Two decades in the making, Manning Marable’s nearly 600-page biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, is described as a reevaluation of Malcolm X’s life, providing new insights into the circumstances of his assassination, as well as raising questions about Malcolm X’s autobiography. Manning passed away on Friday, April 1, just days before his life’s work was published.

(photo courtesy Democracy Now!)

His legacy was discussed recently on Democracy Now! by co-host Juan Gonzalez, who spoke with Michael Eric Dyson, sociology professor at Georgetown University and author of Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X, and Bill Fletcher, Jr., a friend of Marable and a longtime labor and racial justice activist.

“There were three different sources that had an interest in Malcolm’s death, and that’s where [the book] becomes very, very important,” Fletcher says. “It was the police and the FBI, it was the Nation of Islam, but there were also people in his own organization who resented the trajectory that he was moving. And so, there was this confluence of forces that led to a situation where he was permitted to be killed. And I think that when people read this, it’s going to be an incredible eye opener.”  To read or listen go to democracynow.org. To read or listen to his interview in 2007 with Amy Goodman, go here.