Malcolm X, the humanitarian

[n2doc]

Lost chapters reveal broader view of the controversial leader
BY JEFF GERRITT
FREE PRESS EDITORIAL COLUMNIST

Detroit attorney Gregory J. Reed is leading a national resurrection -- and re-evaluation -- of Malcolm X, 18 years after he bought the manuscripts omitted from the slain human rights leader's autobiography.

The just-released four "lost chapters," Reed told me last week, were dropped from Alex Haley's "Autobiography of Malcolm X," published in 1965, because they showed a broader view of humanity and freedom that was out of sync with the separatist tone of the rest of the work.

Malcolm X signed an agreement, on March 21, 1964, just before a trip to the Middle East and pilgrimage to Mecca, authorizing publication of the original 17-chapter manuscript, including those unpublished chapters. Reed said Haley also wanted the lost chapters released and even told Kenneth McCormick, then executive editor of Doubleday, that they were the autobiography's most important material.

Will the lost chapters become the final call of the greatest leader this nation produced in the 20th Century? Like Malcolm X's life, they are sure to ignite controversy. Scholars will argue over their significance. It's almost inevitable. Malcolm's magnificent mind -- as open as it was uncompromising -- was, in life and in death, a moving target.


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http://www.freep.com/article/20100523/OPINION01/5230430/1322/Malcolm-X-the-humanitarian

[Warpy]

1. Oooh, I'm looking forward to reading them

What struck me about the Haley authored biography was his conversion away from separatist ideology at the end, most notably after his Haj.

I've always felt that of all the assassinations we endured in the 60s, this was likely the one that cost us the most, at least as far as growing out of Jim Crow and the backlash from Elijah Muhammad and others went.

It will be interesting to see how the lost chapters expound on the tantalizing hints left in the last two chapters of the published book.

[applegrove]

2. That was a great book.