Malcolm X : the last speeches /

Two phenomena of great interest to students of recent black protest are represented in this brief volume: six transcripts of hitherto unavailable speeches and interviews revealing the matured thought of Malcolm X during his final years, and a drama of scholarly detective work as compelling as the text itself. After Malcolm's 1965 murder by agents of Nation of Islam patriarch Elijah Muhammad, aide James 67X Shabazz went into hiding with several tape recordings of Malcolm's speeches and interviews. After years of searching, editor Perry finally located Shabazz in the Guyana rain forest, and spoke with him in Grenanda while he was being interrogated by local authorities. Perry obtained tapes of Malcolm's previously undocumented 1963 speeches at Michigan State University and Berkeley; a pair of interviews given Les Crane and Bernice Bass following his 1964 pilgrimage to the Middle East and Africa; and two speeches given just days before his assassination in February 1965. Although the 1963 talks are vintage Malcolm reverse racism, the interviews and final speeches are artifacts of unusual scholarly significance, demonstrating an evolving awareness that the enemy of black liberation was not whites per se, but rather superpower imperialist oppression being wrought in Viet Nam and the Congo. These transcripts bear witness to Malcolm's new international and essentially Marxist perspective and to a growing political sophistication and respect for his old civil rights adversaries. They are vital to a true understanding of the mature mind of this remarkable voice of American black protest. College, university, and public libraries. R. A. Fischer University of Minnesota--Duluth