A Lie of Reinvention is a response to Manning Marable’s
biography of Malcolm X, A Life of Reinvention. Marable’s
book was controversially acclaimed by some as his magna opus.
At the same time, it was denounced and debated by others as a
worthless read full of conjecture, errors, and without any new
factual content. In this collection of critical essays, editors Jared
Ball and Todd Steven Burroughs lead a group of established and
emerging Black scholars and activists who take a clear stance in this
controversy: Marable’s biography is at best flawed and at worst a
major setback in American history, African American studies, and
scholarship on the life of Malcolm X.
In the tradition of
John Henrik Clarke’s classic anthology “William Styron’s Nat
Turner: Ten Black Writers Respond,” this volume provides a striking
critique of Marable’s text. In 1968, Clarke and his assembled
writers felt it essential to respond to Styron’s fictionalized and
ahistorical Nat Turner, the heroic leader of one of America’s most
famous revolts against enslavement. In A Lie of Reinvention,
the editors sense a different threat to an African American icon,
Malcolm X. This time, the threat is presented as an authoritative
biography. To counter the threat, Ball and Burroughs respond with a
barbed collection of commentaries of Marable’s text.
The essays come from
all quarters of the Black community. From behind prison walls, Mumia
Abu-Jamal revises his prior public praise of Marable’s book with an
essay written specifically for this volume. A. Peter Bailey, a
veteran journalist who worked with Malcolm X’s Organization for
Afro-American Unity, disputes how he is characterized in Marable’s
book. Bill Strickland, who also knew Malcolm X, provides what he
calls a “personal critique” of the biography. Younger scholars
such as Kali Akuno, Kamau Franklin, Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua,
Christopher M. Tinson, Eugene Puryear and Greg Thomas join veterans
Rosmari Mealy, Raymond Winbush, Amiri Baraka and Karl Evanzz in
pointing out historical problems and ideological misinterpretations
in Marable’s work.