The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

by Les Payne, Tamara Payne

Beginning in 1990 on a quest that would consume him for the rest of his life, the Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist Les Payne started interviewing all living siblings of the Malcolm Little family, Nation of Islam figures, FBI moles and cops, and political leaders around the world. His goal was ambitious: to create a portrait of Malcolm X that would separate fact from fiction. Interweaving unknown details of Malcolm X’s life—from harrowing vignettes culled from his Depression-era Nebraska and Michigan youth; to his Massachusetts prison years and religious conversion; to his recruitment for Elijah Muhammad; and, finally, to a moment-by-moment retelling of the 1965 assassination—Payne has written a groundbreaking biography that brings to vivid life the story of one of the most politically relevant figures in twentieth-century American history. Framed by essays from Tamara Payne, Payne’s daughter and primary researcher, who heroically completed the biography after her father’s death, The Dead Are Arising affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, History, Race, Politics, Biography Memoir, Audiobook

Audiobook

First published October 20, 2020

About the author

Leslie Payne was an American journalist. He served as an editor and columnist at Newsday and was a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“At its core, Malcolm’s message spoke to people of every rank: white people are not superior, and black people are not inferior. While black people have been conditioned by generations of oppression to feel a false sense of inferiority, Malcolm’s core messaging provides tools to move from this self-loathing to self-acceptance with the hope of redirecting oppressed people’s energy toward self-determination and community success. He reframed the oppression of black Americans from a civil rights issue to a human rights issue…”
- Les Payne, The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

Malcolm X – born Malcolm Little – was one of the most significant civil rights leaders in American history. He also remains among the most polarizing and controversial, with his legacy made more complicated by the fact that he was murdered in the midst of a transformation, cutting short the arc of his journey. By any measure, he is a man worthy of a big, full scale biography, which is what journalist Les Payne set out to do.

The Dead Are Arising is the end-product of roughly thirty years of research, in which Payne interviewed every person he could find who knew Malcolm X during his brief, impactful life. In many respects, he was remarkably successful, delivering an opus that won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Given that resume alone, this book is worth a look.

Despite the accolades, though, this can be a frustratingly uneven reading experience, with some aspects of Malcolm X’s life covered with depth, detail, and insight, and others with only superficial summaries and afterthoughts. While ultimately very good, I found that it did not quite live up to my hopes and expectations.

***

Perhaps the most important thing to note about The Dead Are Arising is that Les Payne did not live to complete it. Unfortunately, he died in 2018 at the age of seventy-six, roughly two years before his massive project finally reached publication. Due to this, Payne’s daughter, Tamara, finished the book on his behalf, a process she explains at the start. While I have absolutely no idea how much of the manuscript had been completed, I feel confident that a lot of the issues I perceived are a function of Les Payne’s untimely passing.

***

Structurally, The Dead Are Arising is a standard chronological biography that begins with its subject’s birth and ends with his death.

For Malcolm X, that means covering his time in Omaha, Nebraska; the early death of his father, and subsequent psychiatric hospitalization of his mother; his placement in foster homes in Michigan; his career as a small-time criminal in New York City and Boston; his incarceration for burglary; his tumultuous career in the National of Islam, where he gained national prominence for his outspoken views; his very public break with that organization in March 1964; and finally, his assassination in February 1965.

Though the outline is typical, the detail is varying, and the areas of focus somewhat idiosyncratic. Some parts of The Dead Are Arising are simply amazing. Payne’s handling of Malcolm X’s childhood, for instance, is top-shelf, and he does a fine job explaining the influence of his father, the Reverend Earl Little, who was a follower of Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey. Also well done is Malcolm’s time in Michigan – where it seems that Payne talked to every former student who crossed his path in school – and his criminal exploits as a young man.

Whereas these sections are rich and textured, other parts of Malcolm X’s life are only thinly sketched, or elided completely. To give an example of this imbalance, Payne devotes an entire, sixty-three-page chapter to a shocking meeting that Malcolm had with the Georgia Ku Klux Klan. Malcolm met with the Klan at the behest of Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam’s leader. The purpose of the get-together was to discuss an overlapping interest in racial separation. Certainly, this meeting is worthy of attention, and Payne successfully recreates it with you-are-there immediacy. However, later in the book, after Malcolm has split with the Nation of Islam, there is only a single, twenty-one page chapter encompassing the last year of his life. In short, I learned a lot about a specific day, but much less about an entire year.

At one point, while discussing Malcolm’s aversion to interracial marriage, Payne offhandedly mentions that Malcolm is now married himself. Unsurprisingly, given this passing interjection regarding a major life milestone, Malcolm’s family life is hardly touched. Meanwhile, Malcolm’s formative experience in prison is rushed, while the formation of the Nation of Islam is thoroughly explored; Malcolm’s famous pilgrimage to Mecca rates a couple paragraphs, while an entire chapter breaks down his killing. The upshot of this unequal focal distribution is that closely-observed, atomic-level dissection of some events are interspersed with gaping narrative holes.

***

As I mentioned up-top, I have a feeling that the strange spottiness on display is a result of Payne being unable to finish his masterwork. Even with this bumpiness, every page brims with the fruits of his labor. I suspect that – if made available – the primary source generation that Payne accomplished will be of enormous value to future historians.

***

Any biography of Malcolm X has to contend with the enormous shadow of Malcolm’s own literary classic, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, cowritten with Alex Haley. Throughout The Dead Are Arising, Payne cross-references the autobiography, making emendations, adding commentary, and even naming the people who Malcolm left anonymous, such as a racist high school counselor who steered him away from a legal career.

While undoubtedly helpful – and worthwhile in its own right – reading Malcolm’s autobiography is not a prerequisite to starting The Dead Are Arising. Indeed, I haven’t read it since high school – which is now just a dot in my rear view mirror – but never felt lost.

***

Payne’s portrayal of Malcolm X is sympathetic, which makes sense, given the amount of time he spent studying Malcolm’s life. Still, this means that Payne does not fully grapple with some of the unsavory aspects of Malcolm’s character, such as his treatment of women, or the charges of antisemitism. Obviously, such flaws do not lessen Malcolm’s achievements or importance. Nevertheless, they are part of him, and necessary for the fullest possible picture. I also would have appreciated a better understanding of the true beliefs behind some of Malcolm’s more remarkable statements.

Payne devotes an entire chapter to the contentious relationship between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., but shies away from any sharp judgments. Regardless of their poor relationship, Payne is broadly willing to see them as complimentary, smoothing away a lot of contemporary friction, though it is unclear that is how they saw themselves.

Having said this, Payne does solid work contextualizing the environment that Malcolm faced, which formed his thinking and guided his actions. For instance, there is an especially effective rundown of the various Jim Crow laws in different states, which sometimes contradicted, but always dehumanized. It is within this paradigm of racial supremacy and caste that everything Malcolm X said and did must be analyzed and understood.

***

The Dead Are Arising is passionately written. This gives it a lot of energy, and a fast pace, so that despite being over 500 pages in length, it does not feel like 500 pages. At times, this leads to repetition, as well as minor factual errors. For instance, Payne describes the horrific Emmett Till murder by writing that Till’s body had been “riddled” with bullets. In reality, Till was mercilessly beaten, but shot only once. This is a minor thing in the grander scheme, and overall, I prefer Payne’s energy – and occasionally palpable rage – to dry and lifeless prose.

***

As I said at the top, this does not reach the highest levels of the art of biography. This is a subjective ranking, and in stark contrast to the voters of many worthy awards. It does not quite pass my personal test regarding biographies: do I know what it’d be like to share a room with the person being written about? Having read this, I cannot answer that in the affirmative as to Malcolm X. He remains – despite Payne’s worthy efforts – somewhat elusive.

Yet there is something poignant in the inconstancy of The Dead Are Arising, as it is a product of the cruel actuarial tables under which we all operate. Les Payne lived thirty-seven years longer than Malcolm X, yet even that was not enough. For both biographer and biographee, their lives proved too short to complete the works they’d started.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The French people have placed the negro soldier in France on an equality with the white man, and it has gone to their heads.” ~Woodrow Wilson, 1919

Malcolm X was a brilliant, courageous badass who saw American Christianity as an obstacle to equality and justice...

“[Malcolm] launched a frontal assault upon the New Testament promise of the “hereafter” so widely accepted by Negroes, religious or not. Malcolm flatly dismissed all chances of human postmortem reward, proclaiming that there would be “no Heaven beyond the grave.” A few in the audience gasped. American Negroes, “the lost sheep,” Malcolm thundered, would progress only when they forsook the Christian yearning for the hereafter and devote themselves to Muslim concerns for the right-down here and now.” (pg 314)

And why not rebel against the same articles of faith that were cited time and time again to justify slavery? Why not rebel against the same scripture that was interpreted as “proof” of white supremacy? Why not throw off the yoke that helped maintain an unjust status quo?

“...Malcolm flogged Christianity up hill and down dale... he dismissed organized church enterprises as an insidious confidence game with a sad history of duping poor people the world over. He blistered high-living clergy for dressing in splendor while their parishioners struggled to put pork chops and collard greens on the table.” (pg 399)

Malcolm saw clearly that the Bible had become a tool of oppression, an instrument of hardship, used to elevate one race and subjugate another. What he couldn’t see, at least not until the twilight of his very short life, was that false prophets are everywhere...

“The spartan Malcolm could no longer suppress the realization that, like the Christian ministers he attacked, [Elijah] Muhammad and his Royal Family engaged in conspicuous consumption while presiding over a struggling, low-income, working-class flock.” (pg 399)

Let’s face it, we all know how this story ends. Malcolm, like Abraham, like John, like Martin, like Bobby, didn’t get to write the ending of his own story. Somebody else wrote it for him.

Authors Les and Tamara Payne document the evolution of an extraordinary life, and they do it beautifully and without undue reverence. Five stars.

Personal Note: My high regard for Malcolm always feels a little like cultural appropriation. I tread lightly out of respect and because I am aware that I will never know what it is like to grow up as a black man in America. All I can say is that I am striving to better understand that experience. -Kevin

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many people around the world, The Autobiography of Malcolm X had a powerful impact on my own life and upbringing. For a certain sort of person, Malcolm X remains something close to a saint. He was a symbol of both resistance to oppression and inextinguishable human potential. For people who loved Malcolm, this book fills in more details about his life by doing the painstaking journalistic work of tracking those still living who knew him. Les Payne was a truly dogged journalist, as you can tell from his work here. Payne goes through the Autobiography and tracks down the living, breathing people who made up Malcolm's world and gets them to narrate the Malcolm that they knew. He also pores through the reams of documentation produced about Malcolm during his life to give the fullest picture possible. It is clear that Payne himself is someone who loved Malcolm X and considered him important to his own life. Only that kind of dedication spurs such intimate labor.

The shape of this book is interesting since Malcolm himself is almost always described in absence. Unlike the Autobiography, his own quoted words here are very sparing. The narrative is mostly driven by the people from his life that Payne managed to track down as well as the historical context that Payne himself writes into the narrative. The book heavily focuses on the earlier periods of Malcolm's life and gives more detail about the painful collapse of his family, particularly the death of his father in a streetcar accident rumored (likely falsely) to have involved in the KKK. There is also some later detective work around the mysterious W.D. Fard, the founder of the Nation of Islam whom Payne seems to determine from police records was in fact a white New Zealander. Throughout the book effort is given to provide maximum context to the physical and spiritual environment facing African-Americans during Malcolm's lifetime, with generous segues into the life of proto-reformers like Noble Drew Ali and less famous African-Americans who suffered or fought back the terrors of America's racial caste system. One of the most exceptional parts of the book is the insider perspective on a meeting ordered by Elijah Muhammed that took place between Malcolm and several KKK leaders at a house in Georgia. Payne fills in vivid details about this controversial rendezvous by interviewing the other NOI leader who had been present with Malcolm at the tense gathering.

When you love someone you want to know everything about them. That so many decades after his passing people are publishing books like this, seeking to uncover every tiny detail about Malcolm X's life, is a testament to what a monumental impact he had on humanity in just thirty-nine short years of life. This book is recommended for those who have read the Autobiography yet still want to know more about this remarkable individual – one of the most important Americans and Muslims of the 20th century.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now Winner of the Pulitzer Prize 2021
Winner of the National Book Award for Non-Fiction 2020
Les Payne worked on this book for almost 30 years, and it shows: This account of Malcolm X's life, completed after Payne's death by his daughter and primary researcher Tamara, finds an organic and often poetic way to piece together the events and decisions that made the human rights activist and Muslim minister who he was. Filled to the brim with detail and background information (for instance about the Nation of Islam and its goals) and rendered vivid through elements of an oral history, this biography paints a nuanced picture that allows readers to ponder and judge instead of telling them what to think - and that's always a sign of great research journalism.

The book starts out before Malcolm X's birth, when his mother was terrorized and threatened by the KKK while pregnant with him. His father, minister Earl Little, faced a lot of hate because he was an activist for the Black cause, including having the family home burnt down...I don't know about you, but I was unaware of those details, although it's apparent how relevant they are for Malcolm X's later life, and the book manages to excellently balance re-telling and interpretation, the latter not without questioning its protagonist's point of view (for instance regarding Earl Little's death, which was probably not due to an act of racical violence, but just an accident).

Frequently, the book compares the depiction in The Autobiography of Malcolm X (written by the man himself) with research findings and discusses or adds informations, especially regarding X's criminal offenses (which happened after his widowed mother was institutionalized for mental illness). And then there are of course the more well-known episodes portraying X's activism, views, and assassination, all of them rendered in a lively, yet sober way.

A great book for everybody who wants to learn more about Malcolm X and is willing to really dive into the intricacies and backstory of his life, times, and legacy.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t really know much about Malcolm X before his assassination in 1965. In part that was due to my general ignorance and in part it was due to the way he was portrayed by the media. For the most part they seemed to want to pit Malcolm against Martin Luther King Jr. and insist that King was the “good” Negro and Malcolm was the “bad” one (of course in some quarters, like the FBI, they were equally bad). It’s nice that we now have movies and books, like this one, that can present a more complete and accurate picture of Malcolm X.

The author did extensive research and interviewed everyone he could find who knew Malcolm. He worked on the book for decades but died before finishing his work. Fortunately, his daughter was able to complete the book. I have not read Malcolm’s autobiography, so I don’t know how the 2 books differ with respect to facts. However, this book provides perspectives that the autobiography could not possibly cover, for example the plotting surrounding his assassination.

This book is long, dense and fascinating. It touches on so many people, organizations and events important to the civil rights movement in this country. The book starts with Malcom’s parents who lived in various midwestern states and were burned out of their home when Malcolm was 4. Malcolm’s youthful bad behavior eventually landed him in prison and while there he became a convert of the Nation of Islam, as was his older brother. His eventual break from the NOI led to his death, which is described in the book in horrific detail. It read like a thriller. The book deserves the awards it has won. The narration by Dion Graham of the audiobook was excellent as always.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a majorly researched feat. The whole thing is incredible. It starts a little slow but the back half is incredible. I actually got weepy leading up to the assassination. It’s a wow.

[Brandice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X is an informative, detailed look at the life of Malcolm X. Les Payne worked on the research for this book for almost 30 years, which his daughter Tamara completed following his death in 2018.

I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X last year and prior to reading it, knew very little about him. It, too, was informative and while I don’t agree with all of Malcolm’s beliefs, he was smart and had many ideas that were ahead of his time.

A fair amount of information in The Dead Are Arising contradicts what is included in the autobiography. Both books generally follow the same timeline of Malcolm’s childhood then adult life, from Nebraska to Michigan, to Boston and New York, with this book presenting information and along the way, noting where Malcolm said otherwise in his own book.

The Dead Are Arising is an objective account of Malcolm’s life. As I listened to the audiobook, I thought about all of the research, verification, and interviews the Paynes had to complete in order to share this story — It’s impressive. This book provides a thorough picture of a historic figure and sheds a little light on other activists at the time as well as the Nation of Islam movement in the US in the 1950-60s.

For those interested in learning more about Malcolm X, I recommend reading both books though they can each be read independently.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

National Book Award for Nonfiction 2020. Les Payne and his daughter, Tamara Payne, focused their 30 years of research on Malcolm X, the man, versus the iconic myth surrounding the Black revolutionary leader.

Malcolm’s parents, Earl Little, from Georgia, and Louise Helen Little, from Grenada, met in the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). This was one of the most important Black organizations of the 20th century, and its leader Marcus Garvey was a personal acquaintance of Earl Little. Garvey spoke of Black pride, independence and repatriation back to Africa, and this became the core of Malcolm’s beliefs.

Earl Little died when a tram ran over him when Malcolm was just six years old. His mother held the family together for a few years before succumbing to poverty and mental illness. At thirteen and in foster care, Malcolm slowly became enamored of the life of thievery, drug dealing, and more until he was convicted at age twenty. While incarcerated, he read widely and accepted the teachings of the Nation of Islam and dedicated himself to serving its leader, Elijah Mohammad.

Malcolm eventually broke with the Nation of Islam, choosing Sunni Islam as his preferred religion, and began pursuing a global, human-rights-based movement for Black liberation. This did not sit well with Elijah Mohammad, and an order for Malcolm’s assassination was given. (There is circumstantial evidence that the FBI and New York City police may have been complicit as well. They certainly had Malcolm under continuous surveillance.) At the age of 40, Malcolm was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem just as he was starting to speak. Of note, Louis Farrakhan, the current leader of the NOI, admits that he may have been complicit as well.

Malcolm X’s legacy is that he had a sophisticated understanding of racism. He shunned false promises of reform, arguing that “this system can no more provide freedom, justice and equality than a chicken can lay a duck egg”.

The Black Lives Matter movement seeking equal justice owes much to the Black leaders of the 1960s like Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Recommend.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that it has taken the 2021 Pulitzer for Biography, I'm feeling stingy about the lack of a fifth star.

Maybe I'm the last of the Mohicans, but I knew precious little about Malcolm X (beyond hearing of him a lot) and decided to plug the historical gap in my education by reading this book. Exhaustive is a good word for it -- thorough as all get-out, meaning that sometimes the thoroughness might try you, as in all the info about Malcolm's parents (before we even get to Malcolm) and his father's political/religious beliefs, and then all the background info about the Nation of Islam.

Turns out, though, that the NOI knowledge is necessary, as it all comes together in the 1965 hit job that took Malcolm down in Harlem. My knowledge of this was sketchy, but reading about it just brought all kinds of bad memories of '63 (JFK) and '68 (MLK and RFK). The 60s were like the Wild West or something, and the fact that many Americans *cheered* all four of these assassinations tells a disturbing truth about the legacy of America's original sin.

In any event, the book finishes strong and it's good to know that Malcolm changed his "blacks vs. white devils" talk after his hajj, where he met people of all skin and eye colors bound not by race but by faith in Islam. He was a new man after that, but by then he had made too many enemies. The rest is history, the kind we can't be terribly proud of but have to face head on if we're ever going to come together as a nation.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE DEAD ARE ARISING: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne, 2020.

⭐ Winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2020 // Pulitzer Prize for Biography 2021

Journalist Les Payne built this book around scores of interviews he conducted, and archival & personal research he started in 1990.

Take a minute. 1990.
He researched this book for 28 years.

Unfortunately he didn't see its publication, as he passed in 2018. His daughter / fellow researcher Tamara Payne took it the rest of the way, and wrote a beautiful Introduction to this book.

Because the book was structured around so many interviews specifically with family members & friends from childhood (still alive in the early 90s when Payne began research), this includes some of the most complete views of Malcolm's early life in Omaha, East Lansing, & Detroit, before his (well-documented) days in Boston and Harlem.

Much more detail than we received in the 1965 "Autobiography" (published posthumously by his co-author Alex Haley), which as we have learned over time glossed over many things, slipped things altogether, exaggerated a bit, and used composite characters... It happens all the time with autobiographies and memoirs. That is in no way a deterrent, as the Autobiography is a great piece to read *before* this one - to take in the story, and then to fill in some gaps with the Paynes' work.

Louise Little, Malcolm's mother, born in Grenada, moved to Canada, and settled in the US to marry his Georgia-born father, Earl. Payne emphasizes Malcolm's education, and the influence & global outlook of his polyglot mother, as well as his parents' devotion to Marcus Garvey and the UNIA, and importance of activism, literacy, rhetoric, and strict education in the Little home.

Payne delves into details around Earl's death, speculated to be a "hit", a hate crime/homicide, or (simply) an accident for decades, and how this affected 6-year old Malcolm Little and his siblings, and his mother.

This strong foundational history was largely glossed over in other works, and the Paynes take great care to share this story. Malcolm's youth, his criminal history and incarceration, and his conversion to the Nation of Islam form the next large sections of the book...

The Paynes tell an intricately detailed story about the Nation of Islam and its formation, its role as a "homegrown" American cult/religion, and the histories of its founder, Fard Muhammad, and Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm's mentor-turned-enemy.

One of the most detailed - and damning - research focuses is the intention of Elijah Muhammad to meet and confer with the Ku Klux Klan, since both groups vehemently opposed societal segregation, believing the two races should be separate. Malcolm is assigned by Elijah Muhammad to meet with KKK leaders to try to organize an alliance, and work to procure a land grant for Black people to live away from whites, with the help of this terrorist organization.
It's a stunning section, with Malcolm's own rage at Muhammad giving him the task of meeting with them... and this situation, as well as other revelations about Muhammad's indecencies, and Muhammad's jealousy of Malcolm's popularity, philosophical differences surrounding Malcolm's travels and awakening to Sunni Islam or "the True Islam" as he called it, etc etc., cause an irreparable schism and ex-communication, leading to violence and Malcolm's assassination by members of the Nation of Islam in 1965.

My only real criticism is that Malcolm's own family - his wife and daughters - are barely mentioned in this book. Betty Shabazz gets only a handful of mentions, and most are more of an afterthought, or her reactions after Malcolm's assassination. So, the public facing - or even the social version of Malcolm with friends and followers - is detailed fully, but a private life with his nuclear family is almost nonexistent in this text. Of course, there are a number of reasons this could be, but it just felt like a big hole for me. A definitive case could be made here about Malcolm's beliefs on gender roles, treatment of women, etc. and perhaps that also plays into Betty and the daughters' backgrounding role in this biography...

Nuanced and more "filled in" than previous works, this is a particularly fascinating work of biography. It struck me to think back on just how much Malcolm's own image has shifted since Payne began this research in 1990 - from the growing popularity of the Autobiography to renewed study and interest after Spike Lee's 1992 award-winning film with Denzel Washington, to a number of documentaries, samples of Malcolm's speeches in rap and hip hop music, to more movies, more cultural touch points. As he wrote this book, Malcolm's life - even after his death in 1965 - was still shifting / changing and shaping a consciousness.

From the INTRODUCTION -
"[Martin Luther] King offered racists the other cheek, Malcolm the back of his hand. Freedom was so important to him that Malcolm counseled risking all, except one’s sense of self- respect, in the fight. Nonviolence, he taught, unduly narrowed an oppressed people’s options."

READ APRIL 2021.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Congratulations!! 🎊 National Book Award Winner!!

The Dead Are Arising is the collaborative effort of Les Payne and his daughter Tamara. For the heralded columnist this is his opus, a thirty year labor of love. For Tamara Payne it is a testament to her father as much as it is to Malcolm.

This past Friday I had the pleasure of seeing Tamara Payne interviewed on Politics and Prose. In discussing the direction of The Dead Are Arising she explained how our love for the man clouds our vision of him. That we tend to see him in a vacuum. He is this myth of a man and we forget that he is a man who had a family. These extensions of himself that are still grounded here. His legacy lives on in them and although we as a public want to claim him, he really isn't ours to own. In expressing these sentiments she could have been talking about Malcolm or her father Les Payne. In completing this book, one of Payne's chief aims was to be true to her father's voice. As his daughter, this book was her gift to the rest of his family; her hope that they would hear his voice as they read its pages.

The Dead Are Arising is the culmination of hundreds of interviews with the people who knew Malcolm best. While reading the book I found it hard not to compare it to The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This was in part because I read it directly before delving into this work, but also because the authors refer to it throughout. As a scientist, I considered this a natural part of being a researcher where your role is to verify the validity of the data presented to you. In some cases The Autobiography is supported. In others it is refuted.

Within its pages we get a new perspective of his early life and family dynamics. The previous claim that Malcolm's father was murdered by the Klan is challenged. More attention is paid to the structure and the founding of the Nation of Islam. Most revelatory for me was the passages that detailed Malcolm's meeting with the Ku Klux Klan in 1961 and the coverage of his assassination.

Payne is very protective of her subject. In fact fans of Marable's book have criticized The Dead Are Arising for being too generous towards Malcolm's legacy. His criminal activities are not as extensive or terrible as they appear in his autobiography. Miss Payne accounts for this difference by claiming that the purpose of exaggerating Malcolm's street life in The Autobiography sets the stage for his origin myth. The more despicable a picture you paint of your past, the greater the redemptive value of your religious conversion.

The Dead Are Arising was an engrossing read. A vivid portrait, it gives insight into Malcolm Little, the child and El Hajj Malik Shabazz, the man. I believe Tamara Payne has done what she set out to do - amplify the voices of both her father and Malcolm

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is great companion reading to the Autobiography of Malcolm X. It parses through Malcolm's life using interviews with his siblings as well as many people who knew him personally in order to flesh out a full version of his life. It gives you a better idea of who Malcolm was in all of the major phases of his life. Of course, there are some things that seem consequential in his autobiography which barely get a mention here, but that most likely has to do with being able to corroborate the stories. This is extremely readable and thorough. I highly recommend it for anyone looking to know a bit more about Malcolm X than just what you read in his autobiography or saw in the movie.

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ohhh maaan! Riveting! Updated 11/24. 👉🏿 At the risk of succumbing to recency bias, I am naming this as the best book on Malcolm, biography or otherwise that has ever been written. The Paynes have given us a work that takes a thorough lens into Malcolm’s life, with special emphasis on his childhood. This childhood inspection aided by extensive interviews coupled with diligent and prodigious research brilliantly explains how Malcolm X came to dominate the world stage The meticulous research always shows up on the page and we learn Malcolm was developing a pro-Black consciousness very early in life, mostly because of his parents being fervent supporters of Marcus Garvey and his uplift the race program and policies.

In Malcolm’s autobiography, Malcolm often credited the Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad for his rising consciousness and awareness. Les Payne has leaned heavily on his reporting skills to unearth a much more nuanced view of Malcolm’s African centered worldview. And the childhood Malcolm is not the only enhanced look he gifts the reader in this amazing book. In fact, there are key moments and events in Malcolm’s life that are showing up in print for the first time. A small amount of the book acts a corrective to The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Les Payne makes clear the Autobiography was penned with an agenda (as most are) to heighten the stature and status of the NOI by showcasing their hand in raising Malcolm X from the dead level. In effect saying that if the Nation and Elijah Muhammad can create a Malcolm X, what could it do for the average Black man?

In mentioning and writing about material left out of Malcolm’s life story, Les Payne seems to tell us to look deeper and rightfully so. It’s not a malicious urging, but a loving one. It is that urging that puts us in the room when Malcolm and Jeremiah X, the Atlanta, GA minister at the time meet with Klan leader, W.S. Fellows with Elijah Muhammad’s blessing and encouragement. A meeting that Malcolm regretted enough to make sure it was excluded from his Autobiography. The writing (reporting) on this meeting is riveting. Certainly not one of the Nation’s finest moments, though Malcolm made the best of an unpleasant situation. Speaking of omissions, it is curious that Betty Shabazz’s voice is entirely absent from this book, the reason for that is not clear. Another glaring absence is the voice of Malcolm’s brothers concerning his assassination. This looms large because we get so much from them regarding Malcolm’s early life. It would have been priceless to hear their thoughts on their own actions after Malcolm was gunned down.

And finally, what would an interview with Minister Louis Farrakhan have added to this magnificent work. Perhaps a first hand account why he was a reveler in the Newark, NJ mosque as a group of celebrants awaited word that the assassination had been successfully carried out. Les Payne declined to name the “leader” of this celebration and that is a disappointment only because he was so consistent on naming folks throughout the book, even correcting the many pseudonyms used in the Autobiography. So it invites the big question, WHY?

These minor absences are slight annoyances in what is a mesmerizing account of Malcolm’s life. For one who wishes to research the life and times of Malcolm X, this book is now the starting point.

[Conor Ahern · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had heard that The Autobiography of Malcolm X was too drenched in misogynoir to get through, but curious about Malcolm X's life, this presented a different potential path of discovery. The book stemmed from the author's historical research, plus the unlikely opportunity to become close with and learn from one of Malcolm's siblings. The result is a pretty fleshed out story, though one that seems heavily tilted toward the younger, formative years of Malcolm X's life.

The look we get into Malcolm X's early life is interesting if not surprising. Malcolm's family, who were acolytes of Marcus Garvey's Back to Africa movement, refused to abide by the white supremacist codes of early 20th Century America, which dictated where Black people could and could not live, what rights they were entitled to, and the threats they could expect for things as commonplace as not stepping off the sidewalk if a white person walked by. Inevitably, this resulted in squabbles and death threats, including the KKK menacing Malcolm's mother while she was pregnant with him. The family were also devout Christians--his father was a minister--and this seemed to lay the framework for Malcolm's later embrace of and proselytization through the Muslim faith--at first esoteric, then conventional--of his adult years.

Malcolm X is so often portrayed as MLK's more acceptable civil rights counterpart, perhaps because his advocacy of an-eye-for-an-eye was less palatable (and continues to be less palatable) to white America than King's turn-the-other-cheek approach. It was interesting to read this during MLK Day, and to think about King's approach removed from this period by half a century in a period where historical figures, even admirable ones, get reevaluated under more critical contemporaneous standards. Should a political leader preaching respectability and incrementalism be criticized for doing so if their legacy is one of success, even if qualified success? Is MLK's legacy intact because his approach was and continues to be countenanced by white Americans, or is it because in addition to his incrementalist and institutionalist approaches, he also preached (conveniently less remembered) ideas that were quite radical? Is Malcolm X's relatively diminished reputation owing to the legacy of his actions, the piquancy of his claims, or our awareness of his own flaws (his longtime adherence to a movement run by a hypocritical lunatic, Elijah Mohammed, his misogyny, his homophobia, etc.)?

It's tough to say, but this book often felt like it was trying a bit hard to excuse Malcolm's flaws while extolling his virtues, with the former perhaps justified by the undeservedly negative reputation X still somewhat enjoys in mainstream (read: white) American culture. It glosses over allegations of antisemitism blithely (i.e., "It's not that he hated Jews, it's that he hated all white people!") and misogyny (i.e., "Sure, he was brutal and abusive to white women... but never to Black women!"), and doesn't even attempt to hide his homophobia ("Malcolm hated queers."), and veers into hagiography in other explorations of the man's rhetorical skills, piety, and judgment. It also makes some absurd claims (e.g., saying that a Nation of Islam henchman was know to be "extraordinarily skilled"... with a pickaxe? Claiming that Elijah Mohammad's claims, in the Twentieth Century, of a "mothership" were no crazier than Judeo-Christian beliefs in a talking Burning Bush, as if the latter were not created by pre-literate people to describe the workings of a world they poorly understood, the former by a low rent grifter in the modern era). But more fairly it portrays Malcolm X as a man reacting reasonably to a world that brutalizes and disregards Black lives.

As with MLK, who shifted from messages of racial equality to economic equality around the time (and perhaps because of this) he was killed, Malcolm X--having publicly eschewed Elijah Muhammad shortly before (and perhaps causing) his own death--shifted from a message that mostly boiled down to "white people are the devil" to "white people are not inherently evil, but society incentivizes them to exploit, denigrate, and maim Black people," and one wonders what might have happened had he lived to preach this modified message.

[Hadrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is hard to overstate what the life and history of the man Malcolm X means to so many audiences. Read at the right time, his memoirs, co-written with Alex Haley, electrify. But where can a biography can be written about a man whose memoirs were so outstanding?

Les Payne had the background and experiences to make the attempt. an award winning journalist previously known for his work on the "French Connection" of the drug trade and his foreign correspondence in South Africa, began the work for this biography in the 1990s, and it was almost complete at the time of his death in 2018. Thankfully, his daughter and principal researcher, Tamara Payne, brought the work to completion.

Malcolm X was born in 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents were followers of the black nationalist and separatist Marcus Garvey, whose plans included a 'back to Africa' movement. His parents were involved in the establishment of a Universal Negro Improvement Organization in Omaha, which drew the hatred of the Ku Klux Khan. They moved - first to Wisconsin, and then to Michigan. His father died in a streetcar accident - Malcolm later said it was a murder, but Payne's reporting suggests that it was only a tragic accident. His childhood was rough from then on - his mother fell apart under the stress, and Malcolm and his brother Philbert were problem children. Hard for him to discuss, but that perhaps because it was too painful to ever bring up.

Then came his first reinvention. After a life of petty theft and hustling, he was arrested and jailed in 1946. Then came the time of radical self-discovery and reading every book he could find. Then contacting Elijah Muhammad of the Nation of Islam (the NoI), then dropping his former surname, 'Little', and then only signing his name 'Malcolm X'. He would become the NoI's spokesman, arguably Elijah Muhammad's heir apparent, and a reason the group swelled in size by the tens of thousands. That is the familiar part of his story. Payne does not go into the details of Malcolm X's philosophy or beliefs - but the interviews go into the details of the NoI's organization and more if its sordid details - the alleged charlatanism of its founder, the misconduct of its leadership, and the petty rivalries that would break it all apart.

One of the more astonishing stories of the book is where Malcolm X was ordered to meet with members of the Ku Klux Klan by his superiors. The meeting was first over the purchase of some land, and on paper the ideas of black separatism and white chauvinism were not totally incompatible. But when the KKK began to propose the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., then everything else went off the table. There were lines that he could not cross.

Then comes the second of Malcolm X's personal reinventions - his break with the Nation of Islam, his conversion, and his brief career after the Hajj, his hope for a multiracial coalition to defeat injustice, and his meetings with foreign leaders. Payne provides a more detailed history of Malcolm X's assassination - but reading about assassinations can be painful, or at best leading to speculation of what might have been.

Can this biography be called definitive? I doubt it, but that is absolutely not from any fault of Les and Tamara Payne. Quite the opposite, their work stands out. The life contains so much detail that a single volume cannot be enough for it all - Malcolm X's personal philosophy and public speaking are understudied here, which is a shame because his oratory was a major component of his success. But in the study of the grittier personal nuances, and in the reconstruction of specific incidents that is a journalist's forte - that is where this book excels.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://thebestbiographies.com/2021/0...

Published last fall, “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X” is the result of nearly three decades of work by Les Payne. Following his death in 2018 – with the manuscript nearly finished – his daughter (and primary research assistant) completed the book. Les Payne was a former U.S. Army Ranger and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and editor at Newsday.

Payne’s background as an investigative journalist will not come as a surprise to readers of this exquisitely-researched biography. Payne interviewed hundreds of people including nearly everyone he could find who knew Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little): childhood friends, classmates, cellmates, colleagues, family members and neighbors. His overarching goal was to write the most thorough, accurate and penetrating account possible of Malcolm X’s life (as well as his death).

In the end, Payne’s biography does for Malcolm X much of what Robert Caro’s multi-volume series does for Lyndon Johnson: create a colorful, insightful, thoughtful and scrupulously balanced portrait of a complex and occasionally perplexing human, underpinned by tenacious research.

Immediately obvious is that Payne is an engaging writer; his style is clear and straightforward but extremely descriptive and consistently captivating. He was intrigued – and even inspired – by Malcolm X. But if this biography frequently feels friendly toward its subject, it is not reverential. Payne is never reluctant to note his subject’s shortcomings and he works diligently to identify and correct errors and point out omissions from Malcolm X’s Autobiography.

But while Malcolm X is most famous for his dozen-year association with the Nation of Islam (which ended the year before his death in 1965) it is Payne’s description of Malcolm X’s childhood which is most notable for its vibrancy and scene-setting. These eight chapters (consuming about 200 of the book’s 523 pages of text) review his life up to his incarceration for larceny at the age of twenty and are uncommonly engrossing.

The most noteworthy revelation of the biography, however, concerns Malcolm X’s meeting with the Ku Klux Klan in 1961 to discuss the Nation of Islam’s shared opposition to integration and the possibility of working with the KKK to form a “separate state” for black Americans. The two-dozen pages covering this secret summit (which took place at another Nation of Islam minister’s home in Atlanta) are absolutely surreal.

In general, though, as the biography proceeds through Malcolm X’s work on behalf of the Nation of Islam the narrative grows more dense and difficult. During these chapters the focus is squarely on his ministry, the FBI’s surveillance activities and humanitarian and religious efforts of organizations such as the NAACP, the National Urban League and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Consequently, the reader loses touch with Malcolm X’s family members for long stretches of time and, curiously, neither his wife nor his six daughters receive much attention – or leaves much of an impression. In addition, Payne provides context and background unevenly throughout the biography. Readers who are unfamiliar with Malcolm X or the Nation of Islam, and who do not follow the story line carefully, may find events confusing or perplexing at times.

On balance, however, Les and Tamara Payne’s “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X” proves to be a penetrating, fascinating and extremely well-researched biography of an important activist and human rights figure. Les Payne set out to write the most accurate and thorough biography of Malcolm X ever published. With his daughter’s help it appears he accomplished that…and more.

Overall rating: 4¼ stars

[Donna Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

I haven’t been this disappointed in a long time. From the moment I saw this book listed on Net Galley, I was eager to read it, given that the promotion promises a lot of new information about this courageous man, a powerful advocate for the rights of people of color. When I didn’t receive a galley, I awaited the book’s release, and I went out and bought it. Less than halfway into it, I was absolutely sickened.

For starters, not all new information is important or necessary information. There’s a lot of minutiae here, as well as a fair amount of Black History 101 material, interesting to those unfamiliar with the Civil Rights Movement, Jim Crow, Northern red-lining practices, and so forth, but a real snore for those of us already steeped in these things. But beyond that—and one could argue that these historical basics are necessary inclusions for a lot of readers—Paine goes to a great deal of trouble to destroy Malcolm’s legacy.

Academics do this sometimes, and surely it’s no coincidence that the top three examples that come to mind are all biographies of African-Americans that fought for their rights, and aren’t alive now to object to what is being said about them. (In addition to Malcolm, recent biographies of Frederick Douglass and Muhammad Ali come to mind, the latter two slandered by two different authors.) Picking through the tiny, often insignificant details of their lives and combing through their speeches and writing, these authors go to great pains to “expose” small details that conflict with one another, or other signs of inconsistency, with the clear implication that the subject was a liar and a fraud.

For shame!

Let’s talk about that for a minute. I am a grandmother myself, and I can think of important aspects of my life, especially my younger years, for which my own motivations were and are complicated, and if asked about them I am sure I would have given different answers in my twenties, my thirties, and so on. Our own thoughts and motives have a lot of layers. Perhaps we become more insightful later in life, or perhaps our memories are no longer as sharp as we believe them to be. But because we are not famous, or notorious, depending upon points of view, we are unlikely to have some academic interviewing everyone that ever fucking knew us, or combing through every speck of written documentation we leave behind us, searching for all possible details that may bring our integrity and veracity into question.

For me, it matters very little whether Malcolm’s early life was exactly as he told it. It is his ideas, and his courage in expressing them, that made him a legend, and that’s what I look for in his biography. In the 1960s, almost no African-American (or colored, as they preferred to be called during that period,) Civil Rights advocates dared to come right out and say that Black people were not only as good, but in some cases better than Caucasians. And it is Malcolm’s political evolution during the last year of his life, the time when he broke with the Nation of Islam and embraced a working class perspective that included fighters of every race, that galvanizes me. Malcolm raised a powerful voice in opposition to the U.S. war against the Vietnamese people, quipping after President Kennedy’s assassination that it was a case of “chickens coming home to roost.”

This takedown of an iconic Civil Rights warrior is shabby in every sense. For those interested in Malcolm’s political and social evolution, I recommend the book titled Malcolm X: The Last Speeches. Usually, the best way to learn about someone is to see what they themselves had to say.
In this case it’s doubly true.

I don’t recommend this book to anyone.

[I Be Reading · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Malcolm X and have read almost every book in existence about him. This one is an absolute must read for anyone that loves or is curious about Malcolm and his life. It is extremely well researched and thorough; lots of new information about Malcolm that is not mentioned in his autobiography or in other biographies about him. Very light on information about Betty and their daughters but thorough in identifying all the players in the Nation of Islam (several passages left me stunned). It is an excellent companion to Malcolm’s autobiography and I would recommend it over Manning Marable’s book (which was also good).

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eleanor is going on a Civil Right's tour this summer. She'll have stops in Memphis at the Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel... Jackson, Mississippi; Selma, Alabama; Atlanta, Georgia. It will be good, and meaningful. I'm pretty jealous that I don't get to go.

El's a pretty insightful, thoughtful, and well-rounded individual. She listens. She thinks. Etc... etc...

But I don't want her going into this cold, so I've given her some readings before the trip - which is in early July.

So, we're actually reviewing two books here. I had her read The Autobiography - which I had read in high school. I, on the other hand, read The Dead Are Arising, and I thought we could compare the two and discuss.

So, I'll start by asking her what she learned about Brother X.

El?

El: Well, I thought it was a good book.

Dad: Go on.

El: It talked a lot about Malcolm X's life. And it talked A LOT about how he doesn't like white people - especially in the beginning and middle of the book. Towards the end, he stopped hating them a little bit, but not a ton.

Dad: Do you think it was really hate?

El: I don't know... he called them White Devils... sooooo....

Dad: So lets say it was hate... Do you think he was justified in his hate?

El: I don't know. I can understand why he wouldn't like some of the things they do... or... some of the things we do. But I don't think he should judge people by the color of their skin. I think he should go off of individuals rather than stereotypes, or groups of people.

Dad: Why did you change from "they do" to "we do."

El: Because, my skin color is white, and although I don't want to be doing those things, sometimes I think I might be. Like, sometimes I might not be standing up for people. It's difficult sometimes to know when to stand up for people.

Dad: Can you give me an example?

El: Like, if someone's making fun of someone because of their skin color... but they don't necessarily say it's because of their skin color, then... I might think it's because of skin color, but I might think there's a chance that that other person started something first. Or I might think that they don't really care too much, or they're just joking around.

Dad: Yeah. I think it's sometimes difficult to navigate those waters, and maybe especially so in high school where jokes reign supreme both as a posturing, ground-gaining tactic, but also as deflection.

Dad: But like... one of the things I really remember from the book you read - at least, I think it was in this book, but maybe it was in Spike Lee's movie - Malcolm said, "You can't stick a 12 inch blade into someone's back, pull it out six inches and say you're making progress."

El: I think he said something like that, if not those exact words.

Dad: What do you think it meant?

El: I'm not really sure... In a way it's not really making progress, because you can just push the blade back in again. Or you can just leave it there - still 6 inches in - and not pull it out any more. But in a way, it could be considered making progress, because you can just keep pulling it out.

Dad: I think you're close, except for that last part.

El: Yeah - that was why it didn't fully make sense.

Dad: If somebody stabbed you with a 12 inch blade, and they pulled it out 6 inches and told you, "Hey! Look how good I am! I pulled this knife out of you 6 inches! Aren't I such a nice guy?" What would you say?

El: I'd probably say something like, "You were the one that put it in there in the first place."

Dad: Exactly. Exactly. That's what Malcolm was saying.

El: That makes more sense to me now. I thought somebody else came along and pulled it out.

Dad: No. He's saying, "White people did this to us. They're the ones who enslaved us. Stole our culture. Created these systems of oppression. Lynched us. Etc... Etc... Now they're like, 'Look, we're making progress. Things are getting better for you.'" Malcolm's like, "You're the ones who did this to us in the first place." Does it make sense that he hated (in general) hated white people as a whole.

El: Yeah, that does make more sense now.

Dad: But do you remember at the end where he said he worshiped with people who had hair, "the blondest of the blond" and eyes, "the bluest of the blue?"

El: Yeah, I do remember that.

Dad: What did you think?

El: That's when I started to think: Okay... he doesn't hate white people so much anymore.

Dad: Yeah - it's interesting. Both Malcolm and Martin were assassinated right as they were moving from a strictly - or at least mostly - racial movement, to more of an economic/human one.

Dad: You know, there's a lot I learned from this book that I didn't know. (And maybe I did know this at one point), but in The Dead Are Arising, it takes the side that Malcolm's father's death really was accidental. All this time, I thought it was the Klan. And I didn't know - or had forgotten about Malcolm's meetup with Klan leaders. I also learned a lot more about his death, because obviously he couldn't write about it in an autobiography.

El: There was some information about his assassination in the forward. That part was kindof hard to pay attention to. The forward was getting kind of long at that point.

Dad: Are you glad you read it?

El: Yeah. It gave me another perspective on another Civil Rights leader. He's a whole lot different from Martin Luther King Jr., that's for sure.

Dad: Yeah. He is. There are many approaches to a problem, and many strengths and weaknesses to each. I'm pretty excited to show you Malcolm X's, "The Ballot or the Bullet." He makes fun of MLK quite a bit in there. But first: Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

El: Sounds good. Oh: and as always: I recommend these books to people.

*Edit: Our book club read Percival Everett's The Trees. The Dead Are Arising gives some insight into that book.*

[Thomas Rush · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read “The Autobiography Of Malcolm X” 38 years ago, in 1982. I have read the book more than 5 additional times, each time offering new insights. The book was so inspiring that I have been obsessed with knowing more about him. I have reviewed a wide scope of works in reference to Malcolm, so it is easy for me to become complacent and to think that there is very little that is ever going to be presented that is new. This new book by Les Payne proves me wrong. I purchased Payne's book on the day of its release (October 20, 2020), and spent the next two weeks patiently going through it, going back and forth re-reading passages, careful to go over things in microscopic detail, all while taking notes. It would be fair to say that I read this book with more care and patience than any other book that I have ever read in my life.
One of the reasons I love this book comes from the fact that so many people that Malcolm mentioned in his autobiography were interviewed, years after the fact, to get both their at-the-time thoughts about him and how they feel about him contemporarily. For anyone who truly knows The Autobiography, this is a treat.
By choosing his investigative method, Les Payne is able to lay out a lot of new information. There are simply things here that one cannot find anywhere else in print, details that add to the richness that is the Malcolm X phenomenon. This is true of every phase of Malcolm's life, and as a staunch Malcolm supporter, I must say that there are some details here that made me wince and to feel quite sad in contemplating them. There is just so much here that no one else has ever covered in print, including extensive information that comes directly from Malcolm's siblings, who the author spent a great deal of time interviewing. I might also add that this book may well be the first or second best book ever, (along with Baba Zak A. Kondo's book) in terms of the details it uncovers about the behind the scenes planning and execution of the assassination, mainly because Payne actually interviewed people who were very much aware of the assassination's inner workings. There are at least two instances of those giving information in the last two or three days of their lives, as deathbed confessions. To this end, many of the questions I have always asked about Malcolm's assassination are answered. This is simply amazing, so amazing that when read in combination with Kondo's book, one gets a really clear picture of all of the parties who were responsible. Without giving anything away, the book will also make any reader pause and reevaluate Minister Louis Farrakhan's long-term position that he “had nothing to do” with Malcolm's assassination. A careful reader will walk away with his/her own opinion in regards to this, but there is some essential information here, and much to think about. All in all, I am thankful to Mr. Les Payne (and his daughter Tamara!) for doing the homework to put this book out, as I now believe, that after The Autobiography, it is the best book ever to cover Malcolm's life, in all of its complexity. This is a wonderful book. I said, “A wonderful book,” not a “perfect book.”

[Kazen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Malcolm X's autobiography last year and while it was great I felt like I was missing some context, not to mention unbiased perspective because hey, autobiography. Les and Tamara bring all of that and more in a fascinating and enlightening look at Malcolm X's life. It's long, but not without reason, and I appreciate every page.

More detailed thoughts in my Booktube Prize vlog.

[Britta Böhler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for the BTP / Quarterfinals Nonfiction.
2.5*

[[Name Redacted] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Malcom X was one of my sometime-heroes growing up. I didn't share his devotion to Islam, nor could I share his Black Nationalist race-hatred, but I lived in the shadow of his mosque in Harlem and admired him as a man who legitimately fought for what he believed to be right -- and, most importantly, who changed his beliefs and his behavior when he was confronted with new information that challenged his preconceptions. He was an idol with feet of clay, and I respected him.

All that said...brother, this book is one heck of a corrective.

While the introduction by the author's daughter sets it up like an apologia for the Nation of Islam, it definitely is not. I actually learned things about the NOI's origins that I'd never encountered before, and I taught religious studies in prisons, so Payne did one heck of a job. And did you know that the F.B.I. was actually working to take down both the Nation of Islam AND the Ku Klux Klan simultaneously, but prioritized the KKK as the bigger threat? I certainly didn't. What is more, Payne presents a remarkably unflinching portrait of Malcom X. And I do mean unflinching.

Turns out Malcom was a cruel, selfish monster in his youth. After his father died, he repeatedly stole the money his family needed to survive the Great Depression so he could blow it on booze, gambling, fancy clothes, etc., thus driving his mother into voluntary commitment in an insane asylum. Much of the money he stole, it's worth noting, was money donated to his family by their friends, family, church-members, and even fellow-followers of Marcus Garvey. He pimped out his brother's ex-wife when she fell on hard times and was shocked that his brother wasn't pleased. He destroyed the lives of any women who crossed his path at the wrong time in his own life. And he lied about ALL of it in his autobiography.

I think the worst part about Malcom X's life before the NOI is that, even decades after, he just kept on lying about anything that would cast him in a bad light. He flat out lied about what he'd done to his mother, lied about how he'd treated the women he dated, lied about how his father died, etc. etc. etc. He even lied about the oppression he faced from whites -- and that was the part that shocked me most, honestly. I understand that young people have a tendency towards exaggeration, and we tend to tell ourselves comforting lies when traumatic events occur, but life as a black man in the early 1900s was bad enough. He didn't have to LIE about it. And it leads one to wonder if his later Black Nationalism and devotion to the NOI didn't just come about as a reaction to the real oppression and racism he faced, but also as compensation for the lies he knew he was telling about his life. Because it turns out that, as a light-skinned, red-haired, high-IQ black guy, Malcom actually suffered a lot less than his contemporaries. He may have felt guilty for that and, growing up in a well-educated Pan-Africanist household, his" racial consciousness" couldn't permit him to accept that he wasn't in fact suffering the same as his fellow blacks.

I also wonder how much of his fanatical devotion to Elijah Muhammad might not have come from shame that he'd been fooled by the man so easily. Because again, Malcom was by all accounts an extremely intelligent man; and intelligent people usually HATE to admit (even to themselves) that they've been conned or deceived. The fact that he bought into the stories about a black mothership, ancient Black Atlanteans, and rejected actual Muslims' assurances that the NOI had no relationship to Islam... It must have been galling when he finally had to admit he'd bought into nonsense. Especially after Elijah Muhammad forced Malcom to serve as his representative in a sit down with the Klan over working towards full separation/segregation of blacks & whites -- a goal both the Ku Klux Klan and Nation of Islam shared. Despite the fact that Malcom claimed his father was killed by the KKK. And then Elijah forced Malcom to keep working with the Klan for years... Man, I'd be pissed off too.

Learning all this leads me to wonder how Payne isn't a household name because his investigative and reporting skills are among the best I've ever encountered.

This book isn't perfect, though. The section about Malcom's assassination, for example, is surprisingly flat, thin and suddenly lacking in the attention to detail that characterized the rest of the book. And there are many moments where Payne editorializes rather than reports, almost as though he feels the facts themselves don't serve his ends well enough. Also, Payne has a weird antipathy towards the Mormon movement. He keeps comparing them to the NOI, while self-consciously ignoring the far more comparable Jehovah's Witnesses or Seventh-Day Adventists. The JWs & Adventists are just plain better matches for every single one of his comparisons! It's even weirder given that the latter two are very popular in the African-American circles he's addressing... Maybe he was afraid of offending his audience? But if that were the case, why would he expose so many unsavory truths about Malcom X's history? It was just an odd lapse in an otherwise generally excellent book.

So I emerge from Payne's work respecting Malcom X less, but understanding him more. And I can't say whether I'm the better for it, but I'm glad for the knowledge I have gained. Highly recommended for people who value truth over comforting narratives.

[Odi Shonga · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Dead Are Rising is a comprehensive, authoritative investigation into Malcolm X’s life, from his parents’ life in Nebraska to his assassination on February 21, 1965. It covers a lot of the same events of the Autobiography, but Les Payne brings decades of journalistic rigour to the project, sifting fact from fiction and shining new light on previously obscured details. The result is a fuller, more historical account of Malcom’s life than the more first-personal, emotive Autobiography.

The book gave me a richer understanding of Malcolm’s life. There are more precise details of his deviant youth, a more sophisticated account of all the events leading to his split with the Nation of Islam, and a detailed investigation into the plot against his life.

But more importantly than that, it gave me a lot of historical background to the wretched condition of racist America in the 20th century — and the forces that arose to fight it. I learnt a little about Marcus Garvey and his black nationalist movement. I learnt about some of the historical motivations behind the lynching era — how the white-working class wanted a scapegoat onto which they could vent their misery during the age of the Depression. I learnt about the Great Migration. And I learnt about the institutional depth of racism in America, from the KKK’s expansive presence in the south to COINTELPRO’s mission to eradicate black political power.

Anyway, I recommend this to anyone who wants to know more about Malcolm and the conditions that created him. I’d say read the Autobiography first: there you learn about his motivations and you hear his story in his own words. But then read this to fill in the blanks and correct the record.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Malcolm X’s father sometimes would go hear Marcus Garvey talk. As a kid, future actor Henry Fonda witnessed the lynching of Will Brown in Omaha. That lynching was probably caused by white men in blackface assaulting white women. The Ku Klux Klan had a membership of 3,000,000 and included two governors and “hundreds of thousands of women.” Woodrow Wilson said, “segregation is not humiliating but a benefit.” Fire Departments (like Lansing Michigan) would refuse back then to respond if a colored person’s house was on fire. Slave reparations are logically about the unpaid bill for “some 250-plus years of uncompensated labor”. Malcolm’s family refused to adopt racism’s imposed black inferiority complex. Malcolm’s childhood trauma was the nighttime incineration of his parent’s home and the nighttime death of his father on the streetcar tracks. His mom taught him “staunch adherence to black independence and self-reliance” and to challenge anyone who had a low expectation of him.

In Lansing, Malcolm smoked and sold pot. “He smoked pot every day. He was his best customer.” His favorite Billie Holiday tune was “All of Me”. In 1910, central Harlem was only 9.89 percent black. Malcolm in Harlem at age 18, “sold reefer like a wild man. I scarcely slept.” Malcolm thought his dishwasher friend was the funniest person on earth: that dishwasher later became Redd Foxx. Benjamin O. Davis the first black to graduate from West Point was treated like s--- at West Point by all white classmates including two future generals: Westmoreland and Abrams. Malcolm gets out of the Draft with a funny performance appearing militant and deranged. But he ends up in jail which turns him from an extrovert into an introvert. He became interested in weaponizing the spoken word. In prison he was influenced by fellow inmate Bembry’s knowledge gained from serious reading in the library. Malcolm started reading everything from Shakespeare to Aesop’s Fables. He studied Latin. He joined a debate team. He read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and became an expert on its techniques.

Islam enters his life: Major Islamic sects thought the teachings of Nation of Islam committed libel against the actual Muhammad. The founder of the Black Muslims (Fard Muhammad) was not only a convicted felon but was a white man. Malcolm now had debating skills and was clearly engaging, charismatic, getting hired nationwide to speak on college campuses. Elijah Muhammad drove potential converts away as a speaker by being inarticulate and talking of a mythical Yacub, the Mother Ship (and he clearly wasn’t talking about George Clinton’s funky Mothership) , and Fard somehow being Allah. Malcolm was one of Fidel Castro’s first visitors when he went to Harlem. It is said he told Castro to stay in Harlem. Malcolm adopts his leader’s habit of wearing a hat outside. The FBI begins targeting Malcolm and asking anyone around him questions about him. The thought of a black man talking publicly about resisting racism instead of taking it, had horrified the agency into action. Emmet Till was thrown in in the Tallahatchie River with a seventy-five pound fan from a cotton gin wrapped around his neck with barbed wire. His accuser later recanted. The US had a nationwide two-tiered system for housing depending on one’s color. Back then, Malcolm was spewing Elijah’s solution that blacks had to separate from white folk. Then he was saying MLK’s non-violent stance was “cowardice pure and simple.” I’m sure the FBI loved hearing that. The FBI loved the idea of any fissure between Malcolm and Elijah. The FBI bugged all their phones.

Malcolm quotes: “Who taught you to hate the race you belong to?” “They don’t like niggers wearing sunglasses down here. They want to see your eyeballs. They think you might be sneaking a look at some white women.” “It is anybody’s guess which of the “extremes” in the approach to the black man’s problem might personally meet a fatal catastrophe first – non-violent Dr. King or so-called violent me.”

“As late as 1963, thirty-three states still outlawed marriage between the races.” Malcolm said, for hundreds of years no one talks about the white man getting with a black woman, they only talk about the black man with a white woman.” Malcolm’s rise with the Muslims made white liberals go more for Dr. King’s message. Malcolm noticed and mentioned that 99% of US newspapers had not one black reporter on staff. King had middle class upbringing and a good education unlike Malcolm whose rage was on the surface. Most blacks could understand both Malcolm and MLK’s messages. A Senate committee found 25 clear cases where the FBI had harassed King with no justification. J. Edgar Hoover, when he wasn’t dressing in women’s clothing, also had a dream (like MLK); Hoover seriously dreamed of getting a Noble Peace Prize. Why he felt he deserved a prize, and not a prison sentence with a large bunkmate named Tiny, he never explained. This is when an FBI letter to King suggested he commit suicide. This book doesn’t mention Bayard Rustin’s influence on making King non-violent. King’s crusade was partly motivated by the time he was personally forced to give his bus seat up to whites. Malcolm was a reader of John Henrik Clarke. Malcolm keeps hearing stories about Elijah that makes him see that he’s trusting in a lying hypocrite who -horror of horrors- was not actually a God; this will lead to a split. Apparently, Elijah freely banging his secretaries and getting a number of them pregnant wasn’t a written Nation rule. Elijah’s response to being outed for clear moral reasons, was now he and his cronies wanted Malcolm dead.

A true Muslim says to Malcolm that banning all whites is anti-Islamic. Malcolm leaves the Nation and, beckoned by true Muslims takes his hajj in Mecca. The trip helps him see that some whites like John Brown and Quakers, indeed helped direct moral attention to the cause of black freedom. Malcolm now felt that whites are not evil by themselves but US racist society makes them that way. He started to see that some revolutionaries could be white and still fighting for the same cause as he did. This made him think that Capitalism was the problem; Capitalism creating racism. John Lewis talked to him then and said he was very hopeful that all colors could come together. He realized that going forward, women had to play a larger role in the struggle and must be supported. This meant Muslim leaders had to empower women to move forward.

Around this time Malcolm, like Fred Hampton, began to think he was going to be killed. He had every reason to think this. A Malcolm X no longer talking about violence but about working with whitey and somewhat King style was probably getting the FBI to foam at the mouth. The US does almost everything by using the threat of violence and these two Black men are showing the populace how you can easily unite the world without violence? And look good while you are doing it? Now, thanks to unexamined jealousy within the Nation of Islam, and constant FBI and police surveillance, Malcolm X’s days are numbered.

MLK connects the dots on what the real battle is going forward (Capitalism, Militarism and Racism), and dies. Malcolm connects the same dots on what the real battle is, and dies. Same thing with Fred Hampton. It’s hard to see a pattern. We are all taught as kids to connect the dots in art class, but our teachers never told us, “By the way, if you continue this fun game of seriously connecting the dots as an adult, you may be killed for it”. Perhaps our teachers just didn’t want a class of crying children. Failed attempts at killing Malcolm became frequent. His house is firebombed. Funny to read all these so-called religious people (pseudo-Muslims) calling for Malcolm to be killed. Malcolm ends up assassinated (age 39). Funny that James Shabazz, a higher-up in the Nation of Islam a few weeks before Malcolm’s death said, “it will be a good time to kill that hypocrite.” James Shabazz was defending obvious hypocrite Elijah by calling Malcolm instead a hypocrite. Ah, the joys of projection. Good book.

[Beverlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though I took way longer than I should have to read The Dead Are Arising, it is a 5-star biography that offers a fairly balanced account of Malcolm X’s life and influence. I read his autobiography several years ago and one thing I remember vividly is his transformation and growth while he was living. It’s easy to elevate Malcolm X to martyr status, especially with his life ending in assassination and the impact he still has on society today. The title alone, The Dead Are Arising, is a play on new NOI converts being referred to as “dead” African Americans awakening by resisting second class citizenship and treatment by being faithful to “the Teacher” and his version of Islam. These words are an accurate description of X as well, for his transformation doesn’t end with being a national representative for the Nation of Islam. His transformation wasn’t completed as a living person but I like to think it’s an ongoing process still emerging today.
Like any biography, it’s difficult task to craft a complete narrative of events. Les Payne and Tamara Payne’s research and analysis of Malcolm X’s life reveal a complex figure that is grossly misunderstood. I encourage anyone who’s interested in the Civil Rights Movement and learning about the numerous leaders to not contrast Malcolm X and Martin Luther King as opposites, both men wanted African Americans to be recognized and treated as people worthy and deserving of respect as any other human. Obviously the path to achieve respectful treatment differed with Malcolm X advocating for separatism initially and Dr.King advocating for integration. In 2025, how much has really changed? It’s been 60 years since Malcolm X’s assassination and the path to progress is still a tumultuous journey, one where if we’re not careful it may end at the same place it started.
Things I learned-
1. I’ve always had doubts about the validity of the NOI and reading The Dead Are Arising confirmed those doubts. Payne refers to the group as cult-like at one point for the believers unequivocal worship of Elijah Muhammad in spite of his transgressions that are open secrets versus how members are treated if they behave similarly.
2-The willingness to murder Malcolm X…I have no real words for it. This is way beyond “crabs in a barrel”. It’s hatred of self.
3-Learning is a lifetime process. Surround self with honest people and trust your instinct.
4-One thing missing in detail compared to other parts was Malcolm X & Betty Shabazz’s relationship dynamic. One part made plain was that she was not just a housewife that did whatever he said. I’m reminded to read her biography.
I know I’m forgetting something important, don’t be surprised if I add to my review.

[Poppy || Monster Lover · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible read and in depth picture on a very polarizing historical figure. I realized that my knowledge of Malcom X was limited to random quotes and a nebulous awareness of him being a “counterpart” to Martin Luther King Jr. This extensive biography details the climate he grew up in, the major players in his life, key passing other people, the mistakes he made, the growth he experienced, and the lasting impact he’s had. I appreciated that nothing was sugar coated. He did things in his personal life that were abhorrent, like a passing attempt at pimping at least one woman out. He learned from his missteps, like leaving a cult, which is HARD to do. He was far from perfect, but he was real, complicated, and tried to enact change in the a world and time that limited his choices. It’s frankly terrifying that his murder was justified as some sort of comeuppance and is glossed over (or at least was when I was in school).
Beautifully done.

[Barbara Gregorich · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first chapter of this book begins with two gripping, life-and-death stories. The first is the story of Louise Little standing on the porch of her Omaha home, confronting the Klansmen who came to threaten, if not murder, her husband — who was in Milwaukee at the time. Surrounded by her three children, the eight-months pregnant Louise faced down the Klansmen. A month later, she gave birth to her fourth child: Malcolm.

The second is the story of the 1919 Omaha race murders, in which a screaming, inhuman mob of 10,000 to 20,000 whites demanded that the sheriff’s office turn over to them a Black man accused of assaulting a white woman, so that they could murder him. When the sheriff and his deputies refused, the mob proceeded to loot nearby stores, stealing more than a thousand revolvers and shotguns. Further, the mob threw gasoline on the courthouse and torched it. When the mayor came out to plead with the mob, he was hit over the head with a baseball bat, a noose was slipped around his neck, and he was dragged away, strung up on a traffic signal tower. His life was saved by agents in a high-powered automobile, but even so, the mayor remained in critical condition for two days.
In order to escape the flames, the sheriff, his deputies, and 121 prisoners fled to the roof of the courthouse. The mob below severed the water hoses that the firemen were using, smashed to pieces the rescue ladders, and howled for the death of the lawmen and the prisoners. It didn’t matter who died, as long as the mob could murder the Black man accused of assaulting a white woman. And that they did: lynching him, riddling his body with hundreds of bullets, dragging the corpse behind an automobile, and, finally, dousing it with kerosene and setting it ablaze over a woodpile.
Proud of themselves, thousands of the people in the mob (both men and women) had their photos taken next to the mutilated body of their innocent victim.

This is the world that Malcolm Little was born into: that all American Black citizens were born into. Against the howling, looting, hate-filled mob, apt to break out anywhere, anytime, over any incident, a Black man or woman had to protect their life in any way they could.

After this dramatic introduction to the reality of a Black person’s life here in the US, the authors of The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, go into the details of young Malcolm Little’s life in Omaha, Milwaukee, and Lansing. The narrative is based on extensive interviews that Les Payne and his daughter Tamara conducted with many different people (chief among them Malcolm’s oldest brother, Wilfred) over a thirty-year period.

As I read this engrossing book, which presents copious information on Malcolm’s life as a hustler, burglar, and procurer, and then examines his life in prison and his conversion to the religion of the Nation of Islam, I saw that the intellect and emotion in Malcolm made him choose to live the opposite of a “respectable” life. Since white society blocked all forward movement by Black people, why should he bother with anything whites considered “respectable.”

But then came prison and the introduction to the Nation of Islam, which taught that Blacks and whites should live separately, and that Black Americans should run their own businesses and schools, so that they in no way relied upon or interacted with those who oppressed them. Malcolm was raised to consider himself the equal of any white person and to respect the struggles of Marcus Garvey (a separatist) for Black emancipation. It is easy to see how the teachings of Elijah Mohammad resonated with him.

They did more than resonate: under Malcolm X’s leadership, these teachings were brought to hundreds of thousands of Black Americans, helping to instill Black pride and a militant spirit that demanded justice and was unwilling to accept the constant lies of politicians who wanted only to keep the lid on any demands for justice coming from anywhere or anybody.

In recruiting people to the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X was aided not only by his fearlessness and his high intelligence, but also by his understanding of the English language, his huge vocabulary, and his debating skills (which he studied while in prison). The authors weave the power of Malcolm X’s speaking throughout the book, and it is a pleasure to read those parts in which he speaks. (To understand the power of his speaking abilities, look at the books By Any Means Necessary and Malcolm X Speaks.) When people listened to Malcolm X speak, they felt his words in their core: they knew he was speaking the truth.

And because of the power of his speeches and his character, because of his ever-evolving leadership, a price was put on Malcolm X’s head. And on February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated while speaking about his new organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights, NY. The authors interviewed many key figures in that assassination, and they make clear what everybody back then believed — that the Nation of Islam assassins had the approval of the New York Police Department and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.

In reading this book, I found myself wishing that the authors had spent more time on the changes in Malcolm X’s beliefs during the last year of his life, when he came to see that racism was a tool that capitalism uses to divide the working class, and when he came to understand that the struggle for Black equality takes place not only on a national scale, but also on a larger, international scale, where it is the struggle for human rights.

However much I may wish for more about Malcolm X’s last year of life, the fact is that this book presents the information on his entire life fairly, vividly, and in proportion to the number of years he lived.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

RTC

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to learn more about Malcolm X, and this biography gave me what I sought to learn. It's a generally sympathetic, fair-minded, and informative biography of the Black religious leader. I thought the author wanted to present a well-balanced discussion of her controversial subject and succeeded. It's well researched. By the end of the book, I felt as if I'd satisfied my curiosity and may continue my reading on Malcolm X.