By: Brian Redmond, PhD
A while back, I wrote a post on the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King. But since high school I’ve actually been more intrigued by his contemporary: Malcolm X. In fact, I still have the report I wrote from then (1992ish). It’s one of the few things that I’ve carried around the country as I’ve moved from place to place, as it was one of the pieces of writing that first got me enthused enough to pursue higher learning and truly think about college.
That initial report was built primarily around The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) as told to Alex Haley which was the “official” and basically only source from that pre-digital time. Although, I was lucky enough that I was able to drive the 45 minutes from where I lived to the University of Vermont library and listen to some of his speeches on record.
If I can track down that original report, I might share it here. But I recently re-read Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011) by Manning Marable. It was a great book, I personally liked it better than the original.
There are several other reasons that Reinvention is better than the original in my mind. The first is that it is a much broader perspective than The Autobiography. Don’t get me wrong I can appreciate the first-person narrative that X and Haley put together in the original. But X was too close to the circumstances to appreciate some of the happenings around him as they were then unfolding. For instance, he does not discuss some of the circumstances surrounding him that lead to his death. While Haley on the other hand seemed to be highlighting if not exaggerating some points to make a better selling story [this was verified in another recent biography of X by Les and Tamara Payne titled The Dead are Arising (2020) but I don’t want to go into great detail about that today]. I won’t go quite as far as saying that Haley had a particular political agenda in The Autobiography as that is not as apparent to me as a reader as others more familiar with his personal story which I am nowhere near as versed in. But as a citizen who appreciates context of political and historical figures to help me interpret their significance, Marable’s Reinvention really helped me see with greater clarity the turbulence and backstory to Malcolm X that was not readily available in The Autobiography.
Related to that first point, there are basically mini-biographies within Marable’s retelling of Malcolm X’s life. Most notably Elijah Mohammed and to a lesser extent some of the other ministers in the Nation of Islam (NOI) such as Louis Farrakhan that show how personal relationships can affect large scale organizations. As an industrial and organizational psychologist, these relationships, absolutely fascinated me. It was quite clear that many of the prominent people in this movement possessed a great deal of charisma and power that pushed them to the top of a group of individuals to become the leaders that they were. I’ll digress for a moment. Charismatic leadership is basically leadership that arises out a person’s ability to charm others into doing what he or she wants, while power is basically the ability to get others to do what the leader wants based on some type of authority such as expertise or position in the hierarchy.
It was very apparent through Marable’s telling of Malcolm X’s story in Reinvention that both Mohammed and X possessed both charisma and power. Elijah Mohammed’s charisma and legitimate power (official head of the organization) created a wall of invulnerability around him that eventually lead to his sex scandal(s). That is what is often known as the “dark-side” of charisma, abuse of power. He became so convinced of his own absolute power that he seemed to operate without any concern for other social mores, even the ones that he himself preached. So, we see a leader rise with great ability and charm only to fall in disgrace because he could not practice what he himself preached.
In contrast Malcolm X started in disgrace (poor, minor criminal infractions, anger) rise above those moral short comings to become an outstanding civil rights activist. In particular he relied on his expert power (he studied traditional Islamic teachings in addition to what the NOI taught as well as was well versed in historical and current events). But probably even more importantly he was able to control his charisma. Which is no small feat for anyone with that much charm. If you have ever listened to one of his speeches you will know what I mean. He had charisma that rivaled that of Martin Luther King Jr. Here is an example:
I chose this video because first it demonstrates the charisma that I was talking about and second because as one of his final speeches it demonstrates his transformation from an extremist black separationist to a more egalitarian viewpoint (although not fully developed by this speech). This is interesting to me because it shows how much a leader’s beliefs can change, particularly ones that are fueled by hate to ones that are fueled by equality, and how much that change can affect the world.
References
Marable, M. (2011). Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. New York: IRAAS Viking.
Morrisoncoursevids. (2008 Oct. 25). Malcolm X, speech in New York, 1964. Retrieved from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t54426kmKbc
Payne, L., & Payne, T. (2020). The Dead Are Arising. Recorded Audiobooks.
X, M., & Haley, A. (1965). The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballatine Books.