Book Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-126) and index. A biography, in text and photographs, describing the life of the controversial African-American civil rights activist from his troubled childhood, through his years as a national leader in the Nation of Islam, to his assassination. ... Read more

Book Description
Speeches from the last three weeks of the life of this outstanding leader of the oppressed Black nationality and of the working class in the United States. A large part is material previously unavailable, with some in print for the first time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A must have
Anyone with an interest in Black History should read this book.Talk about an eloquent speaker!

Reading Malcolm Xfor yourself
Today Malcolm X can be seen everywhere from t-shirts to U.S. postage stamps. Most people have an opinion about him. But not nearly as many have heard/read his actual words. This collection of speeches is an excellent way to rectify that. This book takes the reader virtually to Malcolm's last words spoken in public two days before his [...].
The collection includes speeches, interviews, panel discussions, and gives the reader a rich and genuine undertanding of Malcolm X in his final days as a statesman and revolutionary leader.
His internationalist view comes through in "Not just an American problem, but a world problem " He defines the Black Muslim movement, and the critical importance of education and critical thinking. This is a must read.

An outstanding book.
An outstanding collection of speeches from the important last year of Malcolm's life.This is a must read for any student of U.S. history from any point of view.It will be most helpful to to those looking to change the status quo.

Well edited and indexed.Excellent photos.A well put together book.

Raul Gonzalez

February 1965
This is the best book of Malcolms speeches from that last period in his life when he was most evolved. A must have!!!!!!!!!!

Great book on who Malcolm X is and his thoughts
This book is badly needed for people who are still stuck on the NOI days of malcolm. In 1964 on, he became a true sunni muslim and activist for the human rights of African Americans in the USA and the struggle for human rights abroad.This book surveys his last speeches and interviews in 1965.You will know who he evolved into and why we muslims call him the Shahid al Amrika the American Muslim Martyr. ... Read more

Book Description
During his lifetime, the name Malcolm X was a lightning rod that electrified the black community. Now, thirty years after his death, we are still coming to grips with the complexity, and power of his message. In this fascinating volume, Malcolm X, the man and the leader, stands revealed in a shimmering mosaic of memories, interviews, insights, and appreciations by:

-- Maya Angelou - James Baldwin - James Booker Elombe Braath - James Brown - Kenneth B. Clark John Henrik Clarke - Eldridge Cleaver - Joe Durso James Farmer - Kathy Gibson - Peter Goldman - Rosa Guy - Robert Haggins - Alex Haley - Hinton Johnson Benjamin Karim - Charles Kenyatta - Yuri Kuchiama William Kunstler - Maria Laurino - Claude Lewis Abby Lincoln - C. Eric Lincoln - Julian Mayfield Bayard Rustin - Sonia Sanchez - Dick Schaap - George Sims - James Small - Michael Thelwell - Mike Wallace Robert Penn Warren - Ralph Wiley - Alice Windom

More than thirty luminaries describe how Malcolm X touched and, in some cases, radically transformed their lives. Then Malcolm speaks to us in his own voice through seven seminal interviews that he granted in the last years of his life, including the controversial 1963 Playboy interview with Alex Haley. The book closes with a collection of essays by outstanding American writers examining the meaning of Malcolm X's contribution and assessing his place in American history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Insightful!
This book does a fantastic job of painting Malcolm X in the eyes of those who knew him and were touched by him.It really gives an insight into the life of one of the most influential men in history.I loved what MayaAngelou, Eldridge Cleaver, and Robert Penn Warren had to say.Otherhighlights are the interview with Claude Lewis, Malcolm's last TV interviewwith Pierre Barton, and On The Air with Joe Rainey, in which Malcolmdiscusses his split with Muhammad.It was secretely recorded by theFBI.

Of course Alex Haley's "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" isa must read as well! ... Read more

Book Description
This unique psychobiographical study integrates a wide and subtle view of the history of white racism and the black liberation movement with a deep and sensitive understanding of the inner world of Malcolm X. Eugene Victor Wolfenstein is a critical social theorist and a practicing psychoanalyst who argues that racism must be analyzed within a personal as well as a political context. Drawing from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm's published speeches, and a variety of historical materials, Wolfenstein interweaves Marxist and psychoanalytic concepts to examine the evolution of Malcolm's consciousness--from his youth through his successive incarnations as hustler, prisoner, black Muslim minister, and African-American revolutionary. Exploring the complex interplay of politics, economics, and the human psyche, this powerful work of critical social theory interprets the life history of Malcolm X and provides a cogent historical analysis of the black liberation movement in the United States. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Racist False Consciousness Disguised as Democracy
This is an immensely important work. One I am embarrassed to admit has been in my library for more than a decade without having been read. And, had it not been for a reference to it in a speech by the British Psychologist, Robert M. Young (author of the magisterial "Mental Spaces,"), on the issue of Violence and Racism (given in Manitoba, Canada 13 January 1999), even today I might still not have cracked open the book.

My only excuse is that so much of the writings about Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has turned out to be disappointing idle hero-worshiping that it all has become one big rather meaningless blob -- and that includes the rendition by one of my intellectual heroes Michael Eric Dyson. To his credit though, in both the cases of King and Malcolm, Dyson at least tried to get the facts of their lives right.

Here, Wolfenstein has done so much more than just get the facts of Malcolm's life right. This is a full-bodied meta-theoretical analysis of Malcolm's life in the context of America's racist and capitalist culture and economy. And it is one done at a very high intellectual level and wielded with great skill even if it is at times a little intellectually brutal and rough around the edges.

In a deeply honest (rather than fawning) effort to get at the real meaning of Malcolm's life, Wolfenstein has produced a meta-theoretical masterpiece, one that arguably (were it not so politically radioactive (i.e. it has an avowedly socialist bent) and were it not such a raw intellectual expression), should have received a book award at least for inventiveness and creativity.

Wielding Freudian psychological analysis and Marxist political and economic analysis with equal facility and deftness, Wolfenstein has sidestepped much of the story-telling in order to put Malcolm's life experiences into a context of higher theoretical meaning, and might I add, to higher theoretical use.

Using Malcolm's life experiences as THE object lesson of what a racist society can do to one random black individual (and undoubtedly by extension to some extent has done to us all), Wolfenstein has woven together a tightly knit theoretical and social critique of America's racist culture. (It is absolutely scary how well he has done this.)

However, the purpose of this critique is not just to punch another hole into an already weak and crumbling capitalist/racist façade, it is to show where there still might be some light and hope at the end of this nightmarish tunnel and how to eventually find it. And it must be said in passing, that with only a few exceptions, this is a great deal more than most of our black intellectuals have done (and are doing). One of those exceptions, of course, is Professor Cornel West.

If one makes clear that by the "racially oppressed" Wolfenstein means both black and white races, then I believe he has correctly identified the real problem of a racist culture: How does it falsify the consciousness of the racially oppressed. And how do racially oppressed individuals free themselves from both falsification of their consciousness and the racist domination of their practical activity.

Using Malcolm's life experiences as an example (which during his early life, like that of many young black people, lurched from one dark pre-set societal trap to another), Wolfenstein shows us how to get behind the screen of false consciousness that a racist/capitalist culture creates and relies on to do most of its ideological and psychological dirty work. Only beyond this screen is there to be found a truer more authentic reality upon which a humanity of loving, caring, genuine brotherhood, and sharing can rest.

Wolfenstein, using the discrete events of Malcolm's life, demonstrates, beyond doubt, that it is the screen of false consciousness that aids and abets the capitalist project of commodifying our reality, distorting our worldview and thus greatly diminishing our humanity.

By bifurcating our culture into alienated racial and emotional groupings (Wolfenstein's more generalized idea of class), he shows rather graphically, how it is the false consciousness of capitalist exploitation that shapes our worldview -- from the intrapersonal all the way up to the level of culture. It is false consciousness that shapes and deforms individual characters, the psychology, ideology and the cultures of emotional groupings. It shapes our institutions and symbols of state, and causes so much alienation both between and within the various groupings.

The author illustrates how the false consciousness created by America's racist and capitalist social and economic system, commodifed Malcolm's mind and his reality, robbing him of any vestige of an authentic humanity and led him blindly, almost automatically down a path to violence, alienation, drug addiction, crime, exploitation of women, and ultimately to his own self-destruction. Only by getting outside the racist/capitalist paradigm into the Black Muslim religious sect was Malcolm able to partially recover from the damage done to his psyche.

In short, Wolfenstein shows, using Malcolm's life as a vivid object lesson, that it is also the false consciousness in our own lives that is the primary basis for deflecting and distorting our reality from its authentic basis. The authentic basis upon which most of us wish to rest our humanity is on a desire for human relationships based on true emotional feelings unmediated by racist psychology and ideology and that exploits, homogenizes, alienates, commodifies and then greatly diminishes our individual and collective humanity. But it is precisely the things in this list that American democracy does to each of us. And that is why, Wolfenstein considers us all: both black and white, its victims.

Although my own research tends more towards postmodern Freudian analysis of the likes of Otto Rank, Ernest Becker, Norman O. Brown, and especially Robert M. Young and Melanie Kline, Wolfenstein's analysis here using the old Freudian/Marxist model proves that even though it is still tricky, that there is much gold to still be mined from that model.

This is a very, very worthy effort Five stars.

A Complex but Interesting Book
This is a very "wordy" book about a complex man, his life, politics, and beliefs.It is not a history per se of Malcolm X, nor is it a biography, rather it is a collection of ideas within ideas about MalcolmX and what made him tick.I must warn you though it is not as easy book toread, but it rates five stars in my opinion because it attempts to beanalytical and non-judgemental about the man and his times.Not an easytask when you are writing about someone as famous as Malcolm X.This is agood book to supplement Alex Haley's book on Malcolm X as it looks deeperinto the man and what he stood for.Well worth reading if you have thetime and patience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Blood, sweat and tears - Lots of tears
It's not that I disagree with a review of this book, "an excellent read for the black youth of today". I just feel that whatever useful tools and social benefits this book presents, and there is literally a truckload of them, they cannot be segregated.

AQuality comparison
The late Louis E. Lomax (1922-1970) wrote this book shortly after Dr. King's assassination. He traces the path of both leaders. He shows the forces that brought the 2 leaders together on many issues. He also show the opposition forces to these men that materialized into assassins. I recommend that you read this book. ... Read more

Book Description
Featuring poetry, fiction, autobiography and literary criticism, this is a comprehensive and vital collection featuring the work of the major black voices of a century. An unparalleled important classic anthology with timeless appeal. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Must Have
This book is a must have for all African American literature classes! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good only for historical purposes
This book has it's moments, such as "God's Judgement for White America" which speaks of divine revenge for the crimes against Black Americans, but too much of this reflects the period when Malcolm was parroting (his own admission) the cuckoo-patch teachings of Elijah Muhammad for the benefit of the ignorant. "The Black Man's History" is filled with utter madness about Blakc mad scientists creating White people, ad nauseum. Good only for historical purposes. Read the real, sensible stuff from when Malcolm had the sense to cut loose from Elijah's mess, such as "Malcolm X Speaks,' "By Any Means Necessary" etc.

This is the best book on Malcolm's ideology!Buy it!
I first started teaching myself about Malcolm X when I was only in 6th grade, but I was only really concerned with his life story and not his ideas.The books I had read up through high school never gave any extrainsight either (and I owned 10 at the time).I first read this book in thefall of '95, finding it by accident when I was going through the books byMalcolm my freshman year at Montana State U.This book is terrific!I hadalways been an admirer of Malcolm, but without the insight and this bookgave it.My favorite speech is "The Black Man's History", trulya masterpiece.There are some ideas that don't quite pan out, but thesespeeches came during the time he was still with the Nation of Islam and afollower of Elijah Muhammed.This book gives terrific insight into hisideas early on.It is well worth the money to buy this book! ... Read more

Book Description
“Ilyasah Shabazz has written a compelling and lyrical coming-of-age story as well as a candid and heart-warming tribute to her parents. Growing Up X is destined to become a classic.”
–SPIKE LEE

February 21, 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom. June 23, 1997: After surviving for a remarkable twenty-two days, his widow, Betty Shabazz, dies of burns suffered in a fire. In the years between, their six daughters reach adulthood, forged by the memory of their parents’ love, the meaning of their cause, and the power of their faith. Now, at long last, one of them has recorded that tumultuous journey in an unforgettable memoir: Growing Up X.

Born in 1962, Ilyasah was the middle child, a rambunctious livewire who fought for–and won–attention in an all-female household. She carried on the legacy of a renowned father and indomitable mother while navigating childhood and, along the way, learning to do the hustle. She was a different color from other kids at camp and yet, years later as a young woman, was not radical enough for her college classmates. Her story is, sbove all else, a tribute to a mother of almost unimaginable forbearance, a woman who, “from that day at the Audubon when she heard the shots and threw her body on [ours, never] stopped shielding her children.” ... Read more

Customer Reviews (26)

Growing is by no means easy!
I felt the book was very insightful.The whole world probably wanted to know how Malcolm X's children faired after is death.They deserved the good education and the care that their mother gave them or that the world could give them. I applaud Betty for it.I disagree with one review which said she was all over the place in the book or went from one thing to another.I believe she is remembering as a two year old and we've got to think of it from that prospective. We should expect them to have lived a sheltered life, but it seemed as though Ilyasah tried to break the mold but couldn't.(smile) I am proud that she had the courage to write about her private life. My mom was a great follower of Malcom X and even took my brother to his funeral. We will all forever miss her mother and father.I too think that they are together now in peace.

Disappointing
I don't think this book lived up to the hype. It's very disorganized and the topics she discusses are all over the place. She skips around throughout the entire book. Her tone is also a bit irritating. I expected a mature narration of her life, but it seemed like the book was written by a teenager.

The author was often overly dramatic when it came to simple topics, stuck to unimportant topics for too long, gave important issues very little attention, and kept referring to her mother as "Mommy". I sensed a repetition of the same issues. There also wasn't a shortage of clichés in the book: She mentions during 4 or 5 different instances that she started "Finding out who I really was".

Despite the struggles her parents endured, it seems she has lived a very sheltered life and had pretty much everything handed to her: She got into college without applying, had all her expenses taken care of throughout college, and didn't seem to have many responsibilities, even throughout adulthood. I found it strange that she didn't read her father's autobiography until she got to college. You'd expect the daughter of a civil rights leader to be much more involved, but she either didn't care enough to continue his work or simply didn't mention it. Overall this book didn't give me the insight I had expected. It was very shallow and I didn't find much substance in it. She doesn't seem to have many significant life experiences, but rather chose to write about that of her parents.

Growing Up X
I felt that this was a great book. This book has shown how a mother and her children who had seen there father and husband killed . But still the the mother went on tocontinute her education while seeing that her girls recevied the best education
they could receive. I feel that Malcolm X was a man way before his time and this didn't start with Malcolm X it began with Malcolm X's father. Who also was a man before his time.

Humble, Yet Ungreatful
The author wrote a good book for the most part, yet came off to me as little ungreatful. I am refering to the inference about the movie based on the life of her Father, MALCOLM X.
In writing, "Denzel Washington did a good job but, my father was....
Come now Ms. Shabazz, Spike Lee did not have time to cast a clone of your father.
Lee did the best that he could to convey the power of your father's works as well as his life.
Your own mother was the creative consultant on the film!
A little thankfulness goes a long way considering the type of activist that your father was.
In his early days as a leader of the NOI, he angered many black and white people with the wording and the tone of his speeches and not too many directors were chomping at the bit to produce a film honoring Malcolm X.
Next time spend your own money and YOU do the research and t ake the time to create a movie about your dad.

Who would read a book by such an ignorant racist?
I just saw the commercial for "Growing Up X".The author stated that when she was young and in school she was taught that Columbus discovered America.Upon hearing this she questioned the teacher and asked how America could have been "discovered" when people were already here.Evidently Miss X still thinks that this was some kind of brilliant revelation.For all the idiots out there that think that she has a great point, please let me "school" you for a second.Discover is a subjective word.Things can be discovered by either a stated or implied person or group and things which have been discoved by one group can also be discovered by another group.For instance, I can say that "this weekend I discovered a great bar down on South Street".That doesn't mean that no one else has been there before.It just means that this was the weekend that I discovered it.When history books state that Columbus discoved America in 1492 it is implied that it was discoved by Columbus and hence the civilized Western and Eastern worlds who did not know about its existence.I too had the same revelation when I was young, the difference is that I have become much smarter since then.I just love it when ignorant, uneducated, black racists try to "teach" us poor white folk something.It's like the blind leading those with 20/20 vision.Miss X is so racist and hates whites so much that she is willing to state something incredibly foolish just to try to convince other fools that whites are somehow wrong.What is really funny is that usually commercials sample the best of something (such as a movie) to create interest.If this "brilliant epiphany" demonstrates the best this book has to offer I feel sorry for the poor saps that buy it and even more sorry for the simple people that believe it.If for some reason sitting on the couch, listening to rap and hip hop and blaming whites for your problems isn't dropping your IQ quite as fast as you had hoped, then this book might just be for you. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Study of Malcolm X We Can USE
This is a well-documented, carefully researched, thoughtfully crafted,fearlessly truthful insight into, most importantly, Malcolm X's life afterhis split from the Nation of Islam.

This was time that while he continuedto build principled international relationships between himself as thelegitimate representative of the colonized Africans inside current U.S. andAfrican heads of state and other key persons; and began to develop astrategy for the liberation of ALL peoples, based on principledrelationships among them.

This book exposes the misinformation andsuppression of information perpetrated by the dominant culture, includingthe "left" still clinging to its position of a "loyalopposition" to U.S. colonialism and imperialism.

Check it out! ... Read more

Book Description
One of those rare leaders on the American left who appealed to both blacks and whites, George Breitman helped lay the foundations for one of the most remarkable developments of American political history after World War II: the brief but promising relationship between black liberationist Malcolm X and the Trotskyist Socialist Workers' Party (SWP). As the founder of the SWP, Breitman developed an early interest in the Black Nationalist movement and viewed African Americans as potentially the vanguard of an American proletarian revolution (the "third revolution" after the War of Independence and the emancipation of the slaves following the Civil War). After the death of Malcolm X, Breitman was responsible for saving the black leader's speeches and bringing them to millions of readers worldwide. As a leader of American Trotskyism for almost fifty years, Breitman was also the editor of the definitive fourteen-volume collection of the writings of Leon Trotsky.Now Anthony Marcus has brought together for the first time in one volume a representative selection of George Breitman's works, along with four new critical essays about his contributions to the American left and to the Civil Rights movement. The popularly presented essays and speeches in this carefully chosen selection are highly readable and come from every period of Breitman's life as an activist and scholar. They range from his emergence in the 1930s and 1940s as a leader of the "unemployed movement," founder of the Socialist Workers Party, and editor of their national weekly, The Militant, to his work as a party organizer, trade unionist, antiracist leader in Detroit during the 1950s and 1960s, and his final struggle in the 1970s and 1980s against the political and organizational degeneration of the SWP. This valuable collection of the key writings of a leading figure on the radical American left provides a unique view into important social movements and major events of 20th-century American history. ... Read more

Book Description
The impact of Malcolm X and black nationalism can hardly be overestimated.Not only did they transform race relations in America, they revolutionized the study of race in all fields of study, from American history to literature to sociology. Jim Tyner's The Geography of Malcolm X will be the first book to apply a geographical perspective to black radicalism.The Geography of Malcolm X explores how the radical black power movement that emerged in the 1960s thought and acted in spatial terms. How did they conceive of the space of the ghetto? The different social and political geographies of the North and South? The imaginative geographies connecting blacks in America to Africa and the emerging postcolonial world? At the center of his account is the intellectual evolution of Malcolm X, who at every stage of his development applied a spatial perspective to the predicament of blacks in America and the world.The Geography of Malcolm X introduces critical race theory to geography and demonstrates to readers in many other fields the importance of space and place in black nationalist thought.Given his range of thinking and his centrality to the era, Malcolm X is an ideal window into this long-neglected aspect of race relations in America. ... Read more

Book Description
Using the Nation of Islam as a vehicle, but largely through his own dedication, energy, and intelligence, Malcolm X became an indefatigable Black leader during the 1960s. This encyclopedic volume examines one of the most controversial and heroic leaders of the 20th century. Over 500 essays discuss how Malcolm X affected the world in which he lived and how the influence of people, issues, and events shaped his development as an international figure. With more than 70 contributors from black studies, history, political science, sociology, philosophy, education, journalism, and psychology, the encyclopedia combines the knowledge of a precise group of writers. Addressing a major social, religious, and political figure through their own disciplines, these authors flesh out both the diversity and the complexity of the world that defined Malcolm X. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Superb Pictorial!A Must Have For All Admirers Of Malcolm X!
An extraordinary collection of photographs highlighting the life and times of the great African-American leader, Al Hajj Malik Shabazz, better known as Malcolm X.Presented in black and white format, this book is comprised of rare pictures that effectively convey the passionate, inspirational persona of the great leader.Though more of a pictorial than an exposé into Malcolm's "life and/or philosophy", the large photos and detailed commentary adequately outlines his ideology, as well as the tumultuous racial climate of the era. Included are photos of Malcolm's family, Elijah Muhammad, and Martin Luther King.Additionally, there are rare pictures of Marcus Garvey, members of the Nation of Islam, W. E. B. Dubois, Adam Clayton Powell, Muhammad Ali and even a young Redd Foxx.Though only 80 pages long, the cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words in more than apropos here.I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Book Description
This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the political thought of the great African-American Muslim martyr, Malcom X. It is the first to illustrate the influence of his islamic faith and his international experience upon his constantly developing political vision. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Not the real Malcolm X
If you want to know the real Malcolm X don't read this book. This is mostly based on interpretations based on what Malcolm X said. If you really want to get to know the man, read his autobiography > The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Penguin Modern Classics). Radical? I don't think so, the man was enlightened at the end of his live. ... Read more