obituary
Malcolm X Scholar Manning
Marable Dies at 60
cristian Salazar
the associated Press
neW York (AP) —
Manning Marable, an influ-
ential historian whose forth-
coming Malcolm X biogra-
phy could revise percep-
tions of the slain civil rights
leader, died Friday, just
days before the book
described as his life’s work
was to be released. He was
60.
His wife, Leith Mullings,
said Marable died from
complications of pneumo-
nia
at
New
York-
Presbyterian Hospital in
Manhattan. She said he had
suffered for 24 years from
sarcoidosis, an inflammato-
ry lung disease, and had
undergone a double lung
transplant in July.
“I think his legacy is that
he was both a scholar and an
activist,” she said. “He
believed that history could
be used to inform the pres-
Photo BY SuSan frieD
ent and the future.”
She said Marable’s latest
book, “Malcolm X: A Life
of Reinvention,” will be
released Monday.
Two decades in the mak-
ing, the nearly 600-page
biography is described as a
re-evaluation of Malcolm
X’s life, bringing fresh
insight to subjects including
his autobiography, which is
still assigned in many col-
lege courses, to his assassi-
nation at the Audubon
Ballroom in Manhattan on
Feb. 21, 1965.
The book is based on
exhaustive research, includ-
ing thousands of pages of
FBI files and records from
the Central Intelligence
Agency
and
State
Department. Marable also
conducted interviews with
the slain civil rights leader’s
confidants and security
team, as well as witnesses to
his assassination.
Blair Kelley, a history
professor at North Carolina
State University, called
Marable’s death a “devas-
tating” loss for black histo-
rians.
“I can’t believe he died
before the book came out.
He really deserved the
opportunity to be celebrated
for his groundbreaking
scholarship,” Kelley wrote
on Twitter. “He touched so
many of us as an activist,
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scholar, historian, political
scientist, publisher, mentor.
Truly a great man.”
Benjamin Todd Jealous,
president of the National
Association
for
the
Advancement of Colored
People, said in a statement
that Marable’s “contribu-
tions to the struggle for
freedom
of
African
Americans will never be
forgotten.”
“Dr. Marable brought one
of the keenest intellects of
our age to the contemporary
conversation on race in
America,” he said.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, on
May 13, 1950, Marable
wrote
in
his
book,
“Speaking Truth to Power,”
that he was born into the era
that witnessed the emer-
gence of Rosa Parks and
Martin Luther King Jr., as
well as nonviolent move-
ments in the South strug-
gling to break the back of
white supremacy.
But he was the child of
middle-class
black
Americans, he wrote, his
father a teacher and busi-
nessman, his mother an edu-
cator and college professor.
He watched from afar as
blacks in the South rebelled
against segregation and
racial inequality, and as a
teenager found his emergent
political voice writing
columns for a neighborhood
newspaper.
He wrote that his mother
encouraged him to attend
King’s funeral “to witness a
significant event in our peo-
ple’s history.” He served as
the local black newspaper’s
correspondent, he wrote,
and marched along with
thousands of others during
the funeral procession.
“With Martin’s death, my
childhood abruptly ended,”
he wrote. “My understand-
ing of political change
began a trajectory from
reform to radicalism.”
Marable followed a schol-
arly path but turned toward
progressive politics to help
shape his understanding of
the world and his people.
He wrote hundreds of
papers and nearly 20 books,
including the landmark
“How
Capitalism
Underdeveloped
Black
America,” published in
1983.
At Columbia University,
where he was a professor,
he was the founding director
of the Institute for Research
in
African-American
Studies and established the
Center for Contemporary
Black History.
Besides his wife of 15
years, he is survived by
three children and two
stepchildren.
aP national writer Jesse
washington in Philadelphia
contributed to this report.
Caldwell’s, Hennessey, Goetsch
& McGee Funeral Home
Von D. Bailey
Funeral Director
20 NE 14th Avenue
Portland, OR 97232
503-232-4111
Fax 503-231-1586
von.bailey@sci-us.com
Page 6 The Portland and Seattle Skanner april 6, 2011