Historian, Scholar and Social Critic Manning Marable dies at 60.

by Raphael Jackson

On Friday April 1 at the age of 60, renowned historian and social critic Manning Marable passed away in Manhattan from complications of pneumonia. His death occurred just days before the publication of his magnum opus, a biography of Malcolm X entitled Malcolm X.: A life of reinvention. Dr. Marable is considered by many to be the foremost scholar on African American studies and race relations in America. Manning was Professor of Public Affairs, History and African American Studies at Columbia University. He also founded and directed the Institute for Research in African American Studies.

In the new 600 page biography published by Viking press, Dr. Marable has examined un-redacted FBI files which provided insight into the role of the FBI and the NYPD in the assassination of Malcolm X. Through his research Manning has also provided readers with information omitted from Alex Haley’s renowned Biography of Malcolm X, which was ranked by Time magazine as one of the 10 most influential books of the 20th century (Gray, 1998).

The three chapters which were excluded from publication in Haley’s biography contained elements from the last eleven months of Malcolm’s life, which were mostly spent outside of the United States. During these years, Malcolm broke from the Nation of Islam and founded two organizations, namely Muslim Mosque Inc. and the Organization for Afro-American Unity - modeled after the OAU. In a 2005 interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, Manning states, concerning the omissions “It seemed rather odd that there’s only a fleeting reference to the OAAU inside of the book that’s supposed to be his political testament”Goodman, 2005 February 21).

The long awaited book has evoked a range of commentary towards the late scholar. A colleague and friend of Mannuing’s, Eric Dyson, had this to say about him: “Manning went anywhere and everywhere that any - even an iota - of evidence existed, to help tell the more complete, complicated, complex and nuanced, colorful story of Malcolm X, to rescue him, on the one hand, from the vice grip of hagiographers who uncritically valorized and celebrated Malcolm…and on the other hand, he rescues him from the vicious demonization of those who would assault Malcolm X as the perpetrator and perpetuator of violent mythologies” (Goodman, 2011 April 4).

Dr. Marable is survived by Leith Mullings, his wife of 15 years, as well as three children and two step children.

Works by Manning Marable, at the Blazer Library:

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America African and Caribbean Politics

WEB Dubois: Black Radical Democrat Beyond Black and White

The New Black Renaissance Freedom: a photographic history of the African American struggle / text by Manning Marable and Leith Mullings; pictures edited by Sophie Spencer-Wood.

The third reconstruction: Black Nationalism and race relations after the revolution

Black Nationalism in the seventies: through the prism of race and class

The road toward Black power

Sexism and the struggle for Black liberation

Reaction: the political economy of the New South

The land question in the South

The fire this time: the Miami rebellion, 1980

Rethinking the seventies: the destruction of the Black movement

Blacks and the draft: a history of racism.

Malcolm X: A life of Reinvention (On Order)

Sources:

Gray, Paul. (1998, June 8). Required reading: non fiction books. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988496-2,00.html

Goodman, Amy (Performer). (2005 February 21). Manning Marable on Malcolm X: a life of reinvention [Radio series episode]. In (Executive producer), Democracy Now. New York: Pacifica Radio.

Goodman, Amy (Performer). (2011 April 4). Malcolm X: a life of reinvention: Manning Marable’s new biography investigates conflicted reality of the civil rights leader [Radio series episode]. In (Executive producer), Democracy Now. New York: Pacifica Radio.