I’ve been thinking a lot about ground breakers – those people who were and are brave enough to take personal or professional risks to accomplish a goal. Monday, was the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. I reflected on his life and all of the sacrifices that he, his family, his colleagues, and his followers made in order to make civil rights a national priority. I have also pondered the legacy of Malcolm X, another civil rights leader albeit a more polarizing figure in American history than King. This week a new book entitled, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” will be released at book stores throughout the country. Written by Manning Marable*, who died last week, it asserts that much of the information contained in the widely read “Autobiography of Malcolm X” was exaggerated, and that important details like Malcolm’s relationship to the Pan African community and a homosexual affair, were completely omitted. Marable is said to have spent years of his life devoted to combing through FBI documents and interviewing those who knew Malcolm for this expansive text. I look forward to reading it and also wonder if it will change peoples’ perspective of the the man who has become an enduring figure in American history.
Within that vein, I also discovered a group of women who were not only ground breakers in term of racism but also sexism. The International Sweethearts were a 1940′s big band composed entirely of women, and most of them were women of color. Both of these attributes made them unique within that time period. Sadly, their story has not been well documented by either music or civil rights historians and it really is too bad. You can check them out for yourselves in this NPR story.
*Manning also just happens to be from Dayton. And, yes, that is yet another plug.
Update: Do you still want to know more about the information contained in Manning Marable’s new book? Well, here is a link to a New Yorker article that I really liked.
