The Dead are Arising - The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne and Tamara Payne
PLEASE NOTE: THE BOOK'S RELEASE DATE CHANGED FROM 9/29/20 TO 10/20/20.
Review Quotes:
Meticulously researched and masterfully reported, this chronicle offers fresh insights and disturbing revelations that, among other things, strengthen the case for government complicity in the murder of Malcolm X. . . . A gripping read . . . [and] a worthy companion to Malcolm's famed autobiography.--Nathan McCall, author of Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America
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A brilliant and indispensable depiction of the life of Malcolm X. . . . Using the fruits of decades of interviews, [Payne] brings new information and perspectives on one of the most fascinating, and often misunderstood, figures in American history.--Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of Monticello, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
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Les Payne has written a biography of this African American icon that sets a new standard for investigative journalism.--DeWayne Wickham, founding dean of Morgan State University's School of Global Journalism & Communication
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Payne's storytelling weave[s] an epic tale of Malcolm's exuberant life, his tragic death, and the Phoenix-like legacy.--Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Harlem Nocturne
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No one who wishes to reckon with the life of this man, one of the most important African American figures of the twentieth century can afford to forgo this account.--Howard W. French, Columbia University
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The Dead Are Arising. . . will become the definitive biography of Malcolm X.--Ray Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State
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Comprehensive, timely life of the renowned activist and his circuitous rise to prominence. . . . Payne delivers considerable news not just in recounting unknown episodes of Malcolm's early years, but also in reconstructing events during his time as a devotee of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad . . . Payne's accounts of the consequences that rupture and Malcolm's assassination at the hands of a 'goon squad' with ties to the FBI and CIA are eye-opening, and they add a new dimension to our understanding of Malcolm X's last years. . . . A superb biography and an essential addition to the library of African American political engagement.--Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Review Quotes:
Pulitzer winner Payne (1941-2018) spent nearly 30 years researching and writing this monumental biography of human rights activist Malcolm X. Completed by his daughter and researcher, Payne's richly detailed account is based on hundreds of interviews with Malcolm X's family members, childhood friends, cellmates, allies, and enemies, and meticulously tracks his journey from Omaha, Neb., where he was born Malcolm Little in 1925, through his teenage pot dealing in East Lansing, Mich., and street criminal days in Boston and Harlem, to his emergence as the Nation of Islam's "most gifted and successful proselytizer and demander of justice," and his assassination in 1965. Along the way, Payne folds in incisive portraits of such major figures as Marcus Garvey, whose teachings on racial uplift Malcolm X's parents followed; Moorish Science Temple leader Noble Drew Ali, whose follower, Fard Muhammad, founded the Nation of Islam; and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Payne also documents the radio dramas and jazz music Malcolm X listened to, reveals how a clandestine meeting with the Georgia Ku Klux Klan in 1961 contributed to his break from the Nation of Islam, and interviews two men wrongly imprisoned for his murder. The result is an extraordinary and essential portrait of the man behind the icon.--Publishers Weekly [starred review]
Publisher Marketing:
Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to interview anyone he could find who had actually known Malcolm X--all living siblings of the Malcolm Little family, classmates, street friends, cellmates, Nation of Islam figures, FBI moles and cops, and political leaders around the world. His goal was ambitious: to transform what would become over a hundred hours of interviews into an unprecedented portrait of Malcolm X, one that would separate fact from fiction.
The result is this historic biography that conjures a never-before-seen world of its protagonist, a work whose title is inspired by a phrase Malcolm X used when he saw his Hartford followers stir with purpose, as if the dead were truly arising, to overcome the obstacles of racism. Setting Malcolm's life not only within the Nation of Islam but against the larger backdrop of American history, the book traces the life of one of the twentieth century's most politically relevant figures "from street criminal to devoted moralist and revolutionary."
In tracing Malcolm X's life from his Nebraska birth in 1925 to his Harlem assassination in 1965, Payne provides searing vignettes culled from Malcolm's Depression-era youth, describing the influence of his Garveyite parents: his father, Earl, a circuit-riding preacher who was run over by a street car in Lansing, Michigan, in 1929, and his mother, Louise, who continued to instill black pride in her children after Earl's death. Filling each chapter with resonant drama, Payne follows Malcolm's exploits as a petty criminal in Boston and Harlem in the 1930s and early 1940s to his religious awakening and conversion to the Nation of Islam in a Massachusetts penitentiary.
With a biographer's unwavering determination, Payne corrects the historical record and delivers extraordinary revelations--from the unmasking of the mysterious NOI founder "Fard Muhammad," who preceded Elijah Muhammad; to a hair-rising scene, conveyed in cinematic detail, of Malcolm and Minister Jeremiah X Shabazz's 1961 clandestine meeting with the KKK; to a minute-by-minute account of Malcolm X's murder at the Audubon Ballroom.
Introduced by Payne's daughter and primary researcher, Tamara Payne, who, following her father's death, heroically completed the biography, The Dead Are Arising is a penetrating and riveting work that affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle.
Review Citations:
- Library Journal 08/01/2020 pg. 91 (EAN 9781631491665, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
- Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2020 (EAN 9781631491665, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
- Publishers Weekly 07/27/2020 (EAN 9781631491665, Hardcover) - *Starred Review
Contributor Bio:
Les Payne (1941-2018), born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and a former editor at Newsday. A founder of the National Association of Black Journalists, Payne also wrote an award-winning syndicated column.
Contributor Bio:
Tamara Payne served as Les Payne's principal researcher. She lives in New York.
