I’m just getting out of four (!) days of happy, voluntary sequestration. Yep, I read it cover-to-cover. I’ll be writing a review for this space this week.

Just a quick word, though:

After sorrowing over the limited research done for this book, I realize we need to talk about funding a Macolm X Oral History Project. Today. People who have refused to be interviewed about this period for five decades need to change their minds quickly before they join The Ancestors.

If we had a serious oral history project,we would have more views, memories and opinons on El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. That would help biographers of the future. Because the Marable book is NOT the definitive biography of Malcolm. It’s just the third biography. (By my count, Martin Luther King has at least eight, if you coun’t the three–volume work by Taylor Branch.) In many ways, a new era of Malcolm scholarship begins with this book.

Those activists upset about the Marable book need to fundraise so historians can do some serious work. It’s as simple as that.