
half of the book, into the speculative intrigue surrounding the unanswered questions of
Malcolm's assassination . His annotated bibliography, "Notes on Sources ;' is quite helpful to
those researching Malcolm's life ; see Goldman, Death and Life of Malcolm X, 437-442 .
Gallon provides first-hand reminiscences of Malcolm; Clarke's collection of essays, more
academic in tone, grope for an understanding of his legacy. Clarke and Gallen both include
important primary sources such as spoahes and interviews ; Gallen also includes a
chronological timeline of Malcolm's life. This list contains only a sampling of the works
about Malcolm X; it is by no means exhaustive .
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